spring

Spring – Shearing time

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Today was shearing day, we usually shear the sheep when the nights are warm enough for everyone to stay warm and the days are beginning to be uncomfortably hot. This Spring has been wet so far, which means that our sheep run the risk of being damp and warm for long periods of time (flies love that), so we messaged Karl, who shears our sheep for us, early this year.

Peri relaxing while she is shorn
Kracken losing her Winter wool

Karl came out and the sheep were shorn in no time. He always does a great job, treating them with care and respect and talking to them the whole time. This year they all behaved themselves, which is unusual, in previous years we have had to lasso escapees and even tackle one or two as they run past. Luckily, Karl plays football and takes it all in his stride. He seems to find us amusing, and laughs at the lengths we go to to keep our babies comfortable. We set up a shade gazebo for Karl to shear them under and then leave it up for a few days so they don’t get sun burned. We spray every little graze with antiseptic spray (the pink splotches) and give them a soothing feed of hay after their shearing ordeal. At the same time, he takes the time to make sure they are comfortable while he is shearing and they seem to just lay against him or on the ground while he works, and he talks to them like we do, so we count him as one of us, and so do the sheep.

Chloe and Karl leading Kracken to the shearing spot

I now have a bag of lovely wool from Eli to process into wool and knit or weave into something lovely. I could have saved more, but I have plenty of fleece to spin in my craft room already.

Eli after his shearing

Plants in the garden- port wine magnolia

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We have a single Port wine magnolia in the garden. Of course it has a story attached; if the plants in your garden don’t have a story, you are missing an essential element of gardens. My eldest daughter loves the smell of Port wine magnolia (as do we all here), when she was young she called them bubblegum trees and would go looking for the source of the delightful smell if we happened to be near one in Spring. A friend started some from cuttings for me many years ago and I bought them home and looked for places to plant them.

My daughter wanted to plant them outside her bedroom window so the smell would blow into the room on hot Spring nights. I wanted to plant them near the gate so I could smell them as I went in and out of the yard. In the end, we planted one under the window and one by the gate. Of course, the one by the gate was eaten by a passing sheep, but the under window shrub is still going strong.

It began to flower this year, while my daughter was at home (luckily)

The poor little thing has managed to live with ducks and chooks running loose under it. The base is mulched with rocks and the position means that any left over shower water goes to it.

This is an example of a shrub we have planted purely for pleasure. In the garden, as in life, pleasure is important to add flavour to life; without things that give us pleasure, life is fairly boring.

Spring flowers at the humpy

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Lately, I have been forced to slow down and look at the ground more (to avoid falling over a lot), that has led to noticing a lot more of the small and unnoticed flowers that grow here. I don’t have any idea whether most of these are native plants or not, I don’t know what they are called at all, but they are beautiful. I thought I would share the beauty with you. If you know the names of any of these little beauties, leave a comment.

And a few from my garden (I know what these ones are).

In some ways, I am grateful for my dizzy spells; they have let me slow down and really see all the beauty that surrounds us again. On the other hand, it will be wonderful to be able to move around fast without falling over again too.

Eggs everywhere- it sure is Spring

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There are three people living in the humpy at the moment; one can’t eat eggs, one won’t eat eggs, then there is me. We have 8 laying hens, about 6 laying ducks and 2 laying geese; we collect about 8 eggs a day, or about 66 eggs a week. If you compare both sides of this scale you can see that a lot of eggs get wasted, and I hate waste.

I do attempt to use all our eggs, but have failed miserably in the task so far. Some of the methods we use are;

Fried eggs on weekends (for me)- this uses up about 4 eggs a week

Trading them to friends for veges- about a 12 a week

Using them in baking – about 6 a week

Making quiche (not every week)- about 8 a week

Giving them to a friend with an incubator- about 6 a week

All that gives me a total of, at most, 36 eggs used. I did freeze 2 dozen for use when they all stop laying, but that was a temporary reprieve. I don’t want to sell eggs (too many regulations) and most of my friends have chooks and are in the same predicament as I am (but if you live close and want eggs let me know, especially duck eggs).

So, to address some of the extra eggs, I went looking for egg recipes that could be made then frozen. That way we use the eggs and I have another meal that can be heated up for dinner. This is what I found;

Scrambled eggs, beans and sauce in a burrito; love the sound of this one.

Blueberry scones with icing; sounds delicious

Baked French toast sticks; okay we’ve drifted away from the idea of dinners, but they do use eggs.

Egg and vegetable noodle slice; freezable and good for lunch or dinner.

Halloumi, cheese and egg hot pot; sounds good, but I’m not sure it will freeze.

Broccolli and feta strata; whatever that is.

I’m not going to try all these recipes in one day (I do hate to cook), but I think I can manage one each weekend. That should fill the freezer with breakfasts, lunches and dinners for the first frantic weeks of school.

We also take some of the excess eggs out to the edge of the firebreaks for the goannas and possums. In these dry times all our native animals are searching for food and water. The sheep water troughs and the occasional water tray around the outskirts of the humpy provide water for wildlife and the excess eggs provide just a little nutrition for struggling beings.

I know this sends a mixed message; we don’t want goannas in the house yard and the possums can be very destructive too. I do it because I can see a day, not too far in the future, when animals that are common now will be rare and endangered. I do it because I don’t want any being to suffer and if I have the means to ease suffering, it is my duty to do it. I do it because I love to see the variety of animals who show up to take advantage of the free food.

Eggs show up in the strangest places.

Its Spring, get outside

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I love being outside; the sound of life busily happening all around me, the smell of flowers, hot earth and animals (even poop), watching animals and plants doing what they do and the feel of the sun and wind on my skin. At this time of year, if you live in a humpy, there is a lot to do outside which apparently keeps me healthy and will prolong my life.

This clip just confirms what I knew all along. I bet you did too.

https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/hmqguIFMC-Y&source=uds

Ostara; the Spring equinox

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Happy Ostara everyone,
It’s that time of year again; eggs, fertility (rabbits) and planting seeds. The spring equinox is one of two times in the year when day and night are of equal length, this day marks the middle of spring (for the planet not the calendar). It is the time for birthing lambs, first chickens hatching and summer vegetable crops being planted.
Ostara information
This year for Ostara our little Grove (a small group of witches) built a sacred garden bed and planted it with corn, beans and pumpkin (the three sisters).
We measured the bed using our Athames and a cord in the traditional manner

The bed and the post positions were marked out with gypsum (no ritual significance in gypsum, we just had some)

We measured and measured again; my High Priestess is a Libra.
The quarters (four directions) were marked with posts, then the cross quarters were marked with more posts (steel pegs really)
A poly pipe frame was added, then wire around the base and a bird net over the top.
Oh and a gate was added. 
The bed is made up of layers of newspaper, alpaca poop and bladey grass mulch in a no-dig garden style.

It took us about half a day to build the bed, but it was time well spent.
Then we held our ritual where we blessed the seeds for the year’s planting and planted our crop in the garden.

I found the seed blessing below online, but I can’t seem to find it again; so thank you to whoever wrote it. We held our seeds and said this blessing over them before planting.

Seed blessing

Now the dark half of the year is passing
Now the days grow light, and the Earth grows warm
I summon the spirit of these seeds
Which have slept in darkness
Awaken, stir, and swell
As you are planted in the Earth
To grow and bring forth new fruit.
Blessed be!
And this morning when I got up, one of the hens has hatched a chicken; perfect timing.

Imbolc already and spring is here

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It’s that time of year again; the snow drops are flowering, so is the hardenbergia in the bush. The chooks are laying and looking for nest sites. All my seedlings are coming up and I have an urge to plant more than we could possibly eat; it must be spring.
At the start of spring we hold the festival of Imbolc; it is held when the first snow drops flower and celebrates the return of life and heat to the land. We also have a bonfire, an outdoor meal and lots of mead.

snow drops…or snow flakes; I can never remember which is which and they flower at the same time.

Seedlings in newspaper pots starting to emerge.

Hardenbergia in the bush

Our Imbolc altar

The bonfire

The alter after dark

Some background

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I thought it was about time I introduced the Humpy. We moved to our bush block in 2008 and built a shed after living in a tiny caravan for three months with two teenage girls (incentives to build galore). Unfortunately my partner discovered that three walls will hold up a roof and deemed that to be shelter enough.
Since then we have successfully built a lot of ramshackle animal housing and got a few creature comforts for ourselves too.
Have a browse through the early days of the Humpy.