Saturday, July 12, 2014

Much has happened since I last updates, so hopefully this is the first of 2 (or 3) blogs this week to bring it all up to date.

May was predominately rain which resulted in major frustration as the weeds snatched the opportunity to grow and thrive.   Luckily we managed to get some consecutive dry days enabling us to get some weeding done.   The weeds are still winning though

Our rabbit population exploded as a result of the bunny matings in April.    Initially I wanted the rabbits to live as a colony but when we tried this last year we found the kits were getting eaten by the older rabbits.     The, less than ideal, solution is the rabbits live in cages but a buck and a couple of does are let out into the compound for a few days.    The does than go into maternity cages, and we keep our fingers crossed.   So far this seems to be working well, the does don't get to run around as much as we would like but they do get some freedom, and we get healthy litters.   We also purchased (second hand) 5 new rabbits hutches, increasing our number of maternity cages.



As we don't drink that often I'd decided to try finding drinks recipes, for preserving, that didn't rely on vodka, or other alcohol.   So far we have stores of lemon balm cordial, elderflower (foraged) cordial and cherry cordial.

Somehow I managed to break the Bulgarian mini oven that we inherited with the house.      Heating element decided it didn't want to stay at the top of the oven but wanted to drop onto the food being cooked.    Paul managed to fix it but it did the same a couple of days later, luckily we have the halogen oven so not a major disaster.



We'd been given the opportunity to purchase wood 50% cheaper than last year so ordered another 10 cubics.     Following a 9.30pm wood delivery we now have enough wood for the next 4 years IF our consumption is the same as previous winters.

At the end of May we welcomed Pauline and Guillaume, a lovely French couple who had contacted us via workaway, into our home.   They are very different from Julie & Remi but also very similar in their enthusiasm and work ethic.

A week after the arrival of Guillaume and Pauline, Marcus (Australian) and Sarah (Malaysian) arrived with a very different view of the helper/host relationship and work ethic.      





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