At 4 o’clock Ollie arrived.

He is straight off his mum and is only a day old. He looked pretty sad when he arrived, probably having a bit of motion sickness from the trip.

We let him settle abit and then put Sweetie Pye into the milking bay and let him have a small feed. He didn’t take alot of convincing, only a small squirt of milk onto his tongue and he was away. Sweetie Pye of course is not so happy and would gladly kick him off, but that will pass in a few days.

This morning Ollie was a lot more lively, but was very hungry, so I let him have another feed.

I have to put Sweetie Pye in the milking bail and tie her leg so allow him to have a feed, but so far it is working quite well, and it is only a matter of time before she will accept him and they can be lft in peace.

So this was our answer to the lost baby. Now we have two calves and two empty cows. Not quite what we had planned for but we will move forward from here again.

All was going well, until this morning. I went to do the daily check on everyone, and there at the side of the paddock, was an almost perfectly formed but very early and small calf. Sweetie Pye had got into the macrocarpa and slipped her calf as a result.

I feel so sad, but now we also have to do the right thing by her, we just have to work out which way to go. The biggest problem will be getting her to clean out properly and not get an infection so we will be watching her closely. We also have to decide whether to continue to dry her off or not.

As we say goodbye to the summer garden, I am reluctant to clear out the sad looking tomatoes and peppers in the hope that winter may not be quite so close. But the truth is that winter is on its way, and we all need to turn our thoughts and embrace it.

Last winter I noticed what grew well and there were a couple of months there that, even here in the winterless north, nothing really grew at all. So this year I have been filling the garden early with many of the winter veges we will be wanting.

This may seem like a good thing to do, but has been problematic due to the hugh amount of white cabbage butterflies we have had to contend with. They are every where and seem to be able to get in tiny gaps around the garden boxes to lay there eggs. All the brassicas have bird netting covers still on them, but the butterflies are getting very clever all the same. I had some cauliflower seedling almost ready to plant out, and some cabbages just popping there heads up, but when I looked at them this weekend, they have suddenly become nothing more than stalks. Luckly I have been interval sowing my seeds so all is not lost, but with the warm weather fading I went into a bit of a panic, and went and bought some seedlings from Koanga Gardens (which we are luck is just down the road from us). So now we have some wonderful heritage seedlings that we didn’t plant sitting in the garden under some frost cloth. Interesting that the cauliflower I got from them was that same one that I had planted, but the broccoli was different. This is good since it hasn’t messed too much with my planning on the Planting Planner.

We have been luck this summer, in that while most of the country have be suffering a drought we have had just enough rain to keep the grass growing. We are going into winter with a little less growth than last year, but as the grass is still growing we will hopefully get through well.

We have also chosen this year to hold off getting the ram in for a while. Since we are only raising the lambs for our own use and not for the open market we have a bit more freedom to move. After the christmas lambs being so easy to care for because of the warm weather, we decided that having the first lamb born on august the first like last year, was just making the winter harder. So hopefully the ram will go in with the ewes in a couple of weeks, and we will have lambs the end of september.

All our winter firewood is in, and we still have pears and now also feijoas in the orchard.

It has been with great pleasure that we have watched our grocery bill drop down to less than half what it was before we started this venture. With food prices rising steadily, we are eating as well as, if not better than we use to for a fraction fo the price. I often now wonder if it wouldn’t be a good thing for downturn in the economy if it forces more people to plant a garden and grow even a little of their own food. There is something amazing and very satisfying about sitting down to a meal that you have produced yourself. Italmost feels like free food when the main cost is just time. A packet of seeds can go an awful long way.

Pretty soon we will have to start the autumn clean up, and there will be lots pruning and composting, but for now I am content to just pretend that it is still summer, even if it is getting colder.

She went really well, although my legs are reminding me that it was my first ride in six months now. Yesterday I was busy with the homeschool group so no ride and then today, the weather is really bad. Still she is there if I feel the need so that is a good thing.

 So, first things first, out with the weedeater and clear a patch around the gates – sounds easy, eh?  Half an hour or so later and we were ready to move the lambs.  By the time I had done the last gate, Mum and daughter had already managed to get the two lambs through the “middle” paddock and into the bottom one, where we wanted them – they had still been reluctant to go through the long grass, they were at least in the right paddock before they encountered it

Now it was time for the last five.  Fortunately they were in the paddock just North of the middle paddock, so they weren’t too far away.  So with Mum and daughter strategically positioned on the hill, I “ushered” the lambs down from the top.  But, upon reaching the gate, they decided they maybe they didn’t want to go through afterall, so they headed between us and back up the hill.  Our daughter then (reluctantly) when up the hill to head them off, but that just encouraged them to go “through” the closed gate – go figure!  Unfortunately that resulted in them now being in the same paddock as the older sheep and the four new lambs.

So next we had to move all of them into the pens (miles away) so we could sort them out.  This probably wasn’t so bad because it gave us a chance to separate out some of the fatter ones and put rings on the new lambs.

Putting them sheep and lambs back was a slightly easier job, since we now put the two older ewes (who needed fattening up after lambing earlier in the year) in with the older lambs (yes, some of theirs), so the lambs just followed the older ones through the gates.

We then put the three “fatter” ewes in a low grass area, and the three mothers (with ringed lambs) in the house paddock – another job finished!

The rest of the afternoon (for me at least) was spent mowing the orchard.  I think I managed not to run over any waterers, for a change!

It wasn’t too bad a job – mostly just tedious and wet (as I remove existing pipes and get a face full of water).  After about two hours we had half the orchard watering properly and, most importantly, the nectarine tree at the farthest corner finally got wet.

The rest of the day was spent visiting Whangarei to get chook and pig food, watering system supplies, and other miscellaneous gardening stuff.