November has followed suit weather-wise with October, except that there's been heaps more rain. The farmers are mostly delighted, and we'll likely cut hay much sooner than previously. Spring is in full flow - lime greens and vivid colours everywhere. Bees are buzzing, tui are feeding, fruits are swelling and rabbits are devastating my vege plantings.
The most exciting event of the month was the surprise arrival of our first lamb. I'd been checking my last year's blog to find out when lambing last happened. It was in October 2019 so I resigned myself to being lambless in 2020. The very next day, Marie, gave birth to her little ram lamb. His name is Saul - in-keeping with the Breaking Bad theme - and he's healthy and delightful. I'm holding out a small ray of hope that he'll have some play-mates. His mum keeps him close by, and his grandma is very challenging when you get within shouting distance, so he's not a pet lamb in any way. The calves are growing too, but not too old yet to come over for some attention in the form of sucking your fingers, especially Pandora.
The peas that sprouted from the pea straw in the herb garden have been picked and eaten, and their pods are waiting in the freezer to be converted into pea pod wine. There aren't enough yet, and I was considering buying some until I noticed that the new pea straw in the fallow vege gardens is sprouting away its own crop. Just a little patience and I'll be able to use all homegrown ingredients, assuming that I remember and don't discover the bag of frozen peapods in the bottom of the freezer in 2025.
Madame Cholet has been planted up with several pepper plants and some rock melons grown from seed. The basil seeds had a magnificent strike and several have been gifted to work colleagues. The rest are dotted around, inside and out. The turmeric has started to sprout, but no sign of the ginger. I'm suspicious that the ginger roots have died off, though they did look alive in very early spring. The grain seeds eventually arrived and are now germinating nicely - amaranth, buckwheat and quinoa (black, red & white).
The corn germination has been pretty poor, so I've sown more of my own Aztec seeds from last year. Those that had germinated are planted out. After being completely dug up 3 times, presumably by rabbits or birds, they're now protected by ground-level mesh that seems to have done the trick. The acorn germination has been spectacular, and so there's the problem of what to do with 16 healthy young oaks. The only acorns that didn't germinate were our competition ones, planted in a large terracotta trough on the deck. Maybe it was too dry for them. The acorns that were randomly buried anywhere were the most successful. Of course.
The flower garden continues to nourish my soul and create a haven for bee activity. The old favourites - forget-me-nots, red poppies, rhododendrons, nigella, paeonies and asters - are in full, delightful, sprawling, vibrant bloom. The wisteria flowered beautifully and the scent was heavenly, but alas the trailing blossoms didn't last long. Karyn's vege garden is more of a flower garden now, with foxgloves taller than me. She does have some veges in there too though, and I have been nicking her broccoli, so probably should be careful what I say...
The 2 rams were unceremoniously relegated to the orchard when the lamb was born. They've been doing some ring-barking of the trees but nothing too damaging. Happily the greengages are fattening up, and our opportunities for damson gin are looking promising. The other plums are productive, not surprising in this region renowned for its stone-fruit. Apples and pears are looking great too. Even my newest cider apple tree (Slack Ma Girdle) has several clusters of fruitlets. The perry pear is taking its own sweet time to decide which year to start fruiting. I'm resigned to waiting a while for its final decision.
Meanwhile, the house continues to be gradually torn apart. The kitchen and hallway are now missing most of the vinyl floor tiles (yes, a pain-staking process) and some of the kitchen cupboards/benches have been removed (using screwdriver, sledgehammer and saw). I'm quietly enjoying this destructive phase, and so is Billy, especially the grunty stuff. Peter has burned the old units in a couple of big fires, along with several of the remaining old bathroom fittings that had been cluttering up the carport. A new free-standing island and bench are tentatively in place, a gorgeous butler sink is awaiting its stand, and a dishwasher (yes, finally!), washing machine and cooker are stored in the garage. We can't do much more until we get a date for the floor to be fitted, optimistically mid-January, but we'll almost certainly have to be patient with Covid delays.
Derryn and me have jointly bought an electric honey extractor, and we had a lovely afternoon in the fine company of Jo and Caroline, extracting some of her very early honey. There isn't a word for the OMG sweet deliciousness of newly harvested honey, but it was absolutely amazing and absolutely required washing down with beer. No fingers were lost in the extracting of that honey, so Health & Safety must have been adequate. I'm hoping to have a couple of full honey boxes of my own when I next look.
The womb is a heart-warming zone in which to relax and fish-watch, and a reminder that I really must get my A into G and get on with my formal hypnotherapy diploma. My tendency to creatively avoid getting my head into the portfolio is quite extreme, and it'll probably take a decent deadline to push me into action. Hmm, maybe I need a bit of hypnotherapy to address my block...
Christmas plans are slowly unfurling, and I'm relieved it'll be a quiet and relaxing old Christmas this year. A bit more Marlborough sunshine would be great, pretty please.
