:: sheltered ::

As part of a Farming theme in Phoebe's Class 3 year, she has been experiencing 'shelter'.  This has stemmed from her own very strong desire to form shelters around the property and in the home, when the weather has not been very co-operative for such ventures.

pallet play platform under the old apple tree

So far, she has managed to get Aaron to rig up a very simple platform 'house' from pallets, directly under the beautiful old Apple tree.

She has another one in the gardens under a large, old, wild Rosemary 'bush', which she has shaped into an arching 'shelter' with the help of secateurs and imagination -this is her 'Spring cubby'.

her stick 'bender' - a temporary temple?

 And over the past few weeks, Phoebe has been creating - with my help - a stick shelter, using the available materials - in our case at the moment, this is fruit tree prunings, flax and bamboo.

embellishment

 

We have been looking through and discussing the various simple and ancient shelters in this little and informative book - Simple Shelters, by Jonathan Horning -  borrowed from the library.


She is curious as to whether some of the prunings might sprout and grow. 
Phoebe has been learning about lashing sticks together to secure the house.  She has been weaving busily with a variety of materials and methods, endless experimentation and embellishment.
Yesterday we planted 20 sweetpea seeds in the hope that they will grow up and fragrantly and beautifully cover her little stick shelter. 

the second smaller stick house being constructed

After the first little house was made together, Phoebe began a second smaller version, right next door, all by herself - the 'store', she says.
Once Spring has arrived and settled in, and the earth is a bit less wet, also in our plans is an adobe playhouse with a cement foundation, which she and Aaron will build together - she can't wait!

:: end of winter garden update ::

counting the millimetres of rain so far = too hard basket 

Northern end of the Mandala Garden

Southern end of the Mandala Garden

Here we are in the middle of August, after a particularly wet first seven months of being 'home'.  Not that I'd know for sure, as I've found the extra little job of dashing out in the morning to read and empty the rain meter just one thing too much and definitely sitting in the too hard basket at the moment.  I'm relying on the local farmers who tell us this is the wettest they've found the area to be.  Which has a bright side - if this is the wettest, surely, it can only get drier from here...?

The hens are still sitting on the bed just next to the one they started on back in February, patiently awaiting their relocation...maybe tomorrow?

To their right is 'the state of it all', in general - wet, sodden, puggy, dense, slightly smelly, clumpy and not terribly bad, just not the wonderful airy, loamy, worm-filled, crumbly, nutrient-rich, mulch-covered magical garden beds I'd been wishing for!

Each one is needing to be left as long as possible before planting into - just so wet and heavy.  The idea for planting into this system is for immediate transplant of super-sized seedlings in individual bottomless pots, so they would have a head-start and minimal transplant shock - well, this season that is just not happening!

 Having said that - here are some lovely-looking photos (partly because they are taken on a sunny day and I've only let you really see what I want you to see (HA!)) of what has been a success over the past few months.

triple-curled parsley

Gigante Italian Parsley

Of our greens, the lighter-leafed plants have fared better - so both types of parsley - the Gigante Italian and the Triple Curled are striding along very fervently at the moment.

coriander

Coriander is doing well and has done all through the Winter - and it was 'Indian Summer', a few seedlings planted at the last of Summer.

tatsoi + bumblebee

Tatsoi has pumped along, looking beautiful in its pleasing posy form - here a fat Bombus bombus (Bumblebee) is enjoying sitting atop the sunny Tatsoi flowers.

celery

The celery, although a bit slow, has been one of those marvels - I grew it myself! - I hear myself saying to myself out there in the garden.

swede

And, although swede and turnips may not be everyone's cup of tea - we have grown plenty of these, swelling to very decent sizes with all the rain, and our favourite recipe has been the 'Turnip Soup Italien', which seems a world away from boiled veg!

broadbeans

We have some very nice-looking broadbeans, standing to attention.

garlic

Garlic is in and all looking like it is surviving quite well, so I'm very happy with that, too!

Oats waving lushly in the sunshine

Spring is around the corner...

Overall,  given the very poor levels of sunshine and huge quantities of rain, consistent throughout the Winter, we've still managed to grow food and feed the hens and ourselves - I for one am certainly not suffering a lack of food!
Each sunny day is a gift we relish at the moment and a day closer to the real warmth and vigour of Spring - it feels as if it is only a sniff away at the moment...when the ladybirds get busy like this...Spring is definitely in the air...

How is your garden?

:: meet Stanley and Rosie ::

Stanley the Kelpie

 Serendipity has sent us two new, beautiful fur-children this week, in the form of adopting these two who were both needing to be re-homed.
Just as we were discussing our readiness to again enjoy being fur-parents to a dog, this perky gentleman-dog, named Stanley, happened to be needing a home, as his own family were moving to live in Seattle soon.
So, on Sunday we drove to Dannevirke and met his previous owners halfway, as they came up to deliver him from Wellington.

Phoebe decorating Stanley's Kennel

Stanley is a 5-almost-6 year young Australian Kelpie (the same breed as our old dog, Luke - still feels weird thinking of him as our old dog, gone now), who seems to be lively, happy and settling in very well, so far. It is a little spooky how similar he looks to Luke, although their personalities are different!

Rosie the Persian

And this is wee Rosie - she is a half-grown, probably pedigree tortoiseshell Persian cat - a kitten for Phoebe. Her owner is a Persian cat breeder, who is unable to sign this wee lass off as being pedigree, due to not witnessing the mating of her mother as a certainty and has ended up with a few cute extras she needed to have re-homed.  It didn't take us too long to decide to take Rosie on, once we saw her photo!
For Phoebe, getting a kitten is a long-awaited wish come true - and she seems to be beaming with bliss at having this beautiful new charge. There is lots to learn about looking after a kitten - wonderfully for us, she is toilet-trained!
Sue, the breeder, had provisionally named her 'Velcro', as that does sum up her loved-up personality.  We had a very noisy night last night as she tried repeatedly to get into our bed and in the end, she was placed in a pet transport crate - where she fell straight to sleep - so we could get SOME sleep!

Both of these beautiful creatures have been given to us - we feel so very grateful and fortunate to their previous owners.  The joy, even of their first full day with us, has been very pleasantly surprising!

:: milking Monday ::

walking Lady in, in brilliant Winter sunshine

On Monday and Friday mornings of late we have been learning a new skill - how to milk a cow!

The beautiful and placid 'girl' is a Dexter cow, which makes her a small breed and gives plenty of milk - yesterday we squeezed 5 litres out of her and our co-milker, Joyce, also took away another 2 litres before "Lady" was 'milked out' for the day.

Lady belongs to a lovely pair of pensioners a few kilometres down the road, who needed a helping hand with keeping this cow milked, after she unexpectedly lost her calf a few weeks ago.  For ex-city kids this is a pretty exciting and rewarding caper indeed.

Phoebe's learning this year is over-arched with a Farming theme, which fits rather neatly here, too.  Here she is having her own turn of milking - she really got the movement going smoothly and rhythmically.

A book we've read many times with Phoebe over the years that has been a favourite of hers is by Enid Blyton, called "The Children of Willow Farm". One of the characters, Benji, could make the milk froth the best in the bucket and I suspect from observing the vigour with which Phoebe tackled milking, she was remembering the story about Willow Farm.

What to do with all the wonderful, creamy fresh milk?  That has been sooo easy...yoghurt, puddings, chai tea and our first experiences of making home made cheese - Halloumi has been a success so far.  Next to try are: Ricotta, paneer and Labneh.

:: Sunday morning steaming deliciousness ::

apple + berry oat breakfast crumble

one of my pleasures is Sunday morning breakfast - taking a little longer to 'come-to' and perhaps taking a cup of tea back to bed to read a few more pages of my book(isn't that near on impossible with an eight-year-old-energy-ball who thinks two parents lying in bed means tickle-time!?) before seriously having to get up and face the world...

the most joyful cover ever!

...well, if you, too, like the idea of this - then this is the breakfast for your relaxing (-ish!) Sunday morning:
The evening before requires a little forethought and preparation by way of peeling, coring and slicing apples into a greased oven dish, scattering a decent spread of berries over the top and putting this to one side for the night in the fridge.  As well, you need to soak 2 cups of either oats or millet flakes in water overnight and then in a separate bowl put 1/2 c brown sugar, 1/2 c coconut, 1/2 c w/meal flour or LSA, plus a dash of vanilla essence and cover until morning.
At first light, spring out of bed, set the oven to 200C, drain the oats or millet, combine with the dry ingredients plus a goodly knob of butter (best done with hands) and spread over the fruit.  Into the oven for 40 minutes or so and get back into bed with the cup of tea and book...when the right smell wafts toward the bedrooms...its the proper time to get up and make coffee!
Thanks for this recipe goes to the lovely Amber Bancks and her beautiful family in Byron Shire, NSW, Australia, who contributed it as one of their favourite vegetarian recipes for our (at the time) Community Cookbook (Food for the Soul) fundraiser for the Little Shearwater Steiner Preschool and Kindergarten in Mullumbimby.  The cookbook itself is a joy to pick up - just had to show you the cover - front and back - who doesn't love a rainbow?
I'm not sure - I have a feeling - if you are wanting a copy, that gorgeous Jo over at Indigo Inspirations may still have some copies for sale...

:: circle of life ::

Adding this pic of 'Betty' and 'Wilma' 16/8/12

Today we moved our soggy, muddy little birds onto the bed just behind the first one I showed a photo of back on the 15th of February!
Full circle...
They look much happier - as they are now fluffing themselves up again on a comparative palace of fresh, tall mustard greens which have taken many months of slow and steady growth, during this long, cold and very wet Winter we have been having on the East Coast of New Zealand.
They even got names today - which is amazing - we have been that busy - we hadn't even got them names!!  Not our usual style.
So we have two fine, fat and fluffy Black Orpington crosses - they are now "Betty" and "Wilma" (yes, I'm a 70's telly kid), and a bunch of barnyard crosses of 'who-knows-what-they-are-but-mostly-likely-crossed-with-bantam' caramel-coloured small girls we have named "Maple", "Syrup", "Ginger", "Snap", "Russian" and (of course!) "Fudge".

My aim in blogging today is simply to break my block of not blogging and 'get one up there' - even though it's without pics - that, too, will happen!
Sometimes I find, when I've been overwhelmed, the best thing for me is to just dive right in again - and not hope for perfection or even a very high standard of result at all - just to make a start again - do something - almost a 'do anything' as a way of establishing a point to make getting going again the next time, that bit easier for me.
I often suffer from procrastination via perfectionism.

So, here we are and the hens have eaten, scratched and fertilised their way through 13 beds now and are finally showing signs of laying again, after a very dull, extended time of being off the lay.

I'd love to share some of the fun farming-related things we've been doing, such as milking a cow on Mondays and Fridays and making yoghurt and Halloumi Cheese...see you sooner!

:: we moved... ::

...so, probably a good idea to let you know I'm not going to post on this blog anymore as I'm firmly back on terra firma in new zealand!  So, for what we're up to on our little farmlet you are welcome to pop over to www.possumbenddiaries.blogspot.com...