Tuesday 29 January 2019

A Few More Visitors To The Farm And A Few More Tasks Behind Us.

After New Year my Brother  contacted us to let us know that he  would like to come to the Farm from Sydney for a short visit.
He occasionally comes to see us and Brian always tries to accomplish  a few jobs while he has the extra set of hands.
The first thing they did was to remove an old apple tree that in 16 years has never produced an apple bigger than a golf ball  on the very rare seasons that it has actually fruited.
The uprooted apple tree was placed over the fence for the sheep to strip ,which they proceeded to do immediately.
There  had been a hump in the front yard where pipes used to run to a collection tank  and once that tank was relocated the pipework was no longer required.
As Brian dug down he  found 12 rubber car tyres, pipes and a railway sleeper.


The area was leveled off,  and Brian seeded the area with  grass seed.
Due to the severe heat and low rainfall  we currently have Brian has been drawing a pod of water regularly from the river which he has been spraying onto the newly seeded area and  some also onto the gardens when possible.
Sadly the  grass hasn't taken very well even  with the regular watering,due to  the extreme temperatures that we have been regularly experiencing,
and  also that we had to leave the farm for a few days have all contributed to it's failure. We will try again once these horrible hot days  come to an end.
While my brother was here we visited town  and called into the hotel for a few drinks  and a catch up  with some  people my brother hadn't seen for a while.
When I went out back to the beer garden enclosure , these beautiful feathered friends were  getting a drink and a feed that the publican  had placed out for them.
Mother Nature is so cruel  at the moment and  the animals  are  doing it very hard  so every little bit helps .We are also leaving containers of water around for anything that needs a drink.
Brian has now fixed the useless leaf strainers that we had installed into the down pipes of the gutter system as they were constantly blocking and allowing the water off the roof to pour out and be lost.
The solution of a sleeve inserted into the down pipe is not overly pretty but with our last small storm and 11 mms of rain we received all of it was fully harvested with no waste.

 I have been cooking  some more of my  individual portion controlled meals for the freezer and also made up a couple of batches of spinach and ricotta sausage rolls also for the freezer.
They are handy for when we have vegetarian guests or just for anytime finger food snacks with drinks.
 

Brian has been doing a few lawn mower repairs as there hasn't been much use for them over the last 6 months or so, but this week they actually got to be used as the few storms that we had have  finally produced some grass albeit scattered and patchy.
I have painted a clear textured anti slip lacquer onto the timber slatted mats that Brian made for around the backup shower that we built up in the back shed.
We installed  a shade cloth blind  on the front verandah in conjunction with the clear plastic blind that was already there to make a slightly more protected area  for some of  my potted plants to survive the heat in. It makes a good shaded little area.
Our blended family of guinea fowl s are doing well with the two Mum's doing a wonderful job of raising their 16  babies.
Our mother cat is settling in well and making herself right at home.
We have decided to keep the female kitten so that they are good company for each other, we still have to arrange to have the kitten  desexed in the near future.
We did a spot of babysitting this last weekend, our next door neighbours had to travel away so they asked us to look after their sweet little Spoodle called "Princess"
Brian and Princess were inseparable and she decided that he made a good substitute for her dad.
An old friend  and just up the road neighbour from Newcastle contacted me and asked  if she and her boys could  catch up in the holidays as she was working in a nearby town teaching swimming lessons, and we happily agreed.
Clare had never been here before but her two boys had, many times with their grandparents  who used to come here regularly ever since we have owned the farm. Sadly we lost Ken but Pat still comes quite often to visit with us and is due to  come again soon.
When the boys were here one Spring many years ago we took this cute picture of them on our back steps.
Of course as soon as the boys arrived, much to their dismay I wanted to re-create the photograph, and here it is.
I think they look so sweet, I told them that even when they are adults and they return we will  do this again and again....
We went for a wander up the hill behind the house to show them the great view towards the Warrumbungles and Siding Springs Obervatory.
After we came came back down the hill we also checked out the beautiful sandstone  rock face behind the house where there a couple of small caves.
It was so lovely to catch up with our visitors, the boys are growing up well  and are now happily living on the north coast, having moved north about the same time as we moved  full time to the farm. Hopefully they will all return again before too long.
We are struggling with this  extended period of high temperatures, we get done with our outdoor tasks early in the day and then hibernate inside under the evaporative  roof  air conditioner  until is is bearable enough to go back out.
We have been keeping busy and the days have passed quickly, January is almost over and I just can't see where it went.
There is always something to do, life is certainly never boring or dull.
 So until we meet again,
 take care of you and yours,
Cheers,
Jane and Brian.


Saturday 5 January 2019

And Life At The Farm Returns To Normal.

Now that Christmas and New Year celebrations  and gatherings are now over, life here at the farm has returned to normal.
When we returned from the coast we brought a box of plums home with us and quickly  turned them into plum sauce.
The smaller amount of bottles on the right is chilli plum sauce, something that I haven't tried before and the group  on the left is normal plum sauce.. I am hoping that  I will sell some of this at  a future market stall.
We also  bottled the plumcots that I had stored in the fridge over Christmas as they were too green.
Brian dug up our small crop of garlic and picked the first  of the jalapenos,
We decide to pickle the garlic this year to see how that goes. Last year we pressure canned  them with limited success, we will see how this goes and if not great ,next year we will dehydrate the crop.
I saw on a preserving page I follow that somebody  pressure canned  cubed zuchinni and thought it would be worth a try. I think it will be handy as a "last minute vegetable to throw in Soups or casseroles, or hidden  into spaghetti bolognaise.
Brian and I have been trying to eat a little more sensibly so I have been cooking up piles of portion controlled meals for the freezer and also trying to have a good variety to chose from.
This one  was chicken meatballs/pasta in tomato sauce with a sprinkle of parmesan cheese.
Below is another one of the meals, chicken kiev and vegetables.
We finally had to bite the bullet this week and purchase another one tonne bag of sheep pellets.

The price had risen dramatically in the six months since we purchased the last bag paying $565 for the first one and $770 for this identical bag.
The sheep have done extremely well on them so that was a big factor in our decision to purchase more.
The bees have required a little extra something too so we fed them some sugar water in a 2 to 1 ratio to keep up their energy levels.
Two of our Kurrajong trees had an infestation of mistletoe , so Brian took advantage of a visit from our son to get in and lop the trees.
The mistletoe was beginning to take over the trees.
The sheep love the Kurrajong flowers  and are always grazing under the trees as they fall.
The boys lopped it  back quite hard,

The sheep raced in  to eat the leaves , The ram,Vladd The Impaler was first in, as always.
They just love it, as I went for a walk about 7.30 pm they were still there munching away,
and then when I returned an hour or so later, they were still there .
The day before yesterday we had a sharp storm pass right over with lightening and thunder crashing around and then the heavens opened and we had a heavy fast 22 mm of rain.
It poured over the roof gutters,
and our down pipe strainers couldn't take the force ,
and it flooded all over the back verandah.
It washed everywhere and you can see how bare the place was  after it was all over.
It was beautiful rain, we still managed to catch quite a bit in our rain storage tank, our supplies are slowly building up again.
This morning we were up really early and Brian let the poultry out a little earlier than usual( we found two foxes prowling around the other day, one was stealing guinea eggs from a nest in our house yard and the other was after the young turkeys up near the poultry run, both were chased away after Brian took a shot.)
The turkeys did their usual  roam around but after the rain and in that early morning light the paddocks looked deceivingly green.
They then decided to check out the Kurrajong tree remains,
They scratched  around there for ages.
Our kittens are growing,  the second one will go to it's  forever home this week, and we have decided to keep number three and have her desexed.
We had the mother cat desexed a few days ago and have decided to keep them here together for company for each other, but decided to be sensible  and make sure there will be no more kittens.
They are such sweeties, but total time wasters.
It's been a busy week, but we feel we got a fair bit accomplished, We want to get ourselves ahead as we have the grand kids coming to spend some time here in a weeks time which we are looking forward to.
Until we catch up again,
Take care,
Cheers,
Jane and Brian.