Dream For Three

Today was Sweetie Pyes day, she was due to come into heat tomorrow and the plan was that she would go over the fence today and be there for a couple of days visiting some very handsome boys and then come home again, hopefully in calf.

Last night when I went to shut Liquorice up for the night, so that I could milk in the morning before Sweetie Pye went, I noticed that she was looking close to being in heat. Sure enough by this morning she was in full swing and would stand for anything that was going. I did manage to get some milk out of her, but as is typical at this time for her, she really didn’t want to cooperate more than she could help.

There was still seven bulls in the paddock but the farmer has assured me that his worker would take five of them out by 10.00am and Sweetie Pye and Liquorice could spend a couple of days in there with the other two.

While I was feeding the chickens I could hear a bike tearing around the paddock and sure enough there was the worker chasing bulls all over the place with his bike.  It was quite funny to watch, and there was nothing gentle about his approach.

He chased the ones to be left at a flat out run to either end of the paddock and then before they could all regroup he whipped around and chased the others out the gate and up the race. When he had finished I think there were two very bewildered looking bulls left wondering what had just happened.

Anyway it gave me the chance to safely get a cow in full heat and her calf into the paddock and the gate shut very firmly behind them.

The presence of Sweetie Pye certainly made a difference to the bulls and they haven’t wasted anytime getting down to buisness. I can see them from my kitchen window and what a funny sight they make to see cow striding along around the paddock with two bulls following along in single file, Daisy and Cricket are standing at the fenceline calling to her to come home, and poor little Liquorice is standing in the middle of the paddock wondering what to do because Mum told him to go away so that she could play with the big boys, and sister and aunty are on the other side of the fence, and the big boys don’t want to know him. Poor boy I am sure he will live through it though.

We have decided to try and get a replacement milking cow out of Sweetie Pye next year on account of her being an older cow, and also she is still only on lone to us. So with these things in mind she is in with two Jersey Bulls and will we will hope for a Heifer this time. It is not the end of the world if it doesn’t happen like this but in the ideal world kthat would be what we would order.

Daisy is continuing to look like a pregnant cow and she now has the cutest little uder developing, she is in calf to a low birth weight Murray Grey, but it did take three goes at having her AIed before she got pregnant. She is due around the end of July.

With this in mind Bevan needs to get on and get the new milking bail built, he has holidays coming up at easter so I am really hoping to see some progress on them then. It will be needed to train Daisy to milk and since she doesn’t like change much, the sooner it is done the sooner she can get use to going in there for her hay, and we can start getting her use to being handled in there.

This year we took Samantha to Zion Wildlife Gardens for her birthday – she had been asking for quite a while, and it all managed to work out this year.

As we expected it turned out to be a bit of an expensive trip (especially with the stuffed toys and t-shirts that we purchased after the tour).  They have a great range of animals at the park and there’s some interesting insights available as well.  It’s probably not something you would want to do on a regular basis – it’s very much like the Zoo in that respect.

Here are a few pictures from the visit, including the keeper who was killed later in the year by the white lions he was feeding.

At one point, while we were standing by the main pride and the white lions were about to be fed, I was growled at by this little lady – I don’t think she appreciated having the camera on her so much.

It all started several months ago (the October 2008, but not purchased until November 2008, according to the bank statement), when I decided that buying a kitset shed would be a brilliant idea – get some of the seldom used stuff out of the house, while keeping it safe from the weather.

Little did I know when I ordered the shed (in October 2008) that there was more to it than just linking a whole heap of panels together – apparently we needed some sort of flat platform on which to build it!  After several discussions with people who know, combined with my lack of desire to dig a flattish section into a gently sloping hill, I decided it would be best to put in a wooden floor.

Being the definite non-builder that I am,  I headed off to the local Carters store to get what I needed – amazingly enough the floor cost about half the price of the shed!  Even then, I later found that I still didn’t have everything yet.

It was December 2008 by this time and I was starting to realise that I had to get this floor built so that I could get on with the shed, which had now been sitting in a box for over a month.  Further discussions with people in the know found me digging a number of holes for posts – this turned out to be much harder than expected; for starters, I really don’t like digging holes.

It’s taken until mid-January, but I have now put in 13 posts, built the frame, and laid the plywood floor.  I have learnt many things, including how to mix concrete, how to square a frame, and how to procrastinate (Ok, so I already knew how to do the last one).

The next week or two should (hopefully) see me constructing the shed so we can finally start using it.  I’ve had a quick look at the instructions and it doesn’t sound as simple as it looks, so fingers crossed.

As a new year is about to come upon us, it is time to take stock and see how close to our goals we have reached.

The garden is starting to crank up for the summer harvest, and we even got our first crop of beans for the year. We eat alot of beans, so this is something that I not only grow for immediate eating, but also I freeze alot for the winter months. Last winter we ran out in the last month before the garden got going so this year the plan is to do a bit more.

I have some peas in the freezer for use over the hot summer months when they don’t grow, and my last row of them is just poding up now, it looks like I got the timing right that they will be finished before the heat kills them. I have today sown the pean beans that we used last year for homemade baked beans, so it will be good to get some more of them.

We have cucumbers and zucchinis in over abundance right now and the the tomotoes have started to ripen. The garlic has been harvested and is in the process of drying, seems to be bigger bulbs than last year, so that went well.

Potatoes, well  I could well be able to do two full crops so we will have plenty over the summer and still be growing them for the winter months. This year we have once again grown Chipawas for the wonderful chips they make, and also Sambagos for roasting. I have some moonlight seed potatoes but haven’t got them in the ground yet, as well as an unkown type that were here when we came and I have moved to the orchard to help the forest garden get going.

As for fruit, well we have had a surprising large number of raspberries off our one little plant, and I see that it is now sending up lots of shoots so as long as we have a cold enough winter we should get lots next year as well. The blueberries have done nothing with the berries just not ripening on the plants at all, but the strawberries have done well so that is all good.

We are looking like we will get plenty of apples and are already getting plums. One row of pear trees(winter cole) is doing very badly in the fruit department, but then it always has done next to nothing and we are still trying to work out what the problem is with them. The packham and nashi pears both have lots of developing fruit again so no worries there.

The necterine tree is doing really well on all the compost and manure it got last year, but the peach tree right next to is is fighting with us as to whether it will stay alive or not. This morning it had nine shoots on it, that is two more that two days ago and seven more than last month. Needless to say we will not have any peaches this year.

I think all the other trees are pretty much doing what they have always done, although there does seem to be alot of figs on the fig trees at the moment.

We are continuing to milk the cow, and we have been enjoying wonderful homemade ice cream, yogurt, butter, as well as milk. I have not made any cheese as yet, but nest year when daisy is in milk we will probably have to. Daisy is, I am pretty sure, now pregnant, but we have not been able to catch Sweetie Pye in standing heat to get the AI man into her, so not quite sure what we will do about that as yet. Her not so little calf Liquorice has been growing steadily for the last seven weeks and has will make a wonderful addition to our freezer in a couple of years.

We finally reached the point with the chickens were they are paying for themselves, and then my rooster died some mysterious death one day. On christmas eve we hatched the last lot of eggs we had from him, so now we will have to decide what to do about a replacement for him. I have been toying with the idea of just buying in fertile eggs rather than feeding a rooster all year around, but that decsion is still to come.

We have ended up with seven lambs of which only one is on the plan to keep, so lots of lamb chops in the future.

Having the pigs in winter stocked the freezer well, but they were not fun to care for in the rain with all the mud around. We had to repave around their gateway as they had created such a hole in it. Summer is definetly the only time we should do pigs, and certainly Orenoko and Tobermore that we have now are much more fun. Lesson learnt and we have an extra one on order for the end of next year to raise over the summer.

Over all I feel that I have reached my goal for the year. I wanted to be producing 70 -80% of our own food, I feel that with the addition of a housecow we have reached that point. We can certainly go through our fair share of packaged foods when we want to,but the whole point is that we only do so by choice and not because there is nothing else to eat. Even Bevan has been heard to comment on the poor quality and hugh number of additives in prepackaged goods, and that is a whole new way of thinking for him.

Now for my goal for next year. This is a hard one, as I really want to continue on the path we have started on. I think I need to have the gardens under better control as the weeds keep getting away from me at the moment, and I would also like to make some cheese in the future.

Certainly we will be wanting to achieve at least as high or higher percentage of home grown food.

It has been waited for with alot of anticipation and worry. The birth of our first calf. Sweetie Pye was lent to us so that we could learn to milk and have our own dairy products. She arrived two months ago and it was believed that she was carring a half hereford calf.

Where she came from they started having problems with over sized calves and some very serious calving problems on account of the new bull they had brought in. I was worried!

We were in no way equiped to cope with a full problem birth and the potential loss of both cow and calf. The local vets office was put on alert.

I started taking regular photos of Sweetie Pye as things progressed towards the birth. Her udder got so big it looked like it was going to explode.

I could not imagine how the udder could get any bigger. Something had to give.

Just before lunch she started pacing around and seemed unable to decide where to put herself. Within two hours it became obvious that labour was in full swing and the baby would be here soon

I watched carefully for any signs of a problem, but did not want to intervene unless it was absolutely essential.

At 1:50pm on friday Liquorice Allsorts came into the world, with no help from anyone.

Click on the thumbnails to see the actual birth.

Two days later both mother and baby are doing really well

Now that he is here, it is believed that the father is not a hereford, but instead a Red Devon bull that belonged to Marys neighbour. Liquorice is a nice big healthy boy and appears to be doing very well so far.

We have been helping out at the milk bar since there is way more milk than what just one calf can manage. Yesterday we milked of almost eight litres of colostum over two milkings, some of which went into the freezer in case of future need. It is looking like Sweetie Pye has one blind quarter(no milk in that part of her udder) with another one having very little, so most of the milk is coming from the two front teats. Even so there is still plenty there to feed one calf with a bit left over for the house.

We have some more pigs arrivingthis week so they will be able to to have some as well.

I couldn’t resist this family photo – Sweetie Pye, Liquorice Allsorts, and that is Cricket(Sweetie Pyes daughter from last year) on the other side of the tape.

Happy Families.

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Its always the pets that cause problems and Sammies pet lamb from last year is no exception.

Of course for the first time in weeks I didn’t check them this morning, but did after lunch. And sure enough there she was with the face of a lamb sticking out her rear end. And of course the stupid thing decided that today was the day that she did like people, and didn’t want to go anywhere where we could help her. So after half an hour or more of chasing her around the paddock, I finally gave up and decided to put her in the pig paddock.

Thank goodness the pigs went last week.

10 minutes later there I was with sammie sitting on her and me with my arm up her whatsit. I managed to get one leg out, but there was no way I was going to manage the other one, so decided that since the lamb was probably dead anyway after all that that I would just have to pull it out by one leg and its head.

Out it came and as I plonked it down I saw the flutter of a heart beat. Not breathing, but the heart was still beating. I have him a good rub and blew some air in the general direction of it nose and still nothing. Gave it another rub and another blow watched and then suddenly it threw its head back and took a big gulp of air. Then another and then on to normal breathing.

Mum was still lieing down a bit shell shocked, so I gave her a push so that she could come and see her baby. She walked over him twice ignoring him, and in the end I rubbed my hand on him again and rubbed it on her nose. That was enough and she started to talk to him and attempt to lick him clean.

I left them alone for a little while and then went back and checked. He still hadn’t stood up. I expect he was quite tired after all that ordeal. I got Sammie to hold her sheep and sat him under her so that he could get his first drink.

Mother and baby are still in the pig house, and he still isn’t very well licked, but they are both standing and he is drinking.

I probably should have checked to make sure that there wasn’t another one, but to be honest it was just a relief to get this one out, and I didn’t really want to go back in there unless I really had to.

So I have birthed my first lamb and he lived through it.

We have been talking on ond off about getting just one or two calves to feed. I think Bevan rather likes having the babies around so the whole idea appealed to him, but he was not pushing it since he is not the one that does all the work.

Then the chance came to get six calves at a good price. It seemed too good an opportunity to pass up, so today we went and collected six 2-3 week old calves, not too mention an investment in all the things we needed to raise them well.

They are all crossed with fresians ans we have two little bulls and four heifers. There is one hereford/x, one angus/x, and the rest are shorthorn/x. We thought we might name them after the seven dwarfs, but we will see if that happens or if we just end up naming the ones we keep.

They will live in the wood shed, which is almost empty at this time of year, and opens out onto this paddock with some lovely grass for them once they are eating it. We might need to end up finding a new home for our wood in the future.

The plan is to raise them to weaning, and then we will choose one or two of them to keep and sell the rest on to cover the cost. Time will tell if it works out this way.

This has come at a good time, since the pigs went to the butchers on Friday, and we won’t have the next lot arriving until sometime in November, by then the calves could well be all weaned and ready to go.

Daisy our future house cow is slowly getting quieter in preparation for the day when we will get some lovely creamy milk off her.

Last week she had her first ever visit from the AI man, and she was not at all impressed, but she was well behaved. If she holds then we can expect her first calf on 10 July next year. Now that only gives me 9 months to get her completely settled to being handled by us.

Today I brought all the cows in. Cricket got to just walk through the yards and out the other side. SweetiePye and Daisy both got a good brush and had there udders washed.

 Daisy has never had her udder washed this morning, so I was unsure whether she would go into a panic or what would happen.

 Well she came in after Cricket, and I put her halter on and tied her to a nice sturdy pole with a hay net and a food bucket. When we first got her, she was too nervous around us to eat while I was around, but today, after all the work we have done, she was so interested in the feed bin that she didn’t even twitch while I brushed her.

 All was going well, Daisy had never been so relaxed while I was working on her before, so I was very pleased. I had a bucket of nice warm water, a sponge and a towel. So as quietly as I could I brought them over and went ahead and washed her udder.  Now I have been giving her udder a bit of a rub while I work on her, but washing was a new thing. Well, she stopped eating and just stood there stock still. She didn’t move a muscle until I was finished and then she went back to her feed bin.

 I went around to wash from the other side as well, and made the mistake of sloshing the water when she wasn’t expecting it, and she backed up as far as she could. I stopped and took a few minutes to settle her again, and then carried on a washed and dried her and gave her another quick brush.

 Now I have been wondering how we will cope with a kicky heifer that we are trying to milk for the first time, but after today, I feel that there is a chance that if I keep working with her she might just except being milked when the time comes next year.

 After Daisy it was Sweetie Pyes turn. She is getting close to calving, so I am wanting to establish a good routine for milking her in advance. I also need to form a plan for keeping the calf out the way while I milk her so all this work is important for making my life easier later.

What a morning. I went out to do the usual feeding and checking of all our animals. Chickens are all good, pigs are all good. Normally I would feed the horses and check the cows next, but today I checked one bunch of sheep in the paddock. Some of these are looking a bit thin and since they are due to lamb anyday now, I check them every morning. The fat sheep are in another paddock with less grass and when I checked them a couple of days ago they all looked good and a long way off lambing.The hoggets and the last of the late lambs are also in with the skinnies. All looked good, not little bundles – twins mum and triplets mum both look almost ready to pop. Turned around and ran my eye over the hoggets and one of them had a hugh bearing. Not good! She is not a friendly and there is no way I could get up to her in the paddock, so Sammie and I had to get them into the yards. Now I know twins mum is getting really close, because she was really stroppy and didn’t want to play. She gets like that with her lambs. We ended up being able to leave her behind and got the rest up all the time watching the bearing getting bigger and bigger.In closer examination I decided this was something that was too hard for me to deal with on my own so the vet was called in. Turned out to be the best thing as the prolaps had torn and needed stitching up. Poor girl looked really uncomfortable.Now I thought I had better go and run my eyes over those fat sheep again just to make sure all is well. Well what a surprise! Heres what I found when I went down there.

 A healthy, fluffy little ewe lamb. It took a while to convince the new mother to move up three paddocks away for the other sheep to where there is better grass for her to feed her baby on, but we got there in the end.So it has definately been a sheep morning and although she was not the one I thought would pop first, she did have a successful and problem free birth. Now we just have to wait for the others to come.

I have decided to make a photo diary of one growing season in the garden to watch the changes as they progress.

It is spring, and things are just starting to kick off for the season. Most of the garden, right now,  is either empty, waiting for the remains of the winter crops to come out or busy growing weeds.

I have been weeding a mulching as the weather permits for the last couple of weeks and have some seeds started and ready to go.

I may have over done the tomatoes but we will have plenty as we go along. And of course everything is being planned out in the Planting Planner to give us a continuous supply throughout the year.

So now we are just waiting for the right weather and temperatures to really get up and running.

Now come and see my garden at the beginning of spring.

This winter I planted four blueberries. Bevan said that I could not  have a raised bed there for them so I have planted each one in an old tire. I had problems with the birds digging them up, so a few broken bricks on top seem to have kept the plants in the ground and the birds gone. The plan is to be able to attach aome bird netting to the fence to drape over the plants at fruiting time. We will see if we get there.

When we moved here this garden bed had a hugh flax plant in it. After much effort we pulled it out and then grew very late corn in it. Last summer we grew our wonderful chipawa potatoes and over winter cauliflower and broccoli was in there. It was good as the garden is right outside the door and has a path next to it. The last stumps from the brassicas are still there waiting to be removed and composted. I had carefully removed as many potatoes as I could find when we harvested in the autumn, but as you can see some got missed and they have popped up again.  I have also planted my only lone raspberry plant, as this is on the colder shadier side of the house.

At the other end of this garden, I have planted this years garlic under the papaya tree.

Then we come to what was the main vegetable garden.

As you can see I have started to mulch a bit with the grass clippings, they make good worm food in the garden. I have three still small zuchinni plants in the corner, two green and one yellow, and the bigger plant is a hydranga.

On the other half of this garden, I have a row of carrot seeds that can’t be seen yet, and some more cauliflower. It is a garden waiting for some plants mostly now.

Next is the asaragus bed, it has been mulched this year with seaweed and grassclippings. I have been enjoying nice fresh asaragus for a couple of weeks now and there should still be plenty to come. At the back of this bed are several clumps of chives, and to the side some rhubarb. Above it is a very healthy crop of spinach and a few silverbeet plants.

Now this was a strawberry bed when we moved in here, which was great until there ended up just too many buttercups. It became too hard to weed and since the two plants seemed to have a similar look I decided to just replant all the stawberries and use the box for other things. Over the winter we have had plenty of carrots as well as some beetroot from this bed, with just a few carrots left at the end of the box. At the top are just a few lettuce seedlings.

The peas are coming along well in this box, they are meant to be dwarf peas but they are growing alot taller than was expected, but they should be starting to flower soon too. When we arrived there were potatos in this box, so we do get the odd potato popping up here too.

This is the box that Bevan built for Sammie. She has been slowly filling it with animal manure, compost and grass clippings. She has not yet decided what she wants to plant in it but is thinking about corn this year.

The developing herb garden survived the winter with the Lemon Balm, Sage, and Rosemary, still intact. The thyme and orageno did not survive here, so a new orageno has already been planted and I do have another thyme plant in another spot, so all is not lost.

The parsley went to seed in the autumn so I only have this little seedling right now, which is also mulched with grass clippings. I do plan to plant more though.

Now this is one of the two new garden boxes we are building around the other side of the house. At one end I planted some cabbages and the other some celery over the winter. Now I am planting potatoes so that as they grow I can hill them up and slowly fill the box with compost. It is a big box so there should be lots of potatos by the end of it.

This is the other new box and as you can see it is still to be finished. My plan is to put my tomatoe crop in this box since it is on the hottest side of the house. We also have plans for more boxes around this area, but who knows when that will get done, in the meantime I am planning to grow our pumpkins where the boxes will be so that I can start to work the soil.

So that is our garden at present, I think it is going to be good to see how the plants grow and what changes we have as we move more into the growing season.