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
24 March 2009
17 March 2009
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).
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
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
03 March 2009
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
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
19 February 2009
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
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
16 February 2009
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
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
09 February 2009
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
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
02 February 2009
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
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
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