Spring Update

It is dry dry dry - however as I type this it appears that the way to encourage rain is to plan something that requires it to absolutely not happen. Felix and James discovered this when they decided to camp on the back paddock during the school holidays. Tomorrow we had booked the sheep in to be shorn. Again this requires them to be completely dry. Despite no forecasted rain it chucked down 10mm in 20 minutes this afternoon...shearing is put off until Sunday.
Jazz is enjoying the green grass on the soak away.
Our olives are growing beautifully - the goats are not in James' good books after getting through the gate and stripping all spring growth off the entire orchard and also eating the 2nd year asparagus crowns that we just really hope will grow back again. They are lucky to be alive..
Meanwhile fencing of the said orchard, back vege garden and house paddock in general is going ahead at a great rate.

Third Dog Sydrome?

It is true what they say, dogs are like children. Felix has been photographed minute by minute but with Emi we stuck to the major milestones. Fergie as our 3rd dog has sadly missed out. I did however get some great mother and daughter shots today as she seems to have got the hang of a) staying and b) searching through the haybales for mice with Coco. My training whistles have arrived from the UK and James has sourced a shotgun that he is most happy with so all he needs now is some rain (fat chance) and it will be like a striding over the English countryside. Apart from her ridiculous name, which we just can't change (despite racking our brains) she is a great little dog. To my great surprise we have a doggy daycare centre which is most excellently run in Mudgee and she just loves to go there - she gets her exercise on the running machine, has a swim in the hydrotherapy pool and generally socialises with the other dogs. Coco is quite happy to have her around and we are all very devoted to her.

Errr... she is staying

The above news probably won't be a surprise to anyone, however in my defence there was a 'complete role reversal whereby I stayed focused and James steadily convinced me that in fact we definitely needed another spaniel. In all honesty there probably wasn't a huge amount of convincing needed, especially after Harry's owner Steve, also owner of the Dad came up to get him with two of his working spaniels. Jessie had her best day ever, and flushed seven rabbits...she is still asleep, James is saving for a shotgun and suddenly the prospect of English style shoots up here are on the cards. We have tried to change Fergie's name but unfortunately it has stuck. Yesterday she spent the day with James in the ute meeting butchers, tyre changers and many others as well as going into pre-school and running about with Emi's classmates. She loves her crate almost as much as Woody.

The horses are shedding their winter coats, I could have woven a rug out of the hair that came of Sparkle during grooming this morning. We are still desperate for rain and too scared to look in the tanks. The shop is doing well, we are off to Sydney markets this weekend and the school holidays start. It never stops around here...

Orange Dust

No, there is nothing wrong with our camera...this is what we awoke to this morning. It covers an awful lot of the country as Sydney looks the same apparently. It is quite eerie but has cleared to just being freezing cold this afternoon. I feel particularly sorry for the car salesmen (not a sentence you will often hear me utter) as everything in the whole town is covered in a layer of red dust...lots of cars to wash. The local car wash is doing a roaring trade with the rest of us and I am going to have to spend the morning washing windows and dusting at the shop to uncover everything.

All gone

Well - almost. Charlie went off to his new home today. This leaves us with Harry and Fergie (whom James was really hoping we could keep so he could buy a shotgun and have a gun dog). They are off to Sydney as working spaniels at the end of the week... It will be so quiet. I am sort of sad, but quite relieved - anyone who thinks you make money out of dog breeding is wrong. Any funds received are going towards redoing the floor in the backroom so that every warm day coming up (and there are many) won't keep us reminiscing with odour of puppy pooh forever more.

More from The Farmer's Pantry

Well, it's our third weekend open and we are slowly getting the hang of our little farm shop. How cute are the cupcakes??? I seem to have gotten the hang of coffee more or less and we had a steady stream of customers today which Tiff and I seemed to cope with quite nicely. Today I also learned that meat slicers are really sharp. Thankfully I still have my finger however I will look as though I am paying tribute to Michael Jackson for the next month wearing one glove to cover up the bandaid until my fingernail grows back.

They're ready

Well, here are Coco's babies - they are really my babies as well because I feel that I have been a worthy co-parent. Poor Coco has come through an awful mastitis which has enabled her to have a very effective tummy tuck (removing dead tissue) but she is still feeding the little monkeys. They are hooligans but I love all of them, and even though I spend most of my time with a mop and bucket I am going to miss their little faces as they scream at me in the morning to FEED THEM RIGHT NOW. Very good homes await - even for Beatrice... Emi is coping well.

Open for Business

Well - almost 2 years to month the first sows arrived we have opened the doors to The Farmers Pantry. Doing the Sydney Market the day before probably didn't reflect a particularly good thought process, however we sold 300 kg of pork and headed back to try and get our head around being shop keepers with our usual degree of total disorganisation.

The idea was to not tell anyone and have a dry run through - this worked well and thankfully we have made a very wise decision in employing Tiff, who has cafe experience and makes a better coffee than I can ever hope to - and really just rolled up her sleeves and made everything work in a way that made us both forever grateful. James has taken to coffee making in his usual manner and is suddenly an experienced barista. I am very good at flat whites...oh and babycino's when I make the milk too frothy - anything in between seems impossible. More practice. On day one the dishwasher broke, we lost power on one side of the kitchen and something died in the roof leading to a terrible smell this morning. I go by the thought that the worse it is leading up to an event, the better it will be on the day - this seemed to hold true.

Anyway - here are some pictures...we are now shopkeepers!

Thank god for Uncle Woody

Poor Coco has been very sick with mastitis - thank god the pups are 5 weeks old and I don't have to take over any handraising. She is still determindly trying to feed them but it is obviously excruciating so we are trying to keep her away from the pups. They are eating like lions and thriving. Woody has decided that he will step into the role of primary carer and is found with the pups most of the time. Attached are some photos of them this morning...

City to Surf...and back to city again..

Well, I believe I said I fancied doing this 14km fun run about this time last year. After putting pen to paper there was no getting away from it so I lined up with 75,000 other Sydneysiders (most much fitter than me at the moment) for the hilly run from the city to Bondi Beach. As you can see it was quite painful by the end - actually it wasn't as bad as the photo makes it look. It seems that the way I think I run and the way I actually run are vastly different. In my head I am a marathon runner - in reality my style is more old lady. Anyway, I really enjoyed the run - more in retrospect admittedly. If I did it again I feel that renting a flat in Bondi would have made it much easier at the finish line as the logistics of moving over 75,000 people out of Bondi meant that a long walk was necessary to get to a nearer train station and rest our weary legs. Felix and Emi both took my medal to school when we got back home, and although Felix couldn't quite comprehend why I didn't win he said he was 'very proud' of me anyway.

Ponies and puppies

I'm told that I am going overboard on the puppy photos - however as my day is filled with washing both the kids clothes and now the pups' bedding you are just going to have to hang in there until they go to their new homes. Today Emi and I saddled up little Jaz and pottered about with her in the front paddock. We couldn't do too much as her daughter was in the yard making it very clear indeed that if Mum went too far we would have an airborne youngster tearing after us so Emily did some excellent shoulder brushing while Jazz happily ate her way through a bucket of food. Puppies had their first day of solid food yesterday which they tucked into with gusto - they are also having a couple of hours outside with Uncle Woody now which Coco is very grateful for. They get cuter every day.

Jazz arrives

Here is Jazz - she is my lovely new horse and joins Sparkle (who is not impressed) and Mickey (who is very impressed). You will hear lots more about her but I can't possibly type any more this session.

Beatrice the springer who wasn't..

Coco is doing a beautiful job with the littlies who are almost 3 weeks old. They have suddenly turned from small squirming sleepers to tail wagging trouble makers. Felix and Emily are delighted and spend pretty much all their time in the whelping box which Coco so helpfully shares. She is a lovely mother, although at times as we look into the box with them all clamouring about her she gives me a look that says "don't make me go in there". They are very lively and difficult to cuddle because they want to practice walking and wobbling about and generally making sense of the world. This brings me to Beatrice. In the beginning we had some concerns about her mental capabilities as she seemed very happy to lie quite happily with Emily for indefinite periods of time. This is like a little girls dream and Emi and Bea spend most of their time in each others company. We have decided Bea has no interest in being a working springer and would actually prefer to be a toy poodle - or maybe on of those handbag dogs. Above is where we usually find her... below is everyone else..

More new arrivals

Around the time that the calves were born my goats started to waddle a bit and Maggie had twins pretty soon after. Both boys they are named Jack and John (which is always a mistake because boys are not destined to live forever around here). They are full of mischief and are having a lovely time getting the ram to attack their mother as they spend a lot of time winding him up and then hiding behind Mum who has to roll up her sleeves and go into battle. Speaking of rams, Luke is very happy because he has 5 new ladies to talk to. He has small man syndrome and follows them around very hopefully much of the time. They don't seem to know he exists at this point.

Soon after this Dora had the biggest kid I have ever seen. She was so uncomfortable afterwards that I was convinced there was another one in there and was forced to ask Fiona to come out of retirement and roll up her sleeves. We were both a bit disappointed that we couldn't have a James Herriot moment but Dora was well and truly finished. The kid has been christened Jilly and has to kneel down to feed off her. This means early morning and fetta cheese again.

An off-line life is a difficult one..

Where do I start? Well, I guess it started with a new computer which didn't like our modem. Many trips to the local helpful computer shop rendered my modem which only refused to work on my new computer completely refusing to talk to any piece of technology. A week later and a new modem and I am catching up with life again. We might be in the country but are clearly not following a completely 'Good Life' philosophy. In fact it has been a busy couple of weeks on the farm. Despite the fact that i feel like we are in the middle of winter we are welcoming baby animals left right and center. Two calves were born last week when we learned that mother cows do in fact 'cash' their babies (or some such term that I can't remember). They do it pretty well too. For three hours we drove around the paddock and the cow very down hearted that the little calf we had seen the day before had obviously died a terrible death. Cow expert Scott took 2 seconds to spot the little thing hidden well in the grass and we still couldn't really see it (but pretended that we could of course).

Felix started the school holidays with a toffee apple and finished the holidays with no top teeth. He is pretty pleased and looks like a small vampire. Emily spends much time wiggling her bottom teeth and has convinced herself that they are actually close to becoming wobbly.