The lull of Autumn

So, hospital has been and gone, all over and done with.  Hooray.  I’m almost back to normal (whatever that is).  Things at home are pretty quiet (today at least).  We are enjoying the school holidays, not having to rush to go anywhere.  Monday we have a house full of teenagers, both Ian and I are enjoying having other teens come to visit, and none of them are any trouble at all, all great kids just like ours , especially when they are all nice to the small boy.  Lilly had an early birthday party, we will do cake and presents on Saturday for her actual birthday and next week she has another outing planned with friends into Welly for Ice-Skating.  So independent!

The garden is hibernating, I haven’t yet put in any winter vegetables, I had to wait for the drought to break first.  Given that we’ve now had rain for the last week or so I think I can safely plant some out.  I need to get in some carrots, beetroot, broadbeans, lettuce, leeks and it’s nearly time to plant garlic.  I am still getting lots of tomatoes most days, we are eating lots of rhubarb (cakes and puddings), silverbeet and zucchini. Once I have finished the current custom quilt I will get into the garden and get it sorted.

Craft-wise I finished a jacket for Cam

finished a custom lap quilt

made some cushion covers

plus started a bunch of things that are not finished, like a winter coat for a showcase, cut out pants for the boy but not sewn them yet.  I don’t get much done during the school holidays, so don’t expect to see much for a while.  I have a few more custom jobs coming up in the next month or two, yay, it’s good to be busy.  My knitting is coming along, I’m halfway through knitting my Rae scarf, I might post some pics of that soon.

Animal-wise things are stagnant, but with hope for the future.  We have no replacement beef, I’m not sure what we will do about that, but not-so-little ram lamb has been servicing the ewes, so we are hopeful of some lambs in August.  The little chickens are growing up, still too early to tell if any are roosters, I hope not though.

On the renovation front, our room is almost complete.  Walls patched and painted, I love it.  Just need to paint the bottom skirtings and add some skirting around the windows.  One day we will get new carpet, but will have to wait till the rest of the house is ready for it.

So that us.

 

 

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Down on the farm…

Time for a bit of an update on things here at Highwaycottage

The house has settled on the new piles.  We’ve been absolutely hammered by massive wind gusts (up to 150kph) and it’s not going anywhere.  Last weekend we finally got the two new double-glazed windows in the bedroom.  About time too.  We had abysmal service from the supplier, so for the third window for that room we have changed suppliers.  When the last window is installed at the end of the month we will strip all the GIB in the room and then reline all the walls, adding in new insulation where needed and filling the gaps where the room was not joined to the rest of the building properly.

We are really pleased that we invested so much money into fencing, our stock management has improved and we are reaping the benefits of having plenty of spring grass.  The cow is growing well, but needs a field mate.

The fat white sheep surprised us yesterday by having a lamb, 10 weeks after the other ewe lambed.  We were convinced that she was barren this year and was nearly sent away to be sausages.  She can have a reprieve now.  Nice big healthy lamb, not yet sexed.

The other two lambs (Marceline and Princess Bubblegum) were weaned a few weeks ago and are both growing fast.

We’ve been doing some work in the garden, growing veges and trying to get on top of the weeds.  Here are some pics of the herb garden and some of my vege beds (most still surrounded by weeds).

Flowering purple Sage

My salad vege garden

Shallots, Garlic and spring onions

Snow peas, peas, broadbeans plus a few beetroot and spinach (which the chooks keep stealing).

After a burst of lovely sunny days the seeds that Cameron and I planted on Labour weekend have finally sprouted

This weekend will probably be spent in the garden, weather permitting, getting some fencing started, some new beds ready for the tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini etc.  I hope so anyway.

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A break in the rain..

After a whole week of non stop rain it’s good to have a fine day at last.  Despite the rain Ian took some time of work and got 2 loads of mushroom compost for the new / recycled garden beds.  I ordered a few packets of seeds from Kings Seeds and was ready to plant them today.  Cameron was very keen to help, we had bought him some gardening gloves a couple of weeks ago.

He stayed to help put in broad beans and peas before he got bored and wandered off

Here’s the 3 beds that are now planted / growing…

the back one has broad beans, peas, snow peas and some golden beetroot seeds, all planted today, the middle one, the garlic and shallots planted a few weeks ago which have sprouted, a few wild spring onions the Ian transplanted in, and a few spring onion seeds that I put in today.  The closest bed has lettuce (mesculan mix), striped beetroot (chioggia), radishes, carrots (paris globe), beetroot (red) and carrots (big ones can’t remember they type), all planted today.  Fingers crossed for good sprouting and no more frosts!

The herb garden is growing well, some of the outside stems of the Italian Parsley are a bit sad, but I’ll cut them off once the new growth is a bit more established.

Now that I’ve gardened I’m going to do a bit of sewing. Ian’s out buidling some more fences so we can move the sheep again.

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