16 June 2018
Dog shit has a distinctive smell. I cant vouch for cat shit, although I've been told its worse - not being a cat lover , that's a relief then - but the wafting morning aroma of fresh puppy pooh has woken me rather abruptly.
Oh shit - not again.
Ruby, full name Ruby Bella Rose, is not living up to her beautiful name this morning, having done her humongous number twos on the laundry floor for me " mummy '' to come and remove.
Its 5:15 am. I can hear the rooster John Wayne crowing from the bottom of the farm, and smell my new puppy. Great. Its a very cold morning too, and I wonder whether I should get a fire going in living room first or clean up miss mischief. Pooh won and I clean out the laundry as I do every morning until she is old enough to hold herself through the night.
Apart from this, her toilet training is progressing well. The addition of a 'child gate' to section off the back area of house where I live, is keeping all accidents on tiled floors. And she is fast learner. But I wasn't fast enough for her this morning, because after her morning biscuits she was ready to go again. I went out into kitchen to put on the kettle - coffee is mandatory here - returned to view puppy tail erect, assuming that posture.....NOOOOO! I yelled. I launch at her grabbing the tail end up underneath in order to swoop her outside to complete the business...well it almost worked.
Like I said dog shit has a distinctive smell....lets move on shall we?
Anyway I am late again, but for all those faithful readers out there you will appreciate by now that running a farm is lots of busy hard work. So for last week (which I missed) we had a major project completed here involving the use of an excavator to build a land bridge. This was to stop top dam overflowing during heavy rain and the topsoil washing down hill elsewhere. Project complete.
This week has seen harvest continue (with addition of extra four legs getting in the way - and a convincing set of puppy teeth I have discovered), but the bigger news has been the arrival of our final piece in the grass maintenance program - Geese. Yes we now have 3 beautiful Geese, one boy and two girls. This little threesome makes a breeding set, and they were brought home yesterday in back of the car. As the male has already paired to mate with one of the females, she is due to lay a clutch of eggs this year, which I've been informed will occur this Spring. Hard to belief we are only 8 weeks off the flowers coming to the orchard, and with it should be baby goslings as well. So why?
Well, Geese are herbivores and eat grass, its as simple as that. Once a flock is established here they will contribute to the grass maintenance in the lower orchard and also fertilise it. The chickens also eat grass but are better at eating pests in orchard. Their main effort though is our fresh eggs - and eventually soup (I am a farmer remember - no naming the animals!). Speaking of animals - those two blonde four legged mutster ones are running around behind me as I type - with my running shoe in their mouths - tug of war time. Rex is so good with Ruby - keeping her occupied and plays with her daily.
So onto today. Its a bit of a milestone to say the least, but today we are having a public open day here, with nut picking, a Natural Farming talk and demonstration, BBQ and Bonfire. Its going to be an annual event, as the bonfire is an accumulation of all the rubbish collected this year on farm, and its going to be huge. So lots of photos will be posted from that - as soon as I can figure out how to update my iCloud account. So see you next week - I promise.
Dog shit has a distinctive smell. I cant vouch for cat shit, although I've been told its worse - not being a cat lover , that's a relief then - but the wafting morning aroma of fresh puppy pooh has woken me rather abruptly.
Oh shit - not again.
Ruby, full name Ruby Bella Rose, is not living up to her beautiful name this morning, having done her humongous number twos on the laundry floor for me " mummy '' to come and remove.
Its 5:15 am. I can hear the rooster John Wayne crowing from the bottom of the farm, and smell my new puppy. Great. Its a very cold morning too, and I wonder whether I should get a fire going in living room first or clean up miss mischief. Pooh won and I clean out the laundry as I do every morning until she is old enough to hold herself through the night.
Apart from this, her toilet training is progressing well. The addition of a 'child gate' to section off the back area of house where I live, is keeping all accidents on tiled floors. And she is fast learner. But I wasn't fast enough for her this morning, because after her morning biscuits she was ready to go again. I went out into kitchen to put on the kettle - coffee is mandatory here - returned to view puppy tail erect, assuming that posture.....NOOOOO! I yelled. I launch at her grabbing the tail end up underneath in order to swoop her outside to complete the business...well it almost worked.
Like I said dog shit has a distinctive smell....lets move on shall we?
Anyway I am late again, but for all those faithful readers out there you will appreciate by now that running a farm is lots of busy hard work. So for last week (which I missed) we had a major project completed here involving the use of an excavator to build a land bridge. This was to stop top dam overflowing during heavy rain and the topsoil washing down hill elsewhere. Project complete.
This week has seen harvest continue (with addition of extra four legs getting in the way - and a convincing set of puppy teeth I have discovered), but the bigger news has been the arrival of our final piece in the grass maintenance program - Geese. Yes we now have 3 beautiful Geese, one boy and two girls. This little threesome makes a breeding set, and they were brought home yesterday in back of the car. As the male has already paired to mate with one of the females, she is due to lay a clutch of eggs this year, which I've been informed will occur this Spring. Hard to belief we are only 8 weeks off the flowers coming to the orchard, and with it should be baby goslings as well. So why?
Well, Geese are herbivores and eat grass, its as simple as that. Once a flock is established here they will contribute to the grass maintenance in the lower orchard and also fertilise it. The chickens also eat grass but are better at eating pests in orchard. Their main effort though is our fresh eggs - and eventually soup (I am a farmer remember - no naming the animals!). Speaking of animals - those two blonde four legged mutster ones are running around behind me as I type - with my running shoe in their mouths - tug of war time. Rex is so good with Ruby - keeping her occupied and plays with her daily.
So onto today. Its a bit of a milestone to say the least, but today we are having a public open day here, with nut picking, a Natural Farming talk and demonstration, BBQ and Bonfire. Its going to be an annual event, as the bonfire is an accumulation of all the rubbish collected this year on farm, and its going to be huge. So lots of photos will be posted from that - as soon as I can figure out how to update my iCloud account. So see you next week - I promise.
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