March 2014

The month began with an unleashing of nature’s forces.  On Sunday 2^nd I was happily planting out winter veg seedlings during the heat of a sweltering 26 degree day.   The next day I drove down to Christchurch.  The sun was shining, the east coastal route stunning as always.  At 4:30pm Billy rang from home to say it was hailing.  5 minutes later the hail was joined by lightning and cracks of thunder.  20 minutes later it was all over and the ground was a white-over.  Billy took this photo showing the size of the hail stones next to a marble.  I escaped Christchurch the next day as the roads were beginning to flood.  They continued to flood until roads became rivers, and rivers became roads.  Many buildings and structures were waterlogged.  A one-in-a-hundred-year flood apparently, that Christchurch could do with like a hole in the head.  Lucas, along with many other Cantabrians, didn’t go to Tech or to work because both places were closed.

The bees look to be battening down the hatches for the autumn.  Each hive has its varroa treatment in situ (Bayvarol) and there’s less brood.  Upwards of 7kg of honey was extracted from 6 frames – too much for us to eat, too much even to give away.  One obvious solution came to mind – mead.  There are plenty of recipe ideas on the internet, so now I’ve got plain mead, vanilla mead and orange clover mead bubbling away in demi-johns.  They should be ready for racking in 4 months.  It’s really exciting to be back making wine again. 

Alongside the plum tree is a peach tree, which also had a great crop of fruit this year.  A big storm was forecast (from cyclone Lusi) so we stripped most of the peaches.  The storm didn’t match up to the severe weather warning, but we did end up with 19.4 kg of fruit.  Quite a haul.  Around the same time I picked all the remaining orchard fruit – nashi pears, Bon Chretien pears, eating apples and cider apples.  The pears have been preserved in honey syrup in jars and the peaches have been transformed into a few things – jam, jarred peach slices, and of course, peach wine. 

Whilst looking through wine recipes I came across a few old favourites.  Peapod wine was particularly memorable and it’s an ingredient that is and will continue to be, abundant in the veg garden.  Pumpkin wine might also have to be brewed, in the interests of using up what’s available.  Vintage (grape harvest) is about to begin in earnest.  Peter will be working night shifts as a MOFO (mobile operation field officer) on the vineyards, which could give him access to surplus grapes.  In the last few years, wineries have been buying a specific volume of grapes, rather than all the grapes on a site.  Any excess might be left on the vines if they don’t have the capacity for more.   Fingers crossed that Peter can bring some home, and then I can take the unusual step of making wine from grapes.

The chook house/run is complete and occupied by the young Rhode Island Reds and the Cochins.  We’ve decided to keep the Cochin rooster (Cornelius) and some of his harem.  Hopefully in spring we’ll get a variety of chicks, some pure and some mixed breed.  Derryn came round and we plucked 4 chooks (including Bob Jnr) that Peter killed.  Not a pleasant job at all, and we only used the trick of plunging them into boiling water for the last one.  It worked a treat – the feathers came out much easier.  We’d tried using hot water before, but it didn’t work then.  Boiling water is obviously the key. 

The other half of the converted box has now been transformed into a storage area.  There’s space for firewood, which will provide us with a good dry supply relatively near the house, and a huge shelf, wire-netted to keep the contents safe from rodents.  There are also a couple of bars which we can hang sacks from.  Right now it’s home to some of our (credit where it’s due - Peter’s) vast potato crop, but in future it should be good for fruit and veg (root veg /corn/
pumpkin etc) storage.  There’s also the potential to extend the shelf if needed.  An interior fly-netted space will eventually be added for meat hanging (salamis, prosciutto).  

 

During construction Billy laid down on the shelf and in a crappy Geordie accent declared that there was ‘loads of room and I’m 6 foot 3’.  Gorgeous Geordie George Clarke’s series ‘Amazing Spaces’ has reached NZ and I’ve been transfixed and full of ideas for Lazy Mazy the caravan.  It seems that I’m not the only one in the house to enjoy it – Peter had laid on the shelf a couple of hours earlier and come out with exactly the same quip (only with a slightly better accent).

 

Talking of prosciutto, I finally plucked up enough courage to open up the prosciutto from one of our pigs that I salted and hung last July.  It was a worry that it might have gone off and a huge slab of meat wasted.  As the muslin cloth was opened, the delicious aroma of prosciutto became apparent.   Happily it’s absolutely delicious.  It was a difficult job slicing it, but the $25 meat slicer that Peter bought from a 2^nd hand shop proved its worth.  Billy helped to pack the thin slices into vacuum bags.   The salami was less successful, way too salty.  That must be down to my lousy maths – you have to carefully calculate the volume of salt to meat.  A shame, but I don’t intend to get it wrong again. 
 

The freezer’s getting decidedly sparse, and Butch is next on the home-kill list. I’ll definitely have to be absent for the event – he’s become part of the farm and endeared himself into our affections. Despite his threatening stare, he’s mostly a big softie and definitely a big character. However we don’t have the capacity to feed 6 cattle over winter, so it has to be. If we end up with 3 pregnant cows then hay supplies will need more careful targeting. So far Aphrodite and Hera have been inseminated with Speckled Park semen (mistakenly for Aphrodite who was supposed to receive Galloway semen). Hopefully Persephone will be on heat soon – if so, both her and Hera’s calves will be due around Christmas.  Zeus is growing bigger by the minute, with no sign of his damaged leg from birth.  Though it was an unpleasant thing to do, I'm mighty glad that we castrated him when he was young or he'd already be a formidable bull. 

Yet another tragic rabbit story to report this month. Security in the hutch housing an adult female and 3 kits was breached, and they all escaped into the night. When I went to feed them in the morning, one was lying dead in front of the hutch, mutilated. A second was dead in the next paddock and a third in the animal shelter. The adult rabbit returned whilst we were taking in the carnage, and practically ran into my arms. She looked like she’d been in a fight but seems to have recovered. Peter believes it to be the work of wild cats, which we sometimes see. It was so excessively cruel and unpleasant, and deeply upsetting. At least I feel a little bit more justified in keeping them in hutches/runs safe from predators. 

The veg garden is still beautiful, but still only to me.  It’s untidy but productive, though there has been a little bit of clearing up.  The potatoes are harvested and the beds thickly sowed with pea seeds.  The hedge cuttings have now been planted around the beds, even the box which is painfully slow growing, so the cuttings are still tiny.  Hopefully they’ll take off.  There aren’t enough lavender plants so I’ll take another batch of cuttings to complete the circle.  The globe artichokes have been stunning, and many of them have been left to flower to be enjoyed by the bees.  Beans have been picked and eaten or blanched and frozen.  Pumpkins are maturing and carrots are BIG (eat your heart out Karyn!).  Tomatoes have been roasted with onions, garlic, herbs, seasoning and a sprinkle of honey, then blitzed into sauce and frozen in jars.  Courgettes and marrows persist, mostly being fed to the appreciative chooks.  The asparagus ferns are still alive, maybe even flourishing, so hopefully will crop in the next few years.  It’s indeed a busy time of year and I’m looking forward to putting a big chunk of the veg garden to bed over winter. 

 

My academic leave is just beginning and hopefully that means there’ll be a bit more time to spend on the farm.  Autumn tasks like food preservation are kind of on track and we’re prepared for winter in terms of firewood and animal feed.  Still lots of sunshine, but the days are definitely drawing in and there can be a chill in the early morning air.  Maybe, just maybe, this will be the year when we get organised and on top of the work.  Yeah right….dream on.


 

February 2014

 

It’s been a glorious February so far, and a dry one too.  The day time temperatures have rarely been below about 24 degrees.  So it's pretty warm, and when combined with clouds of pesky sand-flies, outdoor work has been somewhat challenging.   Paid work is also seriously hindering what outside progress might otherwise be made, though at least the boys are back to school.  The tasks of driveway weeding and preservative-painting of the balcony must be the least popular as they’ve been totally ignored despite being on the priority list for months.

The new chook-house and run is beginning to take shape.  The aviary idea has been binned (won’t go there…) and instead the space in the crate unoccupied by the chooks will be a wood and vegetable/fruit storage area.  I’m getting quite excited about the prospect of building a raised and netted box with shelving to store our winter supplies.  It’s fair to say that plans are still in the conceptual stage, though that’s probably the most exciting.  In the meantime the chooks are healthy if not a little cramped.  One brave hen has decided it’s time to brood, so we may end up with even more chicken dinners.

The lambs are sold and gone to pastures new, leaving us with our original 4 ewes and Rambo, and the 2 boy lambs which will be in the freezer by Easter.  We finally bit the bullet and got round to shearing the worst of the non-shedding wool from the 3 ewes who were clearly in need of a summer outfit.  Once again it was a task and a half, not least because the cheap shears we bought last year, in anticipation of only a little use, are now seriously crap.  The shearing-whilst-wedged-up-against-the-fence technique was re-introduced for those ewes who refused point blank to remain lying down for long enough.  Sadly our standards of shearing haven’t improved since last year, so those shorn look like they’ve been mutilated.   That said, when all the sheep are together, they don’t look that much worse than those that have messily shed some of their wool themselves.  

The cattle have been un-troublesome for a while now.  They’re probably deep in the planning stage of their next adventure.  Athena and Zeus have grown considerably, though are still pretty cute (but probably only if you like cows).  This year’s hay pastures are re-growing beautifully – bright green and with a range of pasture plants.  The dastardly grass-cutter was fixed, and the go-kart goes, but is stuck in a high gear so can’t pull the weight of the cutter.  The interim solution is to use the car to pull the grass-cutter – it’s effective though does look a bit unusual trawling through the paddocks.  Hopefully we’re in time for a bit of fresh growth before everything slows up in autumn.

The plums are now over but we have plenty of plum jam to see us through the winter as well as plenty of plums frozen to use in baking.  The damsons were starting to soften, so they have all been picked (bar a few left for the birds) and steeped in gin.  They were frozen overnight first, in the hope that this would help release the juices.  The photo shows the gin on day 1, looking a bit like a snow-scene.  Less than a week later it's already a gorgeous soft pink.  It’s my first ever damson gin and I’m looking forward to seeing how it compares to sloe gin.

 

The veg garden is still productive, with most of the plants either ready for cropping or getting there.  We have spuds for Africa, miles of beans (yellow bush, soy, runner and borlotti) and peas.  The pumpkins, which were grown from seed saved last year, have created a jungle of vegetation which is threatening to overspill into the entire garden.  The pumpkins themselves are pretty impressive too.  They’re in the keyhole bed which was supposed to be a corn circle.  What’s left of the corn crop hasn’t grown tall, but the cobs look to be a good size.  There’s one more batch of seedlings to plant out which will be the last to be planted this year – mostly brassicas, but also more lettuce and beetroot.

Derryn and I have started our Apiculture Knowledge course and it looks to be pretty comprehensive.  The bees remain delightful and I’ve continued to harvest small quantities of fabulous honey and wax.  The bee club met at our place to look at honey extraction and autumn varroa treatment.  We used the centrifugal extractor for Doug’s manuka honey, and scraped out and sieved one of my frames.  The honey is potted up, and the wax was washed with cold water and put in the freezer.  Once I have plenty of wax, and I’ve built a solar wax filter, the wax can be fashioned into candles and face cream (to avoid disappointment I’ll give myself 5 years to get round to this).

 

 

The tobacco that was harvested a year ago was finally dry enough for the next phase of the processing.   A pretty technical phase actually, involving my bare hands, a pasta maker and no skill whatsoever.  The tobacco leaves were torn from the main woody stems, and then fed through the spaghetti roller to be shredded.  The precious and sweet-scented tobacco has been gifted and I’m awaiting feedback on whether it’s worth doing again. 

 

 

One of my top ten parenting tips is to be so bad at doing something that the kids feel obliged to take over in order to avoid humiliation.  Sewing is a case in point.  My standard for the sewing-on of scout badges is so low, that one by one, all the boys have eventually decided to do their own.  Billy has heaps of badges, mostly from the Jamboree, which he wants to be displayed on a blanket.  He learned to use a sewing machine in Technology classes at school, so here he is getting on with the task. 

 

On a personal note, I’d like to confess that my hair hasn’t been washed in 3 weeks.   What I mean is that I haven’t used shampoo for that time.  A little research revealed that hair-washing with baking soda and rinsing with apple cider vinegar are effective alternatives until your hair balances out its natural oil production and self-cleansing capacity.  It’s known as going ‘no poo’!  Probably that’s only so that those with a seriously toilet sense of humour can enjoy the double-entendre concept of calling it ‘the no-poo movement’.  It allegedly takes weeks or months to get to the point of being able to use only water, and in the meantime it can be pretty challenging.  So far so good – my hair feels a bit strange and it may have a faint aroma of vinegar, but it’s not been unbearable.  Watch this space…

The flowers in the photo were a gift from the UK with a NZ twist.  They were delivered by Hayley, whose surprise arrival was just in time to meet Peter, but alas I was in Christchurch.  Hayley has recently moved to Wellington and is Janet’s (now Graham’s wife) daughter, and for me, a lovely connection to my friend Joanna and her family.  It was a very pleasant and emotional surprise indeed.  Joanna was a truly special person and gifted midwife, and is often in my thoughts (the Rosa Remember Me and true-blue forget-me-nots are always a happy reminder).  So cheers to absent friends and family - long may you continue to positively influence my thoughts and actions.

 

 

January 2014

 

Already somewhat of a distant memory, we had a fantastic summer break with Marcus, Nikki, Arthur, Jago and Freya during their latest New Zealand tour.  We went all the way to Picton (about a 30 minute drive) to stay at a holiday park in cabins.  One of us had to return home every day to care for the animals, and this worked fine.  Christmas Day, despite a fairly dire forecast, was hot and sunny, and many happy hours were passed lounging in the campsite pool, eating and drinking.  Dinner was a range of kebabs – meat, fish, cheese, tofu and veg to account for all preferences, with fresh fruit and chocolate dipping sauce for desert.  All washed down with a few cool beers.  During the holiday we also fitted in a boat trip to the stunning Lochmara Bay where, among several other activities, we were entertained by Banjo the talking parrot.  At home the first of the sunflowers bloomed in honour of their last day with us in Onamalutu.  Now we have many magnificent sunflowers whose stems are creating a welcome hedge (about 3 metres high) of wind shelter and shade for the chooks.

It’s been a warm summer so far, but amazingly for the season there’s been quite a lot of intermittent rain.  Not our usual weeks and weeks of dry, at least not yet.  Mostly that’s been great – the veg garden and orchard have been growing fabulously and even had to be un-irrigated at times.  It’s been really unfortunate for the hay-makers though, who have to make hay when the sun shines and so be pretty sure of a few rain-free days before cutting.  About 4 weeks later than planned, our hay has finally been cut.  The paddocks looked beautiful when the hay was drying on the ground, and now happily we have 64 hay bales to keep the animals fed over winter.  That’s hopefully about what we’ll need but probably not enough spare to sell – a shame as we’ve already had enquiries.

The rain’s great for the woodlot trees too, assuming they’re alive.  I haven’t checked them out for ages, and they’re now entirely obscured by the weed growth.  Our intentions to keep the area mown were scuppered not only by the kaput grass cutter, but also the knackered go-kart.  There are plans to get them both fixed but it may be a while.  I’m also not sure how many native plants in the wetland have survived.  Certainly several are now visibly growing above the weeds, but a great many are not and there’s a depressing volume of crack willow making a come-back.  There’s simply not enough time to intervene, so we’re keeping everything crossed that it all comes right. 

So far we’ve only managed to coordinate the Artificial Inseminator with Aphrodite’s ovulation.  Hera and Persephone remain un-impregnated, and Persephone is now up for sale.  Our lambs have also been up for sale and there’s been a lot of interest.  We’ve sold all 5 ewes (including last year’s) and two ram lambs. It’s great to know that they’re saleable.  I was a bit worried that people may not be interested in them because their tails are undocked, but that hasn’t come up as a problem – in fact the contrary.  The remaining ram lambs will be dispatched to the freezer (lucky that we’re not completely sure which one Harry is any more), leaving us with our original 4 ewes and Rambo.  We’ll also look into swapping Rambo for a new ram in the interests of varying the genetics. 

The chooks are growing and eating phenomenally.  The 5 Cochin chicks are now big enough to join the main flock, so have been transferred in at the same time as the 2 mother-hens whose broods are out-growing the chick-mobile.  The 9 youngest chicks are now raggedy teenagers with a fair bit of attitude, and they will be combined with the other raggedy teenagers currently living chez Derryn.  The total of 14 chicks will be transferred to the partitioned-off run/house so that they are all close and in sight of each other.  That will cut us down to only 2 lots of feeding and watering instead of 3 which we’re doing at the moment. 

 

Peter’s managed to bag a huge (4m x 2m) wooden packing box from work.  It housed a large piece of winery machinery in transit, and is fully lined with builder’s paper.  It’s in the orchard and will become our second chook residence.  It was a helluva job getting it off the trailer it was forklifted onto, using a gung-ho approach including several jacks, clover hay bales, an old stainless steel bucket, logs, lumps of wood, pallets, 2 boys, Peter and me.  Amazing that it’s in one piece and none of us were fatally injured.  We’re looking into partitioning off an end section so that Billy can have his own aviary, and the rest will be a second chook residence.  It just needs to be fitted out with nesting boxes and perches, and a run built.  It will mean that we’ll be able to separately accommodate our laying hens and meat birds, and we’ll be able to close down the runs periodically to allow the pasture to re-grow.

There’ve been 2 more rabbit deaths.  This time it’s the youngest kits, so there’re now only 3 of them remaining.  I’m wondering if it was their mother who died previously (they were living with 2 does and we didn’t know which one was the mamma) and that they have therefore been without her ultra-nourishing milk from a relatively young age.  Either that or it’s viral.  The national rabbit population is higher than usual this year, apparently owing to a relatively warm winter.  Maybe that means that rabbit diseases are more wide-spread.  We’re feeling pretty helpless to do anything other than watch and make sure that they’re well-fed and watered.  It’s very sad indeed. 
 

Another beehive check revealed plenty of brood and honey stores.  However, hive 1’s new honey box (added about 2 weeks ago) was totally vacant – all the bees were in the lower 2 boxes.  I think that I may need to brush the new plastic frames with melted wax to encourage the bees to feel at home, but really I need some advice in case there’s something else worth doing.  The more I read about beekeeping, the more I’m struck with similarities to child-raising – there are some sound principles, but the successful application of these principles depends on the individual child or bee colony.  One size doesn’t fit all, and that gives plenty of leeway to be experimental.  Probably the bees should be very afraid.  During today’s check I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to remove one of the honey-filled frames.  The honey and wax was scraped out roughly, sieved and jarred, and the frame returned.  The wax will be used in the new plastic frames, and the 5 jars of absolutely delicious raw honey can be enjoyed - the proudest moment in my beekeeping venture to date.

The veg garden is positively thriving.  That means the weeds are running amok too of course, but production is definitely on the up and it’s looking great.  Potatoes in abundance, beans, cabbage, courgette, artichoke and lettuce so far, with carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes and beetroot on their way.  The sugar beet and mangels that are being grown for the animals are also coming on.  The giant circular compost heap which will be the last keyhole bed next year is magnificent.  A quick prod with a stick reveals more worms than you can shake that stick at.  It’s made up of woody materials at the base, some seaweed, heaps and heaps of weeds, poo of all varieties (cow, sheep, chook, rabbit), used hay, plus a few dead rabbits (a horrible thought I know, but not as horrible as putting them in the rubbish bin) and all covered over with an old trampoline mat (when the wind hasn’t blown it off).  Hopefully that’ll all magically turn into gorgeous chocolate-cake compost by next spring.  Yeah right.  Maybe it would if I could get round to turning it.  The trouble is that it’s now too big to be turned, and there’s nowhere to re-stack it.  So I’m going with fingers crossed instead.

The orchard is really satisfying.  The trees are looking great.  Even those which were nibbled by the cattle and those with untreated leaf-curl are the picture of health.  And let there be fruit indeed.  Several pears are ripening, including nashis which are on a double-grafted tree.  Apples are becoming rosy, particularly the Broxwood Foxwelp (or was it Foxwood Broxwelp?) cider apples which needed to be thinned.  Plums are plumping and there’re enough damsons to add to gin.  The 2 original and quite well-established stone fruit trees alongside the pig run are having a bumper year.  The plum tree in particular is laden with fruit which is juicily ripe right now.  The photo shows only one of several branches weighed down with enough fruit to touch the ground.  Yum.  The orchard has been kept mowed (mostly thanks to Sam) so it’s still looking quite tidy.  Come autumn, once the trees have cropped and leaves fallen, we can re-introduce the sheep as lawnmowers.

 

I’ve ended up (by accident, long story) with a huge bag of (seed) peas. I’ve really had to wrack my brains to work out how best to make use of them, and have come up with a cunning plan. I’m going to use them as green manure. I’ll add a few other green manure seeds like mustard and rye, and sow thickly after cropping. That’s it. Instead of paying vast sums for pea straw to minimise weeding and improve the soil, it’ll grow itself on-site. Let’s hope it works well. At the very least we should have plenty of fresh peas.

 

 
Meanwhile the boys are making the most of the holidays.  Billy’s back from the Scout Jamboree, and hoping to go to the Australian Jamboree in 2015.  He’s also going away to Kiwi Ranch in the Marlborough Sounds for a few days of fun-filled adventure.  Sam’s been getting quite a few hours’ work at McDonalds and has decided to save up for a car.  He’s also soon going away on camp with the air cadets.  At home we’ve been celebrating Lucas’ 19^th birthday and him flying the nest.  He’s been working and saving for over a year now, and his Christchurch plans are underway.  Yesterday he cut the strings and went out into the big wide world with Sophie.  It’s very exciting for him to move into the next chapter of his life.  It won’t half be strange without him though.  Gulp… 

 

 

December 2013

With the lion’s share of my paid workload over for this year, there’re just a few days left before the arrival of our Christmas visitors.  Unfortunately, tidying up the property hasn’t yet hit the top of the priority list.  Higher on that list are the usual suspects like weeding, planting, mowing, irrigation and thistle-bashing.  Progress has been made on all of these tasks, but they never seem to go away completely.  Summers’s well and truly here and there have been many days when it’s just too hot to work outside in the heat of the day. 

Chicken numbers have increased significantly over the last few weeks - it’s chook-city out there now.  Derryn’s 5 cochin chicks have grown up into pullets and are housed in a partitioned-off section of the chicken run.  In the meantime, 9 of our own eggs hatched into yellow striped chicks, currently resident in the mobile run (and very reluctant to pose en masse for a photo).  They’re being tended by 2 mother-hens and so far that seems to be working well.  Another hen has just become broody, so more fluffy bundles may be on their way.   Keeping the poultry fed and watered has become quite a task, albeit made enjoyable by their delightful cuteness.

 

 

The cattle and sheep are mostly behaving themselves, give or take some fence leaning and munching of fruit trees.  When I'm pottering around in the flower garden, Butch comes over for a chat, to chew the cud.  He's worked out that weeds will be on the menu so it's worth hanging around.  The Inseminator was summoned when Aphrodite came on heat.  Hera is due next, but Persephone hasn’t shown any sign at all.  We’ll just have to wait and see.  We’re hoping to sell both Galloway cows sometime over the next few months, and have also advertised the ewe lambs (this photo shows the ewe in the process of shedding - though it may look like it, we haven't been near her with our hand-shears...yet).  We could do with reducing our stock numbers by winter, though that will depend on how much hay we get.  It’s due to be cut any time now, and it may be possible to do a second cut in a couple of months if the weather’s kind.   The hay paddocks are looking gorgeous right now, gently swaying in the breeze.  I’m quite excited about the prospect of stacking hay bales too – it’s a profoundly satisfying task to prepare for the next season like this.

 

Another mysterious rabbit death is concerning, though all the youngsters are all thriving.  If there is a disease that’s killing them, then we’ll have to carefully consider our rabbit-keeping future.  American rabbit keeper, Daniel Salatin (son of Polyface farmer, Joel), has written that in his early days he lost about 50% of his rabbits to disease.  He decided to ride it out and continue with his plans, in the hope that his remaining rabbits would become disease-resistant over generations.  It was a successful strategy for him, and the path which we’ll probably also take.  The alternative is to look at vaccination, which would be complicated as well as expensive.

 

 

Birds have enjoyed our cherry crop this year, scoffing every single cherry just before it ripened.  The word ‘crop’ is a bit of an exaggeration, but it may be worth netting them next year.  There are quite a few developing pears, apples, quince, medlars, plums, nectarines and peaches, so hopefully we’ll get to eat some of our own fruit.  We’re eating home-grown veg in the form of lettuce, leeks, peas, broad beans and greens, and hopefully plenty more to come.   It's all looking good, except for the corn crop which has been a bit of a disaster (neither seeds nor seedlings successful).  A different strategy is a clearly needed.  Most of the ground-sown seeds didn’t germinate, and potted germination of corn seeds wasn't much better after the birds feasted on them.  There will be enough for us to eat fresh corn, but it’s a long way from the corn crop circle I’d planned for.  I'll get some fresh seed and keep trying as there's enough time in the season remaining.  Alternatively there will be millions of peas.

The bees have been fascinating.  The new queen in the hive which had swarmed was quite slow to produce brood.  It was about 2 and a half weeks before eggs and larvae were clearly visible – just in the nick of time as I was about to re-queen with a bought queen.  The other hive followed suit and swarmed today.  I was weeding in the veg garden and became aware of an increasingly loud hum from the hive.  There was lots of bee activity too.  Then all of a sudden the sky was filled with a cloud of bees, all flying around and around.  They weren’t concerned about me being there, so I was able to enjoy the thrill of being totally surrounded by bees but feeling absolutely safe.  What a privilege to be among them like that.  The bee-cloud slowly headed towards the river and I lost sight of them.   Of course, it isn’t a great moment for a beekeeper to watch her honey production capacity plummet.   And of course, had I checked the hive sooner I may have spotted the queen cells and prevented the swarm from happening.   But hell, it was brilliant.  Though it's probably naive of me to think so, it may well have been time for a new queen in that colony given that it came to me as a swarm anyway.  Here’s hoping that she’ll be magnificent!

 

Peter’s back to work after his finger accident, though it looks like the healing will be a long-term process.  The stitches are out and the wound itself seems to be healing well, but it’s still very sore to touch.  Billy had his last day at the local school and will move to year 9 Marlborough Boys College next year.  He actually asked to wear a suit to his leaving party (hard to believe he’s related to Peter and me).  We agreed to hire him one as long as he agreed to photos!  So here he is, looking terribly grown up. 

Some Christmas preparations have been happening, including our annual cake-decorating session.  This year’s theme is ‘Lucas Leaving Home’ – a great idea for a theme as it can be repeated when Sam and Billy fly the nest too.  The Christmas tree, which was ‘acquired’ from the side of the road using a saw (it was dangerously too close to the road so we were actually providing a public service by removing it!), is also decorated and presents are wrapped.   Having spent most of our lives having winter Christmases, it’s still a bit weird celebrating it in summer.  It’s a pleasant kind-of weird though.  We have plans for a Christmas Day barbecue dinner on the beach.  Fingers crossed for glorious days ahead in this fabulous place. 

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields.

Merry Christmas and all best wishes for 2014.