Happy New Year everyone! I hope you had a good break. We haven't had the best start to the year with the weather so far, two weeks of heat wave and very little rain is not ideal, but I keep thinking the rain will come eventually.
Irrespective of the heat wave, Pete wanted to get some work done on our house at Eight Acres and that involved me having to climb on the roof, so I thought I'd take a few photos from up there, as its a perspective that you don't get very often!
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| looking out to the round yard and the chicken tractors |
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| looking up the driveway and the hugelkulture on the right |
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| looking across to our water tanks and the garden is a little shady oasis in the brown grass |
Apart from the horrible heat, there are some good things about summer:
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| mango season |
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| Going to the beach |
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| kangaroos at the beach |
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| gum tree blossom |
Back at the farm, did I mention it as hot? We are feeding the Brafords molasses, copra meal, minerals and countless bales of hay. We don't have much for them except dry grass, and not even much of that left... but they are at least not as skinny as last year.
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| Brafords enjoying their molasses ration |
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| The place to be in the heat of the day is under the veranda |
And I wrote about the poor dry Garden
here.
And the best news for last, we got a puppy! In no way does this little one replace Chime, we still think of her a lot, but it is lovely have a new little puppy to distract us.
She is called "Taz" because I said she looked a little bit like a tasmanian devil with her little white nose. She is a kelpie/short-haired border collie cross, 11 weeks old, $100 from the Nanango markets last Saturday, apparently from working parents, so we are hoping she will work cattle one day herself. She seems to have figured out toilet training, chasing ball and rounding up the chickens already, and she's running old Cheryl ragged! It is interesting watching the dynamic between the puppy and the old dog, at 11, maybe Cheryl is too old to put up with puppy shinanagans! We are going to need to do some puppy training in a few months, so that will be interesting... any tips for keeping an energetic puppy occupied and not annoying her grumpy old friend?
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| Cheryl meets her new friend |
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| Taz sleeping after a long day of running around like a crazy dog! |
A few interesting blogs that found me in the last few months:
http://ontheningnangnong.com
http://littledragonhomestead.blogspot.ca/
http://darkcreekfarm.com/
How was you December and New Year? Any plans for the rest of January?
The heat hasn't been kind to our vege garden every thing is so dry...Its hard keeping the feed up to the cows isn't it? Have a great week. Mandy
ReplyDeleteGRANNY PEEKING IN. USA
ReplyDeleteLooking at those mangoes was a bit like rubbing salt into a wound for me today. It's definitely a sore point in my neck of the woods at the moment!
ReplyDeleteA heat wave? How hot is it there?
ReplyDeletea week in the high 30degC with a couple of days above 40degC.... its finally cooled down again now, phew!
DeleteWhat a lovely puppy! I wish we could do a bit of swapping - not of dogs, I hasten to add - I adore my two goofballs - but with the weather. We are craving some sustained sunshine and a bit of heat - and I'm thinking we've had more than enough rain (things were VERY mucky down in the hog pens today). Thanks for the shout out!
ReplyDeleteI would gladly swap if I could! I hope your weather has improved.
DeleteNOthing like a new puppy to make life wonderful!
ReplyDeleteWe have experienced a heat wave too, but we are lucky we still have areas of grass and luckily the lucerne drought proofs the property to a certain extent. I am really feeling for you guys seeing how much grass you have at the moment, hope it rains at your place very soon. xx
Your block looks good Liz, love the shot of the chooks and dog under the verandah, cute !We are all dry arn't we. We heard our place got 10 mm last night, so heres hopin' there will be more for ALL of us.!!!
ReplyDeleteJane.
It looks a lot drier with you guys! We've had nothing but rain here and I've been trying to fence our land - the trouble is I can see every inch of where the tractor has been and probably will for months now! Your's looks so tidy! I wish mine did in the middle of summer.
ReplyDeleteWe usually keep the grass short to deter snakes, but this year its just t growing anyway...
DeleteThanks for the mention!
ReplyDeleteWe're about to have a horribly hot week here, but I'm suddenly just very glad that it won't be as bad as your ongoing heat waves!
Hope all your animals and plants pull through ok!
- Christine
Thanks for the comments everyone, funny that where-ever we are, we are all fixated on the weather at the moment!
ReplyDelete