January 2019

After several hideous days of hot and blustery winds, we’re about to move into the next phase of weather - extreme heat, courtesy of Australia.  Starting today, we have a solid week of temperatures above 30 degrees forecast.  Lucas sent us a screen shot of Melbourne weather yesterday – a record 44 degrees!  Here’s hoping that our predictions won’t be revised up, as that would completely floor me.  I can barely stand to be outside, let alone keep up with watering right now.  I can only hang onto the sincere hope that the plants, including the relatively new ones, can tolerate the heat better than me.

Just when we’d given up hope of having lambs, Peter heard the unmistakable sound of a youngster bleating on January 3rd.  It came from a gorgeous little black ram lamb – no doubt about who sired him!  The next day he was joined by a tiny and skinny white ewe lamb, who very sadly was dead the next day.  We can't decide if they're very early or very late lambs.  We've usually had lambs in July, so it could be either!  Happily, Junior (son of Walter in ‘Breaking Bad’) is thriving, watched over and cared for by his very protective mum.  It’s a shame for him that he’s an only child in the flock, but he does give us hope that we may be able to address the fertility issues.  And it keeps the ewes alive for now at least.

The pigs are fattening up well, no doubt helped by the excess fruit from the orchard, and from various external sources including the holiday programme at the stadium.  We’re starting to think about home-kill timing – maybe a couple of months before they become hams and bacon.  Peter is hobbling because of damage to the cruciate ligament of his right knee, and we’re wondering if our pig version of Voldemort has cast a Cruciatus Curse on him.  Could there be any other explanation??  Moo ha ha.

Our hay was cut and baled by our good-natured neighbours in early January.  Just 2 paddocks but 105 bales, which surpassed our expectations.  We already had lots of hay left over from last year, so have put the new stuff up for sale.  There’s lots of hay around so it’s a slow selling process, but we’ll just keep re-listing it.  We also asked one of the neighbour's (thanks Pete!) to cut the grass in the remaining paddocks – this reduces the fire risk and cuts down some of the nasty weeds like thistles.  The cows always enjoy hay, so now have copious extra supplies under-hoof.

The pink strawberries are reproducing themselves in rabbit proportions (surprising that the rabbits haven’t intervened here) and are also producing fruit.  It’s relatively small but perfectly fine, and good to know that they taste good as well as looking good.  I’ve started to pot some runners up so that they can be given away at a plant stall next year.  I did manage to get around to weeding the entire horse arena / herb zone, which was a monumental but very satisfying task.  This has left extra space for all the strawberries to spread their runners even further and wider. 

The new bee hive didn't appear to be very busy, but a quick check revealed a small but productive colony.  Lots of brood and a few stores.  The colony previously known as the Queen Bitch Hive appears to still be the Queen Bitch Hive alas.  Probably it wasn't this queen who swarmed after all, unless she was replaced by a queen of similar temperament.  Immediate aggression met me when I opened the top honey box and was treated to 4 stings through my bee suit whilst putting an escape board on.  The next day Peter helped take off the very hefty full depth top honey box.  Along with 5 frames from the original hive, 15 litres of fabulous honey was extracted.  So the Queen Bitch lives to sting another day...

The sheep were temporarily put in the orchard for a few days.  The idea was that they'd benefit from the shade and possibly enjoy some of the pasture plants, such as the comfrey.  They weren't terribly interested in the comfrey, but they did enjoy pruning any fruit tree branch within nibbling height, including the Hawera plum with its numerous draping branches.  They stripped off all the leaves and stamped the fruit into the ground, and for that they were duly evicted from the orchard.  The elephant heart plum tree, that has produced several bumper crops, grew less fruit than previously, though still a fair crop.  The endless winds blew down a fair proportion of this crop, as well as hundreds of fledgling Bramley apples.  Most of the pear varieties withstood the windy onslaught so its still looking like we will be peared-out this year. The Red Bartlett branches in the photo may need some support for their phenomenal crop as it gets bigger and bigger.  The relatively new Perry pear and Slack Ma Girdle Cider apple trees are establishing themselves nicely. 

The cucurbit family are having a bumper kind of year - maybe they're particularly enjoying the heat.  The apple cucumber is still triffid-like and taking over Madame Cholet.  Also in there is a watermelon plant that is nurturing at least one beautiful fruit.  And outside in the vege garden, courgettes and marrows are go, and 2 pumpkins are poised to trip up and engulf any unsuspecting gardener.

The sweet corn cobs are fattening up, and tomatoes, beetroot, cabbage and greens are en masse.  Early potatoes are dug up and their bed is awaiting a green manure lupin sowing at the next rainfall. Carrots and leeks are looking promising.  Flop crops are onions, peppers, peas and beans, and I'm not sure what went wrong there.  The usual suspects of rabbits, slugs and snails have certainly contributed to their demise, but I'm hoping that it was maybe just a bad year for them.

Flowers of many kinds have been gorgeous and uplifting (yes, even the roses. There, I said it).  The widened flower and native beds are very slowly establishing themselves, though with pretty frequent watering.  Most of the annual self-seeded flowers (poached egg, echium and poppy) are over and will be cleared out after this heat spell.  The young escallonia hedge is growing well, almost too well.  Hopefully it won't need trimming too often in the long run. Peter has cut an old wine barrel in half to make two planting containers, one of which will eventually house a lime tree.  The couple of terracotta planters from Auntie Sally are on the deck and planted up with spinach and kale, to be used in morning smoothies.

The deck got its coat of staining preservative and is looking stunning.  The shade sail had to come down in the wind, but is back up now and probably helping to keep the living room cool.  It feels very much like part of the house, like it's always been there.  Mowing what remains of the lawn is easy and so very smugly satisfying.  

I ended up in Westport again for a long weekend.  Work-wise it was really quiet for a change, and I discovered yet another amazing beach near the lighthouse.  That I was totally alone there added to its sense of rugged wildness.  A number of small and colourful sea-worn West Coast rocks were collected to keep as mementos of this magical place.  I'll definitely be back.




And finally - a photo of Karyn's beautiful arse.  It's been a while.  Despite several opportunities, I keep forgetting to photograph her in the garden.  She has been known to comment that she's relieved that the latest blog had not included her backside, so this shot was obviously entirely necessary.  Eh Karyn?  

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