Skip to main content

Farm update - February 2014

We got a little bit of rain at the end of January.  30mm at Nanango and 50mm at Kumbia.  It started to green up, but now its drying out again, we really need some decent rain to get our grass growing again.

And of course it rained just when Pete had started a major project of removing our two old rusty water tanks and replacing them with two new plastic tanks.  We had one other good tank, so we had water, but the rain came when Pete had disconnected all the downpipes that normally feed the tanks!  We have plenty of water though, it was just so typically that it will be dry for so long and then rain when you are trying to do something!  I will post more about moving the tanks around, I think Pete did a really amazing job to get it all organised and completed in one week (mostly when I wasn't home too).

dismantelling the old tanks so we could load it onto the trailer,
it was so rusty there wasn't much woth keeping!
the lovely new tanks, and plumbing nearly finished
I posted about the garden on Monday... its not going great, but there's a few things to harvest each week.


And in chicken news, we hatched several (sorry I forgot the numbers already!) chicks and some guinea keets, and they are outside already, younger than normal, but they were in the spare bedroom (due to the unpredictable temperatures lately) and it as getting a bit stinky and dusty from the wood shavings.  They seem very happy out on the grass.  We are hoping for some roosters to eat and some replacement hens.

can't resist a rooster when he poses for a photo
here's the chicks in their outside catch, fully puppy-proof

and look who came to help me with the chick photos, lovely old Cheryl

Taz has taken an interest in them too, and has also started a sock collection
And here's the cows.  Bella climbed through the barbed wire fence and some stage and stratched up her teats to the point that she wouldn't let Nancy nurse, so we had to milk her ourselves for a few days (and slather on the aloe vera gel to help her heal) and she eventually let Nancy have a drink after a few days.  Nancy is 6 months old, so she was find without milk, but was keen to resume as soon as Bella let her.  Molly is due to calve soon, so we will probably wean Nancy soon after and let Bella have a rest, but until them, we wanted to keep Bella in milk!


Here's a few blogs that you might find interesting:

http://thesables.com.au

http://ock-du-spock.blogspot.com.au

How was your January?  What are your plans for February?

Labels:

Comments

  1. RachyFebruary 5, 2014 at 10:10 AM

    Poor old Bella, ouch, that had to be sore! x

    ReplyDelete
  2. OckduspockFebruary 5, 2014 at 10:37 AM

    Yah for rain! We're just getting some now- just showers at the moment, but hoping for a lot more! It makes such a difference doesn't it? I'm sure your garden will appreciate it. Jealous of your flash new water tanks. We really need some of those (oh and thanks so much for linking to my blog :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Chris February 5, 2014 at 1:45 PM

    Congratulations for attempting to keep your garden going, while busy working away from home (and Pete on other projects). I sympathise. It's not easy. While there isn't much to be had from the garden, at least you're still harvesting it - which is part of the gardening process too. :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Rubye JackFebruary 5, 2014 at 5:07 PM

    What you have in the photo here looks like a more than one wonderful salad. Beautiful. We need rain badly also, but it doesn't look like we're moving out of the drought this year.

    ReplyDelete
  5. "Garden Whisperings"February 6, 2014 at 9:35 AM

    So envious, we have not had rain in so long, down South. Garden if just so resilent, just keeps on keeping on, but the owner is certainly over all this Plus 40 degree heat, day after day.

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousFebruary 7, 2014 at 12:08 PM

    Cute chicks and what a beautiful boy is that rooster. I can sympathise with Bella not letting Nancy nurse on damaged teets - let's just say, been there, done that, though thankfully no barbed wire was involved.

    ReplyDelete
  7. UnknownFebruary 18, 2014 at 9:02 PM

    thanks for the comments everyone :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks, I appreciate all your comments, suggestions and questions, but I don't always get time to reply right away. If you need me to reply personally to a question, please leave your email address in the comment or in your profile, or email me directly on eight.acres.liz at gmail.com

Popular posts from this blog

The new Eight Acres website is live!

Very soon this blogspot address will automatically redirect to the new Eight Acres site, but in the meantime, you can check it out here .  You will find all my soaps, ebooks and beeswax/honey products there, as well as the blog (needs a tidy up, but its all there!).  I will be gradually updating all my social media links and updating and sharing blog posts over the next few months.  I'm very excited to share this new website with you!
4 comments
Read more

Chicken tractor guest post

Sign up for my weekly email updates here , you will find out more about chickens, soap and our farmlife, straight to your inbox, never miss a post!  New soap website and shop opening soon.... Tanya from Lovely Greens invited me to write a guest post on chicken tractors for her blog.  I can't believe how many page views I get for chicken tractors, they seem to be a real area of interest and I hope that the information on my blog has helped people.  I find that when I use something everyday, I forget the details that other people may not be aware of, so in this post for Tanya, I tried to just write everything I could think of that I haven't covered in previous posts.  I tried to explain everything we do and why, so that people in other locations and situations can figure out how best to use chicken tractors with their own chickens. The dogs like to hang out behind the chicken tractors and eat chicken poo.  Dogs are gross! If you want to read more about...
15 comments
Read more

How to make soap with beer (and tallow)

I may  have mentioned this before.... soap making is addictive!  Once you start, you just want to keep making more soap.  And not the same soap, you want to try all sorts of different soaps.  I made the mistake of joining a facebook group called Saponification Nation  and now my facebook newsfeed is full of glorious soaps, in all colours and shapes, which makes it even harder to resist the urge to experiment.  One soap that kept popping up a few weeks ago was soap made with beer. I generally prefer not to use ingredients just for the sake of it, I like to know that they are adding something to the properties of the finished soap.   As you know, I don't like to use artificial ingredients either (colours or fragrances).   When I read about beer in soap I found out that beer adds sugar to the mixture, which increases lather.  I use tallow in my soap, which has limited lather, so anything that adds lather could improve the soap.  ...
6 comments
Read more