OK, so a couple of weeks have passed since the last blog, and what's new... As I have previously mentioned, the lounge is now all finished (except for the scotia and alcatraves), and it looks really good. With that out of the way, we made a few sheep into sausages (I culled and dressed them myself). Oh and we had the 20 week scan with the baby (that was around the 14th I think). The weekend following that, Carisa,Andy,Alex,Mum,Dad,Amy and Nigel all came around for a BBQ and a look at Littlebush. Alex had the fun of "doing the rounds" first thing on Sunday morning feeding the rabbits,pigs and having a quick ride on the bike to check the horse etc.
Then it was back to work for a week. On Wednesday evening I culled SpitRoast the lamb and put him in a fridge to hang until Monday. On Friday evening I reassembled the tractor, and got it running quite nicely (turned out all that was wrong was the HT lead to the coil was loose), oh well.
We've been to three weddings, Amy's, Amy's (Stephs friend), and Steph's cousin Gareth.
I'll try and keep up to date again now things are getting back to normal.
Only 17 weeks to sprog sprouting.
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Friday, December 15, 2006
Some News
it's been a bit hectic for the last week, what with getting the lounge painted, carpetted and having another scan yesterday. Later on I will post photos of the lounge now it's finished, it looks amazing.
The baby is fine, all healthly.
The baby is fine, all healthly.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Another 2 lambs "done"
Lamb number one took about an hour and a half, the second was done in an hour.
Here are some photos of the day's fun.
Here are some photos of the day's fun.
Hare
Well, yesterday evening I was about to go down to the workshop to do some cleaning up, when I saw a hare in john's paddock. Needless to say, John is now one young hare down.. It skinned really easy, and it's frame is more like a rabbit, the meat is quite a different color to that of old hare, should be quite nice. This evening Steph is cooking tandoori hare. We're going to use one of the older ones for that. Also last night I collected another 4 prime lambs. I'm slaughtering two today, and then I'll get them butchered.
Pictures etc later.
Pictures etc later.
Sunday, December 03, 2006
The start of the week off.
Yikes, that was only the weekend...It started off with a trip to the doctors on Saturday morning as I had an infected finger. Last week whilst filleting fish, I slipped and sliced the skin off the knuckle, but then on Monday it swelled right up, and by Saturday, it had receeded, and was getting worse, so now I'm on a week long course of two antibotics. Before that though we went to the inaugral Wairarapa Farmers Market. Found a nice cider and bought 4 bottles, bloody annoying that I couldn't drink it though. After doing a few things in town, we came home, and then headed over to Julia's to merge her sheep and ours into 1 mob, and then move them to the front paddock. The whole operation went like clockwork.
Later that afternoon, I had decided that it was time for the all the buck rabbits to be culled. I had practised sexing bunnies a few days before, and Steph and I went out and one by one, sexed and culled as nessecary. Out of the eight original kits, there is three legged one (which is a girl, but also the runt, so we don't want to breed from her), the first one we had (which was a girl), 4 bucks (now in the freezer), and 2 more does; I left the does so Alex could see our bunnies, hopefully this Friday we'll have another litter born.
Out of the 4 rabbits, we got around 6kg of meat, about 500g was rib cage and flaps, which I boiled for the pigs. I've left one as a whole carcass, and the others were jointed, ready for meals.That evening, Steph and I went around to Julia's and Andy's for dinner for a "table warming", their dining room furniture had just arrived, so we had a nice meal, damn shame I couldn't touch the wine though...
Then we come to today. The plan was that if the weather was fine, we would go fishing. We weren't sure where, but somewhere different. So around 9:30, the weather was fantastic, and the webcam at Castlepoint showed a reasonably calm sea, so I suggested we headed out there. Both Steph and Julia decided to come along for the trip. Once we got to Castlepoint, we headed up onto the rocks behind the lighthouse, and proceed to fish (in the 2m swells off the cliffs). As you can imagine, it wasn't easy, or productive, and I lost two sets of tackle. After a while of that, we decided to head back, and try somewhere else, so we went 4km up the coast, and then found this road that headed further along the coast (whereas the one we would normally take heads inland for Masterton). Having never been down there, I decided to take a tiki-tour, and several kms down the road we found a spot where we could fish, still didn't catch anything though.
After an hour or so the tide was coming in quite fast, so we started on the trip home (stopping in Masterton for icecream). Upon getting home, we pushed our way through the sheep on the driveway (Rex was grazing his cull ewes on the driveway so as to try and get some of the grass down), only to find a dead one (oh and a turkey sitting on eggs).
After cleaning all the gear and feeding the pigs (who haven't eaten all their food), I decided to head up into the hills for a walk (but was lazy and took the bike to get to the starting point).
After an hour or so of walking across a really hilly paddock I came across a hare, and after 4 shots, I had hit her (found out later, I had actually hit her twice, as I had put a hole through her ears!). Once I had collected the hare, I decided to sit and just relax for a while before heading back to the bike (and home).
I eventually wandered home, skinned, gutted and jointed the hare, gave the boys the head and feet (which they really enjoy).
And now it's bed time...
Later that afternoon, I had decided that it was time for the all the buck rabbits to be culled. I had practised sexing bunnies a few days before, and Steph and I went out and one by one, sexed and culled as nessecary. Out of the eight original kits, there is three legged one (which is a girl, but also the runt, so we don't want to breed from her), the first one we had (which was a girl), 4 bucks (now in the freezer), and 2 more does; I left the does so Alex could see our bunnies, hopefully this Friday we'll have another litter born.
Out of the 4 rabbits, we got around 6kg of meat, about 500g was rib cage and flaps, which I boiled for the pigs. I've left one as a whole carcass, and the others were jointed, ready for meals.That evening, Steph and I went around to Julia's and Andy's for dinner for a "table warming", their dining room furniture had just arrived, so we had a nice meal, damn shame I couldn't touch the wine though...
Then we come to today. The plan was that if the weather was fine, we would go fishing. We weren't sure where, but somewhere different. So around 9:30, the weather was fantastic, and the webcam at Castlepoint showed a reasonably calm sea, so I suggested we headed out there. Both Steph and Julia decided to come along for the trip. Once we got to Castlepoint, we headed up onto the rocks behind the lighthouse, and proceed to fish (in the 2m swells off the cliffs). As you can imagine, it wasn't easy, or productive, and I lost two sets of tackle. After a while of that, we decided to head back, and try somewhere else, so we went 4km up the coast, and then found this road that headed further along the coast (whereas the one we would normally take heads inland for Masterton). Having never been down there, I decided to take a tiki-tour, and several kms down the road we found a spot where we could fish, still didn't catch anything though.
After an hour or so the tide was coming in quite fast, so we started on the trip home (stopping in Masterton for icecream). Upon getting home, we pushed our way through the sheep on the driveway (Rex was grazing his cull ewes on the driveway so as to try and get some of the grass down), only to find a dead one (oh and a turkey sitting on eggs).
After cleaning all the gear and feeding the pigs (who haven't eaten all their food), I decided to head up into the hills for a walk (but was lazy and took the bike to get to the starting point).
After an hour or so of walking across a really hilly paddock I came across a hare, and after 4 shots, I had hit her (found out later, I had actually hit her twice, as I had put a hole through her ears!). Once I had collected the hare, I decided to sit and just relax for a while before heading back to the bike (and home).
I eventually wandered home, skinned, gutted and jointed the hare, gave the boys the head and feet (which they really enjoy).
And now it's bed time...
Friday, December 01, 2006
Another hunting trip
Last night since we were in the middle of a power cut, I took the rifle for a walk (most people take dogs!) . I started up the hills to try and get a magpie or two, but after a while I stumbled on the hare's again (4), I took 4 shots, and came back with 1 hare (oh well). This time the shot went through the front of the chest and out the opposite side around the back quarters. It yeilded 1.7Kg of meat.
Oh, on the piggy front, they are still around, no more escape attempts.
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