Christmas was certainly considerably busier than last year - both quiet and busy are enjoyable, especially when everyone is chilled and busy-ness activities are shared. Alister's easy company brought the total to 8. We'd put names in a hat and each person got one present for another. That cut costs considerably and helped to focus more on just relaxing and pottering. We switched egg roulette and a water fight for a sack race and egg-and-spoon race, in which dubious methods were used for victory. Gladys took assorted groups out on successful fishing trips and one day they brought back a huge bag of green-lipped mussels which we ate the same evening. Amazingly even more delicious when so fresh.
As there was no room at the Inn, Sam and Molly bunkered down on camp beds in the Womb With a View. Greyhound Lexie takes up quite a bit of space so she bedded down in our lounge, and lodged with us for a few days after Christmas when Sam and Molly walked the Queen Charlotte Track. Apparently greyhounds only sleep with their legs up like this when they feel safe!
Sam and Molly helped dig up the flower garden elephant garlic one very wet day. These garlic plants must be self-seeded as I've never knowingly planted them, nor the potatoes, tomatoes, and parsley that also pop up among the flowers. It was quite a crop, and adds to an overall fantastic garlic season - even the ones I actually planted have done well. Some have been peeled, sliced, and dehydrated then blitzed to make garlic powder, a very handy ingredient for the days when you don't have much time.
Flowers continue to brighten and invigorate the garden. The abundant dahlias have taken off and are putting on a huge and delightful spectacle everywhere you look. The Abutilon bush is now towering high - a perfect height to enjoy the hundreds of vibrant orange flowers and the constant stream of bumblebees that call by. The pretty pale-yellow Scabious with its ferny foliage is flowering its little heart out in the half-wine barrel. It feels like every day there's another outburst of colourful joy to behold. Beautiful.
Stonefruit is having a really crap season, and not just at our place. The crazy wet weather we've been having is probably the culprit as crops all over the country have been affected. There are a few damsons and plump Hawera plums and even fewer greengages (nooooo!), no peaches, and no Black Doris plums. It's gutting on the one hand, but on the other, maybe those trees could use a more restful season without prolific fruit production. Cider apples are also having a bad year. Cooking and eating apples, and pears of all kinds are the only orchard crops that are really enjoying themselves this year. 
Grapes are swelling and we'll have to decide whether we'll bother with netting them this year. We've had mixed results in the past, but this is quite a good crop so may be worthy of a little attention.
Weeds are having a ball, as usual. The floods that we've had in the last two years have significantly increased the pasture weed load, and that's pretty depressing as it's a lot of work to sort out, whichever way you do it. I spent a miserable afternoon hand-weeding out the willow weed from the orchard where it was threatening to take over, especially along the new trench. As it's a waterway, spraying with chemicals wasn't the answer, but big patches elsewhere on the property will have to be sprayed. So will the thistles that are more abundant than grass in places, and other new weeds which may be problematic. We managed to keep the hay paddocks relatively clear of thistles, and that was a big enough task. It's an issue that most of our neighbours are struggling with too.
Molly spotted a plant that had been one of her childhood foods. It's called purslane and apparently is so nutritious, it's a super-food. To the untrained eye (mine), it's a bloody annoying weed that infests the driveway and vege garden. Molly carefully dug up some prime samples (of which there were many to choose from), potted some up, and cooked the rest with garlic and soy sauce. And actually, they were pretty good, a pleasant surprise to us all. Alister shared that he'd never before had weeds for Christmas dinner, so a brand-new experience for him.
Madame Cholet, despite a big hole in her roof that should have been patched up months ago, is doing a great job of tending the tender plants. There are a few sweet little rock melons forming and cucumbers for Africa, mainly from one Lebanese cucumber plant, but also a telegraph cucumber also getting in on the fruiting action. The gourd that sprouted from the compost that I couldn't bear to dig up, is taking over as anticipated. Its long fronds are being guided to a less sunny corner and generally, it's behaving. There are several spectacular gourds forming and heaps more of its frilly white flowers indicating that there are a few hundred more on the horizon. I thought it probably wouldn't like the heat of the tunnel house but turns out that was wrong. My main oversight with letting it stay is that gourd foliage is killed off by frost. Not in the tunnel house it won't, so it's pretty experimental territory...
Tomatoes are just coming on tap and are adding their beautiful flavour to the salads that are eaten most days. Beetroot leaves, beetroot, spring onion, silverbeet, spinach, Korean radish, rocket, lettuces, and those rampant cucumbers are available every day. Not something I'm tiring of yet. The whole process of gathering and chopping the salad veges is a real blessing and a pleasure.
Other veges, like outdoor beef tomatoes, corn, pumpkin, caulis, carrots, beans, onions, and leeks, are coming away nicely. A small number have been swamped by weeds when I've left it too long, but the weeds have also provided a good service keeping the blazing sun off the crops (on the days we've had sun). Laura, with a little help from Woody, has also been proudly harvesting away, as well as providing her bespoke garden fairy duties.
Hay-making finally happened after a long delay caused by too much rain. The hay-maker had planned to come mid-December, but the weather-scuppering postponed that by a month. He's a new hay-maker for us and the bales were really heavy. We were worried they may be a little wet but turns out he compacts hay much more than others. Usually, there are 10-14 sheets (the correct term) of hay per bale, but he does 20. No wonder my shoulders still haven't forgiven me. Luckily we had Lucas and Billy around who valiantly gathered the lion's share. Peter, me, and Laura were mainly on stacking the 139 hefty bales. As always, it's a good feeling of self-sufficiency to get hay stacked.
Another good feeling is getting firewood stacked. George got access to a huge gum tree on his golf course that had its main limbs chopped. They've been slowly working away, chain-sawing chunks and bringing them home to split. Gum wood is very solid and heavy, and makes excellent long-burning firewood. For the same reason, it's also a nightmare to chop and split. Peter's made some headway on the smaller chunks, but we may need to get hold of a gruntier splitter to complete the job.
Kratos the calf is making good progress, despite sharing some of his mum Nike's milk with Triton. Triton's mum Pandora has never fed him, and we have no idea why. He's managed to get a few feeds by sneaking up behind Nike. She seems to tolerate this sometimes, and other times he gets a swift kick. The coming-in-from-behind position is not only risky from a being-kicked perspective, but he also gets literally shat upon and is often sporting a brown head. Poor mite. Peter feeds him milk daily, and he won't take it from anyone but Peter. Mostly he takes the full volume, but not always. We're guessing it depends on how much he's managed to grab from Nike. By the end of the month, he won't need milk feeds at all, so it'll be up to him to charm Nike or be very devious if he wants some.
Lucas and Laura are working silly hours, hopefully making their own hay money as the sun contracts shine. Charlie and Woody wander around, generally being cute and guarding the place. Billy's still working with Peter but he'll have to make different plans when his contract comes to an end in March. Sam's doing a 3-month army training course, possibly being a real soldier rather than relying on his trumpet as a weapon. Peter is on serious countdown to retirement - 7 months to go. And I'm just carrying on carrying on. I've finally got enough content for my antenatal classes to advertise. I had to re-brand as someone else had snapped up the name I was going to use - serves me right for procrastinating too long. 'BirthSpiel - a mind and body approach to pregnancy and birth' is now live (as of 2 days ago). No social media yet, and I'll only go that way if I have to. I'm optimistic, probably naively, that word of mouth will be enough in this small community.
Auntie Sally will be heading over for a NZ holiday next week - a happy surprise request that we're delighted to accept. We're stocking up the wine for you Sally! We're hoping that her visit might just coincide with some kind of proper summer, which has mostly eluded us this year.
Over and out for another month in paradise 😄
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