A quick run down on the past 12 months. NO RAIN, well hardly any. Dry as a chip here. We had a terrible autumn with no where near our normal rainfall, a dry winter and then a horrible dry spring. Summer has been extremely hot and dry so far. What does all this mean? We have had to buy in feed for the animals. This has put nearly everything else on hold as it's using up nearly all of our little income. We have been progressing though, the 'wedge' paddock area is coming on, some fences finished and some well on the way. We've started on the poultry pens and will be putting up a round yard in this area as well. Looking forward to autumn (and maybe some rain) to start sowing improved pasture in these tiny paddocks. We had two great helpers here and they worked like champions on the fences in this area (thanks Trey and Carl) Our beautiful cows calved. We now have farm fresh milk and when I have time all the other goodies we love, yoghurt, cheese, cream and butter. We need to get our milking parlour built and a proper dairy set up before I can do much more with the milk. We bought a Surge milking machine from the US, my arthritis has stopped me hand milking :(, we are still working the bugs out as it's an old unit that needs work. My woodwork shop is started, I can't wait to get more done on it. Hopefully in autumn when the preserves are finished for the year. Most of my tools are still packed, it will be like christmas when I finally get to put them in the workshop. We've done very little to the house, it just never seems to be on the priority list. Maybe this year. Would be lovely to have stairs instead of the ladder and to get the spare room finished. We picked up a huge amount of insulation a while ago, once it's installed we should be able to keep the place cooler/warmer. We have only just started to rebuild our chicken flock (after the great chook robbbery). Hopefully we'll be hatching by the dozens next spring, well that's the plan anyway. The horses have had a rough year, one thing after another went wrong. We still don't really know what happened, I can understand them all losing weight at once but one at a time??? We have been told it was most likely a plant toxin, either in the hay or somewhere on the property. Then a serious lice problem on top of it..... All's good now though and they are starting to look good again. Equinox and Charlie (the first to get ill) are looking really lovely, Darcy and Sister are getting there, you can see them getting fatter everyday. Baby is still thin but I can see changes in her finally. We are going to find new homes for all but Charlie and Equinox, it's too big a burden on the farm to run 5 horses. As much as we love them as always the farm comes first. We've added a few more fruit trees to the orchard and they have done really well, the ones we planted a couple of years ago have given us good crops this year so far. I'm running late with the chores now so I'll end here. Hopefully I won't make it another year before another post.
Patricia.
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorPatricia... tinkerer, tailor, survivalist. Archives
February 2014
CategoriesCopyright.
All recipes and processes in this blog and on this site are copyright, feel free to print, copy or send to friends with acknowledgement of authour. This does not allow for use for profit without written permission. |