In a family way..

Well the fencing is all done - tight, strong and partly electric.
And 2 weeks ago Pepper found her herd!

We welcomed sisters Flicker and Flamingo to our little community and they've been settling in well. They are pedigree Anglo Nubians and are around 3 years old.
Also, very excitingly they are both in kid! Since they have both had TRIPLETS before, I'm planning on the goat numbers swelling by 3-6 new kids.
I feel like an expectant mother myself, knitting baby goat coats and preparing a wee nest for the mamas and their babies.
Pepper is enjoying the company - although she seems to be the annoying hyper active teenager of the group. They are very affectionate and love a scratch and a snuggle and I'm slowly attempting to train F & F to the milking stand.
Of course my master plan is to milk both Flicker and Flamingo for the house, and I'm expecting around 4 litres a day at peak production. Who knows, I may even branch out into cheese!
Unfortunately I have to get the vet out to see Flicker tomorrow - I'm reluctant to man handle the girls since they are only 3-4 weeks off kidding, but her rear hoof really needs some attention.
I'm very excited about the arrival of the babies, but thank goodness the girls have done it before - my goat midwifery skills are pretty non existent at this stage!

Solitude

I saw this wonderful poem on the blog of my friend Erin and just had to share.
Oh how I long for solitude and alone-ness.....

Salsa Verde and Free Plants

It's been a whole month since I've updated here - life has just been so busy lately that I feel I'm only just keeping my head above water.
I'm studying (obstetrics and gynaecology) which is fascinating and challenging, but boy has it been stressful! I've been very proud of myself having broken away from a life time habit of procrastination, but homeschooling and life in general doesn't leave me with a lot of energy to spend the evenings studying and writing assignments. Anyhow this is the season we are in...

On the home front, we have exciting times ahead - well they excite me - so that's the main thing!
Our new paddock fencing is being done as we speak, in preparation to let Pepper roam free and also for our new arrivals (you'll have to check back in a few weeks to find out who!) I am busily foraging and scrounging to build things like hay racks and will also be converting part of our shed into a stall.

After a dismal chicken hatching episode we'll also be getting a few new recruits bought in to boost the numbers and hopefully egg production.

With all the various live stock related expenses, our budget for any thing else is basically $0 -and when I say budget, there was never a livestock budget. I've basically financed it all through Trademe sales (so I'm quietly very pleased with myself!) Unfortunately, I'm still wanting to do planting around the house and will also need some trees for the edge of a drain which will be re-fenced.

So this morning, whilst lamenting our lack of funds I began to cogitate on DIY rooting hormone - thus, I dragged my brood of children across the farm to harvest willow branches. Wizzing up the leaves and soft branch tips into a salsa verde looking concoction, I'm going to take some Buxus cuttings and try and propogate them myself.

The boys harvesting willow leaves.

Also on the grow (hopefully) are a number of different flax varieties that I stole/foraged a few months ago - they need to stratify in the fridge for a couple of months before planting, so hopefully they will take and I'll have some flaxes in a few months.
And last but not least were the trees I need for the drain edge. Whilst our fences have been down, I took the opportunity to harvest some of the Pittosporum seedings that have been growing along the fence line. They are now snuggly occupying one of the vege gardens, all ready to transplant to their new home one the fence is in place. So all in all, it has been a very productive day - hopefully I will see the fruits of my labour over the coming months.

Until next time x

What have we been up to?

Aside from the usual knitting, bike riding, on-going house renovations, animal care and schooling, we've been:


eating Easter chocolate


Making garlic bread


Making quince jelly from foraged fruits and tomato ketchup.


playing the cello, which is really challenging my aging brain!

Paper Power

As a child, I remember we used to go camping at the home of a family friend who lived in the Hokianaga Habour. One summer she employed my sister and I as child labour to clean her windows. To my surprise we used only newspaper and water but with only a moderate amount of elbow grease the windows shone.
So today, after frustration over fly spots on my new french doors, we went rummaging in the recycling bin.
I'm sure my grandmothers never used window sprays around their home, so why pay good money for something you can essentially do for free, and with the same amount of effort! I think newspaper is here to stay.

Tired eyes for him, tired eyes for me..

Sometimes, the days you are dreading turn out to be the sweetest.
Learning to stop, put the lists aside and recover, can bring such peace to a fraught day.



Whitetail spiders and sharks in the ocean - apparently.

Food Inc

If you care about where your food comes from, how it is produced/manufactured/engineered/grown, what it contains and who are the stake holders in the food industry, then you need to take a sobering look at the documentary Food Inc.

The film is American made (so much for land of the free!), and Lee and I came away from watching the film, primarily thinking - thank goodness for living in little ol' New Zealand.

By no means do I think that our food here is unadulterated by corn and soy products, don't contain a plethora of unhealthful ingredients or come from a highly mechanised system. But here our farmers aren't under the strangle hold of multinational corporations - see the film and you'll understand the extent to which these companies will crush and ruin the lives of producers who do not comply.
Our animals here, for the most part feel the grass beneath their hooves.
As private citizens we aren't under threat of litigation for saying something disparaging about a brand or producer, who are ultimately in bed with the powers that be and regulatory bodies.
We have freedom to grow our own meat and have it processed by home kill butchers - in the States there are a total of 13 abattoir (for the whole country) imagine if you dare, the mass production, complete disregard for the animals and the distance the meat travels to reach the end consumers.

This documentary is compelling, fascinating and terrifying all at once. Please watch it if you get the opportunity.