Categories: From the Farm This Week
Date: Sep 13, 2012
Title: 13 September 2012
5 of the Ceresin pigs have made it to the seven day mark and i think when you read this they will be up to their true birthday. They have been in the incubator the whole time (the incubator doubles as Beate's cabin). The strange thing is that BBB BIG BLACK BETTY the large black who now thinks she is a dog/cat or human is growing like one thing in body but her mind has gone back to day one, due to mixing with the premature 5 Wessex.
Marigold the old mare has had a foal just the same as last season - black with a white star - not sure of the sex yet but whatever, it was meant to be a patchy Gypsy cob not a black with a star, the value would be tenfold. Maybe i can paint it when we put it up for sale HA.
The week started with our Organic Audit, I got the screeds of book work sort of done and the visit went well. At least we had all our soil, water and herbage tests done. My location map was not up to scratch but thats not much. You know all the paper work for the year on our certification fills a box bigger than the one for the accountant.
The 100 year old magnolia is in full flower and the wild cherries along with the willows are out and in the rare sun spell the bees were working hard, the trees were just humming.
But the rain and wind, when will it stop. The hail was something else, laying like snow 1 inch thick for a short time before the next deluge of rain that overflowed the gutters on the buildings and back running under the iron in some cases due to hail blockage. The wind has taken down a very old Lombardy popular over the railway line and fence. I will be clearing that as soon as the rain stops and leaving it lie for fine weather to cut for firewood. That will be after i have bled the water tanks and pipe work as we have run out of water - can you believe that the tanks are dry and we have air locks everywhere. The pump stopped pumping, I think its the foot valve needs replacing. But with all the rain and wind we never heard the pump continually running and over the last week we drained the tanks. Water everywhere and not a drop to drink.
The sheep are not doing well this year, they just want the sun like we do.
The hemp paddock is getting turned over well with the pigs and now they are cleaning up the sods. The application has been sent back to the Ministry. If it comes back again i may invite them down to inspect the paddock. Its so wet with all the rain they may sink and we are short of pig food.
With all the rain i have had very little time on the house truck but the old girl is getting close to painting (the truck i mean). Its getting urgent as we are getting applications from woofers and helpx every day at the moment and all our other accommodation is full with Beate in the sleep out cabin and the art room bed in use. We are changing the way we do this. We are looking with Dee to take more long term people but either way we have to get on to it.
The market was not bad with all the die hard stall holders (7 of us) with the regular customers making up the core of the market, the rain and wind kept others away. It rained. The wind was high. We even had a hail storm. Even the sun came out and we traded .......evened out.
Hey the suns out... Yay ....im off .... right where do i start .... grab the chainsaw........ no we need water ....Hang on i need to feed out ...fix the fence .... go around the ewes .... right have a drink and go .... thats right no water. I think i better do that first ......HANG ON its raining again.
You know Taranaki Weather is Pony and Trap all right ............ I was told once ............ if you don't like Taranaki weather, wait a minute.
See Ya Sunday if you are from here.
O yes if you have a big boat I'm thinking of building a house boat (then we can get water for a coffee over the side while we do the lambing beat and feed out).