The most delightful spring event has been the birth of beautiful lambs. Our black ewe Marie was first up to birth a gorgeous jet black ewe lamb (called Clover). We discovered later that she'd actually birthed twins, but the other lamb was very small and stillborn. A few days later, Skyler who had been absolutely huge, birthed triplets. We realised she was in labour and got there in time to witness the birth of her 2nd lamb. The firstborn lamb popped into sight and we were delighted that there were 2 liveborn lambs. We blinked and then voila - a 3rd lamb appeared. They are 2 girls (Snowy and Stormy) and a boy (Sunny - all named by Melissa thank you!). Snowy is significantly smaller than the others. Maybe she was a little weaker and the others got the lion's share of the milk. We've been giving her a couple of top-up feeds a day, and she's got much livelier. She likes to sleep lying on top of her mum - adorably cute but very tricky to photograph. They're all fabulous time-wasters.
Meanwhile the cows are enjoying extended pasture options. Instead of our aborted holidays to Sydney and Coromandel, we decided to stay at home for our week of leave. Peter had already put in the new fence posts along the river boundary, a couple of metres in front of the old fence. We managed to wire them up, including a hot wire, so could finally let the cattle into the back paddocks. They immediately went mad scoffing the new grass, and poor Attis must have overdone it and ended up with a sore tummy. It took a few days before he was back to normal again, but we were quite worried about him for a while there. Pandora and Nike are still separated from the others and will remain so until they're old enough to become pregnant (in another year). Pandora looks to be on heat so here's hoping the fences are good enough to keep them apart until then.
The garden also got some attention during that week. The vege garden gravel paths are now done (except for one corner) and they're looking pretty darn good. In fact, better than ever, which does make me feel a bit like I took advantage of the good natures of my garden fairies. The gravel paths around the house are sporting a vibrant green crop of weedy grass - a gift from the silty floodwaters - and this makes me deeply appreciative that the vege garden paths won't have the same fate. I don't mind weed spraying non-food areas, so it'll be easily sorted when I get round to it. The garlic hadn't washed away in the flood and is now through. I've planted a few more bulbs for good measure, and also some bought spring onion and coriander seedlings. Such a good feeling to get things in the ground.
Madame Cholet is hosting the first batch of germinating seeds - various brassicas, spinach, beets, onions, daikon radish, lettuce, tomatoes and chillis are all popping up. I'm having a bash at planting by the moon and these were sown around the last full moon. I'm waiting until the weekend to plant the spuds, and soon after I'll get the beans and corn sown in the toilet roll plant pots that are lined up.
Black and red currant cuttings are planted out, as are a couple of new white currants. The old gooseberry plants were spikily taking over the world and kept cross-pollinating and producing only a few small fruit. They're now dug out and 2 new desert gooseberry plants have replaced them. Two fruit trees gifted by Raylene at the Garden Bee have been re-homed in keyhole bed centres. All these new plantings are in weed-matted beds, so that should cut down on future weeding hurray! The strawberry bed has even been re-vamped. Some new camarosa plants were planted, fertiliser was added, weedmat re-applied and Karyn's gravel loaded back on top. The bed has a leaky hose running through it. Just a case of remembering to plug that in every now and then.
The flower gardens are showing signs of life, even flowers are appearing. I planted some old-fashioned English bluebells around the base of the tulip tree and they've popped into life. Irises and rosemary flowers are also adding purply blue to the colour palette out there. The main flower bed is now totally weeded and pea straw applied. The old pea straw was laid first. It was already rotting down and full of river silt (guessing I'm going to be doing lots of weeding there this year). A few new bales were needed to complete the task - these bales are full of pea seeds so I'll also be weeding out pea plants.
The hedge cuttings that would have been planted around a couple of the keyhole beds sailed away in the flood, never to be seen again. I've taken new ones but probably too late. Here's hoping nonetheless... The tree seedlings that didn't float away (lots of oak, some pine nuts and an assortment of random probably stone fruit) have yet to be planted in the woodlot but their time will come.
Two demi-johns of mead are bubbling away and the Gorse Flower wine has had its first racking. Molly was quite impressed with it - she thinks it tastes like apple crumble. It was an optimistic enough taste to warrant another batch, which I'll get on with as soon as I get a sunny day at home with time on my hands. I've spotted a recipe for Gorse Flower Gin too, so heaps of flowers will be necessary. Luckily there's no shortage and it's a great feeling to be using a plant that has pest status here.
Sam and Molly came over for a weekend. Plenty of eating and drinking happened as usual, and we had a fab day out in Picton (missed you Grannie-Annie!). The family tradition of Mini Golf had to happen, won by Peter (no surprises there). We trawled the shops and the stunning foreshore then headed home for a game of Monopoly (won by me - no surprises there either). The face masks had arrived in a parcel from Lucas and Laura in Korea. They made our skin peachy soft and helped wile away the evening hours (we know how to party here you know).
I'm still picking up vaccine clinic shifts. While we were back under level 4 lockdown, the whole vaccination operation moved into the Stadium: plenty of room for 2m distancing, and literally thousands of freshly motivated people to vaccinate. Now we're in level 2 the clinic has returned to its original venue, and the outreach clinics are being extended. We did the first drive-thru at the weekend, using New World supermarket trolleys to stash the vaccination equipment that were taken out to cars.
I've been putting the mountain of beeswax to good candle-making use. I probably have too many moulds but they are all adorable. I'm making enough of these curious pregnant woman torso candles to gift my midwife colleagues at Christmas. A few a day when I'm home and it's raining seems to be working. It does keep me from doing other things I should be doing on a rainy day (like writing up my diploma portfolio), but it keeps me happy, and that's a pretty powerful argument when you have a dilemma.
Lucas and Laura are patiently waiting for Laura's residency to come through, and in the meantime Laura has got a job working for the same company as Lucas as a junior website developer. That's fantastic news for them because she can do that anywhere, even from the Onamalutu Valley. Billy is enjoying au pairing in Ibiza, including being flown into Mallorca with his host family for football purposes. His birthday present to Peter was the current Leeds shirt - proudly modeled in the photo.
Just us and the dog at home, so it's rather peaceful here. Work keeps us both busy of course, but our downtime is relaxing enough despite the Life-Sentence Block work. Better get back outside - those lambs won't watch themselves after all...
