The cold continues, fed by a low pressure system sitting between Tasmania and New Zealand. Mostly the mornings are frosty, the days fine with occasional clouds, and the temp drops dramatically at about 3pm.
The chooks continue to lay one egg every three days. I suspect it's just one chicken doing the heavy lifting, if you can call one egg every three days "heavy lifting". They are getting plenty of food, it's just a day length thing and I don't put lights in their coop to trick them.
The saffron bulbs continue to grow. For some reason my mulberry tree has just dropped it's last leaf and now has buds and new leaves. I am sure some of the overnight temps are coming as a shock to the tender new growth. The daphne is blooming and it's lovely smelling that when I come and go by the side door.
Still no word on the passport, but I will be ready to roar into action the moment it's issued.
The sheep are now taking chips off the lucerne cubes as treats. Except for Pickle, who has historically insisted on only taking calf muesli and only from a bucket. She will now condescend to take the muesli from my hand if the alternative is a lucerne chip.
I sourced some wood from old pallets out in the barnyard and Geoff put feet on our second hand picnic table and chairs to keep the metal out of the dirt.
The cattle are going through the round bales faster than I am comfortable with. Hopefully there will be an early spring with good grass growth. Beanie and Abe are now sharing a scoop of chaff while Annie eats (Selkie and the bull don't come up to the yards) and Zippy has taken his first lucerne cube from my hand. Freya remains aloof.
Flora will be 17 this year, and Jack 14. They are still holding condition well, Jack especially could lose a few kg. I think that Flora will struggle with her knees in the coming year and will have to keep a close eye on her mobility.
I rearranged a section of the dairy room, as the feed barrels were kept under the mesh racking and dragged out each day to make up the ration. I realised that this would eventually wear through the bottom of the plastic barrels. So some of the gear that is waiting to be washed and stowed went under the racks and the barrels now have their space against the wall and don't have to be moved to be opened. I also shuffled the chaff bin and the milking machines around and access to everything is much improved.
I am down to 92.4 kg, from a starting point of 97.8 kg. This was a pleasant surprise after not weighing myself for a couple of weeks. If I can control the urge to snack in cold weather I might even get down to 90 in the next couple of weeks.
Geoff is back at work after his two weeks off. He's done some of the longer listed projects and started on a couple of big ones. He's going to dedicate one day a week to those now he has the electrical work list back under control.
Selkie and the bull sharing the round bale
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