May 2016

The valley appears to be recovering from the major fire of last year.  The burned trunks have been taken down, along with many others that were in close proximity to the road or to properties.  The damage to the road has also been fixed, so all up it’s a safer route in and out of the valley.  The photo was taken from the school bus stop, and shows a cluster of trees that went up in flames, and some that were spared by the work of the fire-fighting crews. 

After our recent lack of success with artificial insemination, and the inherent difficulties in working out which one is on heat when you have just 2 cows, we bit the bullet and got a new (and very charming) steer calf.  Arthur chose his name - ‘Dionysus’ (God of Wine – very appropriate thanks Arthur!).   He’s tiny in comparison to Athena and Hera, but then they are quite robust beasts.  They haven’t been altogether friendly to him, which came as a surprise as previous introductions to the herd have been sweetly welcomed.  Perhaps they’re enjoying the post-Zeus era and aren’t keen on ‘cowtowing’ to another male.

The main flower garden is still colourful, with autumn colour adding to the overall palette. The gingko is in its beautiful buttery yellow glory, and the bottlebrush plant from Lucas has been flowering its little heart out.   I’ve been reluctant to tidy up the flowers too much, so that the bees can make the most of the remaining supplies.  Millions of Forget-me-not and Poached-egg plant seedlings have come up – it’ll be interesting to see what the cold weather does to them as the season progresses.  That’s a fine excuse for not getting round to weeding and mulching.  The sign, made by Peter and Billy, tells it as it is.

The end of the fruit is nigh, but it’s still possible to find the last remnants of figs, quince and raspberries.  There are even a few feijoa on the very young trees in the horse arena.  Our neighbours, Shona and Craig, have had a bumper feijoa crop, so a couple of buckets-full have kindly come our way in exchange for honey and pumpkins. 

The veges are also doing nicely, and we’re cropping the usual wintery suspects – carrots, brassicas, spinach, beetroot, onions and some baby leeks.  There are still a few tomatoes in Madame Cholet to be harvested, and some celery which will be chopped and frozen for soups.  The veges at the seedling stage are also growing up, including Karyn’s plantings, which are now beautifully weeded so are no longer lowering the tone of the vege garden.  My parsnips still haven’t shown up, though my carrot tops are bigger than hers! 

The main raspberry and boysenberry bed has been weeded, pruned back, next year’s shoots tied up, nourished with horse poo and mulched with clover straw.  It was quite a mammoth task involving multiple arm scratches and prickles in fingers, but by ‘eck it’s great to get it done, and it looks good.  Karyn provided the technical know-how and I did the donkey work.

Other keyhole beds in the vege garden have been similarly bedded down for winter.  I made a unanimous decision to get rid of the repeating onions (not their real name which eludes me) that I like the thought of but never use, and also the Jerusalem Artichokes.  They’ll come back next year of course, but only 3 or 4 will be allowed to grow - and not the 15-20 that popped up this year.  As the only member of the household who enjoys them, the smaller quantity will suffice.  Apparently the stems make good kindling, which I’ll try to remember next year - ideally before putting them on the compost.

The low hedges in the vege garden are ready for their end of season trim, as are the other teuchrium hedges around the property, and in need of its first clip, the burgeoning korokia hedge along what will be the new pig run.  Most of the horse arena beds are manured and mulched, hurray.  The feijoa and strawberry bed needs similar attention but the strawberries will have to die down a bit more before it’s safe to cover them.  Their autumn colour is stunning – something I’ve never really associated with strawberries before.  The blueberries and the persimmon tree have also been spectacular, as have several other trees.  Perhaps it’s just a particularly gorgeous autumn for leaves, or maybe the blue skies of this record-breakingly sunny autumn are providing the perfect backdrop for the reds and oranges.

The sheep are strolling around, doing their sheep thing.  They seem to be fine except for Leggy who has been heard coughing on a number of occasions.  We’ve never drenched the sheep, and their general good health over the last few years seems to have justified that choice.  So, sincerely hoping that we don’t end up with regrets (and without lambs) this year.  It’s too soon to assess if Leggy’s already done his job and impregnated the ewes, but it’d sure be a miserable winter without the pitter-patter of adorable, bouncing lambs.

It’s been a very cheesy few weeks.  The blue cheese that we made at Derryn’s a few weeks ago is fantastic.  Was fantastic.  Must have been the way I stirred the curd.  She got on a good old cheese-making roll, and I’ve been obliged to taste-test a range of cheeses including 2 blues, feta, camembert and Valençay.  They were well-matched with the zucchini and feijoa chutneys that were gifted in return for honey.  Must get round to some serious pizza making as the oven is back in action after the fire ban.

Our already much diminished fresh egg supplies have now totally dropped-off.  We were getting one beautiful huge egg most days, just enough for an occasional eggy-treat and for Yorkshire puddings with Sunday roasts.  Optimistically the hens are all moulting and normal service will resume in a few weeks.  Either that or they’re doing a sterling job of hiding eggs.  The chick looks to be a hen, so the current Cornelius can rest on his laurels for a while.

A familiar bluey haze along the man road could mean only one thing – sloes, and billions of them.  I couldn’t stop myself from picking way more than would be feasible to steep in alcohol.  Sloe picking usually involves a fairly moderate level of arm and finger gashing, but there were so many that it was possible to avoid the inch-long thorns by picking only those on the outside.  I’ve made as much sloe gin as I dare (in the interests of liver health and alcoholic reputation), but there are still a few kgs of sloes in the freezer for gifts (yes, that means you Hayley). 

There’s much speculation about what winter will be like, after many months of El Nino weather.  It’d have been a truly perfect summer if we’d been on holiday all the time.  We’ve had some rain, but the land still needs to be refreshed with more.  The first snow has fallen in the deep south, and the ski fields are beginning to open.  Winter’s knocking at the door; here’s hoping we can hang onto autumn for a little while longer. 

April 2016

The clocks have changed and evenings are all but gone.  We’re still getting glorious sunny days but the mornings and evenings can be a bit brisk, and there’s autumn colour in some of the trees.  The fire’s been lit for the first time, and the inaugural frost of the season (April 14^th) made for frozen spinach in the morning smoothie.  The grape vintage is in full flow so there’s a sense of busy-ness and the roads around Marlborough are clogged with vineyard vehicles. 

Lucas was home over Easter, and Karyn’s daughter, Emily was persuaded to come round and take a few family snaps.  They are to be used as a gift for Grandma and Grandpa Nick’s up-coming silver wedding anniversary which we cannot attend in person.  Emily managed to capture all of us beautifully, including Maggie.  Massive thanks Em, it was no mean feat to turn photo-phobic boys into models!

Only a few flowers remain now.  The cosmos are particularly enduring.  The ones in the photo are chocolate cosmos, which as their name suggests, actually smell of chocolate.  Every year I save the seeds of white cosmos flowers, but most of the seedlings are varying shades of pink.  The swan plant (aka the testicle plant) in the vege garden has flourished, but we haven't seen any monarch butterflies for whom it was planted.  The main flower bed has been weeded and is awaiting its thick layer of mulch in the form of clover straw.  I’ve got 30 bales ($6 each) which I’m hoping will be more than enough to cover most of the beds.  The raised beds in the horse arena were back-filled with clumps of weeds so need to have an organic matter boost.  The trees planted in them will be able to access good soil, but only when they’ve broken through the hard-core below.  That might take a while so a bit of extra nourishment won’t go amiss.  They’ll get horse poo topped with the clover straw and hopefully that’ll tuck them up well for winter. 

The citrus in those beds are now protected from the ravages of winter by frost cloth suspended from waratahs.  Hopefully it’ll hold out against the blustery nor’westers.  The citrus plants themselves are looking fine and healthy, if not a bit overwhelmed by the comfrey.  That should add extra nutrients to the soil and provide a bit more protection, at least until it dies back over winter. 

It turns out that the overgrown and non-producing raspberry bed in the horse arena is in fact productive after all.  A red glow, spotted by Karyn, led to the discovery of treasure in the form of autumn raspberries.  Large, sweet, juicy raspberries.  And there were more of this late-fruiting variety among the raspberries in the vege garden keyhole bed.  Other than quince, the fruit is pretty much over, so it was a very pleasant surprise indeed.

Karyn’s plot is in need of weeding, and is frankly, lowering the tone of the otherwise pristine vege garden.  That’s what I tell her anyway.  Her brassicas are doing well and she has surpassed herself with carrot germination, and even her parsnips are coming through – which is more than can be said for mine.  The pathways around the keyhole beds were created from weed-mat covered in wood chips, and this worked well for a while.  In the last few months the wood chips have broken down considerably, and in many places are really saw-dusty soil in which the weeds thrive.  Keeping the weeds at a manageable level has become a massive task, so I’m probably going to have to remove the wood chip, re-lay the weed-mat and add gravel.  Better start shovelling and saving.

Our friends Jill and George have been around a few times.  I first met Jill in Greymouth, and that's a long story.  George has a bit of a chainsaw obsession and they've recently moved from a lifestyle block in Invercargill, to a residential block in Renwick.  There isn't much call for 4 chainsaws on a residential section, so we've been the happy recipients of his skills. He's been working on the huge pine tree that was felled by the council because of its proximity to the power line.  Our medium-sized chainsaw wasn't up to the task.  There's plenty of wood, and it's great to share it like like this.

Peter has been monitoring the pond activity.  A few sweeps with the net revealed about 2 dozen tadpoles, all growing nicely though still without legs.  They were all in the trough pond, and we had been wondering why no fishy creatures seemed to want to inhabit the bath pond.  Plan D was to empty this pond, clean it and re-fill it, and it was gonna be a while before that reached the priority list.  Then Peter spotted some 5 inch whitebait and Billy remembered that they’d been added as small fry ages ago.  It’s likely that they’ve lunched and munched their way through the rest of the introduced pondlife.  Not the best outcome, but it is good to be spared from Plan D.

It’s still dry, but we have had some rain.  One day we even had puddles in the paddocks and I caught Hera and Aphrodite splashing around in them.  In the absence of high temperatures, the watering load has reduced significantly.  The citrus and olive trees usually get a weekly soaking, as do the winter vege crops.  They seem to be healthy and growing well so hopefully that’s enough. 

I managed to find good homes for most of the crab apples.  It just wasn’t possible to resist the urge to make crab apple jelly, but I did manage to keep it to a single-batch minimum.  Having biffed out several jars of previous-vintage jams, maybe I’m starting to get the hang of that moderation thing.  If only the same could be said for alcohol.  The various blackcurrant and plum concoctions now have sloe counterparts.  And there’ll be no avoiding Quince Vodka of course.  You can’t have too many winter-warmers.

The productivity of the property is ongoing and I feel extremely wealthy in terms of fresh produce.  I'm snacking on fresh figs, and have just harvested our first nut crop - chestnuts.  8 of them! Not much to write home about but at least the nuttery is getting going.  One chestnut tree and both walnuts have died, and it's a mystery as to why.  One of the walnuts has grown a shoot from below its graft.  I'm interested to see what grows so I'll wait and see for a while. 

Onions and pumpkins (crown and butternut) are ready to harvest, and now we've had frosts, the remaining tomatoes (hundreds of them) need to be picked. Pleasant tasks which will be done soon because they're pleasant. Jerusalem artichokes are probably ready too (they're flowering) but I haven't been brave enough to tackle them yet. Carrots, beetroot and brassicas are still going strong.  I'm looking forward to closing down the beds with the clover straw. Hopefully this'll provide a blanket for the soil critters as well as keeping the weeds down.

This is the best time of year for stunning sunrises.  The mist rolling down the hills and the sun gently burning it off.  It's truly delicious catching the early morning rays as they wake everything up.  The animal feeding round nowadays is just the chooks, and that's a great excuse to get outside and greet the day.  On a whim I decided to write the shopping list in French (actually pigeon-french because I couldn't remember much.  Billy added the last item. I think you can tell he didn't learn French at school.

March 2016

It still feels like summer, even though it’s actually been autumn since March 1st.  Daytime temperatures have remained mostly in the mid-late 20s, making gardening work challenging.  The best times to labour - early mornings and evenings – coincide with the sand-flies’ favourite times to graze.   Sunrises and sets are becoming increasingly spectacular as the season changes. 

The winter veges are planted out over 2 of the keyhole beds.  The other beds will be closed down with straw once they’ve done cropping.  One lucky bed is being rented out to Karyn, who doesn’t have space for a vege garden at home.  It means that the carrot-growing stakes have never been higher.  Of course, I’m in it to win it, and have a distinct advantage in terms of my direct access to the competition.  We’ve used different techniques to sow the seeds, and different varieties, so bring it on.  Let’s see who takes the crown.

Vegetables are cropping beautifully, and apples and pears are on tap.  There are 6 varieties of pear – x2 Nashi (on a double grafted tree), Conference, Packham and the 2 pear trees that arch the entrance to the vege garden (Red Bartlett and Doyenne de Comice – I think).  Now I come to say it, 6 varieties of pear seems a tad excessive – are we spoiled by having so many pears?  Hopefully as the years go by and the pear volume increases, they can be extensively shared.  The peacharines are just softening, and the other peach varieties are beginning to blush.   And there are lots of medlar fruit this year – must find out what to do with them.  Then there are the crab apples and quince.  It’s quite a lovely problem to deliberate over how best to distribute and preserve them.

Last year’s dried tobacco leaves have been put through the spaghetti attachment on the pasta maker, and now resemble real tobacco.  It smells heavenly.  The plan is to use it in the cold smoker, but that would require us to actually have a cold smoker.  So far we only have a ‘virtual’ cold smoker, a mind-image, but hopefully it’ll materialise one day.  This year’s tobacco is flowering, so the leaves have been cut and are currently hanging from the clothes dryer in the living room.  I’ve left one of the plants so I can collect seed for next year.  I’ll be growing it in the flower garden as it’s such a gorgeous plant.

The herb garden has received a much belated tidy up and is now (temporarily at least) weed-free.  Lemon balm, chamomile and winter savoury have been added.  Allegedly the latter reduces the farty side-effects of Jerusalem artichokes – I’ll put that to the test and report on the findings later.  Herbs have been cut (parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme of course) and are drying alongside the tobacco.  Once they’re dry they’ll be blitzed into a batch of mixed herbs.

A small selection of sunflowers planted along the chook run are now massive heads of seeds.  They’re being gifted to the chooks, and the excess will be added to bulk out their commercial feed.  One of the hen mothers is back laying, but we haven’t got round to re-convening the whole flock yet.  Cornelius and his 2 current girls have access to the connected run, plus the luxury of a bit of free-ranging now that Peter’s not working night shifts anymore.  Cornelius’ cock-a-doodle-doo is rather penetrating and at close range is not altogether conducive to a good day’s sleep.

The flower garden is in need of a tidy up.  But despite the weeds and the dried out plants and seed heads, fresh flowers are still abundant and being visited by bees.  The dahlias are stunning this year, and it’s lovely to see them at their best this month when many others are winding down.  In the vege garden there’s a half barrel planted up with vibrant honeywort which I sowed from seed.  It’s bright orangey-yellow, showy and happy and will definitely feature in the garden in the future.  Another half barrel is full of cosmos.  It’s gorgeous too, but it’s totally overflowing the barrel and reducing the path access and the sprinkler range. I can’t bring myself to cut it down yet though.

I’ve finally felt strong enough to get back into the beehives.  One hive was healthy and busy but had not built up any more significant honey stores.  The other hive was full-to-bursting.  I took off the excess honey frames to free up hive space, so now have another 10 litres of premium honey to add to the original 24 litres of this season’s crop.  This honey’s every bit as delicious as its predecessor, making me a very proud beekeeper.  I hope the delectability of the honey reflects some of my bee-friendly planting.

I had nearly enough Broxwood Foxwelp cider apples to make a batch of Linda Hallinan’s cider.  Her recipe uses cooking apples, and happily there were plenty of Bramleys to make up the difference.  The cider uses wild yeasts only, and the 8 litres of apple juice was certainly delicious before being bottled and brewed.  I’ve named it ‘Shilke’s Shider’ in the hope that it’s alcoholic enough to live up to that name.  It’ll be ready for drinking in a few days.  Most of the remaining Bramley’s were made into apple pies.  Two recipes – one from Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, and the other an olde English recipe – were baked and blind-tasted in an apple pie-off.  Sam and Billy preferred Hugh’s sweeter and slightly fancier version, whereas Peter and me voted for the more traditional pie.

Lucas came home for a weekend visit and swapped cars with Sam.  Sam upgraded to a Mazda Familia, considerably newer than the slightly vintage Toyota Starlet that Lucas ended up with.  Both are happy with their deals – Lucas is better off financially and is pretty happy with the retro look of the Starlet.  Sam gets a more up market beast to take him back and forth from his daily studies.  While he was here, Lucas taught Maggie how to take selfies.  Quite a quick learner.

 Billy’s taking ‘Hospitality’ this year, and term one is all about cakes, scones and pastry.  None of his school-made creations have managed to reach as far as home yet, and he’s totally sick of me setting him practical hospitality homework.  I think he’s on hospitality strike at the moment (apparently he’d rather do maths than bake scones), so I’m laying off him for a while.  I’m hoping that next term’s project will be hot dinners though.

I’m gradually getting some energy back.  It’s enough to go to work and do a little pottering around outside, but not quite enough to sustain me doing all the gardening that needs to be done.  Mind you, it’s not that I’ve ever got on top of all of the gardening anyway.  It’s been another month when I imagined there would be very little to write about.  Yet here I am, rambling away about the mundane progress of our life on the land.  And still, there is no greater contentment and happiness than being immersed outdoors on the land. 

February 2016

The drought continues, though a recent couple of days of fabulous rain (and some not-so-fabulous wind), has been a blessed relief.  I had got to the point of considering a rain dance.  The moisture might have to last for a while though, as no more rain is on the long term forecast.  The ground is very very dry, and that’s knocked back the pasture growth.  Peter has been out and done some paddock topping of the dead, straggly grass, using the grass cutter attached to the car.   There still seems to be enough greenery underneath to keep the cows and sheep satisfied, though we’re moving them around quite often. 

Last years’ lambs, like their predecessors, were growing huge.  As the boys hadn’t been castrated, we didn’t have the leeway of waiting too long to get them on the menu, as they seemed to be sexually maturing.  The home kill man came and took 3 ram lambs from last year, plus the remaining ram from the year before who’d escaped the chop by accident (our mistake).  That leaves us with the 3 original ewes, last year’s ewe lamb and ‘Leggy’.  Carol and Karyn are having a lamb each, and we’ve sent one to the butchers for ourselves.  Peter’s butchered the last one at home.  Aside from a few choice cuts, he’s made lots of mince that will be made into lots of sausages.  Maggie loves being a butcher’s dog, but even she got full up!

Online lamb sausage recipes seem to be quite thin on the ground.  There are recipes that include rusk, though most suggest that breadcrumbs work as well.  In the past I’ve used breadcrumbs or oatmeal, as I couldn’t get hold of rusk.  Now I’ve discovered that rusk is easy to make – basically a biscuit that is baked and dried and then blitzed.  Rusk absorbs 1.5 times its own volume of liquid, whereas breadcrumbs only absorb their own volume.  As lamb sausages are fattier (at least they are when I make them), hopefully this will work well.  The rusk can be seasoned with herbs and spices which help hold the flavour in the sausage, rather than it leaking out with the fat.

Most of the soft fruit is done, though the blackberries are on a roll and I can still pick a few redcurrants when I trawl through the undergrowth.  Plums are go too, and in huge abundance.  I’ve had to think outside the square (well at least as far as alcohol) to find ways of using them.  Plum Schnapps was an obvious solution, so there’s a jar each of Hawera plums and the unknown variety that was already on the property (possibly Omega).  I came across a recipe for blackcurrant schnapps too, so that’s busy infusing alongside some stunning blackcurrant liqueur that was already made using a ‘River Cottage’ recipe.  Whilst foraging in the orchard, it was a happy discovery that the damsons were also ripe.  There are 3 jars of damson gin now, 2 sweetened with a little sugar, and the other with honey.  I couldn’t find any recipes that included honey at the outset of the process like this, so it’s an experiment.  It’s already looking murky, whereas the sugared ones are a glorious pink/purple and crystal clear.  Here’s hoping not a disaster.  Something tells me there’s going to be rather a lot of fruity liqueurs making their way into the pantry.  It isn’t even sloe or quince season yet.  It puts me in mind of a quote from a home wine-making book: ‘Five gallons are as easy to make as one, and last nearly twice as long.’

The other stone-fruits are maturing nicely.  Apples and pears are nearly there, though they’ve seemed nearly there for ages.  Every now and then I check out a few, but they’re still solid and with white pips, so a little more patience is required.  There are plenty of windfalls too.  The orchard trees have had some damage in the form of branches knocked off by enthusiastic sheep or blown down by the wind – creating a special treat for the cows in addition to the windfalls.  The pasture in there has been partly munched by sheep, and is generally overgrown and raggedy.  Optimistically it won’t be too many years before it comes right, when the trees form a canopy and the pasture growth can be grazed by sheep all year round.  In the meantime it’ll just have to be a case of beauty being in the eyes of the beholder.

The frogs have already produced tadpoles that are now a good inch long.  Peter captured another frog in the same drain at work, this time a juvenile.  It went into the old bath pond (rather than the stock trough pond which the older frogs have opted for) and has managed to survive the last few days.  So far so good.  The ponds are a joy, always a honey pot for wildlife traffic.  Insects are abundant and cicadas are loud.  Peter has put in Paradise fish and White Cloud Mountain Minnows - previously old fish tank favourites.  It’s mostly possible to spot some of them (even by me who’s usually less than observant).  The temperate White Clouds had overwintered in the half barrel-turned-pond in Madame Cholet before it got too hot in there. 

Only one chick made it, and is growing beautifully.  It’s in a run with its mum and Auntie – the other hen that went broody but none of her chicks survived.  We were going to move Auntie into the run with Cornelius and the other 2 hens, but she was skinny and bedraggled from her weeks of fruitless brooding.  There isn’t any animosity between her and the other hen and chick, and we thought it best to keep them together so that they can all be fattened up before being returned to the pecking order.  It seems to be working.  One day we’ll put them all back together, but no hurry for that.

Karyn has been a treasure and helped with some gardening whilst I’ve been incapacitated.  She even helped to tidy up the pumpkin patch – quite a big ask of a pumpkinophobe!  We chopped off multiple rampant tendrils, but are still left with more pumpkins than you can shake a stick at.  Madame Cholet was next on the list, and Karyn heroically hacked down some of the flowering plants that were taking over.  The compost heap has never been so beautiful, and there was hidden treasure in the form of ripe tomatoes and peppers which had previously been obscured by the humongous cosmos and marigolds.

Much of the 24 litres of delectable honey has been bottled.  It’s been put in old jars with their labels painstakingly scrubbed off, then labelled ‘Ti Kouka Raw Honey’.  It makes fantastic gift currency.  What was surplus to the jars was bottled in 1-litre Agee jars (x10 of them).  It can be used for topping up or in baking or mead-making.  It’s such a luxury to have unlimited honey.  It’s added to my foraged breakfast smoothie, sweetening the seasonal fruit, greens, nuts, seeds and home-made kefir.

I’ve managed to weed the paths between the beds in the vege garden, but the weeds are already re-establishing themselves.  I’m working my way through the beds too, but progress has been slow and the weeds are winning.   Among the usual weedy suspects are parsley, fennel, tomato and kale seedlings, springing up everywhere and making the task of weeding more enjoyable.  Where I’ve managed to do some clearing, winter crops have been planted.  Sprouts, celery, spinach and silver beet are in, with peas, cabbage, cauliflower and carrots still waiting for their slot.

Despite the weeds, the vege garden is pretty productive.  Carrots and corn are nearly fat enough to eat.  We’re picking beetroots, beans and courgettes, and a few varieties of brassicas and greens.  Managing to coordinate lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers is a triumph for me.  The melons didn’t come to anything (again), and though the aubergines are beautiful plants with gorgeous purple flowers, they haven’t fruited.  Must research this as I’ve never successfully grown them.  A few batches of tomato sauce are already in the freezer.  It’s interesting that the tunnel house tomatoes have ripened no sooner than those planted outside.  Maybe that’s more common in the hotter summers.

Whilst I indulge the Good Life here in paradise, it feels reassuringly cut off from the rest of the mad world.  The rise of Donald Trump right now is truly horrifying – why do so many people rank arrogance as a quality?  Thank goodness there are folk like Jake Bailey to restore our faith in humanity.  He’s head boy at a Christchurch school and was recently diagnosed with a very aggressive cancer.  His prize-giving speech went viral:  "Here's the thing, none of us get out of life alive. So be gallant, be great, be gracious and be grateful for the opportunities that you have."  Such wise and beautiful words, which were enhanced by the school principal’s observation that ‘humility is so much more powerful than arrogance’.  I’m deeply deeply privileged to have the opportunity to live this life on the land.  To be surrounded by beauty and abundance.  To love and be loved.  Now – what’s for tea?