The Rain Finally came.!!!

We made a quick trip up to the farm this week as we had purchased a cool room. We had been  keeping our eyes open for one for some time and this one just happened along and was the perfect size  for us and was  within our price range that we had  allocated.

When we do our butchering up at the farm we usually do a couple of sheep  at a time to make it worthwhile, and now being able to hang the  carcasses for a few days  will make the meat taste even better. Also it will be  fantastic when we have large gatherings for keeping  food and drink cold. It will take so much pressure off my house fridge.
We will need to add a few more solar panels and an  inverter of it's own as we want to keep it on a separate  "grid" to the house.
When we arrived, there had been 26 mm of rain the night before, the place was still very bare,but we knew it would pick up soon.

Our next door neighbour(my husbands brother) has a better block down the road a few kilometers, and we keep a few of our sheep and a couple of cows there while the conditions are so bad on our smaller properties.  As we had driven  past on our way  to our place we had noticed a small new calf by himself, so after the brother in law  helped us to unload the cool room we went for a drive down to check it out.

She was a very sweet little calf, but sadly the first time mum was no where to be seen.We hung around for a couple of hours there  hoping that the Mum may  come back.We wern't

 sure which one it was and the boys did a bit of a scout around to try and identify her,meanwhile, my sister in law and I  had some very friendly horses  come up to say hello. They were lovely.

They eventually found the mother of the calf and decided to lock them up together  into the yards  so that she may begin to nurse him overnight. We raced home and got some hay for her and a big  container for water and left them overnight. That night we had three  storms pass over and we recieved another 27 mm of rain. Next morning the brother in law went to check on the mum and bub and they were ok, and the calf was still alive, but to my brother in laws shock, two of his best animals, a steer and a lovely cow were laying dead under a nearby tree, struck dead by lightening during the storms of the night, the tree they were under was smashed and charred from the lightening..
 And then the rain came again.

Just so lovely to see the tanks overflowing again...not all are full to the top, but most of them are.
Brian continued to hand

feed the sheep, as he hoped that by doing that , that the sheep  would have full bellies and may leave some of the new shoots alone for a couple of days...I think it worked a bit, they certainly seemed content. The babies born last month are growing, especially the singles. The twins arn't doing as well, but hopefully will pick up once there is a bit of green feed.

While we were up there, I also took the opportunity to sort out a few more preserving jars. I had purchased these green plastic stacking boxes from Aldi and had these shelves down in the shed holding used paint tins, so combined the two and scored myself  a  good new storage area for some of  the empties.

And speaking of green, within 48 hours of the  first lot of rain, we had beautiful new green shoots   all around the place. The photo below is on our front lawn,....I am so happy.
With a bit of luck, when we go up next I should be able to post some  photos of a wonderful green  farm, I certainly hope so anyway.
That final night we were there we had the most glorious sunset, we were in the kitchen doing the dishes and my husband pointed it out to me through the kitchen window, so I raced out and captured it's last golden rays through the trees as it was setting behind the rocky hill  on our boundary.

We headed home yesterday morning, back to the rat race, back to work and routine. Sadly when we arrived home we had a message from my Brother in Law to let us know that  the dear little brown calf unfortunately hadn't been strong enough to make it through the  second night and they had lost her.
So sad,I hope there is more success  with the others. They already have had 4 healthy calves, with  a few more still to  deliver, all we can do is hope for the best outcome.
So, until we catch up again,
best wishes to everyone,
Cheers,
Jane.

We have babies !!!

Since our last dry visit up to the farm, we have anxiously watching the weather, but alas we have had not a drop of rain in the last 3 weeks and we made the decision to make a hasty trip back up with a trailer load of  lucerne  hay for the sheep that we were able to purchase here in the Hunter Valley off a property near the river that irrigates.There is very little hay around  the farm area and what is there is ridiculously expensive, so it was cheaper for us to purchase some bales   on route and cart it  up there.

The sheep eagerly watched us arrive and waited patiently for Brian to unload the hay and give them some. Our next door neighbour does feed the hay out for us at regular intervals when we are away.

Our neighbour had sent us a message to tell us   that we had  babies, 2 single births and 1 set of tiny twins. we had decided to only put 6 ewes in with the ram as we were trying to  control our numbers,So far 3

ewes have had lambs, 3 still to go.They are just the cutest little babies.Looks like we scored three girls and one boy( but we left them alone and didn't do a closer inspection.

We really thought by this that we would have had some decent drought breaking rain, and under normal circumstances we would have done. So these mums and bubs will do it a lot harder  then they would have in normal times. Our neighbour has  agreed to feed out extra feed for them in our absence.
They were very grateful for the hay and  gobbled it up very quickly.

While were were there on our whistle stop visit I decided to spend a morning sorting out some of my  empty Fowlers Vacola preserving jars that I had stored down in the shed. They were filthy and in need of a different storage solution. So I washed them all up and sorted into sizes. ( We share about half of our empty jars with our neighbour(my husbands brother and his wife to preserve in as they have an orchard, but no preserving gear.)

I then had a thought.. we had an old defunct chest freezer and I mentioned to Brian that it may be useful storage for some of my jars.

This held about 110 jars, could've held more but I kept sizes separate. I put the bigger taller 4" jars in a pantry in my laundry room. Our Fowlers are a little more bulky than mason jars and therefore take up more storage room.My laundry room is already crammed full of empty and full mason jars.
While there we also decided to dig  the small potato crop that we had put in. We  suspected that we would get nothing much from it as  there had just been no where near enough rain, but even so were still disappointed with the outcome.

At least it is enough for a couple of meals. We realize that we are really at natures mercy  until we live at the farm full  time and can control the water situation onto the gardens.
Often as we sat on the verandah  or were going about our jobs, we would see the sheep standing at the fence, looking wistfully(or should I say enviously) at bits of green inside the yard around the shrubs where the water  drip system works. I feel really mean, but if you let them in they would devour any and everything in sight.

Also doing a lot of verandah guard duty is my blue mate Tilly, she sits a lot these days as she gets older. She has been suffering a bit of conjunctivitis in her eyes this week, We will have to keep a watch on her.

When we woke yesterday morning ,ready to head off, the sheep looked like they were relaxed and had full tummies.I never tire of this sight.

Brian threw out 2 bales of hay for them to make sure those mums with bubs had  a chance to keep milk up to those precious bundles. It looked like they were taking turns at baby sitting. At this point the mum with the tiny twins seemed to be watching after all four babies.

As  I was shutting the gate at one point I noticed that the sheep are cutting deep ruts into the dry ground., Brian said he will run the ripper along them when we return next time ,to make the sheep walk around them to reduce further damage to the paddocks.

We said  farewell to our little place for the time being, hoping to return for a month long stay(which will be wonderful) in about 4 weeks time. Hopefully there will have been rain by then.
On our trips to and from the farm we always stop at the same spot. It is a four hour run, so we stop roughly halfway off the road in the pretty spot to give Tilly a toilet break and a run around while we have morning tea/lunch/afternoon tea, depending on time. We really love this spot, nearly always green no matter how dry it is, and it has these two really unusual rock formation. Totally natural and apparently only seen in a couple of places in Australia. This off road picnic area is called "Battery Rock"

As we got nearer to home at an old disused service station, we noticed a pile of 1000 litre plastic water cubes for sale, so we called in.(we have been looking for some more of these locally and at a reasonable price but hadn't found any)We decided to purchase 4 of them at $75 each and loaded all four up onto our empty trailer and strapped them down. We have brought them back to the coast and will take 2 at a time up to the farm at a later date. Our next trip up will probably  require us to take up  another load of hay.

So , hopefully  there will be rain soon,(nothing predicted though for the next week), But who knows, Mother Nature works in mysterious ways.
So until we meet again, hope everyone stays healthy and happy,
Cheers,
Jane.

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.