Farm Life Update #1

Summer is traditionally a time for getting stuff done and that’s certainly been the case around the farm over the past week. The week began with the shearing of our small flock of sheep. As we don’t have facilities shearing we rely on the use of our neighbour’s shed, meaning last week the sheep had to be drenched before we could herd them into our neighbour’s yard. Then bright and early yesterday morning we headed over to give the shearer a hand.

Mr GGF was in charge of disposing of the belly wool and dirty wool while I sorted. After a few hours, the sheep were done and we said goodbye to Dave, our ram, who will stay next door to meet up with a new flock of ladies. Being hand-reared, he’s been quite the character around the farm for the past year. He cried for the first week he came to us and I’ve no doubt he’s next door crying again. Such a placid sheep for a great big ram.

Dolly, one of our White Suffolk ewes got a new do. Can you guess why she’s called Dolly?

Today, we harvested our first crop of honey. Mr GGF got the bees around five weeks ago (a story in itself as he was stung badly and looked rather deformed for a week) so we never expected over a kilo of honey in our first haul. At the moment our equipment is rudimentary. We strained the honey through an old muslin curtain and into a bowl we rigged up over the sink. It looked ridiculous but it worked well and the honey tasted great. We now grow our own veggies and herbs, eat meat we’ve raised and produce eggs and honey which we barter for free coffee and cakes at the local bistro. Our country dream is really coming to life.