Again it has been a long while since I wrote a blog post here, but I do intend to share more in the near future so don’t give up on me yet!
AT HOME: We have begun to prepare and paint the sewing room area - which is really just a very wide hallway with two windows and three doors - so once that is done, the back 1/3 of the house will be freshly painted and complete. I’m really keen to keep going and finish a lot of the room building and re-arranging and re-painting this year.
I’m looking for cheap and creative storage solutions for this room. And thinking about a window covering because of the morning sun fading work-in-progress on the table.
AT WORK: I am still doing a small amount of paid editing work and keen to do some more.
I haven’t had any writing published in print magazines over Summer, but hope that sometime this year I can begin completing articles again.
Every couple of weeks I write for Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op as part of a team. It seems I work well with deadlines, as I am finding time to post there!
Spiral Garden had a lovely, busy Christmas time, and then a small back-to-school rush, but has been very quiet these past couple of weeks. I am taking the time to order in new stock and new products, do some book keeping and research advertising possibilities.
ON THE FARM: We welcomed our last WWOOFer for 2010 in December, Anna from Germany. She was lovely and lots of fun! We don’t really take WWOOFers in the wet season, especially not with messy renovations going on!
Our wet season was slow to start which mean I had time to grow tomatoes, cucumbers and lots of beans before it got too wet. I usually have trouble with tomatoes and cucumbers, but the glut was just wonderful! We always have cherry tomatoes, but a self-seeded vine did really well and produced some roma-shaped tomatoes and a heart-shaped rounded fruit as well. Just that one vine gave us a dozen or so tomatoes every two days. The cucumbers also gave around ten fruit every two days, and so I made a lot of pickled cucumbers - 15 jars all up!
We haven’t had the beehives robbed yet, but apparently they’ve done really well in this location. There’s always something flowering - the macadamias, then sarsparillas, then oaks, then wattles…
The guinea fowl eggs in the incubator didn’t do well at all - none hatched! We have had such trouble trying to hatch and raise guinea fowl. There are two babies living in the passionfruit vine right now that no one can catch. Fingers crossed they survive!
We have over 20 ducklings right now, and their Mums do well hatching these. At times one will go floppy, though, and die later that day. It seems sudden and there are no other symptoms. It has also happened to young guinea pigs in the past, exact same floppiness, then breathlessness, then death. They can still eat and drink when unwell, and their eyes look alert and faecal matter seems fine too. It’s a mystery to us and seems to be random and not particularly contagious. Between this mystery disease and the crows we only managed to keep 3 out of the last batch of eggs - we think 2 ducks and a drake. They’re free-ranging right now, as the big ducks and drake mostly do. The ducklings are in two smaller, moveable pens alone by day and with their Mums by night (two ducks are raising the ducklings, one walked off). For the first few weeks, the mother ducks were in with them 24/7.
Immi has a new horse named Chilli. He’s a bit skinny (looks quite scrawny here!), but very friendly and so far great to work with on the ground, and ridden bareback in the house paddock.
I have kept up the blog posts about our house cow journey here. We are on leave from milking right now, as Lucy prepares to calf.
The front fenceline plantings are coming along nicely, except the cows did give most plants a bit of a trim last week whilst free-ranging! We have another 30 or so trees to plant over the coming week, as apparently the moon will be right from tomorrow.
We have had some more summer fruit from the trees - including 5 small sweet tropical apples! What a treat!
HOME ED.: With some stops and starts, the new school year seems to be underway now. We have our work and activities days planned, and at-home activities planned for in-between days.
With our group we’re doing a lot of great things again this term - cooking, art, soap carving, felting, walks, swimming and more!
As a family we’re planning a couple of nights away, so that should be fun.
Two of the girls are now working casual hours, and Brittany starts a TAFE course this month - so they’re certainly growing up…
For home ed this term we’re doing Maths (mainly New Wave mentals), Writing (handwriting for little ones, Wordsmith for the older four), Italian Audio, Italian Read/Write/Speak, Australian History and Politics and a few other activities and lessons. Now that we’re organised and know which days to do what, it should run smoothly!
Four of the children are doing gymnastics once a week, and Imogen is learning singing once a week too, so they’re all excited about starting something different. I’m not sure if Kids’ Theatre is happening this year, which is a pity.
I hope I can update again soon with some photos and more posts about the things we do. Stay tuned…
