We now feel like real Aussie farmers... the quad bike and soon to be arriving silo complete the picture. After moving the sows and weaners up to their new paddocks the walk with the wheelbarrow seems like about 2 km each way. After the wheelbarrow even blew its tyre and James started to look a little peaky and eat us out of house and home after each feeding time we thought enough was enough. Enter the new quad bike. As of today life has become much easier...it takes 2 minutes to pop down and see the sheep and feeding the pigs with the trailer on the back is a 15 minute job instead of an hour. Watch this space to see if James starts to grow a beer belly. I on the other hand have signed up for Boot Camp and 3 mornings a week I stumble out of bed at 5.30 (which is way before sunrise now the clocks have gone forward) and join many others to sprint up hills, run around the pines and do boxing... unfortunately any good that I am doing is matched by the calories that I am consuming like a labrador when I get home so that I have the energy to get through the rest of the day.
The duckens (or as James prefers to call them the dicks) are thriving with their chicken mum. I am slightly concerned as they may never learn to swim, however apparently I only need be concerned when the mother is a duck and she takes surrogate chicks for their first outing which turns into a mass drowning. They are very visible waddling after Mum while she scratches up morsels for them to eat. We have about 60 piglets here at the moment, Bev, Rosie and Deb have all had piglets, and Harriet once again decided she would farrow ferals in the big pig field. They are thriving of course but are wild little things that bark and flee at the sight of us. Bev felt that the straw filled hut was too hot for her and made a lovely nest outside where she has had 9 little Berkshires. It is hard to believe that she is on her 3rd litter with us one year in.
Great excitement this week with our first bacon and ham coming back from the charcutier... the bacon is excellent and has been organically cured so 'nitrite free'.. it has its first outing tomorrow at Orange Market. We finally got to Pyrmont Growers market last weekend... whilst we got drenched with a downpour only Sydney is capable of we set up our stall on the pier with about 300 other regional producers. The buyers started coming at 7am and by 10.00pm we sold even the trotters of the 6 pigs we took down there. It was exactly the type of market we had been looking for in Sydney and everything you could imagine was there...quails eggs, free range everything, veggies, jersey milk, venison, partridge and lots more. Unfortunately we had our heads down selling and didn't get too much of a chance to go for a wander but next time I will be prepared.
The kids have been home for 2 weeks on school holidays and it will be to mutual relief when pre-school resumes next week. Suddenly they have learned to say 'I'm bored'??