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

Week 3

We spent our first Christmas on the farm. Dug up some potatoes out of the garden and had them with Christmas dinner. It was cool to be eating out of our own garden, but we can't take the credit for it as we didn't plant them. It was fun digging them up though.

Had more potatoes for dinner tonight too. However these ones weren't growing in the garden - they were growing wild in the compost heap! I pulled the plants out of the compost heap to get it ready for new material, only to find the potatoes were much bigger than the ones I'd picked out of the garden for Christmas dinner.

P got the ride-on lawn mower out of the garage yesterday and managed to get it going. He took it around the main part of the yard twice and I took it around another couple of times. It was lots of fun. I stalled it a couple of times on the long grass. The last time it wouldn't start again. Ooops, here I go breaking everything again. P had to finish off the job by hand (using the ordinary petrol push mower). It took him hours.

We have more uninvted guests in our house.

Every day I find 3 or 4 little black caterpillars in the sunroom. I have no idea where they are coming from. I throw them outside but every morning there are more crawling across the carpet.

The starlings are gone from the ceiling above the kitchen. To be replaced by sparrows in the guttering/under the eaves above the deck. The worst part is all their droppings are right outside the door that leads onto the deck. We left the door open this afternoon and V crawled right through it. Yuck, yuck, yuck.

We get our water from a water tank. When we first moved in I drank the water out of the tap and didn't like it so haven't touched it since. P tried it today and said it is foul. Not quite sure what we have to do now. Maybe get the water tested? Will definitely boil it before drinking in future.

We had initially been concerned about using too much water and running out. However it has rained every third day since we've been here, so haven't had to worry too much about it yet.

Took another step towards self sufficiency this week by baking our own bread. Ok so we still have to buy the ingredients so it's not exactly self sufficient. But we are now making our own bread and lemonade, and eating our own potatoes out of the garden. It is a start.

-M

Week 2

Haven't managed to get much done around the house this week. Opened a few boxes but that's about it. Attempted to get into the garden but kept being interrupted by V trying to eat stones or crawl away, and K needing to go toilet or wanting to "help" me. Managed to deadhead a few rose bushes but there are more to go. The lawn is getting long, the grass in the paddocks is knee high, the vegetable garden needs attending to, the compost needs turning. But at least I attended to the decorative part of the garden!!!

Have started living off the land though - rather than buying juice from the store we have been making our own lemonade with lemons off the tree. As an unforeseen consequence we are drinking less than we used to, or drinking more alcoholic beverages, so as not to have to make the juice so often. Which was not the desired result.

P got rid of the birds in the ceiling. He climbed up and found their nest, complete with baby starling. He took baby starling away and we haven't heard a peep from mum or dad since. The city girl in me feels really bad about it. The city girl in me also smiles whenever she sees rabbits running around our property.

The hardware stores in Levin are all closed on a Sunday. P was mighty annoyed and drove to Palmerston North instead. He has built a fence to keep V away from the television (in our old house the TV was wallmounted so it wasn't a problem).

Discovered the local rubbish tip yesterday. We do not have a local rubbish collection this far out of town (unless you want to pay for it) so will probably become frequent tip visitors. Although that's not cheap either. But as our washing machine broke down just before we moved, we have been going through a LOT of disposable nappies since we arrived here.

Had our first party in the house this week. The dishwashers were working overtime the following day. You know your house is big when the vacuum cleaner cord barely stretches from one side of the room to the other.

-M

Week 1

Moving boxes everywhere. P took a couple of days off but there is still so much to unpack. We have SO MUCH STUFF. Currently there is stuff piled on top of stuff. Where are we going to put it all? Lucky this house has so much room.

It is amazing being in the country. Every now and then I'll just stop what I'm doing and look out the window, and just go WOW. Just looking out at green everywhere feels so peaceful and relaxing.

Biggest difference from being in the city (besides the scenery) ... it is dark at night, so very dark. No street lights, no neighbours lights, just darkness.

We have birds living in the ceiling and the walls. One sounds like it is behind the kitchen wall/rangehood. We had two others fly down into the chimneys. P opened the fireplace door and one later flew out into the room.

There are flies everywhere. Every day there are a dozen fly carcasses lying on the window sills around the house. I have to be vigilent and find them before V does, lest she try and eat them.

We have a swimming pool. We've never owned a swimming pool before either. On day 1 and day 3, K and I went for a swim. Now the pool has turned green. We suspect the previous owners had a filter running. We need to find where it is and how to work it.

Have been so busy with the inside of the house, we haven't even looked at outside or the land yet.

-M