We've had our first really hot days, with the mercury hitting 29/30
degrees in Blenheim so probably a couple of degrees higher here. Orchard irrigation
immediately moved up that priority list. Right now everything’s lush and green in
there, but that’ll soon change. I've begun the process of setting up the hose but ran out of attachments so fingers crossed for some rain soon. It’s a
particularly beautiful place to hang around in the early evening of a warm
day. It’s the first zone to lose the day’s
sun, so it’s refreshingly cool and there are plenty of trees to admire and
communicate with. There’s a good view of
the wetland too.
Most of my outdoor time lately has been spent in the veg
garden. Happily it has turned a corner
in terms of becoming manageable (zikes, that seriously sounds like famous last
words). I’ve cleared out the hefty weeds
in the fruit beds, and re-filled them with thick layers of pea straw. That should retain moisture as well as reduce
weed growth. It’s tidied them up too,
and frames the developing fruit so it’s much more visible. It’s looking like a bumper year for gooseberries,
with several currants and blueberries on the way. Any fruit is really a bonus, given that
they’re newly planted. The low hedges
around the bed are coming away. Some of
the lavenders needed replacing (chicken-damage I think, during one of their
escape-missions) but otherwise they’re looking like they might one day grow up
to actually be hedges. Potatoes and corn
are planted in the newest keyhole beds, with plans for another spud patch and
bean/pea bed once weeds have been cleared.
The weeding is relatively easy here, as the thick layers of newspaper
have done the job of holding back the hardy pasture weeds. Last year’s beds, which had largely been
abandoned during the creation of this year’s beds, are another weeding matter
entirely. Though there’s no sign of any of them catching the gardening bug, I’ve felt obliged to shell out
sums of money to pay boys to help - a strategy which has sometimes bitten me on the bum. If you want a job
done properly…. etc. etc.
On the flying livestock front, the bees have been
tremendously busy. Their presence around
the place is incredibly delightful - many a happy few minutes stretch out just
watching the hive activity. We were the
venue for the bee club this month (when housework did temporarily jump up the
priority list, though only the minimum).
Several people attended a talk on swarm prevention (thank you Philip!)
and it was great to have my hives checked over by an expert. He found that one of the hives had already
swarmed and located the virgin queen and several queen cells. This meant that the hive could be divided,
and a very happy Neville (who’d lost his bees to varroa and was desperate to
get up and running with more bees) returned later that day to collect a frame
with queen cells and a couple of frames of brood from the other very vibrant hive.
The calves and lambs are getting bigger by the day. Oddly, Athena and Zeus have swapped colour. Athena was white with black patches, and Zeus white with brown patches. Now it's the other way round. I guess hair colour changes happen with human babies too as they age. The cattle are spoilt for choice in terms of pasture
options. Peter’s been in touch with the
‘Artificial Inseminator’ (which you feel obliged to say using an awful American
accent) to plan the next pregnancies.
The plan is for Hera to become pregnant with Speckled Park semen, and
for Aphrodite and Persephone to have pure Galloway calves. Given the difficulties that both heifers had
during calving, we don’t want to put them through that again. Galloways are likely to be smaller calves, so
hopefully will have easier births this time (not necessarily the same for
humans!). Here's hoping it all goes to
plan. We have to watch out for signs
that they’re coming into heat (noisy mooing and the playing of ‘mounting’
games), and then hope we can get the Inseminator here on time. It’s one of those events that I fervently
hope will happen on a weekend when Peter's around.
The sad demise of Gandalf, the buck, has significantly
contributed to our unhappy run of rabbit bad-luck. His was the first rabbit loss which may have
been due to an infectious disease. He
basically just went downhill over a period of days, eating less, then moving
around less. We’ve always been aware
that wild rabbits may pose a health risk, and maybe this is what’s happened. He’s buried under a strawberry patch in the
veg garden. However, his offspring live
on. Belladonna’s 6 kits are lively and
healthy, and another doe has recently had her first small litter of 5 kits. This little family is currently sharing a run
with another rabbit, which we think is also female. We’d like to move her into a different home,
but are having difficulty working out just who’s the mumma. We haven’t observed them during their very
infrequent (only twice a day) feed times, and removing the wrong one would be
simply disastrous. Assuming that this
is indeed another female, it also means that we won’t be having any more kits
until one of Belladonna’s sons reaches maturity (and then shags his mother and/or
Aunty).
One of Derryn’s hens has been sitting on a dozen of our eggs and now has a clutch of 6 chicks (hurray - Bob-Junior has got lead in his pencil after all). Another hen is proudly raising her clutch of 5
cochin chicks, and they will come out to us when they’re a bit older. They’re already well-behaved, having been
taught by their mum to clean under their wings before bed. They have fun riding on her back before the
settling-down routine, after contented days of scratching around the whole
garden. Coincidentally 3 of our own hens
are also broody and sitting on eggs.
We’ve moved them into their own mobile run so they’re not disturbed by
the others, and also in the vain hope that the others will continue to
lay. It seems that as soon as one hen
gets broody, the others decide to slow down on the old egg production. That would be fine for a few days, but given
that they take 21 days to hatch, it can get quite frustrating. Alternatively they may continue to lay but in
a different place to usual, meaning that someday you chance upon a heap of
un-eatable eggs. We clearly have much
more to learn about the art of the chook-keeper.
Things are happening on the home front too. Sam is just old enough to be whizzing around on our
motorbike. What we’ll be saving in time
and fuel costs will no doubt be replaced by episodes of parental anxiety. He’s got himself a part-time job (at
McDonalds) and bar an exam or two, has finished up at school for the year. Peter’s been forced to have a couple of weeks
off work following a nasty accident at work in which the end of his middle
finger was sliced off. The surgeon had
to grind down the bone further so that there was enough tissue and skin to pull
over the end of what’s left of his finger.
The after-math of the surgery was considerably more painful than the
chopping off. He’s now wandering around
with his middle finger bandaged up, looking like he’s giving the finger to
everyone. We’ve had a lot of comedy
mileage out of it, fingers crossed the pain diminishes for him soon though!
Roll on Christmas and safe travels to Marcus, Nikki, Arthur, Jago and birthday girl Freya. Cant'wait to show off the place to you all!
Roll on Christmas and safe travels to Marcus, Nikki, Arthur, Jago and birthday girl Freya. Cant'wait to show off the place to you all!
