Growing

Isn’t everything on the farm about growing. The piglets are growing, the garden is growing (but not fast enough yet), the pasture is growing, the cobwebs in the barn are growing and my team is growing.

Ellie – wwoofer number two came yesterday – right on time. She will do just fine. Another good, strong young person.  I went to bed last night leaving the young people chatting at the table.

It was a great feeling, listening to their voices recede as the dogs and I retired from the scene. The house AND the farm come alive with growing relationships in the summer.

Ellie went to university to study photography, so I look forward to seeing her take on the farm. She will be here about a month.

The barn at night is still my favourite.

Yesterday I moved Sheila back from her paddock down the back, back to her bed in the barn. The kunekune are settled under the pine trees now so she is moving into their winter quarters for the summer.  I took down the electric fence gate so she could come out but she was not going to cross that line where the electric fence had been. Sheila gave me such a sorrowful look – why was I calling her into danger like that. Did I not realise the string hurts. So I poured her food into a bowl just out of the gateway to entice her over.  All she did was dart over the line, grab the bowl out of my hands,  and carry it back at speed to the ‘safe side’  to eat.

So I left the gates open all the way to the barn and let her work it out herself. She came out later when I called her.  I bet she is happy to be back in the center of things again.

Three of the plonkers are going down there to the root cellar field for a while, to grow some more, four will be sold on the 26th. Separating them out will be a bit of a mission. They are a good size now.

We have a gentle day for Ellie’s first day on the farm. Monday is seed sowing day amongst other things – today I will get the pumpkins and watermelons sown. Lynda from Colorado sent me some watermelon seeds – I look forward to seeing how they go out here. Everything we sow today will go into the calendar to be planted out in six weeks.

In October I hope we can exchange more seeds within the Fellowship as part of  “My Great-Grandmothers Garden” project.

I hope you have a lovely day.

celi

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