Homesteading….
It has been a year since we moved into this place and Pica arrived in NZ. A lot has happened in that year for us, and the whole world! Pica very content here, life for her really could not get any better 🙂
When we moved in last year the Magnolia tree was beginning to flower. This year I took a photo each day of a bloom opening. The tree is tiny now, but given a couple of years she will be a true beauty, looks so lovely against the yellow Kowhai tree.
We are expanding the orchard, currently we have apple, plums, pears, olives, peach and quince. Now we have cleared that bank we can add to it to increase production. The jam we made last year is just about finished it will be good to be able to make more this year.
The other side of the orchard is the fire pit seating area that Rich is working on
and up above it we have at last been able to hang the hammock…
Luca is thrilled he remembers well the little stall we got it from in Guatemala, and the lady who sold it to us, (she had a little white kitten which was the highlight for him 🙂 )
Behind him is our vege garden, it is well underway this year, we were late getting anything in last year as still building it and were surprised things grew. I planted seeds of onions, carrots, cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli straight into the garden last month and I see they are all coming up now. In the house I have started from seed tomato’s, watermelon, lettuce, rocket, capsicums, spring onions, cucumber and celery, today I will transplant them in the garden along with potatoes. Next month I have asparagus, pumpkin, swede, leek, more onion and beans to plant. The herbs (parsley, rosemary, oregano and thyme), chard and spinach all made it through winter and produced throughout. The strawberries, chives, lemon, lime, blackberry, blueberry and raspberry are all doing well with new shoots appearing. For me it is all a bit of an experiment these first few years to see what grows and how well. Throughout winter the artichoke grew and I harvested them last weekend cooked them, very tasty!!!
I sent another 12 fertile eggs off to the North Island to be hatched under a broody hen called Goldie, and got sent this photo…
It is exciting for me to be able to encourage the interest in heritage breeds and be able to send eggs to people wanting to start their own flock. I was part of Rare Breeds in Canada ,still hear from them regularly and get their journal, there I had a flock of Russian Orloffs. To be able to do this in NZ, (there is a Rare Breeds NZ too), and connect with others who understand the importance of keeping animals with old, strong genetics is really nice. One of my hens is due to go broody soon and I am undecided as yet if I should use our eggs or bring in others to widen the gene pool. I am wondering too if should sell the Roo’s (they are both Blue Orpingtons and there are people looking for this particular colour, they go for around $60-80 each at the moment). I will be getting more Roo’s in my next hatching so we will see, hard to let go of the boys, they are both gorgeous. I am also trying to track down a good breeder for the type of sheep and pig I want next. These things take time and there are always a few hiccups along the way, but I will get there, I enjoy the process and the connection with others. In the meantime the chooks continue to enjoy life here with not much competition 🙂
I recently finally got around to putting up a collage of some of our photos to remind us of travels and adventures. Made us all very nostalgic, just as I am sure we will look back on our time here with lots of fond memories 🙂
We have not done a long hike in a few weeks but still getting on our daily 45 minute walk in
Rich and I got to the beach for an early morning walk recently, it was so beautiful and peaceful, my camera does not capture the colors of the morning nearly well enough…
Luca spoke with a friend he made in Costa Rica last weekend, it is so nice they keep in touch, I am sure they will meet up again one day. Technology allows for the ease of instant communication which makes keeping contact so much more doable these days. We do try hard to keep a balance technology wise with the use of phones and games etc ,(easier said than done!). I don’t play the games, but I can see how much collaboration and discussion goes into them when played together, and how much lateral thinking has to occur even when playing by yourself so there is value there.
Rich and I only got smart phones in Newfoundland and now like everyone else who has one, find we use them a lot. I am in two minds about them, not having one previously, we had no idea what we were missing as far as ease of information at our fingertips was like, but they have to be managed as easy to spend way too much time on them! However they are a good way to quickly be informed of things as you start your day, I snapped this the other morning, a typical “before school scene”, Rich catches up on the ice hockey plays overnight ,(the season has started there) , while Luca eats his porridge and reads Calvin and Hobbes, don’t you love the slippers? Good thing school is a 7 minute walk away, neither of these two liking rushing into the day! 🙂
Rich and Luca just headed off to the school to retrieve Luca’s shoe from the school roof! They were playing some game and it ended up there, he came home with Ted last night hobbling along with one shoe on, both of them full of the stories of the day. He rarely comes home clean, his pockets full of “stuff”, I have learnt to check his pockets well before putting in the washing machine!
This came up on my feed recently I like the philosophy, Luca wants a sign like it up on out lawn 🙂 I feel the world could with a bit of this right now…
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