Hi everyone! Glad to see a few new faces. Jump right in – the more the merrier 🙂

I’ve had tomatoes grow on through winter but they taste like crap. The sunshine gives them their flavour. I’ve just planted some heirloom potatoes given to me by my uncle who saved them but is too unwell to plant them. It’s so hot and dry here too but I’ve mulched heavily with pea straw.

I mulched our orchard with a huge round bale of pea straw (with some help from 100+ chickens). I’m stuffed!

I was having trouble with pics too. I’ll try resizing. Good luck with the toe Penny!

Gosh, it’s been a while since my last update. The first piglets were born on the farm and we’ve had a great spring of baby lambs, chicks and ducks. Managing a 25 acre farm, 2 kids, full-time work (both hubby and I) and a preserving ‘hobby’ sure keeps us busy but I love every minute! We now have 5 sows, 1 boar, 15 ewes, 10 lambs, 100+ chickens…[Read more]

Gosh, it’s been a while since my last update. The first piglets were born on the farm and we’ve had a great spring of baby lambs, chicks and ducks. Managing a 25 acre farm, 2 kids, full-time work (both hubby and I) and a preserving ‘hobby’ sure keeps us busy but I love every minute! We now have 5 sows, 1 boar, 15 ewes, 10 lambs, 100+ chickens…[Read more]

I loved Bryce Courtenay’s books too. Can’t believe your son is at school now!

Great thread ballamara! I travel an hour each way to work so I listen to a lot of audiobooks in the car. I’m always looking for good books to read. I love Joel Salatin – ‘Folks This Aint Normal’ is great. I also love good fiction. I loved Stieg Larsson’s Millenium Trilogy.

hi gracefultash and welcome!  Things have been a wee bit quiet here of late, so we’re hoping to create more chat and share more useful info.  Perhaps if you find something you like, you’ll pop in a comment to keep things ticking along 🙂

Yep, this guy in Misty HOllows thread.  Seems there are more spammers than genuine members lately!!BobiWhite Sturbridge, MA

We picked up about another 400-500kg wet brewers grain again yesterday – the animals sure do love it and it saves it going to landfill.  We also picked up another couple of sows a few weeks ago and they have taken quite a liking to our big boar, Bruce.  With a bit of luck, we’ll have some babies later this year!

Best of luck with it Vanessa.  Last spring/summer, I covered a huge area of ground with cardboard covered in horse manure to try and smother the weeds (mainly Gazanias).  Well, it appeared to have worked at first, but with the recent rains the Gazanias have come back with a vengeance.  The ones growing where the poo had been spread are much…[Read more]

Thanks for sharing.  Your run is great!  Depending on how much of your fruit trees you’ve ringed with mesh, you may also need to put something at ground level to stop them digging up the roots – I peg down chicken wire with a few tent pegs which seems to do the trick.  Looking forward to seeing photos of how you manage gardening on your steep…

I’ll be interested to hear how you go growing rosemary from seed guys.  I’m trying to get some cuttings of prostrate rosemary going at the moment.  How’d your quince paste turn out Jaz?  We picked up 2 sows on the weekend that were in need of a good home.  Our boar has taken a liking to one of them, so that’s a positive.  I love…[Read more]

Hi again mum2twins!!

‘Just wanted to Say Hello’ by ChasGrimwa – more spam

I’m hearing you Judi B! We only have satellite NBN and don’t get mobile phone coverage. The satellite NBN works really well which is great, but they’ve just changed the allowances, so we have a lot less download (20 gig per month) for more money. We have a wireless modem, so we use internet on our mobile phone to send messages (using whatsapp…[Read more]

Totally agree guys. Hope we can reinvigorate things again

Thanks Jaz!

‘I am the new guy’ appears to be back! Ditto with ‘i just wanted to say hello’.