It’s still mid-winter of course, but that’s
frankly beginning to feel like a pretty poor excuse for never-ending cold
weather. We’re getting a bit over the
numerous freezing nights and frosty mornings during what’s been our chilliest
winter so far. Complaining is not
usually necessary between about 10am and 4pm when we are blessed with fresh and
vibrant sunshine. We’ve also had some
rain, which the land still needs, so there is an occasional reprieve from the
cold. It’s rarely wet and cold together,
though the nor’wester winds can blow in uninvited any time. Talking about the weather again – hmmm, my Englishness
is never very far away. However, it’s
also true now that much of our lives outside of work are weather-dependent, so
we do have another feasible excuse for weather navel-gazing.
On the ‘getting on with jobs’ front, we’ve
been seriously tardy. Shorter days and
too much paid work have contributed to this, as has a lack of urgent
in-your-face tasks whilst the land appears to be tucked up and sleeping.
The day after I posted last month’s blog, we
got the first lambs of the season – twin ram and ewe lambs. They were followed by another set of boy
twins and finally a single boy. The
first twins were born one hideously rainy night, which we’d heard is
potentially more risky than extreme cold.
They were dripping wet and shivering away when I spotted them, so I
tried to gently coax them into the hay barn.
I ended up having to pick them up, one under each arm, and then carry
them into the barn. It was a heck of a
job getting the mother ewe to join them there, and for a while I wondered
whether I should have intervened at all.
Seasoned farmers don’t interfere with lambing, as the general rule is
that you’re more likely to make things worse.
Anyway, all was well in the end and the lambs are now robust and
energetic and beginning to get into mischief.
We’re a bit disappointed with having only one girl, but probably not
surprised.
Spring is definitely in the air in the
orchard, with many of the fruit trees sporting fat buds and some fresh twiggy
growth. The nut trees need to be better
staked, but otherwise most of the fruit trees are looking well-anchored and strong. Some of them are supporting their stakes,
rather than the other way round, so definitely an orchard sort-out needs to
happen. We’ve done a whole heap of
cutting back and tidying at the front of the property, around the pig
run/orchard. There’s a pittosporum hedge
which had got too high and wide to manage with a hedge-trimmer. We’ve hacked it right down to waist-height so
it’s looking bare and very sorry for itself right now. Hopefully it’ll take off again once the
temperatures increase. It’s opened up a
different view and we can now see the pig run from upstairs in the house. We just need to decide how best to fill the
gaps left behind the hedge, which are now open to sunlight. And then we need to get on with it.
For the first time, we bit the bullet and
ordered lime for the property. We had
been advised that it needed liming when we first moved in, nearly 4 years ago
so have taken way too long to get around to it.
We used a local company run by my good friend Jax. A guy came in a truck and it took him minutes
to spread the lime everywhere. I have to
wonder why we never got round to it before, as it was a painfully easy process. We were left with a small pile of left over
lime which was spread around the drip lines of the orchard trees. Hopefully we’ll see a positive difference with this
year’s hay and pasture growth.
The horse arena is slowly taking
shape. Jorgi came and did some more
clearing, and now we’re nearly at a point of being able to put down weed-mat
between the raised beds which are all constructed. The dividing fence is in place, only a gate
needed now. There’s lots of hefty work to
be done around filling the various beds with organic materials to break down
into soil. We have new neighbours who have horses so can now add liberal volumes of horse poo to these new beds. And I'm planning on another seaweed run soon. Some of the beds are
priorities for filling with decent soil as they’ll be planted up in the next
few weeks with olive, feijoa and citrus trees. The rest will be filled up then
covered with hay and left until next year for planting. They will be used to experiment with grain-growing, just to get the hang of it in a small area. It’ll be great to finally get some things
growing in there.
We finally managed to coordinate Athena's heat with some Artificial Insemination. It all ended up happening at a busy work time for us, and I chickened out so we called an AI technician to do the deed. In the end it was definitely meant to be as it wasn't straightforward. Fortuitously the technician had also brought along a student to whom she explained every step of the process. I was all ears and learnt several practical tips. I felt slightly vindicated when she said that heifers who had not been pregnant before (like Athena) are the most difficult to inseminate. Here's hoping that it worked and we can look forward to her beautiful calf in the autumn.
Karyn joined us to help round up all the
sheep and give them some unwanted attention.
One of the ewes had very long and curled up nails on her back feet, and
another also needed a bit of a pedicure. We got
them into the race, which had been specially adapted with plastic netting to
hold the lambs in (a lesson well-learned from last year - thanks Karyn). First the lambs were unceremoniously
tail-docked and vaccinated. They
probably don’t appreciate how lucky they are to have avoided castration - we’ve decided to downplay the possible genetic implications and keep the best shedding of the ram lambs to be the flock ram for next
year. The other 3 boys can then either
be sold as ram lambs, or dispatched in the usual way. Then we were onto the ewes and the truly
disgusting task of trimming toenails.
The vet nurse suggested that garden shears would work – it turned out
that she did mean secateurs and not shears, which was a huge relief. The nails were duly cut, and aside from a
spell of nauseous heaving (for me, toenails are the most repugnant things in the world), I’ve recovered from the ordeal.
The prosciutto is hanging in the kitchen
and happily no rotten meat smells are lingering in the air. The salami only took 4 weeks and has been a
success – it looks and tastes like salami, just a bit of an odd shape. It’s not the best salami in the world, but
things are looking promising for next year when I’ll be confident enough to be
a bit more adventurous with the ingredients.
We’re still very much enjoying the sausages, bacon and other pork
products from the freezer. Luckily for Zeus, there's still a shortage of freezer space.
Sam has been busy in the last month. On the back of the National Brass Band
competition last month, there’s been the school performance and the Southern
Jam. His 18th birthday fell
in the middle of the show, and Kevin the band leader secretly arranged for the
band to play ‘Happy Birthday’ to him. We
celebrated later at home in our usual way with cake (Lolly Cake at Sam’s
request) and champagne. The Southern Jam
is an annual Jazz competition for South Island schools, which always takes
place in Blenheim. It’s a lovely event,
this year with 22 bands or ensembles playing over the course of a week in
several venues across town (cafes, bars, wineries and schools) before the main
Saturday evening event.
It's hard to believe that yet another month in paradise has passed. We're still eating our own eggs, meat and some vegetables, feeding out our own hay, generating solar power and using firewood from the property. Billy's even making a bit of money on the side with his 'Poo-well Ltd' cow poo sales. My vege seed order has arrived and I'm itching to get them started. Roll on spring. Our lovely 'Grannie-Annie' will be here next month - we hope you're ready for us!
