Getting warmer

12.10.2025

 

Every week the weather gets a bit warmer. There is still not enough sun to totally heat the water.  if the batteries are fully charged and we are producing excess energy I can use the power to supplement the water heating. There is no point letting the power export to the grid as we no longer get paid much for it.

 

Gradually the family is regrouping after travels and we are planning a big party and pasty making day on Melbourne Cup horse race day.   This weekend Bo is busy in her studio talking and selling as part of the annual open studio day. She seems happy with how it went.  Luckily, Stevo has recovered from his hip replacement and is ready to get onto the picture framing. I wish he was well enough to do some maintenance work around here, he has solved so many problems for us over the years that we are heavily in his debt.

 

The two pregnant goats have kidded and we have four strong white kids. I have had to spray paint on them so I know who is who as they all look alike. They do have names but I think of them as blue dash, blue spot and pink dash and pink spot. They now all drink milk from the feeders but we put their mothers in with them last thing so they can do the work providing warm milk instead of us having to heat milk and wash out the feeder. The mothers are happy to go in and do this and strangely they are equally happy to come away from the kids once they have fed them. 

 

The grass has started to grow and the sheep are back on the house roof and around the dam doing all the mowing for us. Edd has done the other bits with the ride on mower and C and I have tackled the jungle area behind the dam water tank in the ruin’s garden.  Two sorts of creeper had taken over and a wattle tree had split and dropped down into the mess. The wattle tree is the only thing left now and we need Edd and the chainsaw to deal with it. This is all part of reducing the fuel load around the buildings to reduce fire risk. 

Still too cold for comfort

 26.9.2025

 

This week the weather has been pretty miserable. The has only been one day when there was enough solar energy to charge up the batteries.  Everyone sensible has gone north on holiday. Josh is catching up with friends north of Cairns.   Al and family are in Darwin and Ollie is off to Greece. 

 

Ti and family have just got back from Qld. They left the cat in their house and I had the job of making sure it had food and water. Last Monday we had horrific winds and a bedroom door blew open. The cat was not meant to have access to the bedrooms but I could not find her anywhere.    I had to leave the door open and just hope she was OK. The comforting thing was that next day all the food had been eaten so she had to be somewhere. I never did find her and she did not come out of hiding until her owners came home!

 

The wind also blew trees down across the road and D’s shed tried to escape the property. We caught it and roped it down even though it was on its side. D is our new tenant and has a bit to learn about winds. He has to move all his stuff here today. His mum, Cher, has been living here and is helping him with the move.  She also helps me with farm work for which I am very grateful.  She travels round Australia in a converted troop carrier Toyota, a sort of grey nomad life style.

 

The two goats we ran with the new buck are heavily in kid and I have moved them back with the main herd and given Merlin two younger does.  Merlin is a Saanen and I think his kids will be white too, but this might not be right.  We must wait and see.

 

I have planted some snow pea seedlings and have plenty of silver beet, kale and lettuce to eat. WE have even had some asparagus and with Cher’s help the gardens around the ruins are coming back under control.  We need the vegies as the shops get ever more expensive

Old goes new arrives

 10.9.2025

 

The oak trees have burst bud and the fruit trees are starting to bloom.  The wattle trees are bending under the weight of golden flowers and the lucerne trees are in full bloom. It is still fairly dry and the grass is not growing fast yet.  We have moved the three Persian sheep and their lambs out of the shed and onto the old drive way. They adapted quickly to their new home and the lambs have enjoyed he extra space.

 

Baby David is now running round and has been trying to throw the ball for Ses (the dog). He has also worked out how to climb the ladder and get on to the trampoline. We all worked hard and took all our stuff out from a third of the storage shed. This allowed Ti to move his stuff away from the donga shed and into the new space. He sorted everything onto shelves so that he can get the drifting car he is rebuilding in as well. We are most impressed with Ti’s car repair skills. He is a thorough and tidy worker and seems happy to work on cars in his holiday times even though it is also his job at work.

 

Once we got the donga sorted new people have moved in. It never stays empty for long.  There is a crisis around affordable housing and people are resorting to camping and couch surfing. Places like our Yarra Valley are very difficult places to find rentals that the average person can afford.

 

We are sad to lose Barrack, our old buck goat, who died this week. We did not really need him because he is the father of most of the female goats, but he was such a pet that we have never considered selling him. We miss him but, the new buck, Merlin is the sire we will use now. He has already got Nerys and Ursula pregnant.

We have had some fun weekends and got together with friends old and new. Now I am working in the garden every day to sort out the vegetables and trim back the creepers covering the ruins of our old house

hints of spring

 5.8.2025

 

At last, the days are getting noticeably longer and the sun has found its way back again. Recently we have had 18C days but the nights are still cold with frosty mornings. The old chooks have started to lay again and the jonquils are flowering, both signs that spring is on the way.

 

My youngest great grandson is now walking and today played in the goat shed whilst his siblings hurled round on their bikes.  The have all been away this week house sitting for Marretta’s sister so they have been missing the bikes.

 

Yesterday we had Rick, a new helper, come for the first time and we got all the waste metal out of the storage shed so that Edd can take it to the recycling tip.  There were several cheap metal bed frames that no one wants and the remnants of a shed that collapsed and fell over. All wonderful things to be rid of. 

 

We have had a difficult two weeks because my back got increasingly painful so I could not bend at all. The physio gave me loads of exercises to do and I am almost back to normal again. The physio thought I had a repetitive strain injury and he could well be right as Edd got his shoulder injured and I had been doing all the heavy lifting to try and help him. Couple of old fogies we are!

 

Bo has an art exhibition in Healesville this month but we have not been over there yet.  She tells me she has sold enough to cover her materials and framing costs which is great. Bo is so good to us. She does the animals for us every Sunday so that we can have a day off and she came and gave me massages when my back was sore. I should have had more daughters.

Feasting and burning

Picture by Alice  5.7.2025

 

Our midwinter feast went well. It was a lovely, still, dry night and we lit the enormous pile of rubbish that needed burning. I found some sparklers for the kids and we all had a great bonfire experience to go with piles of lovely food.  I hope we are creating good memories for all the young ones. I am very worried about the state of the world they will inherit.  Little B loved looking at all the sparkling embers that went way up towards the stars.

 

This week has been much quieter. Our big trip out was to Castlemaine to buy bulk honey.  The weather was dreadful with wet skiddy roads and thick mist once we got near the top of the old mount slide road. Amazingly when we finally got to Castlemaine the sun was shining and we could sit outside at a road side café and have lunch. 

 

I then used my phone to find the honey place.  This did not go well because we were not aware that there were two Sawmill roads with honey places. We went to the wrong one which caused a lot of confusion. Try two corrected the error and we found our order packed up waiting for us. Then all we had to do was brave the weather again to get it home. It was not exactly a relaxing day out.

 

Today Edd is feeling bad with the flu bug that everyone seems to be getting. It lasts a long time without any intensity. It just sucks up energy and makes everything seen hard. Al phoned yesterday and he has it now as well. At least Edd and I were not both sick at the same time so farm work got done.

 

Stevo and Simon are both waiting to get hip replacements and are both in a lot of pain. We really feel bad for them and hope everything improves soon. I miss Stevo. This time last year we all had lunch together most days whilst we were doing the building work.

 

winter solstice

22.6.25

 

We are preparing to host a family midwinter feast to celebrate the passing of the year’s longest night. It should be this weekend but Al is still at a conference over seas and will not be back till next week. This has worked out for the best because Edd and I have been struggling with a virus that has slowed us down.

 

Progress has been made. Edd has got a good water flow to our house by gravity and has almost finished installing a new pump which will service us and the donga.  We have a couple who are moving into the donga when the house they are renting is sold. It is impossible to find affordable places to rent in this area. Mostly people use the unoccupied places for air B and B, which is more profitable.

 

There has been very little rain and the wild life have encroached ever closer. Our neighbours have no stock, but a herd of Kangaroos graze there and no grass has been able to grow. Something got into the bed with the broad beans I planted, and I am not sure if any will survive. We have never had to cope with this level of attack before. I now have to keep all my vegetables under nets so that there is something left for our meals.

 

One positive is that Merlin, the new buck has recovered and is now back with his two does.  He was really fading, but with extra care he has fully recovered.  We also have the hafflinger, Wally back. He has been living with Indi and doing a useful job keeping the grass down around the house she rents.  Now there is no grass, and at 26 years old he needs extra feed. Hay is now very expensive and hard to get as no-one has enough. If we are lucky, we might just manage. We are so grateful for the barley we get from the brewery.  The sheep eat a lot everyday so keep them from starving and we use it with lucerne chaff and oats for the goats.

  

odd weather

 23.5.2025

 

He weather is definitely odd.  At the start of the week, we had nights when it dropped to minus five degrees C, which is the coldest we have every experienced here. The NSW coat has horrific floods with cows swept out to see and 50,000 people on evacuation alerts. Several people have died and there has been huge efforts to rescue people off their house roofs. 

 

SA and Vic have still areas where drought is the problem.  On a more personal level things keep breaking here.  Last night the pump we use for house water broke down and the gravity flow failed as well. The new buck suddenly stopped eating and looked very ill. Maybe the sudden weather change got to him.  We now have him shut in a sheltered pen away from his companion does so that he does not have to compete for food. He is still up and eating hay which is a good sign.

 

Edd has spent the week trying to fix things. He has replaced the headlight on my car that was broken by the deer and has got someone here to replace the windscreen. I could now drive in the car which is a big relief. Now Edd is trying to tackle the water supply.

 

The second Persian sheep had her lamb last night. The NSW storms are heading our way so I put her in the shed with the other sheep with lambs. Once the latest lamb is a bit stronger, I can move these sheep onto the old drive where there is still a little grass left.  Luckily, they follow me if I have a bucket of food. At least they usually do.

 

The new chooks are laying but we have terrible problems with wombats who refuse to let a little thing like a fence stop them. They bulldoze holes under and through into the cook pens every night so we need to check and block up holes every morning before we let the chooks out.

Rain at last and new lambs

 17.5.2025

 

It has rained slowly all day. I should be thrilled, but after weeks of dry sunny days it all seems so dreadfully dreary.  The drought conditions have spread across Victoria, and the water in our tanks was going down, but hey, the weather we were having with perfect day following perfect day was so enjoyable.  I decided to just enjoy it.

 

Edd and I drove up into the Dandenong’s to Cloud Hill Garden and nursery where I allowed myself to be tempted by several desirable plants. We also ate in their café, which was great. It made a really nice change from farm work. 

 

Back home we now have two lambs.  It is earlier than we expected. There is very little feed left in the paddocks and we are feeding out barley from the brewery, so we get a chance to check the sheep twice a day. The wild life is also short of food. Now the evenings are darker the roads are lethal. Indi has done serious damage to the front of her car and last night Edd hit a deer with my car, which I am not too pleased about. I have a smashed windscreen and headlight but Ti has had to order a whole new front panel for Indie’s car.

 

The warm days helped the winter vegetables get a good start Lots of lettuce and silver beet has sprouted and the brassicas and Boc choi seedlings I planted are doing well. Tonight, I am cooking our first pumpkin for the season, and the last of the capsicums. I enjoy eating seasonally and I wonder if it is natures plan so that if there are adverse effects from any particular vegetable the body has time to recover before it is in season again.

 

Ti and family are spending the weekend house sitting for Indi who has gone to Qld for a family wedding. I miss having the little ones around. They are such beautiful children and it is a real pleasure to hear them enjoying the space of farm living.

Summer ends

 5.4.2025

 

Merlin, the new buck, is now happily living in a small croft with two does. Josh helped us catch him and hold him while Edd trimmed his hooves, drenched him and put on his new collar. He was terrified, so we don’t think he had been handled much and we think he was bullied by the other young bucks he was penned with. He has relaxed now and comes up twice a day for feed without fear. Hopefully we will have both does pregnant soon.

 

Things changed fast. Before Easter we had days around 30 C. but now with the hour changed, we have dark evenings and the temperature drops from mid-twenties to almost freezing!  I have started to light the wood stove every evening to heat the water a and radiators. With the cooler weather seedlings of lettuce and silver beat have sprouted and the pumpkins are nearly ready to harvest. Kangaroos are everywhere. One collided with a motor bike near us.

 

Bo has an exhibition of her art work at DB winery but we have not been to look at it yet. I have even started to do art again myself now that we are no longer tied up building. All the family came here for an easter party. The weather was fabulous so all the young kids could play outside. I had hidden glass beads in the house site and then let the parents’ bargain with their own kids to exchange beads for eggs.  This way all the families could control their own kids’ chocolate intake and I could relax.  I had cooked a mega pie and everyone brought food so we had a real feast. The kids love riding their bikes flat out from the shed down to the house because the slope gets them going so fast. Thank goodness no-one crashed this time.

 

Today we are very relaxed because the liberals have been soundly defeated in our federal election. I was terrified people might vote for an American style future. Obviously, lots of others felt the same way. I think the younger voters make a difference.

Floods and droughts

 19.4.2025

 

We are now enjoying the Easter week end.  The weather is still hot and dry but at least Edd has been able to get the round hay bales into the shed. He has two left to move but needs to locate some new pallets to keep them away from the shed floor which gets wet.

 

I have planted out winter seedlings and started to move things back into the donga. I am trying to clear a space in the storage shed for Tilba and his family to use.  We need this before the weather changes and it gets wet. I have moved the lighter stuff but we still have things that I will need help with like the double mattress. No one is living in the donga but I am thinking of using it as an art studio.

Beth kept her art work there so Stevo could make the frames and she has now taken it to be hung at DB’s winery. 

 

The young goats have now been trained to jump up onto the milking bale. They had a hard two weeks learning how to be part of the main herd but they seem settled now. We have called the new buck, Merlin, as he has a long white beard. Actually, it is mating season so he has sprayed his head with various un-mentionables, and his whiteness is not something one sees at this time.

 

The next job is to move him into the paddock with the two does, Nerys and Ursula, who we want mated. I am hoping we can move him when there are fitter, younger, families here to help.  We need to sell the little buck now we have found a better option. We also need to sell some sheep. Hay prices have risen sharply and we need to destock.

 

Up in Qld the flood waters are going down and farmers are left with kilometres of broken fences and massive stock drownings. The floods covered wast areas and it is heartbreaking for the people who live and work on the land.

After the hour change

It is still hot and dry but the over night dew fall has been enough to turn the grass green. Kangaroos come down every night and eat anything green they can find. Nets seem to work and the silver beet and lettuce seedlings have started to grow.  We have sent figs and apple cucumbers to market along with our dwindling egg supply.  This week we have brought eight new chooks but it will be at least a month before they lay.

 

It has been a busy week. Stevo was here on Monday and Tuesday to weld up bits for his shed and frame Bo’s art works. Bo spent Tuesday working with him and arrived with a bowl of vegetable soup for lunch. Now that the hour has changed and the rainbows are back in the house, I suppose it is soup season again. 

 

If it has been dry here it is much worse inland at the other side of the ranges. Yesterday we drove up past Heathcote to buy a new buck goat. All the paddocks were bleached and bare and all the small dams were totally dry.  We found the property with the goats in dry scrub land where the ground was just loose dust. Surprisingly there was a herd of over 30 white goats looking amazing in show condition. 

 

 The buck we brought is about 2 years old, luckily, they had everything ready to help us load him into the stock crate on the back of the Ute.  It took us most of the 2-hour drive home to work out the best way to unload him.  Our original plan was to put him into the small croft we had prepared but when we learnt that he had never eaten green grass we decided he needed a slow introduction to a diet change so we have put him in the stock yards.

 

With the extreme dryness here and in SA it seems odd that QLD still has flood problems and these are spreading down into NSW. Thousands of cattle and sheep have been lost and some communities are totally cut off.  

Difficult conditions

 3.29.2025

 

Yesterday we had a 30-degree day, winds and our valley full of smoke from burns lit to reduce the fuel load. There is quite a lot of evidence that it does not do much to help and the burns sometimes get out of control and become the problem they were designed to solve!  It makes for an uneasy day and the stink of creosote is awful.  Luckily, we have had heavy rains over night and everything is now less worrying.    The sky is grey and mist hides the hills but we are just getting the tail end of what has fallen in QLD where about a third of the state is flooded! 

 

Edd has gone off to the birthday event at the Organic market. This week we are selling figs and cucumbers as well as eggs. Our chooks are laying less now the season has changed so yesterday Edd and I cleaned out the drive way chook shed so that we can put last years layers in with the older birds and prepare the oak tree chook pen for new point of lays. That should keep us in egg production over winter. Eggs and chooks are in short supply due to bird flu, so we need to get organised.

 

Ti has nearly finished moving his stuff out of the donga and into the place we have built. I am hoping not too much needs to be repaired. Indi is thinking about moving in if she can not find anywhere else better.  Ollie has moved back into the family home with Bo but Bo’s eldest son is trying to buy a house and land package with his partner. It is pretty hard for anyone to make this jump now.

 

Josh has been working at Avalon airport setting up electrics for the air show. Yesterday a small plane crashed just in front of the spectators. Amazingly the pilot survived but he is described as being in critical condition. I wonder if Josh saw this happen. He takes his swag and camps with the other workers when he works so far from home so and he often works through weekends so we have not spoken to him yet.

A beautiful autumn

 3.23.2025

 

Autumn is behaving in a very normal way. Today the weather is glorious. When the sun came up after a cold night the air was crisp and clean. It is just the right temperature to enjoy getting the outdoor work done. This week Edd has slashed the old hay paddock and begun mending tyres on things like the mower trailer and cement mixer.  

 

The nets I have put in the vegetable garden seem to be obstructing pest ravages and we have a good crop of silver beet seedling sprouting. I think even the lettuce might be coming up and the capsicums and egg plants are in full swing. I am wondering if there is time left to grow snow peas.  We have a good crop of pumpkins of various types but the beans are nowhere near up to our usual standard.

 

Easter is at the end of April this year and the family is starting to plan an equinox and birthday party.  Lots of Al’s kids were born in this month. Most are now of an age for parties of friends so we just do one party for family and gift giving. Al invited us for the kids at home parties but he lives too far away for this to be a practical option.

 

Bo has had a hard week with her mother-in-law in hospital and her father-in-law not really able to cope on his own. Things are not looking good for them but they do live in a retirement village where they can get help and entertainment. Some of these places are pretty money grabbing but they place where they are seems OK, so we hope they can get all the help they need.

 

Edd and I would hate to be in that sort of place.   It is so good here with clear views to the horizon and surrounded by the beauty of nature.  

At last rain solves one problem

 16.3.2025

 

We have cool weather for the first time in ages. Yesterday we got rain, lots of rain.     It was totally the wrong day as we hosted a permaculture open day but with the dams and tanks emptying fast any rain was good rain, and no one was complaining.

 

Luckily, we had planned a house tour and shared lunch with cheese tasting. This all took up most of the time and was fun. Everyone brought great food to share and it was all like a fun party. We did a lightening farm tour dashing between sheltered areas as the rain poured down. At least the goats were all in the shed owing to their hate of rain. They were easily seen and even the sheep were in their shelter shed and came out to see us in case we had food for them.

It was probably a good thing no one wanted to look too hard at the gardens. Wildlife has been using our place as an emergency feeding station. To save anything I have been forced to use nets, The ground everywhere is covered in kangaroo and wombat droppings and every blade of grass has been eaten. Each morning there is more devastation. If this continues radical solutions will be needed.

 

Last week was busy. The shearer came and we shore and drenched all the sheep. It was hard with the temperature in the high thirties but at least Andrew could work in the shade of the sheep shed. Edd and I did a big clean up as the building work was over and Indi did a great job working in the gardens

 

Today feels odd. The gardens do not need watering, the house is clean and outside we have got a lot of the problems back under control. It is the first day for ages that I am not under pressure to do anything and to tell the truth I am not sure I like it! It does not feel normal but what does. Today we hear that all the attempts to slow climate change have been abandoned by the US. If the climate scientists are right, we are heading fast into chaos.  I tend to believe what science says rather more than the USA leaders.

Problems

22.2.2025

 

Today there is a total fire ban because it is hot, very dry and windy, so far OK, but all my friends that I talked to at the market this morning are worried.  Last week we had some cooler days and Indi helped me tackle garden areas that I had failed to keep under control. Everything is bone dry and all the deciduous trees are dropping their leaves a month early. The Virginia creeper is turning red despite my daily watering efforts. I was hoping this would happen when we had the permaculture day but it now looks unlikely.

The feed in the paddocks has mostly gone and we need to sell stock. The trouble is that all the local markets have closed making stock reduction a mammoth undertaking.  Before we sell the sheep, we need to shear them and tag them so nothing is going to happen fast. 

 

We did tackle one problem hard this week. Our milking machine has been on its last legs this year and it is now not possible to get new parts. I was hoping it would last a bit longer so we could hand milk over winter and take our time sorting out a replacement. No such luck!  The next problem was that we could not find anyone selling a machine to milk two goats at the same time. Edd decided on a single cow machine and reconned he could do the adaptions using parts we had. I hated to spend money on something that was not what we wanted, but Edd was right and he quickly got a useable machine set up and working.

 

Our next problem concerns kangaroos. There are huge mobs of them everywhere. They jump into the house site and eat any grass they can find anywhere. Josh hit a big one and damaged a wing on his car and my friend’s son wrote off his car in a similar way. To make matters worse they closed the main highway going north from Yarra Glen which forced everyone to use small unsuitable roads. There were several accidents and they have had to reopen the road and rethink One good thing. Indi found macadamia nuts on one of my trees that were as good as brought ones. 

Fire storms and floods

4.5.2025

 

It is still really hot. Well above 30C as it has been for days. Keeping the garden alive is getting harder. Luckily a storm a day ago gave the trees some water. The storm hit others worse. Houses were hit by lightning and floods and winds did a lot of damage in parts of Geelong.  QLD has had an even worse time with heavy rain that has flooded homes and washed away bridges. I wonder if life is going to become a continual battle to survive the elements as the effects of climate change increase.

 

It would make growing food much more unpredictable. The banana groves have been devastated up north and my tomatoes are struggling.  Strangely the capsicums are doing better than ever and the egg plants, cucumbers and zucchini in my bed with good soil are enormous!  

 

Stevo has almost completed the building but his car has broken down, so he is not here today. It is probably for the best as it is so hot and we are expecting it to cool a bit from tomorrow.  Josh still needs to do some wiring but we are waiting for Stevo to finish first. We can plan the next move when that job is done.

 

I have agreed to take part in the permaculture open week. It is a few years since we did the last trip and it gives us a target date to work towards. I try to do a bit of work in the gardens every day but I am pretty slow nowadays.  I am hoping I can get some help to tidy everything up.

  

friends and family

 1.25.2025

 

It is hot, dry and very busy here today. Ti and Edd have been working on the pump for the main water tank.  Edd found there was no water today and we worried that the tank was dry.  Luckily, we still have a metre deep in the tank and just the pump had given out.  That was good news as pumps can be repaired and replaced but we have to wait for it to rain to replace the water.

 

Oli and his mate are working on the shed roof putting up corrugated iron under the eaves. The idea is to stop birds getting into the roof cavity and help with fire safety. Morgen is also here to use Edd’s welder for some boat repairs. I took cheese to our local market and had a great time with all the neighbours who were thrilled to get back together after the Xmas break.

 

Meanwhile Edd as well as sorting out the animals and water situation had some other friends arrive to pick up goat compost mix for their garden.  Edd also had to keep the dog, Sezz, on a lead because she ran off yesterday and had to be brought home by another neighbour.  We think she is in season because she has never run off before.

 

Yesterday was a day off with no builders working and a friend from Hong Kong visiting. We went out for lunch at a restaurant just down the road that we had not visited before. It was surprisingly good and laid back. We sat outside and the view over the mountains was a fantastic was back drop as we laughed over funny incidents and learnt about life in Hong Kong.   I feel so blessed with such wonderful friends, family and neighbours.

The heat continues and Trump takes control

 1.21.2025

 

It is still hot. The temperature has been in the high 30’s for days and all the grass has faded and dried off. Keeping the vegetables going is almost impossible but I keep trying.  I am so sad today, sad for all the life on earth as Trump changes USA policies to with draw from agreements to limit emissions in his first hours as president. He ignores scientific research, and just says what people want to believe. I feel despair for so much life on our home planet.

 

On the farm things are better. The sick goat has fully recovered and her symptoms fitted in with a condition called cloud burst that I remembered reading about 40 plus years ago.  She went out one morning and seemed to pass buckets full of urine which she then licked up! She was also very distressed but I found a description of false pregnancy in an old book and how fluid builds up in the uterus. Presumably, ‘cloud bust’ referred to a natural passing of this fluid.

 

Stevo and Edd are putting insulation and ceiling panels up in his shed. This is great because all sorts of birds were nesting in the exposed rafters and dropping shit and nesting materials everywhere. Tilba and family are off on holiday and Bo has only a week before her puppies go to their new families. The tiny one has survived and is doing well and Indi our grand daughter is adopting the largest female so at least one is staying in the family.

 

Our next task is to get the sheep shorn. We will probably need to sell lots of them before winter. This is really hard now as all the local markets have closed down so the land can be used for housing. It is making it near impossible to be a small-scale farmer.  There is a move to try and get a local slaughter house but that could be a while off.

Birthday at the beach

                                               Xmas party
 2.1.2024

 

It is hot and we have had no significant rain for weeks. Keeping the vegetables alive is quite a challenge.  Vegetable costs in the shops have risen sharply, and half the time they look wilted before I can get them home so it is worth while making sure we can walk out and pick fresh stuff daily.

 

Sadly, we did not complete our building efforts last year so work starts again next week. Josh has been working with his electrical team over most of Xmas but he has found time to do some work here too.  We have the usual farm and garden work every day but Bo looked after the place for a day last week and we drove down to Rye on the peninsular and met up at Wayne’s mother in laws house. She has this amazing beach house facing south looking right across the bay. The living room and kitchen are on the second floor and as there is only the road between the house and the beach with the wall all glass the view is panoramic. 

 

Al and family had planned to come on the ferry to meet us as it was Edd’s birthday but at the last moment the all got sick so it was just Wayne’s family and us. We had a fish and chips lunch and then walked down to the beach. The grandkids spotted two huge sting rays cruising round under a pier. I have never seen them so close before.

 

Bo’s puppies now have their eyes open and have started on solid food. The litter runt has survived but is still a lot smaller than the rest. Bo is still giving him extra milk. This is fine with us as the goats are producing much more milk than any logic should expect! The goat Dixie was troubled yesterday but even google could find nothing that accounted for her behaviour. We will just have to wait and see what happens next. She is better rather than worse today and still looks well and is eating but her legs are troubling her.