Green acres and acres

March 14th
It seems that the frosts are almost here, chilly mornings and heavy frosts are a good indicator. Our tomatos are taking for ever to ripen and the Cook is afraid we’ll lose the best of them to the frost. The potatoes and the zucchinis are still prolific – we have foot long radishes and eight foot high corn.

We get our straw and hay from a couple down the road on the other side of Prospector’s Gap, years ago they also had pigs and have been keen to have a look at ours. They offered us their old water tank pig shelters; they had been sitting in the paddock for a while but where still in good condition. Harry and I went down in the morning to give them a hand to get the shelters on the truck and shift them over here. We discovered that once the pigs had moved out of the shelters the Red Backs moved in – unfortunately I only had one pair of gloves which I gave to Harry and hoped like hell I didn’t put a finger on top of one of the deadly little buggers.

Everything went well and loading them onto the truck was no problems – no bites either. We got the shelters home, Harry rode in the truck with Lance which was a bit of a highlight for both of them I think. We unloaded the shelters in the pig paddocks ably helped by Fatso – she oversaw the whole operation and inspected the shelters once in place. Its good timing as I had hoped to have more shelters up before winter came. It also lets me divide the large paddock in two.

I’m limping around at the moment and slightly tender – I’ve pulled a hammy, bloody hurts too. So I’m hobbling around the place – it’s not as sore as Friday and I should be right by Wednesday.

We took a drive out to south of Cooma this afternoon in hunt of apples to crush in our new apple press. We found a couple of good trees and returned home with bags full of good looking apples. After doing the feeds and getting things ready for an early morning trip to Sydney we sat down and copped up apples. We filled the crusher top the top and set about crushing. Unfortunately we didn’t have any food grade grease to grease the spindle of the crusher and we failed dismally. I think we also needed to mash the apples a little bit better – we live and learn
The Cook has been letting her Ducks out into the garden during the day to eat the snails and slugs – and the ducks just love it. They get into the corn and waddle about quacking and scoffing down snails. She does have problems getting them back in – but the kids give her a hand.

I’d like to go to the Sydney Show, but I don’t think that is going to happen this year. I’d really like to have a look at the Pigs and see what other peoples Berkshires look like. They’re showing on the Saturday which would have been a good day to go. I am going to a Scything workshop up near Mudgee on the weekend before – which is why I’m going to the show. The workshop sounds like fun, alot of people going are interested in heritage farming. I’m catching a lift with a fellow from Bega, he’s bringing a grain mill to make fresh flour for pancakes and I’m supplying the bacon for breakfast when he picks me up – I think the Cook is planning on starting late that day. With a start like that it’s got to be a good weekend.

I don’t get enough time to reply to all the comments at the moment, which is unfortunate; I’d love to talk to everybody. I do check out your blogs and I’ve got them all book marked. One day I’ll get to you all – I thought with a bung foot I’d get time to do it this weekend, but the Cook just finds jobs for me I can do standing still.

I didn’t see the Duck lady at the Bee meeting – I guess she forgot again.

March 20th

Well, looks like the poor old Duck Lady didn’t forget - she was sick; we all hope you’re feeling better by now – the weather has been way to good to miss.
I took time to head up the back today and have a look at things. There is grass everywhere and water in all the dams. The wild flowers and native grass has seeded for a second time this year and I’m really happy with that.

In the main dam I found an Australian Grebe – a small Australian native duck, had built a nest. A closer inspection showed a duckling sitting in the nest with an unhatched egg. I came back later to photograph the chick, but it was riding around the dam on its mothers back, how sweet..

Not much else happening, we had a feed pick this weekend, dump run and general stuff. Ben got bitten on the finger by a piglet, swelled up really well, quite impressive. We got to see Jamies Pig show which was really good - hopefully it will show people how poorly pigs are treated in industrialised production farms. Really interested to hear that New Zealand have banned Sow Stalls, surely it can't be too long before it happens here.

Oh' yeah, and Old Nev was 70 years old the other day - Happy Birhtday!