We spent two weeks of February on holiday in New Zealand. It was a lovely relaxing break away from work and farm. Pete's dad looked after both properties for us, and also got bored and painted the bathroom and half the kitchen, the perfect house-sitter! I'll do another post with photos from our trip, we went around the bottom of the South Island in a campervan and then flew to Wellington where I caught up with family and I got to meet my blog-buddy Emma from
Craving Fresh.
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| Meeting Emma from Craving Fresh |
While we were away it rained nearly every day, so everything has grown, from the grass to the cattle to the guinea keets!
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| guinea keets getting used to living outside - they love grass! |
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| Bella and Molly |
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| Donald |
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| the steers |
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| chickens |
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| Kelpies |
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| finally some things are growing on the hugelkultur |
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| the harvest when we got back from holiday |
The cattle at Cheslyn Rise are also enjoying plenty of grass again. The sorghum is growing huge, now its too wet to let the cattle in, and its really too tall as well, they will just push it over, so we hope that the weather will change again so we can make hay instead.
I didn't get much done in the kitchen this month, as it was mostly about eating everything before we went away. I can report though that the kefir and herman starter survived in the fridge just fine for two weeks, so if you're planning to go away, just leave your starters in the fridge and they will be ready to work again when you return (and I missed kefir so much while I was away!). When we got home, I refreshed the kefir, started some bread, sprouted chick peas for hummus, made cream cheese, used up lot of basil in some pesto and froze some of the excess beans. Now things are nearly back to normal again!
I have lots and lots of seeds, so if anyone would like me to send out some bok choi, tat soi, red mustard, broccoli, cabbage, leek, parsley, silverbeet, dill or lettuce seeds (phew!), please please email me on
eight dot acres dot liz at gmail dot com. I am very happy to post them to you. It doesn't matter if you don't have anything to exchange right away, but if you do have some spare seeds (or anything else), I love to collect more seeds. I hope I will inspire you to save and swap seeds too, its very easy and quite addictive :) If anyone has any rocket seeds they could send me, that is the main thing I need right now, although turnip, swede, carrot and any leafy greens or herbs would also be appreciated. AND I have some arrowroot seeds, I didn't know it would grow from seed, as I usually use root division, but I have found a few shoots in my garden, so the seeds must be sprouting, so I can send them too if anyone is interested.
How was your February? And what do you plan for March?
What a wonderful holiday and meeting up with a blogging buddy too. Lovely. Golly it's so green at your place. Far different from down here I'm afraid.
ReplyDeleteit is green, its hard to remember now how brown it was, I hope you get rain soon...
DeleteHi Liz...just tried to send you an email but address failed.....Cathy
ReplyDeleteDonald is something! Wow
ReplyDeleteyes he's a mini bull with a bull attitude, but he does let us scratch him on the nose, which is more than I am willing to attempt with our proper bull Maus!
DeleteLiz, I just tried to send an email to you but it didnt go through...can you email me re the seed swap on enchantedthings@bippond.com
ReplyDeletethanks, Suzanne.
I have rocket drying on the plant at the moment. If you would like some you are welcome to have some. I have more than enough :).
ReplyDeletethanks for the offer, but I have already had three others, so I think I'm good for rocket seed now!
DeleteHave i told you how great your banner is. Its like my entire childhood wrapped up in one picture. Even down to the jersey milking cow.
ReplyDeletethanks, I'm glad you like it, I keep thinking I should change it as its nearly a year old, but I'm kind of attached to it now!
DeleteYou have such a wonderful looking farm...
ReplyDeletehehe, that's because I only show you the good bits, and not the untidy bits :)
DeleteSweet. I haven't made it to Wellington. I've been to Auckland and Palmerston North (Palmy). QLD is nice as well. I lived in Broadbeach for a while, just south of Surfers. Been to Brisbane, Perth. Been through Syd. All nice stuff for a tourist. :)
ReplyDeleteit sounds like you've travelled a lot really!
DeleteYour homecoming food preparations sound so yummy...and healthy!
ReplyDeleteYour father in law sounds like a great house-sitter!? And those Guinea Keats have grown. Are they making much noise yet?
ReplyDeletethey are currently confined to their cage and not very close to the house, so the noise is not annoying, I think it would be worse if they were roaming around...
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