Week 52

Well, we have been in our house for a year now. As with the rest of life it feels like it has gone quickly, yet at the same time a lot has happened in that year. I remember writing my first blog entry so clearly though. I will find it very useful to look back on those entries to know what is coming up around the place. I still remember how new it all felt back then. Now it feels very comfortable.

It is now two weeks until the summer solstice and I'm not sure summer has even arrived yet. We've had a couple of really good days lately, warm and sunny. But rain is forecast for the remainder of the week.

At least with the fine weather I was able to get out and mow the lawn which really needed it, and spray the weeds which also really needed it. The funny thing is I sprayed the weeds on Friday and they are already starting to turn yellow. Whereas during winter when I sprayed weeds it took a couple of weeks before they started to die. I guess there was a lot of moisture in the ground then or something.

Picked some of the rhubarb from the garden and made a delicious rhubarb crumble. Not much else going on in the vege garden though. This weeks total is:

Potatoes: Heaps
Strawberry: Heaps of plants, a few berries growing, a few berries eaten by something
Tomatoes: 5 (maybe 6, it looks like something is growing where the one that got killed was)
Lettuce: 2
Broccoli: 2 (the leaves on the rest of the plants have been eaten by something, don't know if heads will still grow or not)
Cucumber: 0
Zucchini: 1
Celery: 6
Rhubarb: Enough for a couple more crumbles

Overall it's not looking too good. I tried crushed eggshells around one broccoli plant (didn't have many eggs so could only do it with one plant) and that plant is still intact so it may have worked. Or maybe not, we will have to wait and see.

We still have lots of challenges ahead. For a start we still haven't done much in the way of self sufficiency. Still don't have any stock. Have been talking about getting chickens at the end of the year, it is nearly the end of the year so will have to look into it. The neighbours haven't grazed our fields for a long time and the grass is getting very long again. Waist high in places. Are considering buying some of the neighbour's lambs. Need to do some more planting in the vege garden but with the rate of death for vegetables I'm not too enthusiastic about it.

Given that the first year in the property is over, I will probably only post monthly now for the second year. I've been falling behind a little lately and finding it hard to keep up.

-M

Week 51

Haven't done much this week. It's been raining a lot again. After I got back from my holiday it seemed it had been quite dry and things were drying out. But it was just a tease and now the rain is back again.

Last week the grass looked like it could do with a mow again to keep it under control. But it was too wet. Now it definitely needs a mow but is still too wet.

Had some friends come over on Friday night. We had a wander around the vege garden and they pointed out I also have rhubarb growing there, and a gooseberry bush. There are also a lot of weeds growing, but I figure as long as they're not too big or getting in the way of the veges, I'm not going to bother with them much. We also discovered I do still have a couple of lettuces left after all, that were just hiding under the mulch.

So this week's total in the garden is:

Potatoes: Heaps
Strawberry: Heaps of plants, a few berries growing, a few berries eaten by something
Tomatoes: 5
Lettuce: 2
Broccoli: 6
Cucumber: 1 (1 got killed)
Zucchini: 2
Celery: 6
Rhubarb: Heaps

There has also been something eating the leaves of the broccoli and cucumber plants. Not rabbits, must be some kind of bug.

This week I opened the second of the jars of apple jelly I made back in April. We'd finally finished eating the first jar. There were a few spots of mould on top, but once I carefully scraped it off, it was very nice underneath. Yummy.

-M

Week 50 - Planting

Have been planting heaps in the vege garden this week. Have planted six broccoli, 2 cucumber, 2 zucchini and 6 celery (not that I even like celery but the rest of the family eats it). I planted the broccoli first and within a few hours the dog had dug most of them up. I replanted them and hopefully have managed to save them all. Luckily he hasn't touched any of the others, so hopefully he has learnt his lesson.

There are lots and lots of potatoes growing in the garden. Some have even just opened flowers on them - hopefully they'll be ready for Christmas dinner. I guess these have all grown from the potatoes I failed to harvest last year.

We also still have lots and lots of potatoes left over in the cupboard from last years harvest. Most of these are growing eyes and ears and noses, roots and shoots. I took a couple of dozen and planted them in the garden as well. No idea if they'll actually grow properly but I can't see why they wouldn't. Are these what you call seed potatoes?

So the grand total in the garden now is:

Potatoes: Heaps
Strawberry: Heaps
Tomatoes: 5 (1 got killed)
Lettuce: 0 (all eaten by rabbits)
Broccoli: 6
Cucumber: 2
Zucchini: 2
Celery: 6

Before I could do the planting I had to do a bit of weeding. At least the weeding is nothing near as bad as it was last summer when it had all gotten away on us. There are a lot of buttercups and dandelions and other common weeds I'm not sure of their names. At first I pulled out the weeds by hand. Then I discovered the hoe. It makes life so much easier, and is so much quicker. I can just pull it along and cut out all those weeds in one go. (Or if you want the rude version: "I used to just do the old hand job, until I discovered how good hoeing is, now it just takes one stroke and it's done"!!! LOL).

-M

Week 49 - The Birds

We have birds back again. Lots of chirping coming from the wall/ceiling between the kitchen and living room. Lots of evidence of birds in the guttering above the deck (bird poop, loose grass flying around, etc). Birds waking us every morning between 5 and 7.

I rescued three sparrows from the fireplace in one day last week. Must be a record.

Peter got up into the ceiling cavity and removed at least one nest, and blocked up a couple of entrances.

One of the cats got into the ceiling cavity on another occasion (no, she didn't climb the ladder - there is a small hatch from our bedroom wall into the roof cavity behind it) and had so much fun she didn't want to come back out again. But I don't know if she caught anything.

Speaking of cats, the other one managed to catch a rabbit for himself. And bring it up to the house to show off.

Have had some fine weather lately. Even the ground in the lower paddocks is starting to dry out. Have mowed the lawn and attempted some weedeating. It's still growing too quickly and feels futile.

Have eaten the first 8 strawberries from our garden. They were in ok condition but the birds had put some holes into a couple of them. The chicken wire over top of the strawberry patch continues to be flattened. I think it must be the wind rather than any animals. Shouldn't be too hard to find something to prop it up. Just gotta get around to it.

-M

Week 48

Last week I went away on holiday to Norfolk Island. Had an absolutely marvellous time. Therefore didn't get much done around the place.

Came home to find only two of the six lettuces I planted still there. I suspect the bunnies got them. Pleased to see that we still have five of the six tomatoes. The strawberries are growing too. The chicken wire that sat over top of them had been flattened. Don't know if it was the dog or what, but there are still several strawberries growing and ripening so don't think the birds got any of them.

I think we have birds nesting in the guttering above the deck again.

-M

Week 47

Labour Weekend is traditionally the time for planting tomatoes. I was too busy making the most of the good weather by cutting grass and going to the beach.

So later in the week I went to the garden centre and bought six lettuces and six tomatoes (two ordinary, two Roma and two cherry). I planted them in the vege garden - the first plants I've planted in there (but it is already full of potatoes).

The following day one tomato was already destroyed. Not sure if it was the dog or the bunnies. In fact I don't fancy the chances of the lettuces surviving at all, due to the two or three bunnies living in the bushes nearby.

-M

Week 46

The weekend just gone was Labour Weekend here. We actually had fine weather all weekend which was really great. I managed to get out of the house and get some things done. Sprayed the weeds up and down the driveway.

Mowed the grass in the lavender field. It was so long that in places it was as tall as the lavender. It was so long that at times I couldn't even see the lavender. The lavender has started growing again but doesn't have any flowers yet so is just green and blends into the grass very well. Just to make sure I got all the grass, I went over it all twice.

Monday the weather was still fine so we ventured out to Foxton Beach for a picnic. What a nice spot.

-M

Week 45

This weekend I went to a cheesemaking demonstration with the Farmers Unlimited group we belong to. One of the members has been making her own cheese for about six months and gave us a demonstration of what she does. It was by no means a course or tutorial. However I learnt a lot.

She showed us the steps in making a cheddar style cheese. Between steps we sampled some of her other cheeses (all sorts of types) and had a look around their property.

It was relatively simple, but time consuming. Not that you had to stand over it constantly but you did have to get the timings and the temperatures right. You couldn't just go off and start the laundry, get distracted by children and not get back to it for an hour. If you heat it too rapidly, or cool it too slowly, or leave it too long, it gets crumbly or some other problem.

Although it looks achievable, I don't think I'll start making my own cheese any time soon. Partly because of the time involved but mostly because of the cost. It takes 10 litres of milk to make 1 kilo of cheese. She gets her milk direct from the farmers, paying up to $1 a litre. Making her cheese a max of $10 a kilo. I don't know any dairy farmers. If I were to buy it from the supermarket it would be $1.50 a litre, or $15 a kilo. And given I can buy a kg of cheddar from the supermarket for around $10 I don't think it is particularly cost effective. If I were to make the fancier cheeses it would be worth it as they seem to be about $50 a kg in the supermarket. But since I'm not really a big cheese connesieur and we only buy the fancy cheeses for a special occasion, I don't think it would be worthwhile.

Meanwhile, back on the farm, we had One Fine Day this week. It has been raining a lot lately. Good for the water tank. But the grass has been getting very, very long. Yesterday was actually fine so while V had a nap I went outside and mowed 3/4 of our lawn. Today was forecast to rain and it held off long enough for me to finish off the rest of the lawn.

-M

Week 44

It has been so wet lately. The grass keeps growing and we don't have a chance to mow it because it's always too wet. It's knee deep in places.

It was dry-ish today. I waited until lunchtime then went out with the weed-eater because I thought I'd have more luck with that than the tractor. I tried trimming around the lavender field but didn't get much done. Things kept getting in the way - the line broke, I ran out of petrol, the dog kept trying to attack the line trimmer. I feel frustrated at how little I achieved.

Attempted to plant strawberries last week. Thought the girls would enjoy helping me. K refused to even come outside. V scraped around the dirt for a minute then took off wandering down the driveway. By the time I went to get her she'd gone halfway down the driveway, about 250 metres, and would have kept going if I hadn't stopped her.

So I waited till yesterday while she was having a nap, and I finished off planting the rest of the strawberries (18 in total because the dog got a couple before I could even plant them). I also made chicken wire 'cloches' over the top. Don't expect they'll last long before the dog destroys them, but at least I've made some kind of attempt to stop the birds from eating the strawberries.

-M

Week 43

Spent today clearing out fallen branches from the paddocks, following the storm last week and also continuing on the work I'd started a few weeks ago, finally clearing up after the storms six months ago.

The lower fields are very bogged down and I have decided that clearing out the drains will have to wait until the weather is a little drier. Following a close encounter with mud puddles at Lake Kaniere a few years back, I am very reluctant to get too close any more.

Have noticed our fields and ones around us are full of yellow buttercup flowers at the moment. I have mixed feelings about this. They look pretty but they are also impossible to remove, especially from in and around the lavender plants. If they weren't such a pain I'd like them a lot more.

-M

Week 42

We've had a lot of stormy weather this week. Last Thursday and Friday were particularly bad with high wind coming from the east. Thursday night the power went off just as we were going to bed. P later noticed it appeared other people around us had electricity, just not us and our immediate neighbour (both houses are fed off a separate line that comes up from the street). He went out to investigate later on and found an electrian turning off the power to our line as the power lines were blowing into the trees and arcing. He said he'd be back in the morning to turn it back on again.

Friday morning the winds were still blowing strong so I took the kids out and didn't expect the power to come back on again any time soon. It came back on at 10am, just over 12 hours after it went off. We will need to get the trees trimmed pretty soon before the next big storm comes along.

As well as blowing power lines around, the storm blew down a few small branches here and there but luckily there was no real damage. However I was back in the paddocks again today clearing away fallen branches, just as I thought I had finished it two weeks ago.

The storm may be over but it has pretty much rained every day since then, and is forecast to rain for the next week as well. I'm not complaining - I'm glad the water tank is getting a chance to fill up. But it means I haven't had a chance to mow the grass either and it is growing so quickly at the moment. It's only been three weeks since I cut the grass in the lavender field and it's almost as tall as the lavender already.

Before the storm hit last week I managed to find some time to dig out a strawberry patch. Bought 20 strawberry plants for $20. Also bought a roll of chicken wire and some pins to hold it down so that I can create some kind of tent to keep the birds from stealing the strawberries. That cost $50 so all up I've spent $70 on it. Hope we get a lot of strawberries out of it!!! Of course this will (hopefully) last for years so we'll eventually get our money's worth out of it (I hope!).

-M

Week 41

Have had a few weather extremes this week. Early in the week it was so hot and sunny that we had to go out and get ice creams. Then today it has been so cold I've had to light the fire.

I may have only mowed the grass two weeks ago, but it needs doing again. I was going to do it today but it rained this morning. By this afternoon it had dried out a lot so I mowed part of the lawn, but the ground was still quite muddy and I now have big tractor tyre marks all over the lawn. I also somehow managed to break the tractor seat. It has come away entirely. Something else that needs to be fixed I guess.

While the weather was good I got out the weedsprayer and went up and down the driveway with it. Everything is starting to grow with a hurry now that spring is here.

Went to a Farmers Unlimited meeting and learnt a bit about highland cattle, and also about the perils of having an archeological dig on your property (despite how cool it would be, it's not much fun for the landowner apparently).

We have five different citris trees on our property. There is a lemon tree, an orange tree, a mandarin tree and a grapefruit tree. The fifth one I'm not too sure about. It looks a lot like a mandarin but has come to fruit later in the year and tastes sweeter. I think maybe it's a tangerine but I don't know much about them. The mandarin tree is still covered in fruit, even though we've been eating lots. I think it's coming to the end of its season though as they are starting to lose their taste. The orange and grapefruit trees have barely been touched. Personally I prefer mandarins and because it has been so fruitful I haven't needed to eat any others. Maybe I should look up some marmalade recipes.

-M

Week 40

Today I begun clearing up after the big storm in March. At the time of the storm I cleared away all the tree branches that had fallen and were blocking the driveway. But there were still lots of smaller branches littering the paddocks. Cleaning it up has been pretty low on the priority list though. However the neighbour's stock have been through all our paddocks now and the grass is pretty short, meaning all the branches are now visible again (after having been buried under so much long grass) so it finally moved to the top of the priority list.

I don't know how important it is to clear away all the fallen branches. To me it looks unsightly, but more than that I figure it is a tripping hazard to the stock. I began in one of the two paddocks at the bottom of the driveway as it is more visible than some of the other paddocks. I only spent an hour or two there as it started raining quite a lot. This is one of the two paddocks which has been quite waterlogged (the other being the one on the opposite side of the driveway). There is a large pipe which runs under the driveway that drains the water from paddock 1 (where I was) to paddock 2. As I was clearing away branches I discovered the pipe was slightly out of alignment, and partly blocked by branches, long grass and mud. I cleared some of it away and watched the water start draining away.

However it's a bit of a hollow victory because now paddock 2 is even more waterlogged. Next week's chore will be to get into there and clear things out. I don't know exactly where the water goes from there, but I do know a few hundred meters away there's a culvert. Maybe it flows underground to there? I hope so because I don't really want to just shift the water into the neighbours field next.


It's only a week since we mowed the lawn and already it is looking like it could do with a cut again. It's not long exactly but it is starting to look untidy.

Have noticed an increase in bird noises and a gathering of stray pieces of grass on the deck. Suspect the birds may be trying to nest in the guttering again.

-M

Week 39

Today I turned over the ground in the vege garden in preparation for planting some vegetables. I've been told not to plant tomatoes until around Labour Weekend in New Zealand (end of October), and have decided to wait until then to plant the other veges as well. Last month was so mild that I wondered if I should have already started planting things. Then this week the temperature dropped and we had a few more frosts, so I know the cold weather isn't quite over yet and it's best to wait a bit longer. Although having said that, we already have lots of potato plants popping out of the ground.

I have the figure "six weeks" in my head as the timeframe for preparing the soil before you plant anything. I don't know where I got that figure from. I may have read it in a book but can't remember which one. Or I may be totally wrong. Anyway, when I last worked on the vege garden at the beginning of winter I spread compost on top of the soil and then lavender clippings on top of that. Today I used the fork and manually turned the soil over (rather than using the tractor) to dig the compost into the ground. It was a lot easier than I expected and only took an hour or so. Then I spread a little bit of grass mulch over the top (but didn't have enough to cover the whole garden).

Mowed the lawn in the lavender field for the first time in months. Must be getting better at handling the tractor as it took less than an hour. Still don't have a ride on mower with a catcher so I do worry about all the clippings blowing into and under the lavender. Still a lot of work to do there. The lavender itself is slowly starting to grow again.

Speaking of grass, it seems everywhere you look around the region the fields are all very green looking.

At the bottom of our property is a very wet, waterlogged area. I'm not sure if we should dig out a culvert/stream, or turn it into a proper wetland with native grasses, or just leave it as it is. I often see pukekos around there. I love pukekos. Occassionally we see ducks too. This week we've seen a mother duck leading her baby ducklings around. It is so cute.

-M

Week 38

Today is officially the start of spring. The fruit trees are all flowering and looking beautiful. While I didn't particularly like the coldness of winter, I am loving the spring and autumn colours. We never really had deciduous (sp?) trees in Wellington - the wind would have blown the leaves and the flowers right off them so what would have been the point.

But with springtime also comes spring storms. This week has been rather windy but not too much rain, and chilly enough to light the fire a couple of times but definitely not as cold as winter was. One day I was a bit worried the wind would take down some more trees, but it didn't. It's been coming from the west, which I think is different from the big storms we have had. More wind is forecast for the rest of the week as well.

I haven't done a lot of work on the farm. Have trimmed back a couple of hedges, something I've been meaning to do since we moved in.

Got kept awake half the night last night by a cow mooing. Not in our garden this time (although it sounded like it was), and not even in our paddocks or even in our neighbours paddocks. It was mooing till at well after midnight. I wondered if maybe it was calving because it was definitely upset about something. No sound from it tonight thank goodness.

-M

Week 37

The weather is starting to get warmer, and with the warmer weather comes The Return of the Flies (sounds like a B-grade horror movie!), and the weeds and grass start growing like crazy again. I'd almost enjoyed not having to worry about it over winter.

I'd hoped to get out and mow the lawn today. First I finished off line-trimming the lavender field. That took all day, so no lawn mowing got done. I took extra care with the line trimmer to try and shift some of the dirt and debris underneath the lavender plants, so it took a lot longer than usual. Of course I also created quite a lot of new debris too.

The cyclical nature of farm life is starting to bug me a bit. Everything seems so futile at times. I spend so much time trying to prevent things from growing, either by mowing lawn, pulling weeds or spraying weeds. It almost seems pointless. I just wish there were an easier way. Mind you, I also get sick of having to eat, toilet and shower regularly too. It just seems like Groundhog Day all over again sometimes.

In keeping with the self sufficient spirit, I made my own breadcrumbs for the first time a couple of weeks ago. When I was a kid my parents used to put the ends of the loaf of bread into the hot water cupboard to dry out and then make breadcrumbs with it. I thought the bread had to be dried out to make breadcrumbs. I've never tried making it myself before, apart from one time, years ago, with my friend. I insisted we needed to use dried bread. She insisted we needed to use fresh bread. I toasted her fresh bread to try and dry it out, and it turned out to be a disaster. Lately I've realised that the only reason they dried it out first was so that it wouldn't go mouldy, not because it needed to be dry. Anyway, I've started following their lead and keeping the ends of the bread loaves in the hot water cupboard and bunging it in the food processor to make breadcrumbs when needed. An excellent use for those odd bread ends that usually don't get eaten anyway.

-M

Week 36

Spring is definitely here. Bulbs are popping up all over the place. Things are starting to grow again. And by that I mean weeds. The mulch I put on the vegetable garden to suppress weeds hasn't really worked and the weeds are all poking up through it. I guess I didn't layer enough on. But now I'm not sure what to do. Put more on? Or dig the mulch in? Probably the latter, although as well as weeds there are also potato plants growing too and I don't really want to disturb them.

With Spring I also need to start thinking about what to plant in the garden. There are a couple of things putting me off planting anything. First is not knowing quite what to do. Second and most important is the concern that the dog will dig up and destroy anything I plant. Third is that anything the dog doesn't get, the rabbits probably will (unless the dog chases them away).

P and I have had a couple of productive days on the property recently. On Sunday he got out and went round the fields tidying up overhanging trees and ripped out an old fence that had come down long ago and been grown over with grass.

Today I got down to the lavender field again. It had rained a lot overnight and everything was wet so I couldn't continue on with the line trimming I was doing last week. Instead I started removing the debris from underneath the plants - lavender trimmings, grass clippings, leaves and general debris had all accumulated on top of the weedmat to form a nice layer of dirt, on which the weeds were growing. Completely negating the point of the weedmat. It was long, slow, hard work to clean it up. It took about 45 minutes to go down one side of a row, and 45 minutes to come back up the other side. Which means that in the three hours I spent today, I only got two full rows cleared out. It was a lot tougher than I expected. My arm muscles are killing me now. But hopefully it is worth it and will mean less weeding over the summer.

With each full row taking an hour and a half, I'm not sure how I'm going to find time to do the rest of the field. Maybe this will have to be an ongoing project. What I'm not sure about is how much of the debris I cleared away today has built up in the last 9 months, and how much is older than that. If it's going to be this much work every year then I'm not sure what to do. With only one day a week available to me, I can't really get very much done very quickly.

-M

Week 35

Dare I say it ... I don't want to jinx it ... but I think Spring may be on the way. There, I said it. Of course I'm still expecting one more big storm before the winter is really over. But lately I've noticed the temperature has been a bit warmer during the day (when the sun is shining it's almost practically HOT in our living room), bulbs are poking out of the ground, the grass is getting long and I only mowed it two weeks ago, the rose bushes are spouting new growth since I pruned them, and lambs are starting to be born. It must be spring.

Today my plan was to start tidying up the lavender, clearing away debris from under the plants and pulling out as many weeds as possible. Then I decided to use the line trimmer first to tidy up the grass, rather than clear away debris then create more again. Only the line trimmer was almost out of line. I did what I could before running out of petrol. Filled it up, tried again, and ran out of line completely. Had to go into town to buy some more, and get more petrol too. By the time I got back I only had an hour left before I had to pick up the girls from daycare. In the end I got almost half the field done.

Have had a go at making both lemonade and grapefruit juice using our own produce. It took a lot of effort just to make one batch and I'm not sure it's worth it. I used about 10 small-medium lemons, which took a LOT of squeezing.

-M

Week 34

This weekend we had a visit from the members of Farmers Unlimited, the lifestyle farmers group that we belong to, as well as members of Tree Croppers. The purpose of the visit was two-fold - for us to get some suggestions and advice from experienced farmers, and to provide a fruit tree pruning demonstration for everybody, using our trees as a live example.

The day was pretty successful. We had up to 30 people here, but everyone fit in well. The day started off rainy but cleared up by the time everyone arrived. Had hoped to do everything outdoors but the ground was too muddy so everyone came inside for morning tea and lunch. But the house had plenty of room for all.

First we did a tour of the property, through all the fields. P did most of the talking, while I answered some questions from people. Other than some comments about how the fences needed mending and that you just have to make time to do the things around the place, I'm not sure that we got much in the way of advice.

I missed the majority of the tree pruning demonstration as I was inside looking after the children. However the main thing I learned was that pruning can take place in either winter or summer (I thought it was only winter) and that major pruning shouldn't be done at this time of year as it is too wet and the tree could get fungus/infection.

The next Farmers Unlimited gathering will include a cheese making demonstration, so I am looking forward to going to that one. I may not have time to try my hand at it, but it will still be interesting to learn.

-M

Week 33

Mowed the lawn today, using the tractor again. It took just over an hour, so am getting much better at it. Raked up some of the grass clippings to use as a mulch and weed supressant on part of the garden. Would have been a lot easier with a mower with catcher so I could just dump it on the garden instead of having to rake it up.

Finished pruning the rose bushes back. Some already seem to have new growth on them.

A possum made its way either onto or into the roof the other night, keeping P and I awake with all its banging and crashing. No sign of it since though. Hopefully it found its way out and is gone for good.

Speaking of noises in the night, lately there has been a lot of chirping sounds in the evening. Not sure if it is crickets or frogs or what, but I would have thought it was too cold for crickets at least.

Lost power again last night. Apparently some idiot drove into a power pole again. At least it wasn't till 9.30 so we just got an early night instead.

-M

Week 32

Was planning on mowing the lawn today but it rained lightly all day. Instead I started pruning roses and trimming bushes and trimming back the passionfruit vine which has overtaken the back staircase and surrounding garden.

The weather has been a lot warmer this week. Warm enough to go to the playground and even to eat ice creams, and the good thing was that the ice cream didn't melt!!!

Found a possum hiding under the house, in the workshop. P went looking for something and got a huge surprise to see a pair of eyes staring back at him.

-M

Week 31

Still cold and miserable here.

Got my lavender oil chemically tested recently to see its quality. I don't fully understand the results, but the samples are higher than they should be in linalool and low in linalyl acetate. But overall the scientist comments that they are of average quality. So I shouldn't be too discouraged, at least it wasn't low quality.

I spent a couple of hours today spraying organic seaweed fertiliser on the plants to help improve the quality for next year. I've been advised to also apply a compost tea in the next month or so.

While I was out I also thought about getting stuck in to the weeds and debris under the lavender plants. But it was only 8 degrees (Celsius) outside and my fingers were frozen, so I decided to leave it till another day.

-M

Week 30

Haven't done much this week. Everyone's still sick and it's still very, very cold. The weather was clear today and I had hopes of getting out and giving the lavender a good winter cleanup and weeding. But I also had lots of paperwork and bits & pieces and a tax return to do today, and that all ended up taking all day. So it was an inside day.

Have recently started making bread again, after taking a break for a couple of months. But I haven't actually been making bread, I've been making small, windowless buildings. Every loaf is a failure and I don't know why. The yeast is fresh. The flour is fresh. The milk powder is near the end of the bag but expiry date isn't for another month. The oil isn't its usual viscosity due to the cold weather but I can't see that affecting the bread as it quickly returns to normal once heated. I also can't imagine the cold weather being the culprit. It just doesn't seem to be mixing the flour in very well. Anyone got any ideas?

Apart from that it's just business as usual here. Looking forward to the warmer weather!

-M

Week 29

The weather has been a bit overcast and therefore warmer this week. Warmer, in this case, meaning "not freezing but still cold". The children have been back at preschool and I've been back out in the garden.

I had an encounter with an unknown assailant on Friday. I put on my gumboots and went to take the compost out. Got about 15 metres before I felt a sharp pain on the top of my right foot. Shook my boot out but found nothing. Hobbled back to the house and found a small red mark on my foot and something very, very small sticking out of it. My whole foot ached for the rest of the day but luckily it didn't spread so wasn't poisonous, whatever it was. I believe it was definitely an insect sting as opposed to being prickled by something sharp. Prickles don't hurt for days.

That'll teach me to keep my gumboots outside. Now I'm too scared to put them back on again. They were only cheap Warehouse boots which I bought last year and are already falling apart anyway. So I think I'll just buy myself some new ones instead.

Have been very busy in the vege garden. Finally got it dug over for winter. Never mind that winter has already begun. I used the tractor, put the plow attachment on it and drove up and down the vege patch. It was actually a lot easier than I expected. Found heaps more potatoes but left most of them in the ground for next year (is that the way it works?).

Then I divided the garden into four sections, approx 3m x 4m each. I laid weedmat down inbetween each section to provide a visual break and a walkway to allow access all around the plot. There is also a fifth plot along the back of the garden for tall things like tomatoes.

- - - Plot 1 - - -

P A T H

- - - Plot 2 - - -

P A T H

- - - Plot 3 - - -

P A T H

- - - Plot 4 - - -

Once I had it all laid out I had to stop for the day. That night we had a bit of a storm with high winds, and it nearly undid everything I'd done that day. Except that I'd noticed the weedmat was starting to come loose so I put various spades, forks, rakes, etc down on top of the weedmat to stop it blowing away overnight.

The next thing I did was to lay compost down on top of my plots. I'd forgotten to do this earlier, I think I was supposed to do it before I turned over the soil.

Then I spread leftover lavender clippings all over my four plots. The point being to provide a bit of a mulch but also just to protect the ground over winter, to stop the weeds growing so much, until I'm ready to start planting things in spring.

I'll upload some photos shortly, but I have to say I'm really pleased with how it's turned out. Laying down the weedmat to separate the plots was (to me) a stroke of genius (even if I do say so myself). It provides a visual break between the plots and provides something to walk on (and stops you from getting so dirty). But the best thing about it is that it has gone from being one huge, intimidating plot, into five smaller, manageable plots. Psychologically I feel a lot more comfortable about dealing with five small gardens than one huge garden. The other beauty of using weedmat is that it can easily be pulled up again when it is time to dig over the garden again.

I don't know if the lavender clippings were the right thing to use or not. Someone suggested they might be too woody. My main intent is not to have them to encourage growth, but to inhibit it, so I think it will work well. And if not, well I'll still have the best smelling vege garden anyway!

-M

Week 28

Cold, cold, cold. Haven't done anything this week. The weather was fine today, could have gotten out into the garden but had sick children at home instead.

Have had several more frosts.

It's so cold in the kitchen nowdays that the olive oil has started to solidify.

The mandarin and orange trees are in full fruit. The grapefruit tree is getting there. However something is eating the grapefruit directly off the tree. There was one grapefruit in particular that I noticed. The first time I saw it, it looked like it had some teeth marks in it. Now each day when I go out and look at it I see more and more has been nibbled away. I suspect it is possums.

-M

Week 27

Not much has been going on this week. I am in hibernation mode.

Today the weather forecast was for a very cold southerly change. I got home from dropping the girls at daycare and the weather was quite nice. I considered getting out in the garden to do some work. Then I figured the southerly snap would probably hit in about an hour and I'd have only just gotten started and would have to stop again. So I spent the day inside catching up on other stuff. The cold weather didn't hit till 2.30 this afternoon. And, boy, is it cold.

Earlier in the week I attempted to make some feijoa sorbet using this recipe. I didn't follow the recipe exactly due to the time of day and not having the proper equipment. It doesn't look exactly like I would expect it to. But, it still tastes pretty good.

We also made some pretty good feijoa and orange muffins. So now all our feijoa's are used up for another year.

-M

Week 26 - Cold and Cows

Had our first frost of the year this week. And our second. And our third.

We have a thermometer in our dining room. It has been around 9 degrees (Celcius) most mornings. The thing about living here is that the mornings are very cold but the afternoons are usually alright. The clear, cloudless days are when it is coldest in the mornings but the sun gets quite warm by afternoon. It's been getting up to around 15/16 degrees or more in the sunshine. But as soon as the sun goes down I have to start closing all the curtains to keep the warmth in as much as possible.

The house really does not heat up very well. I've been worrying about this for a year now (even though we've only been here six months this week, we actually bought the place over a year ago) and still haven't come up with any solutions. I'm disappointed to find that the woodburner doesn't heat the house as well as I thought it would (unless I'm doing it wrong).

The woodburner is in the dining room, which is the central room in the house. Off it is the living room, the kitchen, and the hallway. It's all sort of open plan apart from the kitchen which has a door. We've hung a curtain (blanket) up between the dining room and hallway to save heat loss in that direction. It has made a big difference in terms of heat loss, but heating the dining room alone is still difficult. The woodburner really only heats up the immediate vicinity, and even then the most I've gotten the room to is 14 degrees. No way it's going to heat the living room at all.

When we're at home all day we eat three meals plus snacks in the dining room, so it's good to have that room warm. But I've pretty much given up on using the fireplace since it makes so little difference to the room temperature.

We have oil column heaters in the bedrooms, and I find that those are the warmest rooms in the house. So when we're at home we tend to spend a lot of time playing in K's room. Which isn't such a bad thing because we've had to move all the toys into her room anyway to stop the dog from destroying them.

-----

Now here's a funny story. And like all funny stories, it wasn't particularly funny at the time.

As I've mentioned before, the neighbours have been grazing their stock in our fields. This week they've been in the field closest to the house. Which is cool to be able to look out the window and see cattle.

Now last night they were particularly noisy, mooing in the middle of the night. I got woken up by it but went back to sleep, only to be woken again by V crying at 1.30am. I went and cuddled her and she insisted she wanted to look out the window. I said to her "you won't see anything there, the cows are on the other side of the house". So we looked out and lo and behold there were three cows* there, nibbling on our lawn. And the one still in the paddock was making a heck of a noise calling out to these three to return.

K woke up soon afterwards and started crying as well. I had a bit of dilemma, given that P is still away and I was there on my own with the girls. Stay inside with the girls and spend the whole night awake listening to the mooing. Or go outside to try and shoo the cattle back into the paddock but leaving the girls inside crying.

I figured it was worth a bit of short term pain for the long term gain. I quickly got dressed and ran outside, looking the part in my Swanndri, gumboots and jeans. The first thing I did was to shut the gate from the yard to the driveway, to prevent any possible escapes. They were now fenced in on three sides, with the fourth side being a steep bank downwards to I don't know where as I haven't been down there yet.

I took a look at the fence to the paddock. It seemed intact. There is a "Taranaki Gate" between this paddock and the house. The gate was leaning slightly. I figured they must have trampled over it. I opened the gate and then tried to herd the cattle back through.

There were three cows in our yard, two brown and one small black/white. In the paddock were another 4 small black/white cows and one big white bull who was the boss and kept calling out for the others to return.

I grabbed a stick and tried to get around the cows so that they were in between me and the gate. By doing that I hoped that they'd move away from me towards the gate (and hopefully not run towards me instead!). I managed to get them going in the right direction and got them into the corner of the yard next to the gate. But then we had a bit of a standoff. Meanwhile I could hear lots of screams coming from the house as two little girls cried and cried for Mummy to return. And lots more mooing coming from the big guy in the paddock.

Eventually the small black/white cow decided to make a run for it back into the paddock. And at that point I decided to give up as the other two showed no signs of wanting to follow and once again tried to make a break for it in the wrong direction. I closed the gate and went back into the house to cuddle my girls.

As we were cuddling we realised the mooing had stopped. Obviously the bull had just been concerned about the little one coming home. At that point I decided to just leave the two brown cows in the yard, figuring there wasn't much harm they could do.

I finally got back to bed at 3.30am.

This morning after I dropped the girls off at creche I went to see the neighbours and told them their stock had escaped. M came straight up and together we herded the two brown cows back through the gate, and then M took them all away to a different paddock. I was pleased to see him using the same technique as I'd done (i.e. big stick). Maybe I can learn to be a farmer after all.

The good bit is that there wasn't a lot of damage done. They've trimmed the lawn so I won't need to mow again quite so soon. A few cow pats on the lawn, one on the vege garden and a couple on the driveway. Nothing to really worry about.

Just two very tired little girls and one very tired Mummy. And a very exciting story to tell.

-M


*I'm still a city slicker so I'll call them cows even though I don't know if they were male or female.

Week 25

Haven't done much work on the farm this week. The girls and I have all been sick, and P has been away.

Last weekend P got the chainsaw out and got stuck in chopping up one of the trees that came down in the storm a couple of months ago.

I've done the odd bit of weed-spraying and weed-pulling in the garden.

Took the dog to the local dog park in Levin for a run around. He enjoyed it a lot. So did K, who loved running in and out of the trees and bushes. Timmy (the dog) has just graduated from four weeks at Puppy Pre-School. During that time he got to know the other dog in school and went from being very shy the first week to being all over the other dog by the last week. He learnt to sit. He has not learnt how to stop jumping on the children, or chewing on their toys, or pulling on their clothes with his teeth. I have learnt that the distraction technique only works for a couple of seconds. I have also learnt that if he is to be inside with the girls he has to stay in his cage. However, when there are no children around he is mostly pretty good now.

I made up a batch of feijoa juice today. Couldn't find any recipes so made it the same way I make passionfruit juice. It turned out quite nice. Very refreshing. I think it would make a better sorbet than juice so might try that out later in the week.

Also made a loaf of bread for the first time in ages.

-M

Week 24

Today I did some real, actual, proper farm work. The neighbours have been grazing their stock in our paddocks. I was speaking to M the other day who commented that we needed to run the tractor/mower over the grass to break up the big lumps of grass and to spread around the horse manure. I wasn't sure if the 'we' meant him or us but I quickly volunteered to do it.

I got stuck in as soon as I was back from dropping the girls off at creche. First thing to do was change the attachment on the tractor to the mower, which was a lot trickier than it sounds. Then I went up and down the lavender field, mowing the grass around the lavender plants, cutting down the big clumps of grass in the rest of the paddock, and spreading the manure around as much as I could. For the record the lavender is only in 2/3 of the paddock and the rest is just long grass that we have allowed to grow long rather than wasting time and energy and fuel cutting it.

It took me two hours to do the entire paddock. I've certainly gotten a lot faster at it than when I first started. It used to take two hours just to do around the lavender, let alone the entire field.

I saw M while I was out working and he said I was doing it right. He also said the other fields didn't really need to be mown as it was really only the lavender field where the horses had spent a lot of time and it needed some attention. There certainly was a lot of manure!

After I'd finished doing that I got out the weedsprayer for the first time in a couple of months and wandered down the driveway spraying weeds. It was a little annoying when I got to the end (half a kilometre from the house) and ran out of spray. Got lots of exercise today, that's for sure!

As the days become colder, the wildlife comes closer to keep warm. We possibly have a possum living under the house. I'm pretty sure I've seen mouse droppings around the house too.

-M

Week 23 - Rain

It's been raining a lot lately. It hardly rained for all of March and April, and now it won't stop. I'm no longer worried about the amount of water in the tank. If anything we have too much water now. I've spied small leaks in the pipes leading to the water tank and also at the pumphouse.

I last sprayed the weeds on the property about two months ago. After that weed growth died down quite a lot - because of the lack of rain more than anything else. About a month ago(?) I noticed small weeds starting to poke up and thought I'd better spray again before they took off. But I was busy and then the rains came. And with the rain came renewed growth. Plus I can't spray again until the rain stops for a few days. So the place is starting to look quite overgrown again.

Today was relatively dry. It rained overnight and for a time (quite heavily) this morning. When it wasn't raining I spent some time in the vegetable garden, pulling out weeds by hand. My gardening books recommend this time to year to dig over the garden before winter and/or plant green crops. Well I've left it too late to plant anything but was intending to dig over the garden today. I got a quarter of it weeded before I ran out of energy. Found several more potatoes. What I don't quite know is what the books mean by "dig over". I understand it to mean digging up the ground so the top layer goes down and the lower layer comes to the top (to aerate the soil??). But what the books don't say is whether this is a one-off event or something you do continually over the winter. Any experienced gardeners wanna give me some advice? I would like to hope it's a one-off but knowing the way weeds grow it's probably continual. Darn it.

However, I did find out a few things today. Our soil type is clay. My friend L measured the pH the other week and it is 7, which is pretty good for growing things. The garden is approximately 5 metres by 15 metres. All this information makes me feel a lot more comfortable about making a plan for what to plant in the garden in springtime.

On four occasions over the last couple of weeks I have found birds in the fireplace in the sunroom. The first time I opened all the doors and windows and it flew out straight away. The second time it landed on the windowsill and the cat promptly jumped up and got it. The third time it landed on the curtain rail and didn't want to come down. The fourth time it again flew straight out. Not sure why they're suddenly falling down the chimney. Luckily we've not been using that fireplace much.

I picked another 5kg of feijoas this week. We made a yummy feijoa cake yesterday which used up some of them. Have been making lots more passionfruit juice too.

The neighbour's horses and cattle are still grazing in our fields. They are doing an amazing job at getting the grass down.

-M

Week 22

We have livestock in our paddocks now! The neighbours next door have fixed up all the fences, cleaned out the water-troughs, and, as of Monday, there are horses and cattle in at least one of our paddocks. It's a great feeling of relief to finally have some stock in there, even if it's not ours.

Winter has arrived early this year. It has been SO COLD this week. And I shiver just thinking that there is still much worse to come. There is snow on the Tararua Ranges and the mornings have been about 1 or 2 degrees outside, 10 degrees inside. I've had a fire going most mornings and evenings. We've hung up a blanket to separate the dining room (where the fireplace is) from the hallway (where the cold air is) and it has made a noticeable difference to how quickly the room heats up.

The girls and I have all come down with our first cold of the winter. They were both supposed to go to daycare today however because they were sick I kept them home and we watched TV and played games instead. It has been a Very Long Day.

Despite all the cold weather, we have daffodils blooming in the garden. In Autumn! What's up with that? The only reason I have is that it's in areas where I put down a heavy mulch back in January. Maybe that fooled the ground into thinking it was winter? It's very weird.

Still haven't figured out what to do with all our feijoas yet.

-M

Week 21

T came over today and we pruned the lavender bushes using his cutting machine. We were supposed to do it a couple of weeks ago but it has rained the last two Tuesdays. The drought appears to be breaking, it has bucketed down the last few days.

It took half a day to get the lavender trimmed. T drove the cutting machine while I spent all my time ferrying the cuttings from the field up to the house where I have them piled up near the vege garden. I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do with them. I read something about mulching the vege garden over winter which seems like a pretty good idea, but I'm going to have to read up on it a bit first. I'd originally been planning on loading the clippings onto the back of the truck but at the last minute discovered I don't actually have the keys to the truck, P does. So I used the tractor instead, and singlehandedly managed to change the lawn mowing attachment for the scoop attachment. The only downside was that it could hold one bagfull at a time, hence the constant back and forth.

We have been enjoying drinking homemade passionfruit juice. Have discovered it is very easy to make, and can just go out and pick 4 fruit off the vine whenever we need to make more juice. The only time consuming part is that you need to wait for the syrup to cool down before you can strain the pulp out and turn it into juice.

Our feijoas are now getting ready to pick. I've already picked 3kg worth. I know we can't eat that many but I'm not sure how to preserve them - have done a bit of a search and not found very much. I've never eaten a feijoa before and on first taste found it a bit bitter. But have since been told they still need to ripen a bit after they fall off the tree.

Our mandarins are also maturing. Have eaten a couple already. They are the perfect size for V to eat.

Have noticed a lot of fantails and wasps around lately. Not sure if they are drawn by the ripening fruit or what. I love watching the fantails flitting about.

Our neighbours at the cafe have said they are interested in grazing on our land. We've agreed that if they can fix the fences then they can put their stock there. I've noticed some of the fences have been mended already but haven't seen them doing it. It will be nice to have something happening in the fields finally.

-M

Week 20

The rain has finally arrived. After weeks (months?) with virtually no rain, it started raining yesterday, has rained all day today, and is forecast to rain for the rest of the week. Yay.

I spent today preserving fruit. We still have a ton of apples and passionfruit to use up. I made passionfruit syrup which was very easy and very yum. Watered down it will make a very nice fruit juice for the girls. I tried making a rum cocktail out of it but didn't like it very much.

I also cut up lots of apples and dried them in the oven to eat as snacks. However I misread the recipe which I found online. Instead of baking at 200 Fahrenheit, I baked them at 200 Celsius. After an hour they were almost burnt. I did think it strange to be cooking at such a high temperature. D'oh.

Got the tractor fixed. It turned out that we were using the wrong button to stop it. Unlike a car which stops when you turn the key off, the tractor doesn't work that way. We were pulling a switch that we thought was right, that was attached to the compressor (???). And what happened was that it closed the compressor, turning off the motor, but on this occasion didn't pop back to the open position afterwards like it was supposed to. It was very easy to fix, and the guy that showed us also showed us the correct switch to use when turning it off.

Over the past month we have had a plague of flies. I think it has to do with the colder weather. Every day there are dozens and dozens of dead flies all around the windows and doors in the sunroom and the living room. I'm not sure how they get in, there must be cracks around the windows. Some days I'm literally vacuuming up hundreds of dead and dying flies. At first I felt guilty vacuuming them up when they weren't dead, but now I figure if they can't fly away then they must be almost dead anyway and I'm doing them a favour. I will vacuum in the morning, and by afternoon there are more again, lying on the carpet and the window sills. It's so gross. Hopefully the numbers will decrease when the weather gets really cold.

-M

Week 19

Trying to get stuck into the lavender field again. Have let the grass get too long again. Got stuck in with some weeding and weedeating / line trimming.

Finally worked out how to use the weed-eater / line-trimmer / whatever-you-call-it. Actually I already knew how to use one (duh) but have now learnt how to mix the petrol/oil and fill it up. And even managed (after much trying, swearing, cuts and bruises) to pull the cord-thing to start it up on several occasions. I hate those pull-cord-things that you use to start machines. I'm just not strong enough (even though P reckons it's not about being fast or strong nowadays).

Once again we are without a (big) lawn mower. The ride on mower has previously broken down three times so we've given up on that. Now we've been using the tractor with lawn mowing attachment to mow the lawns. Only now that has broken down too. I mowed the lawn around part of the house a few weeks ago. Next time I went to use it, it wouldn't start. We suspected it had run out of diesel. So I had to buy some of that. It was another week before I could fill it up and try again. Still no luck. P says someone said you shouldn't let diesel engines run dry as it buggers them up. Well I didn't know it was running low, did I? I haven't noticed any fuel indicators on the tractor.

So the grass in the lavender field is growing even longer, although the grass and weeds creeping over the weedmat is now cut back at least. The grass in the yard is also growing ever longer. If this continues much longer P will have to get the push mower out again.

Still haven't had any rain. My well meaning friend came over last week with some herbs to plant in the garden, which she had been meaning to do for months. I'm wary of using too much of our tap water to water the plants, given that I don't know how much is in the water tank. Will have to try out water recycling next time the girls have a bath.

Received a very large electricity bill this week. Discovered that we have two electricity meters on the property - one for the house and one for the water pump & electric fences. Unfortunately we've only been receiving bills for the pump meter and not for the house, for the last 3.5 months. So now we've been stung with an unexpected $700 bill. Ouch.

-M

Week 18

Not much going on on the farming front over Easter. Mowed the lawn again with the tractor. Started weed-eating / line-trimming the lavender as the weeds are starting to take over again.

We had a little bit of rain last week. Not enough to fill the water tank but enough to make the weeds start growing again. It's been relatively quiet for the last month but the vege garden is now a sea of green weeds again.

On Saturday evening we attended the Lift Off Levin hot air balloon festival. It was awesome. 20 (well 19 actually) hot air balloons inflated in the showgrounds while we watched, but stayed tethered to the ground. Then as darkness fell they all turned their burners on and off to light up the balloons in time to music. A really awesome spectacle.

I managed to successfully make some apple jelly this week. It was a lot easier than making passionfruit jelly. I learnt from my past mistakes and when it seemed to bubble differently I took it off the heat and poured into preserving jars. It didn't jell like I thought it was going to, but once it cooled down it looks and tastes like I would expect apple jelly to. Didn't make this with our own apples though. We don't have apple trees. These apples came from an organic tree at AgResearch in Palmerston North.

-M

Week 17

When we first moved in here, I was very worried about living off tank water and the possbility of running out of water. After a wet summer with rain every third or fourth day, I stopped worrying. I eased up on the self-imposed water restrictions - started leaving the tap running while washing hands, filled the bath slightly fuller than before, even let the girls turn the tap on for themselves when teeth brushing (with water gushing out FAST).

Then a week or two ago we heard the announcer on the radio saying that Levin township was facing water restrictions due to not having had any rain for a long time. That's when I realised that it hadn't rained for ages. I can't remember the last time it rained. The big storm of three weeks ago was all wind and no rain.

Now Levin township is indeed on water restrictions - no watering of gardens, no washing of cars or buildings until further notice. This doesn't apply to us as we are on tank water not town water. However it does mean we have to start conserving water. K and V are happily doing their part - no baths for four nights in a row.

It was supposed to rain today. I was going to mow the lawn but instead stayed inside cleaning and sorting out stuff. The rain didn't arrive till 6pm. It won't be enough to fill the tank back up.

Last year when P and I attended the Lifestyle Farmers Fieldday we joined an organisation called Farmers Unlimited. Last weekend we attended our first event, a visit to a nearby member's property to see what they had done with it and what they were growing (over 100 different types of apple!). We all went along as a family, however K and V quickly got bored. I ended up taking them away while P stayed on. He said it was very useful.

I don't know if it is representative of the group, but most people there were of an older age group (50's & 60's?) and I get the impression they'd were all experienced lifestylers/farmers. Apparently the group is having trouble recruiting new members. This is a shame as the group is exactly what P and I need - a chance to mingle with experienced people who are happy to share their knowledge and to answer our stupid questions.

Some time in the near future the group may come and visit our property to give us some hints and tips, advice and ideas.

The organisation will be having another table at the Lifestyle Farmers Fieldday this year and P will be manning the desk for part of the time, hopefully drumming up some new business to keep it going.

-M

Week 16 - Making Jelly

We have a passionfruit vine that is taking over the staircase to the deck. It has been growing like crazy since we got here. The passionfruit are finally ready to be eaten. But I can't bring myself to eat them. Apologies to all passionfruit lovers but I find them so ugly (both on the outside and inside) that I just can't bear to eat them.



But I also can't bear the thought of them going to waste. So I came up with a solution. While I don't like the look of passionfruit, I do like the taste. So I decided to make up a batch of passionfruit jelly. That would use up a kg of fruit and I'd be able to eat it no problems.

Making jelly is very time consuming. Cutting up the passionfruit and scooping out the pulp was the most time consuming, followed by waiting for the juice to drip through the muslin.

The process is pretty simple - boil the fruit in water then strain the fruit out so you've just got fruit flavoured water. Then add sugar and boil again until it turns to jelly. Sounds pretty simple.



I followed all that pretty easily. Until I got to the last step (admittedly this was at 10pm so I was a bit tired).

Here's the instructions from the book: "Jelly should foam up high in the pan ... when the mixture jells, allow bubbles to subside".

It also said to boil for a minimum of 10 minutes. Well after 20 minutes it was still bubbling and I couldn't tell if it was jelling or not. I got the impression that I was supposed to wait for it to stop bubbling. That was wrong. It did not stop bubbling.



I finally took it off the heat when it started to darken as though it was burning. And I discovered I'd made a really nice batch of ... passionfruit toffee!!!



We have enough fruit out there that I may try again now that I know what I did wrong. Or I might make passionfruit ice cream topping instead. Or juice.

In other news P bought a chainsaw and put it to work this weekend cutting up the tree which fell down in the big storm. Great work!

Picked another couple of pumpkins and gave them away. Both weighing around 3.7kg. Definitely Crown pumpkins and worth $3 each in the local supermarket. Not saving a heck of a lot of money on those.

-M

Week 15 - Tractors

On Friday night some friends came over for dinner. I was saying how the ride-on mower has broken down three times now and isn't worth repairing, but we didn't know how to work the mower attachment for the tractor (didn't mention that we didn't know how to work the tractor either). Quick as a flash my friend's friend (he's a farming sort of guy) jumped on the tractor, changed the deck over and showed us all how to mow the lawn. So me and my two girl-friends took turns riding round the yard on the tractor mowing the lawn. Including one wearing heels!

So today I took the tractor for a proper spin. Mowed part of the lawn. Mowed all of the lavender field. It was a bit faster than the ride-on mower but I took it slow because the grass was long, and I still had branches to clear away following the storm a few weeks ago. I should have mowed it a couple of weeks ago, but of course we have had no mower. Now that the lavender has been harvested the field looks quite sad.

We have acquired two more pieces of essential farm equipment...

No 1 is a chainsaw. P had hopes of using it this weekend to lop off tree branches growing over fence lines and to cut up dead and fallen trees. But we were busy getting ...

No 2, a dog. A border collie. Supposedly a working dog but has a good chance of ending up being the family pet. He's only a little puppy at the moment and needs house breaking and training. A very cute little pup though.

-M

Week 13 & 14 - Power Cuts

I didn't blog at all last week. We had no electricity.

Tuesday evening at 6pm the power went out (much to my daughter's dismay when the television suddenly turned off). It was quite a windy day, but nothing to the scale of the storm a week and a half ago. I looked outside and noticed smoke billowing from the other side of the hill behind ours.



A little while later our neighbour informed me that a power pylon had come down, setting fire to the paddock. I kept an anxious eye on it all evening (visions of Victorian bushfires in my head) but the wind kept blowing away from us and the fire service had it quickly under control.

The power was out all evening and I ended up going to bed and reading by candlelight. It eventually came back on about 1.30 the next morning.

Wednesday morning we went to the supermarket and had hardly begun when all the lights suddenly went out, the refrigerators went quiet, and for a second there was an eerie silence as everyone looked around, then everyone started talking at once again. The supermarket had enough back-up electricity to power the tills for about 30 minutes, so I grabbed the essentials and headed for the checkout.

Power came back about two hours later. I heard on the radio something about "rolling blackouts" but didn't hear the whole story due to children talking.

On Wednesday evening, again at 6 o'clock, the power suddenly went out again. Once again to my daugher's great dismay. This time I hadn't finished cooking dinner and we had to go out to McDonald's for dinner, to my daughter's delight.

Thursday evening all was fine and I reheated Wednesday's almost ruined dinner - roast lamb together with roast potatoes and roast pumpkin, both out of our garden.

Friday evening, for the third time that week, we lost power yet again, and yet again at 6 o'clock. This time it didn't bother my daughter as we weren't at home. This time the cause of the outage was young hoons driving their cars into power poles.

The unexpected downside of not having any electricity is that we don't have any water either, as the pump which pumps the water out of the water tank is run on electricity. (Unless there's a battery switch somewhere that I don't know about).

---oooOooo---

All that happened in Week 14 (last week). In Week 13, T and I harvested the rest of the lavender. Despite there being more rows of lavender than last time, we actually got a much lower yield of oil than previously. Because of a combination of the plants being younger, and poor growth due to the amount of weeds growing at that end of the paddock (and maybe the storm blew a lot of the buds off?). We only got 2.5 litres of oil.

The weather is starting to fluctuate as we enter Autumn. The mornings have been getting quite cool but still warming up into very hot days. Except for one day last week where it was raining and very, very cool. 14 degrees Celsius inside. Not that cold by winter standards, but considering today was 22 degrees, it was a huge shock to the system. So much so that I actually lit a fire in one of the fireplaces.

Another unexpected consequence of having water tanks is that during summer the cold water never really gets all that cold. But when the weather turns cold, the cold water feels like ice! I'm not looking forward to winter very much!

This weekend we went to the Central Districts Field Days in Feilding. It was very good and very relevant, with exhibits for fencing, tractors, and all sorts of things that farmers need and use. We came away with a PILE of farming magazines to read, a water filter for our kitchen, and lots of information on fencing and sheds, and other things to read. Not much in the way of stock, unless you're interested in highland cattle or alpacas, but they had just about everything else you can think of. It was much more worthwhile than the A&P shows have been. Although once again I don't think my daughter would agree.

Today, St Patrick's Day, has been very appropriately spent harvesting potatoes. The box weighs more than our kitchen scales can handle, but I'm guessing another 16kg [EDIT: Weighed in at 18kg]. Plus the 8-odd kg [EDIT: 7kg] I harvested last week. Brings us up to about 40kg in total. Our local supermarket has them at $2.50 for white and $3 for red potatoes, so I'm estimating we've got just over $100 in potatoes. Now we've just got to eat them all !!!

I also picked a pumpkin (Butternut variety I think) out of the garden too. It weighed about 2kg which is worth around $7.75. But once again, now we have to eat it all !!!

[EDIT] I take that back - just looked at the Wikipedia article for Butternut Pumpkin and it looked entirely different to what we've got. But I'm sure that's what it was labelled in the supermarket. Oh well, here's a pic of it, maybe someone can tell me what it is.



[EDIT AGAIN} I think it is a Crown Pumpkin.

-M

Week 12 - Potatoes and Storms

Normally I'd publish my blog on a Monday night. But I'm going to change that to Tuesdays. Tuesday is the day that K and V go to creche and I spend the day working on the farm.

Last Tuesday I finished weeding the vegetable garden and started harvesting the potatoes. I got about half of the plants harvested. Digging up potatoes is a lot like going to the Big Dig at the beach. Except that you're more likely to find something in the garden. But still, I'm never quite sure that I'm digging in the right place or the right depth. I really wonder how many potatoes I've left behind. Is there a technique I should be using? I just dig with my hands and see what I can find. Will the ones left behind become next years seeds? I notice some new plants growing again already. And a whole lot of new weeds.

So far I've harvested 16 kilos worth of potatoes. At current prices of $2.78 a kilo (on the Woolworths web site, I should really check our local fruit & veg store), that's a saving of $44. Not bad. But that's a LOT of potatoes to eat.

This weekend we had a bad storm come through. The rain was forecast but the wind took us by surprise. The first big storm since we moved in. The tall trees around the house were swaying like, um, I don't know, something that sways a lot. The cover blew off the tractor. The bouncy balls in the yard blew into the trees. Some of the marigolds blew out of the garden. Some of the weedmat blew out too. The garden bench blew over. The pot plants blew off the deck.

Then we went out and discovered the big willow tree at the bottom of the driveway had snapped towards the top and had fallen over the driveway. Our neighbour helped us tow it out of the way.



One of the eucalyptus trees along the driveway fell over into the field alongside, bringing down the fence with it. Another eucalyptus near the house leaned over into the one next to it.



We had electricity intermittently all afternoon. Then at 4.30 it went off for good. We had to go into town for dinner to the girls' delight. We got home and the power was still out. We had to put the girls to bed by candlelight, which was very exciting for them. The power came back on at 8.30, and the storm had died down by then.

There were branches and leaves everywhere, and I spent all day today picking up the pieces. We now have a very large pile of branches in the middle of one of our fields.



-M

Week 11

At the beginning of the week I set about weeding the vegetable garden. It's now 80% done and I hope to finish it tomorrow. Well, that's all the big weeds pulled out anyway. The small weeds are starting to grow again already! The potatoes are all ready to come out and I also discovered a pumpkin growing in amongst the weeds too.

The birds continue to eat the fruit off the trees before we can get to it. However the passionfruit is just about ready to eat.

I mowed the grass (using the ride-on mower) in the lavender field this week as it was starting to grow back again. It took two hours to mow the whole field. Compare that to the several days it took last time!

The following day I attempted to mow the lawn. The ride-on mower broke down AGAIN! That's the third time now! The belt that controls the lowering of the blades split and fell off. Am really not impressed. P ended up mowing the whole lawn with the push mower at the weekend and it took nearly 3 hours.

Last night we got woken up by one of our cats meowing in the hallway. He'd brought us a present. Not a mouse, not a rat, not a bird. A rabbit. Way to go Spot!

Our homemade bread is going down well. We've been through two loaves this week. Keeping it in the freezer has encouraged me to eat it more. Isn't it funny how the convenience of already being sliced makes you want to use it, or the inconvenience of having to slice it whenever you want some makes you not want to bother. When really it only takes a few seconds. It freezes well, but sticks together a bit, which makes it hard to break apart.

We were out late one night during the week. Coming home there were just so many stars in the sky. It was amazing. All the constellations were there. I don't know if I've ever seen the Milky Way before. It was beautiful.

-M

Week 10 - Harvesting the Lavender

We harvested part of our lavender crop at the beginning of this week. We have two different varieties of lavender - Grosso and Super. They are both varieties of Lavandin aka Lavendula x intermedia (I think that's the correct Latin term). French Lavender anyway. We harvested the Grosso only as the Super isn't ready yet.

T came and helped us using his special machine which cut the flower heads off and caught them in a big bag. P helped him with this, while I fed and bathed the girls - we did the harvesting between 5-7pm as it had been wet overnight and this gave the lavender all day to dry out. Plus it worked out well with P being at work during the day. They harvested 10 rows of lavender and we stored it all over our garage floor overnight.



The following day T and I took the flower heads to a distillery in Woodville. The process was very interesting. The lavender heads are put into a large vat and steam is run through it. The steam/water vapour then cools down as it travels out a pipe, turning back into water and oil which has been released from the flowers. The oil floats on top of the water and is syphoned off at the end of the process. There's a pretty good Wikipedia article on the process.



We had somewhere between 300-400kgs of flower heads, which gave us 7.5 litres of oil. Now the oil has to sit somewhere dark and cool for 6-8 months to age/mellow before we can do anything with it.

We also have 7 x 20 litre buckets of distilled water aka hydrosol to use. Apparently this can be used in soap making later on, or we can just put it in our baths as it has some oil residue in it as well.

We also have all the 'cooked' lavender heads to be spread over the garden as mulch.



Apart from that there hasn't been a lot of work going on this week. It has been raining quite a lot this week, replenishing the water tank and watering the garden. T said it was just as well we harvested the lavender at the beginning of the week as it would have been ruined by the heavy rain.

The heavy rain also caused us to discover a birds nest blocking the gutter at the back of the house. Water was pouring out of the gutter and onto K's bedroom windows, and straight through the gaps in the leadlights and all over her bedroom floor. At least the floors are wooden and there was no furniture there.

We have taken a break from making bread this week. The last couple of loaves have gone mouldy real quick. We think it was because of the humidity lately. I've done an experiment today and made a loaf, sliced it all up and put it in the freezer, just as I would do with store-bought bread. Not sure how well it will defrost/taste so will include an update next week.

-M

Week 9 - More Weeding

More Weeding. That just about sums it up really. Weeding among the lavender. Weeding the vegetable garden. Spraying the weeds around the outskirts of the yard.

At least all of the lavender field is done now, even though it's taken 17 hours over the past two weeks. Doesn't sound like much, but it was incredibly time consuming, fiddly and boring work.

And about a quarter of the vegetable garden is done too. Last week I mentioned I thought we had tomatoes growing too. Now that turns out not to be the case. After reading several gardening guides (including Yates), none of whom mentioned it, I finally stumbled across this quote from the NZ Vegetable Gardening Guide 1976 "Quite often after the potato flowers, small tomato-like fruits appear on the tops, these are poisonous!" Gosh you'd think some of the other gardening books might have mentioned that! Seems even growing something as simple as potatoes isn't quite as simple as it seems.

The lavender is now ready for harvesting. We were planning on doing it on Monday, however now it appears the weather might not be right. So we will just have to wait and see.

-M

Week 8 - Weeding

Weeding, weeding and more weeding. If I never see another weed again it will be too soon. Unfortunately I'll be seeing lots of more of them because I'm nowhere near finished.

I've been pulling weeds out of the lavender and it is incredibly time consuming work. There are heaps of bees hanging around the lavender too. Luckily I've stayed away from them and they've stayed away from me. I even spent half a day weeding in light rain but it was so warm that it didn't matter. It did keep the number of bees down though.

K and V are now going to daycare one day a week to enable me to do things like this. The rest of the time I sandwich it around V's naps and K's quiet time.

The lavender will be ready for harvest early next week.

The potatoes are ready for harvesting too. (I think). I weeded a small portion of the vegetable garden and discovered we also have what looks like tomatoes growing there too. They just weren't visible beneath all the weeds.

The citris trees are covered in small green fruit which hopefully one day will grow into large orange fruit.

Our only fruit tree bearing fruit so far (not including the lemon tree), a nectarine tree(?), has about half a dozen fruit on it. All of which have been half eaten by birds.

The other night I went to sleep to the sound of a morepork outside. One of those great moments about living in the country. Lately I've been too busy to stop and smell the roses (or is that because the rose beds all need weeding too!!!).

-M

Week 7 - Mowing

The focus this week has been on mowing. In particular mowing the lavender field. The grass between the rows of lavender was almost the same height as the lavender, around knee height.

P and I took turns on the ride-on mower, riding up and down the rows. We have about 20-25 rows of lavender altogether. It was very, very slow going because the grass was so long. We had to travel at the slowest speed and have the blades as high as we could. In the half day we had available to do it in, we got about half of it mowed. The rest of the week T has been here finishing off the mowing for us. There is just no way I can do it while the girls are here. So we've had to pay someone to do it.



It took T three and a half full days to do an intial mow of the grass (continuing on from what we'd been doing), weedeat around the lavender plants where the mower couldn't get, and then do another final mow to cut the grass short.

The lavender should be ready for harvest in about a weeks time.

All that's left to do now is pulling the weeds out from inside the lavender. I spent a couple of hours doing it in Sunday. It is very slow and time consuming and fiddly work. Each row takes me about 45 minutes.

The ride-on lawnmower is broken again. We only just got it back from the repair shop a couple of weeks ago. Now it just sends out lots of smoke when you turn it on. P thought it was the oil and replaced that. But it's still not going.

The vege garden is still full of weeds however the potatoes are getting bigger. We also have some kind of pumpkin/squash thing growing too.

-M

Week 6 - The Garden of Weeden

I have nicknamed our garden The Garden of Weeden. Theoretically it's supposed to be an idyllic place. However if you look closely you'll see weeds springing up all over the place. Actually you don't need to look that closely. They're everywhere and they're large. Last week the paddock nearest to the house was a sea of yellow dandelions. This week it's a sea of white yarrow.

I got out the weedspray at the beginning of this week to go around the yard, spraying the weeds that either P missed or have popped up since he sprayed a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately I got the proportions wrong and only did it at 1/4 strength. So at the end of the week I found myself doing it all over again, this time at the right strength. Even so it looked like some of the less hardy weeds had already started wilting.

The vegetable patch / potato garden is completely overgrown with weeds. This doesn't seem to be stopping the potatoes from growing though. I attempted to dig out some of the weeds one afternoon. I got about 1/8 of the garden done and haven't gotten back to it again.



The caterpillars that we kept finding in the sunroom have gone. There was a pile of firewood the previous owners had left behind, which I moved outside. A few days later the number of caterpillars had dropped dramatically. I'm still not sure if it was because we moved the wood, or if it was a normal drop off at this time of year.

We went to the Horowhenua AP&I show this weekend. Hoped to get some contacts for various things but didn't. It seemed to either cater for the established farmer by way of competetions, or for recreational lifestylers who are more concerned with the aesthetics of their gardens than the practical aspects of farming.

-M

Week 5

The Christmas holiday are over and P is back at work now. Meaning I've been here on my own with the girls and not a lot of work has been done. It'll be easier when V is older but right now I can't realy leave her alone for too long. But if I take her outside with me, all she does is eat things. Which probably isn't going to hurt her ... except for the areas where we've been weedspraying, or where the deadly nightshade has started springing up as a weed everywhere.

The weeds that were sprayed last week have started dying, but more are springing up. And the grass needs mowing again but the ride-on mower is still broken. We're hoping to have it looked at this week.

I have made a start on learning about lavender, what we need to do with it, when and how. Have contacted a local grower, T, who usually helps with the harvesting of the lavender. The harvesting is carried out some time in February. His lavender is always the first to be ready for harvest, so he will know when it is time to do ours. He has been incredibly helpful and informative. I spent an hour or two with him over the weekend and learnt heaps. Saw the harvesting and distilling process in action at another local lavender farm. Have been given some prices for harvesting, distilling and materials required. Now I need to crunch the numbers together and come up with some sort of budget. Although the harvesting and distilling is done in February, the oil then has to mature in glass jars for another 6-8 months after that before it can be made into products, so no income for a while.

The grass and weeds in the lavender field are knee high or more. T says he can cut that back for us and then we'll just have to keep it short to prevent contamination of the lavender. I am rather embarassed by the state of the field, but with all our concentration on moving in to the property, things just got out of hand in the last 5 weeks (plus it wasn't necessarily handed over to us in a weed-free state).

The other paddocks are all overgrown too and the large weeds are threatening to spread their seeds far and wide. Gotta get some livestock in there soon!

Met some of the neighbours this week under rather unusual circumstances. There was a knock on the door one day and the lady at the door said she had accidentally backed her car into our letterbox and broken it. But she would get her husband to collect it and fix it. Later on another neighbour phoned to say that they had put our mail into her letterbox as ours wasn't there any more. I'm just happy that they were honest and put the matter to right. Country folk are good like that. Plus it enabled us to meet some neighbours so all in all it was a good thing.

This week we had no biscuits in the house and I really wanted some. So K and I baked some cookies. It was fun and I'm going to try and keep doing this instead of buying them. Might try and make muffins this week too. Plus we're back on track for making bread again.

-M

Week 4

This week has pretty much been a continuation of the previous weeks. As it has been summer holidays with Christmas and New Year, we checked out a lot of the surrounding attractions - Owlcatraz, Waitarere Beach and the Levin Aquatic Centre.

The borders of the garden were bare when we moved in. Now there are little weed forests growing in them. P found the weedspraying backpack and loaded it up with weedspray. It holds 16 litres but I don't think he filled it up. He did halfway around the garden before running out. Later on he refilled it and finished off the job. I'm not sure how many tanks it took, and that's only for the garden let alone the driveway.

The lawn needs mowing again.

The grass in the paddocks continues to get longer.

The lavender is starting to look really beautiful.

Self sufficiency is taking a back seat this week - we haven't made lemonade because we're scared to drink the water, and the only loaf of bread I made was a complete disaster.

But we have had more potatoes out of our garden. I also discovered a rabbit burrow right in middle of the vege garden!!! Cheeky rabbits.

-M