One thing I am really bad at is labelling my seedlings. I always think I will rememebr but never do, and when you have quite few different seeds in the punnets it makes for a mystery surprise. So today at our ‘cheap’ store’ I bought two packs of over sized paddle pop sticks. Hopefully this will solve the issue and no more mystery plants.
Garden Tags
For the past few months Alyssa has been attending Yass Cubs. Anyway this weekend was supposed to be her first camping trip. Now we were a bit nervous but as she had some friends with her we thought it would be all OK.
At approx 12.36 in the morning we got a phone call that Alyssa was crying, cold and wanted to come home. So we threw the clothes on, woke Lynsey and headed off (via the 24hr BP on the highway for petrol) so finally left yass town at 1am. Now to get to Wee Jasper you pass over two rivers and a few bridges. It goes up and down some hills, windy (quite a few hairpins) and steep drop offs. It is tight during the day, but during the night it is a completely different experience, and of course there are the wildlife to watch out for (for the record three wombats, one we had to stop for [suddenly]).
Now Yass is approx 55kms away and once you reach town the camping grounds are another 7 kms. So after getting there are 2am we collected Alyssa from the cubs camp site. Another hour drive home (a bit slower this time) and Lee Ann and I, feeling real tired, are home. Kids in bed and we fall into ours.
Now I wish the cub leaders had called earlier since she did wake up at 9.o0pm. Sure the drive would not have been any easier but at least we would have been more awake. Anyway all ended OK we got home safely. Alyssa while there had a good time. I just think next time we need to attend the cub camp with her. Apparenlty after we left another kid woke up and had trouble getting back to sleep so the camp leaders didn’t end up in their tents until 4am, they were exceptionally tired the next day when we went to pick up alyssa’s stuff.
Probably a bit late, but the garlic is now in the ground. Last year was the first time I ever grew garlic and was surprised at the great crop I ended up with. I planted Festival (a small garlic with that extra bit of punch)and 3 other varieties. The Festival seemd to do the best so I orderd 6 bulbs of that variety again from garlicfarmsales.com.au. They also sent two complimentary bulbs of Aria, so we will see how that goes as well. This year I have a dedicated garlic bed, and a bit more room so besides the above mentioned garlic I also included some of mine from last yeras crop. All going well I expect approx 80 bulbs come summer.
As we continue into the venture of country life we slowly become more ‘Yassified’, that for me is the knowing of how things here in this town work, and I would say probably work in a lot of country towns. The latest is knowing who has lambs to slaughter. Friends of ours here have some sheep running on a few acres, mostly they are on the pasture and a little bit of top up grain. So Lee Ann got the offer “do you want one?” The answer a hesitant yes and the price “$50″, basically for the butchering. We also gave them a dozen of eggs in the spirit of bartering (yes cash did change hands but really IMHO not enough).
These people make no money off it, they do it for their own meat supply. And a qualified butcher does everything else. They reduce cost by giving a lamb to the person that supplies the grain etc.
So really not sure what we would get, we basically said, give us the legs, shanks, shoulders (boned), scrag (neck) and the other main cuts, which has basically become various chops. When the lamb was delivered in a big tub we needed to separate the meat, this is where Hugh Fearnley-Whittinstall (http://www.rivercottage.net/) and his book ‘River Cottage Meat Book’ comes into its own. And I do recommend this book. it goes thru all the cuts of different meats. We basically bagged and labeled each and placed them in the freezer (and we have a bag of liver, kidneys and heart).
Lynsey next to the lamb
The other thing about this lamb is that it is spring lamb. That night we made crumbed french cutlets which the kids devoured. Lynsey was gnawing the last bits of the flesh from the bone. mmmm meat. That should do us for a while anyway.
It was Lee-Anns birthday yesterday, the ripe ol age of 40 +1. Anyway the day started with eggs, (from our chooks), bacon and home made bread. And tea from the new tea pot. Then dinner and cake. Lynsey had said during the week she wanted to make it. So yesterday she did. Also we had an amzing dinner of slow roast lamb shoulder (more on that later).
Lee Ann and birthday cake
On Saturday arvo, there were dozens of little spiders floating thru the sky with their webs. And as I was working down the back planting a new grevillia in the waste area I had quite a few land on me. Anyway the next morning I took the dog out and there were literally hundreds of webs everywhere. In the early dew and frost it looked impressive.
Webs in the early morning grass
After 18 months and good rainfall the last two weeks of April (90 mls for the month) I decided to get a water gauge, and obviously to record how much rain we do receive her at One Green Acre. I plan to store this info in an online Google spreadsheet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Docs). Hopefully I will discover how to embed a spreadsheet here into the website.
Our location is higher than the actual main street of town, and sometimes it can be wet down there (only 2kms away, if that) and not a drop here, so there is probably differences in the rainfall that is recorded by the BOM. The location of mine is in the vege patch away from any trees and houses.
Of course the day we bought the rain gauge, the rain was ending and since then there has been nothing in it, not a single drop.
Rain Gauge
Yes Summer in Yass has now passed. The morning and evenings are cooler and of course the days shorter. The hottest day over the past two weeks being 24.
So how did the summer produce go. I would rate it a 6 out of 10. We did not get things in the ground early enough and we had no back up plants for the late frost that hit us.
What worked?
Tomatoes, approx 15 kg of tomatoes, mostly cheery and grape variety. Witha few kgs of Roma and less of the Amish. Also I really did not truss them up, definately next year I will truss them up and at least double them up. Of course we are still enoying some of the tomates as semi dried (in the oven) and bottled. And we also cooked a lot and froze them (no more of this).
Potatoes, had approx 15kg at the end, not enough. Probably under watered and under nourished and definitely need a lot more next year to plant.
Zucchinis, nothing else to say really, they get grated into evrything (including dog food) and when they become too large the kids can enter them in the Yass show.
Cucumbers OK, not great but enough, back to buying them. Pumkin. mmm Frost killed off teh first lot but we did get some butternuts and all going well we may have two Queensland blue (still growing).
Beans, foprget it. Besides all my beans for drying being killed off in the frost, I must be the only person in Australia not capable of growing beans.
Capsicums, forgot which capsicum I planted, but is of a small variety, still a few coming thru.
Egg Plant, Now there was a surprise – three plants and we may still get a few off before the first frost comes in. Definately more next year so we can bottle some.
Beetroot, were good as were the spring onions
Corn, well thast a 2 out of 10 and I say that because thats about as many good corn cobs we got. Not sure what went wrong there but most of the cobs did not fully develop. But the chickens still loved them.
Chickens, while not really a crop I recommend two – three birds for any family. Easy to look after, not expensive to feed and so far they are all healthy.
Watermelon, got this great little watermelon seeds and they produced these small fantastically sweet watermelons. After dinner these were the perfect size to cut into 4
Later I will add some pics as well.
just an update to say how the chooks love eating mice – they went mad over a couple of mice that ran into the pen when we were moving hay bales. i moved some bales today and saw 2 huge mice but the cats were too slow to get them. apparently a mice plague is building so i better get stuck into controlling these and not rely on my animals to do it. apart from mice traps any other ideas? we had the yass show on the weekend so will publish some photos later on.
Well it has been a year since we got our kitten Pixie, and it has been a rough year with this crazy cat but now she is finally come into her own as a great mouse catcher. every day she is bringing mice up to the deck and dropping them in her food bowl. The mice are breeding in the hay bales we used around the vege patches so she sits up there and waits. she doesn’t always get hungry enough to eat it all and yesterday she only ate the tail and left the rest in her bowl – disgusting!!!. So despite all my complaints about this cat to my girls who love her this cat has now grown on me.
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