Winter ,what a lovely time of the year!

I just love winter up at the farm, I am not a summer person at all and the older I get the less and less i am  liking summer. Give me winter anytime.
There is nothing lovelier than laying in bed watching that low winter sun rise up  over a snow white  frost covered front lawn and watch it slowly melt  and everything come to life. We take our early cuppas out onto the front verandah and sit and plan all the world events and days jobs while  we sit there.
Even though it is cold ,crisp and frosty  its just right.

This photo shows it about as cold as it gets, we have only ever had snow in our area twice in my lifetime, although we do get cold nasty winds that feel like they are blowing straight off ice some winters.(Those, I don't love quite as much). But when it  is cold and chilly we have a lovely warm fire inside that we keep burning day and night and the house stays warm and cosy

We have been having some issues with this old wood fire, it is  about 30 years old now and is having a few  smoke leaking problems so we will be replacing it hopefully by next winter with a  slick new  dual purpose wood heater/cooker. This one will be relocated into an outdoor area we are making, along with our old kitchen wood cooker (which is also having a few major age related problems) , so that our outdoor entertaining time can be extended more.We decided to combine the two  fires into one dual purpose cooker/heater to be more fuel efficient. Also with the old  wood cooker outdoors, i will probably do more of my canning and food prep out there too, instead of inside where we swelter in summer.When we finally get around to doing it(or should I say saving the money to do it) I will post  the photos on the blog.
While we were up the farm this week, we had a lovely surprise, one of our sheepy mums gave birth to a very tiny sweet set of twins.

They are so cute, I just love watching their funny antics, they frolic around,leaping and jumping and just having a wonderful time.I think they are both boys, we didn't touch them, we let them be, when we go back up in a couple of weeks, we will tag and tail and mark if needed.I have a real soft spot for the black headed ones.The Dorper breed comes in two varieties, all white and black heads.Dorper Mums are fairly quiet and friendly, and we keep them even more so by hand feeding a little hay each time we are there,so that they are easier to handle.
Each year my husband  tries to grow a little patch of extra feed for the sheep, and as we only have some basic equipment(we have a scarifyer,not a plough) and he broadcasts the  fertilizer and seed by hand, we have had varying success and failures over the years. What the drought misses, the flocks of our beautiful Galah( a pretty pink and grey medium sized bird) usually get and if we are lucky enough to get anything up the kangaroos usually nibble it all off.
One of these days, we will buy the correct machinery as we can afford it and do it better.......But.....This year  we got a crop. The rain came at the right time, and my husband decided to run the scarifyer over a second time after he had thrown out the seed and the birds left it alone. So the photo below shows our little crop of rye rye corn,, We are very pleased with it considering everything.

With a little more rain predicted over the next few weeks, when spring kicks in we may have a nice little feed crop for our sheep.
While we were there this time and that rain had been predicted we went and bought 8 extra bags of fertilizer and my husband spent two days walking around our little place  throwing it around every where, then we got the predicted half inch of rain the next day, so all is good.
We had a fairly quite week, did some canning, but mainly rested and relaxed as it's been a hectic few months and were just in  need of  the break.
So..on that note,
We wish  everyone well,
Until next time
Cheers
Jane from Aus.