Well things seem to be going full steam ahead here, James has concreted in the weighing scales for the little weaners to run through every week and show us how much they have been eating. This is good because we spend much time trying to encourage them to grow more quickly now we seem to have more demand for our product before even we know whether it will be any good. 'Sure, we can supply you with pork loin and belly for your dinner with Sydney Food Critics' we merrily said to a local well known chef.... 'where is the loin' I then asked James. There are a lot of crossed fingers here. Sadly it seems that the lovely Gloria, who is one of my favourite gilts, simply refuses to get pregnant (not sure if she wants a career and frankly she spends a little more time canoodling with Debra and Harriet than we would expect her to). It seems wrong to me however due to the fact that she can't give us piglets she unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) is at the perfect size to provide lots of ham/sausages and the other bits. If she wasn't eating us out of house and home I would try and keep her as a large pet, but sadly our bank balance is telling me she has to go.
My cheese making has ground to a bit of a halt. I can't seem to get the starter to set...which means I can't actually even start making the cheese. I think I may have to go back for more lessons. I am looking for another goat to join Dora as the kids escaped and ate a couple of our new trees last week, and they seem to have figured out how to break the wire around the chicken pen and can crawl through it and out to freedom.
We are off to pick apples at a local orchard, who have offered us windfalls for the pigs, and I am up to my ears in figs from our tree down the back. Yesterday Vanessa and I looked as though we had been smoking something illicit after an hour in the kitchen with bubbling vinegar...I am pretty sure I have burnt all nose hairs and probably not done my eyesight any good. Fig chutney, fig jam, fig everything.
This weekend look out for photos of pigs and figs - we have decided to attempt a photo shoot with one of the sows down foraging under the fig tree by the creek... I suspect this sounds easier than it will actually be... we may only get photos of a retreating end of a pig as it merrily runs off into the bush.