To the left is a picture of Angelina - so called because she walks a bit like a ballet dancer (as in Angelina Ballerina). She is a bit special because she will apparently lay blue eggs, well eggs with blue shells. We are all very excited, although I am not sure if you can see from the photo but she has quite a lot of growing to do before any eggs will appear. On the chicken front it seems that all the chickens bought for $3 at the local market have in fact turned out to be hens, and with perhaps one possible rooster in the younger batch. James and I are in disagreement as I don't think we can eat them now they are hens as they are useful egg providers. Hopefully they will provide us with lots of chicks that can then fill up the freezer - he thinks I am just putting off the inevitable wherever possible...
Dora's cheese has turned out really very well - everyone that tasted it did so with a slightly skeptical look on their face, myself included, however we are all amazed at how lovely it is (once again, not too goaty). I won't take too many photos of food, however I am quite proud of my first jars so thought it should be recorded for posterity before I am swearing over the fact I have a cupboard full of the stuff and everyone is sick of it. Next challenge..fetta... actually no, the challenge is making what I have again without the cheesemaker here to be honest so lets see how I go. I am also attempting to get serious about the vegetable gardening and can be found with my head in books with titles like 'Companion Planting' and 'The Organic Gardener' muttering things like 'perennials' and feeling quite impressed with myself. I suspect I may find it harder than I think once the garden experts leave on their travels but luckily they have gone to great efforts to make sure they will be available on-line for consultations.
We have a launch date for Ormiston Free Range, with James agreeing to provide sausages to the Sydney Cellar Door Expo or some such thing. The date is for the start of March, which means 2 of our youngsters need to be ready for that, followed by the Mudgee Film Festival shortly after. We took delivery of business cards and signs yesterday... once again we have jumped in the deep end - our to do list is headed 'find sausage recipes' if that gives you any idea of just how organised we are...