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