The Last Few Weeks.

We have been keeping fairly busy on the farm  the last few weeks.
One of the main things we tackled was to make chicken/turkey sausages. We once again had a surplus  of rooster, extra hens, and turkeys   and so we had a processing day. We chilled the birds for the day and then we began portioning and separating what we could and couldn't use.

We then minced that all up with our trusty mincer/grinder.

We added all our herbs and spices, garlic, thyme, Italian herbs, rosemary,ginger, dehydrated  grated zuchini, pepper  and then the meal  mixed with some home made canned chicken stock that had been chilled.

This mix was then chilled for several hours before being put back through the mincer with a finer blade.

After chilling again it was then put into the sausage filler chamber, skins  fitted to the appropriate spout  and  with a few turns of the handle by Brian, and presto ! we had sausages.

We have made two batches of  these sausages in the last few weeks and these photos are a mix of the two lots. Batch 2 was much better and the final product the second time was much better.

Our first attempt at tying and looping the sausages was  above and after some viewing of you tube our  skills certainly improved.
After 24 hours to set in the refrigerator we  barbequed some for our lunch.

Even if I say so myself, they were really nice and with some homemade coleslaw, lunch was delicious.

The first batch produced 9 kgs of sausages and the second batch below yielded nearly 23 kgs.

In some of the last rounds we added cheese and also some  cheese and chilli.
I  headed away for a couple of days,to meet up with my sister to spend a bit of time with our elderly mum who had had a tumble.

Mum  was lucky, no broken bones, just a few scrapes, black eye  and bruised pride. Mum will be 94 soon , so any fall is a reason to worry.
While I was away ,Brian installed two new round stock water troughs that we had brought from our daughter and son in law's place when they move house and no longer needed them. It will mean that we can now  isolate sheep into paddocks as all paddocks now have a water supply. This is also useful practice for worm control.

Vlad the Impaler , our daughter's ram has settled in extremely well, we can't move without him being right there beside us, and always has his head in the bucket even when it is empty, he really is a sweetie.

Brian has also been doing some building up in the  outdoor bathroom,converting a useless space into a second shower room for us for when inclement weather makes the solar inefficient for when we have guests. Normally the solar is enough for us even on cloudy days.

We have a flat shower base to install and are thinking we may line the walls with stainless steel sheets( after waterproofing.)
We have had a few small showers of rain  and  the fruit trees in the orchard are blooming, we have sacrificed a lot of other garden in favor of keeping the fruit trees  as they are much harder to have to replace if we loose them .

The other area that is doing well is the succulents and gazanias across the front of the house, these are kept watered with the grey water  from our  washing machine.

We recently had a small gathering to celebrate my Sister in Law's birthday , I made a big carrot cake which was  quite tasty but slightly on the large size and had to send  some home with our guests. We had a lovely night .

I have been wasting a massive amount of time sitting with my camera , patiently waiting for good shots of the beautiful birds that frequent the apricot tree right outside our dining room window and outside my kitchen window.
The Rosella's are nesting in a box  that we placed under our eaves for them.

The Blue fairy Wrens(I think also known as Superb Wrens) are favourites of mine.

 I have been told these cute  little fellows below are called Striated Pardolotes,

All these cuties are nesting around our house, I just adore watching and listening to them whistling, calling and cheeping around the place,  but what beautiful time wasters  they are.
We have had a  lovely few days away this week( I am updating this post at our  escape destination)  I will endeavour to update about  our small holiday  during the week as I get some time.
So until we  catch up again,
Take care of you and yours,
Cheers
Brian and Jane.