My new name badge has arrived for work… I have just last week started a new position on the paediatrics ward. I love looking after children and their families and can foresee much study and the gaining of new skills in the next couple of years.
There’s a new cushion cover waiting for me to stitch today. I have grand notions of making a series of cushions with animals from our farm. Maybe …
Every time I visit the kitchen garden – usually several times a day – there are more sweet pea to bring upstairs – heaven! And Julian has promised to build me a permanent sweet pea bed next year with a sturdy metal trellis. Oh imagine how many sweetpeas there will be then!
I’ve finally taken paint to my rough sketch on the pantry wall. My little farmher is definitely channelling her inner Strega Nona. That’s okay – I’m very fond of Strega.
Jammy toast and creamy coffee before venturing out to tend to all our animals. I so love my coffee, I look forward to it from the moment I go to bed the night before!
My auriculas are loving this sunny sunny corner of the porch … everyday I carefully look for signs of their long flowering stems. Not yet. Surely soon. Just have to get the Auricula theatre my talented friend Terry so beautifully made for me up on the porch. Alas it is sooooo heavy and we never seem to get around to it when Julian is home.
Spring is so close! Always the first to bloom is my sweet almond tree . This year we are DEFINITELY NETTING so as to enjoy not just her pretty popcorn flowers but her actual nuts as well.
First out, the honking geese … they will surely start laying soon and hopefully this year, their eggs will be fertile and we will have dear little goslings marching around the garden. Apparently their first year of laying is a dummy run so fingers crossed.
The ducks do nothing by half. Life is thrilling and there to be seized in full quacking voice, so each morning, out they burst and off they run.
Book wisdom says to discard your dirty eggs. Ducks always look pristine but are right dirty little buggers. If I heeded this rule, we would never eat a duck egg! So instead I was them quickly in skin temperature water with a wee bit of environmentally sensitive dishwashing liquid and dry them on a tea towel on the kitchen bench. All good.
My first delphinium is blooming. Do I cut it and bring it inside to stick in with sweetpeas or leave it to admire in the garden. What would Gertrude or Vita do? I shall have to check.
Where’s my carrot!? Honestly, ponies are worse than dogs when it comes to eating. Everything is fair game including my pockets and fingers.
Noah and I finally collected our bunches of Privet berries for dyeing wool. Alas today there is no power or water so they will have to wait. Of course I know to be super careful with these berries as privet is both toxic and very invasive … but I have great hopes for the blues and greens that we will cook up!
This girl is sitting on a large clutch of eggs. Common sense – or fear, Julian and Noah – says we should move her off and put them in the incubator ’cause last year which ever hen it was – all the Plymouths are called Helen because I can’t tell them apart – killed each chick she had. Eek! Their dear little heads were all pecked in. But I’m hoping that was youthful immaturity and this year – if I move this girl into her into her own little house on ground level in the chook run with easy access to food and water – this girl will live up to her breed’s reputation and that won’t happen …
The bottom scrapings of the pea and ham soup pot will grow good eggs. The chickens and turkeys agree.
These little piggies are the noisiest of my four legged children. And the funniest.
Good morning to you too Bridget! She doesn’t really like me that much … just wants her Lucerne NOW.
These here sheep reckon they need Lucerne too. Every morning they tell me how starving they are … yet the fellows at the stock feed tell me no sheep ever starved in the Bega Valley. I just don’t know who to believe …
Our newly planted cypress hedge saluting the sun. I hope they grow as fast as their labels promise.
There’s definitely A Tale of Two Bad Ponies to be written. Tooticky is frantically stuffing herself with the sheep and cow Lucerne as I wheel it down to them. Lucerne is to ponies what red cordial is to hyperactive children … Do you know what I caught the ponies doing yesterday? Squatting under the quail house and bumping it up and down with their shoulders so as to spill the quail food all over the ground so they could then gobble it up! No wonder we go through so much quail food.
Dear Babette … she doesn’t think she should have to eat off the ground with the rest of them. Hand fed please.
And all of this was luckily completed – with water troughs filled – literally seconds before bang! The power was turned off for the day … again. Insert big deep sighs. So no painting or sewing or gardening or cleaning or listening to music etc etc etc.
But I shall not rant on about how much this annoys me … instead I shall write this blog post on my phone – a tad challenging so please overlook any strange errors – and look back at yet another morning spent having a marvellous time on our little farm here in the gorgeous Bega Valley where we get to live all that we dream of. With or without power … and water!
