Farming sure is a busy life! We've survived another lambing, another kidding, and are partway through calving. Pigletting should occur around Christmas and the rabbits are due to kindle in just under a fortnight. We have a clutch of ducklings 25 hens all busy laying. We now have a working dog - he can actually work but all our animals are so tame that really he just looks the part. The one thing he won't do is put the ducks back in the orchard - I don't think he considers them animals. The donkeys have provided us with much manure so all sorts of things (including the weeds) have grown fantastically this Spring. The asparagus has been the best ever - yum.
We have continued to have major difficulties with flooding (nothing a huge amount of money wouldn't solve) but continue to plant flaxes, willows, cabbage trees to suck it up. The upside of the planting is that now the poultry are gaining a wonderful area full of hiding places, great when then hawks fly overhead. We have planted a new orchard on the other side of our property where it is more sheltered and (until the neighbour decides to do something-else crazy) is less prone to flooding. The citrus grove has cropped very heavily this year and now that the evil goat baby is wearing a triangular necklace the grape vines are growing well. The shelter trees are starting to protect us from the vicious winds that we are prone to - in the last storm we only lost a few small branches, ironically off the shelter trees.
No comments:
Post a Comment