February 2015



It’s been an exciting few weeks, though at times a bit more excitement than was good for us.  After weeks of dry weather in Marlborough, the fire risk has become extreme.  Fire started in a forestry block in the Onamalutu Valley, close to its junction with the Wairau North Bank.  At the last count, it burned through 600+ hectares and took more than a week to be fully contained.  Luckily for us, the wind direction was in our favour, and it blew the fire further away.  The fire-fighting efforts have meant that no harm came to stock or properties.  Only a few farm buildings were damaged – an amazing feat given the ferocity and extent of the fire.   The Onamalutu residents had evacuation plans A - D in place (plan D – most favoured by the boys - was being helicoptered out from the reserve), and we were given lots of advice about making our properties easier to protect from fire.  The neatly stacked firewood and the barbecue gas can are now in the trailer in the middle of the hay barn paddock, and I’m researching fire-resistant plant varieties to replace some of the plantings around the house.  The boys were definitely more excited than scared.  Missing the first day back to school was a triumph, and having a nearby film set of choppers, planes, monsoon buckets, fire engines, huge bulldozers and clouds of thick smoke was definitely an added bonus.

The lack of rain is visible on the property.  It’s never browned off like this before.  We’re having to feed out hay to the cows and sheep as there’s very little for them to eat.  The long range forecast suggests that there isn’t much rain on the horizon for the next few months, so hopefully the hay will be enough see us through winter.  Even the garden lawn is browning in places.  On closer inspection it’s mainly the grass which is dying off – where it’s green it’s thanks to the weeds.  Another good reason to avoid a beautifully manicured lawn.   And another good reason to start reducing our stock numbers.  The home-kill man is coming out this week for 2 of the ram lambs.  He was originally booked to come earlier but the fire closed the road to non-residents for several days.
                             

Progress on pizza oven Mark II has been swift.  It’s good-to-go, but ironically can’t be tested until the region’s fire ban is lifted.  It’s a considerable improvement on pizza oven Mark I, which looked OK but collapsed one rainy day before we could use it.  Mark II began with a layer of fire bricks (our only expenditure, though quite expensive at $9 per brick x 20) on which a dome-shaped mould of sand was placed.  The first, inner layer was made of river sand and clay.  This was followed by 2 insulation layers of sand, clay and sawdust.  The final weather-proofing plaster layer was constructed by adding the traditional building material of fresh manure (cow) to the sand and clay mix.  Making the plaster was a bit like rubbing fat into flour in cake-making, and as expected, the men of the house were too precious to get their hands in and mix it properly.   Thankfully I had no such qualms, and it all came together beautifully and without aroma.  It’s been decorated with some paua shells, a heart-shaped rock and some signatures.  Oh and an old ‘Ipod Touch’ of Billy’s to create a modern theme, or something like that.  Maybe one day we’ll decorate over it with mosaics. 

 

Valentine’s Day was memorable this year for being one out of the box.  We’d decided to forego a meal out (good food at home/too tight/Marlborough’s Food and Wine Festival the same day) and go to the cinema instead.  We sat on the back row (everyone else was watching 50 Shades of Grey) and the film (The Kingsman) was great.  When we got home we discovered that Billy had washed and dried the dishes, tidied up the house, walked the dog, and arranged red rose petals in a heart shape on our bed with our names on either side.  Who is this child????  

The bees have been enjoying the array of flowers in the flower border and Joanna’s Patch.  Some of them are perennials, and some are annuals grown from seed.  Many are annuals which have haphazardly seeded themselves.  Whilst it’s been lovely to have plentiful flowers, there isn’t enough time to keep on top of dead-heading and clearing away those that are past their best, so the garden looks colourfully unkempt.  On the plus side it does mean that seed-collecting is straightforward.  And there hasn’t been much need for weeding as the straw mulch has worked brilliantly at keeping them down.  The weeds have had to be more subtle and disguise themselves to stay alive.  It’s amazing how weeds are clever to pop up among similar-foliage plants.  The photo shows a dandelion alongside a red Geum.   You wouldn’t know it was there except for when it flowers and gives itself away.  I’ve seen this happen with other weeds elsewhere in the garden – the feathery foliage of yarrow in the lavender; leafy wild sorrel within the arnica.  Maybe these are just the weeds that take off because you miss them when weeding, or perhaps it’s a phenomenon for which there’s a very long word.

The bees have also been busy making honey.  Hive 1 yielded 11 litres which was extracted manually – scraping off each side of the frames and then straining the honey and wax through a colander and a sieve.  The resulting honey still has small amounts of wax in it, but for me this adds to its scrumptiousness, rather than makes it less perfect.  Of course it’s stickily spread onto just about every surface in the kitchen, but it is totally delicious.  It doesn’t look like there’s any spare honey in hive 2.  That’s OK because it’s a new colony and they should have enough to last them through winter.

The veg garden continues to be abundant and beautiful.  In the old trough pond, the water lily is getting on with the business of flowering.  It’s definitely one of my favourite flowers.  We’re harvesting carrots, peas, salad, brassicas, spuds, beetroot and greens.  There’re loads of giant sugar beet (now closer to a football size than a foot) and sunflower seed-heads for the chooks.  Amazingly the corn is magnificent, and I’ve finally got my corn circle.  It may not technically be a corn circle as it’s a circle of standing-up corn, rather than an alien circle of mown-down corn.  Alas, as with most of my brilliant ideas, it’s totally flawed.  I’d pictured myself sitting on a deck-chair inside the shady circle, glass of gin and slab of chocolate in hand.  But I’d somehow overlooked that in the centre of the corn bed are the globe artichokes – massive, spiky, full of bees, perennial…  Other than that, the bed is doing well.  The pumpkins are creeping everywhere and keeping the weeds down.  Some of the peas have germinated and are climbing up the corn.  And the 6 tobacco plants grown from seed are outside the corn circle and looking stunning.  They’d started to flower, so the lower leaves have been harvested.  They’re now hanging from a pole in the car port, gently swaying in the breeze.  Alongside them are the plaited onion and garlic crop. 

 

         

Two hens became broody, but only one of them (a Cochin) has remained steadfastly sitting on her eggs.  The other broody hen was the hen-mother of the current pullets.  It was a surprise when she went broody again, and we had to put some fertilised eggs from the other hens under her.  She was as uncommitted as she’d been with her previous brood, happy to hop off the eggs relatively frequently for a feed or stretch.  Last time she did stick it out though.  The Cochin hen is still with the others in the main run - hopefully they’ll all be OK in there.  We didn’t dare risk moving her and the eggs out, after the last experience when the hen abandoned her eggs.   Once they’re hatched we’ll probably move them.   That won’t be long - the pitter-patter of tiny chick feet should happen any day soon.

The pigs are growing and generally behaving well (hope not famous last words).  Aside from upturning their feed trough most days, they’re managing to stay in the run and it still feels safe to get in there with them.  They’re loving their grains, which have remained their firm favourite food.  Next on their list are the plums which are chucked in from the tree alongside on a regular basis.  Other scraps come their way from the vegetable garden, like apple cucumbers of which there are hundreds.  A recent tidy up of Madame Cholet revealed a mass of overgrown cucumbers.  Though there are 6 cucumber plants in there, it’s the single apple cucumber which has gone bananas.  Cucumbers had been a bit of a nemesis crop for me until this season.  Now even the ones planted outside are prolific.

Peter’s built another raised bed in the old horse arena, which was necessary because the last raised bed is full enough of organic materials to be shut down.  This includes the added kelp seaweed which Billy and me collected from Kaikoura when we were coming home from a Christchurch trip.  It’s also blessed with masses of cow poo.  I’ll cover it with straw for a few months and put the next weeds in the new bed.  We’ve opened up the huge circular compost bed in the veg garden and have started to spread it in the gaps where crops have been harvested.  It’s gorgeous stuff – black, soft, crumbly and cool.  It’s never been turned (didn’t think through how that could happen so never did it), but time looks to have done the deed.  Once the compost has all been distributed, the bed will be key-holed and used for planting in spring.  It’ll need a hedge border.  I’d planned to do a step-over espaliered fig, but more research suggests that it’ll just get too big for this purpose.  I’m now leaning towards using an upright rosemary instead, which are apparently easy to propagate from cuttings which can be stuck straight in the ground.  Perfect!  

Note the professionally tied up raspberries, boysenberries and blackberries in the bed behind the compost.  It was a good morning's work to untangle the mass of prickly canes and secure them - which would have been impossible without the skill and dexterity of Karyn, who nobly offered her services in exchange for eggs. 

I’ve been able to get on with a whole lot of tasks outside because I’m finally enjoying reduced working hours.  I worked several extra shifts last month, which have provided the leeway to actually have a couple of days off in the week.  It’s a good time of year to have a bit of extra time on your hands.  Harvesting, storing, preserving and clearing up are enjoyable but lengthy, so it’s great to have the luxury of getting some of them done during the week.  Having been through the experience of possible annihilation by forest fire, such work is even more gratifying.  We feel truly humbled and blessed that we’re not facing a total wipe-out of the last 3+ years on this land.  We’ve fallen on our feet again. 

Right – time to get on with bottling wine, making beeswax candles and putting some crumble over the rhubarb which was harvested yesterday.  It’s a hard old life etc etc.