Eating frozen-cold home made ice cream and drinking really hot Gumboot Tea at the same time. The trick is to take a big mouth of scalding hot tea, swallow and while your mouth is still hot add a spoonful of ice-cream. I love it!
Yesterday the girls took over the kitchen (as well as their usual farm chores) so we ate very well and I got lots of things done outside. Sammie even got her Grandmother on the phone and got her recipe for latkes. She will make them again so I can share this old family recipe with you too. (This is one of my favourite parts of having Resident Farmers in the house – the food they teach me.) 
Lady Astor and her calf Bobby T are happy in the fields with Txiki and Alex. Lady is coming in to milk beautifully and finally her udder is emptying right out at each milking. I think the swelling is all gone now. Once baby starts to drink more we will go down to once a day milking.
This boy is so big and strong that he will not be drinking from his mother as long as Naomi did. Maybe two and a half/ three months. He will quickly become too big for Lady’s fragile udder. He is already nibbling on grass and I have good lush fields with lots of clover. If he carries on growing at this rate it won’t be too hard to wean him and then he can go hang out with Txiki.
He is easy to train, when I milk his mother he just walks quietly to the sun-room and lies in there until she is finished. I am not locking him away from her in the afternoons until he starts drinking more milk which he should do in the next week or so. He is still only a new born after all. But amazingly tall – up to my hip.
My next trailer day will be bringing the two gilts and Aunty Del (Ayrshire heifer – hopefully pregnant – if all goes well I will milk her too) back to the home farm, and taking Poppy over to the boar at the West barn for another try. And Alex to hang out with the bull (we will have to make blinders for that baby!) But before any of that happens we need to get the Plonkers out of the barn and onto the grass.
There is a jig saw in my head.
I hope you have a lovely day.
Love celi




53 responses to “I Love it.”
Though I read you faithfully daily, must have missed something, I cant figure out why will you need to have blinders for Alex’s baby?
So she will not watch when the bull entertains her mother! c
And now we know! ; o )
Oh! Innocent me!!!
Time to rename the West Barn and call it the Honeymoon suite!
You speak of appreciating the recipes that come with your workers. This makes you a gustatory polyglot. Heheh!!! Lotsa lotsa, Your Gayle
I love the name Plonkers… Is that New Zealand term?! ; o )
Icecream is on my to do list… we have a few late passionfruit, so the G.O. is in need. And, I occasionally enjoy a small scoop of vanilla icecream in my [black] coffee… I could try the tea but I take it weak -Kate’s mouse would fall in 😊
Visions of the poor wee thing paddling endlessly in circles…. I have yet to try making ice cream again since discovering my lactose intolerance. I wonder if it can be made with lactose free cream. Does anyone out there know…?
Lots of dairy free ice creams – check out https://gluten-free-zen.com/2016/05/01/an-unforgettable-experience-homemade-strawberry-ice-cream/
Recipe right at end. Laura
That looks fabulous, and strangely, I have all the ingredients in the pantry except the strawberries, which aren’t in season here… I’ll think about what to substitute to do a test run. Thank you so much!
A big mug of good, strong, hotf Lapsang Suchong tea with sugar would be great with some of that homemade ice cream. Maybe even make the ice cream with the tea, it’s smoky and, I hear from some friends, an aquired taste, but my favorite black tea. Wonderfully warming on a cold day, interesting as iced tea too in the hot weather. Everything looks so lush and rich. How giving the land is when treated properly.
*smile* Here comes the spoilsport, right on time! If I were you I would not volunteer my tea/ice cream ‘habits’ to my dentist . . . you might not like what he will have to say!! Hope you still have the original 32 . . . 🙂 ! Well, since it is strong black coffee in the morning and green tea at night, no such ‘temptations’ here!! And you DO need a carefully set up noticeboard: a>c; d<b etc etc don't you . . . and lovely to have the two girls cooking . . .
these two calves are the cutest you’ve had on the farm. My teeth would definitely revolt at above treatment 🙂 Laura
Will you be putting Alex with Carlos – is he old enough yet? Or will you be borrowing another bull
That bobby looks like he knows a secret to happiness and well-being that the rest of us don’t. I love his strong face.
Reblogged this on christoff2016.
We do a lot of rearranging where I work, too. Lots of jigsaw puzzles almost daily.
sounds interesting