The cold is back. It's not unusual for this time of year. There always seems to be a few days when the world forgets it's meant to be warming, and so we shiver through our outside jobs each morning. Today the breeze blew icy cold and I huddled in Dave's warm jacket while I lugged the buckets to the shed to feed the remaining 5 lambs. The rest of our poddy lambs are now weaned. While they still 'maaa', 'maaa' & amble over for a pat when they spy me across the paddock, they no longer rely on me for their survival. Feeding just five seems so easy now!
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| Newly weaned lambies |
The other day whilst weeding what (I am hoping) will become the flower bed, I had to smile. I am forever trying to remind myself to choose joy. When I chose these roses months ago, I got them for their colours. I only chose the cheapest because previously Bolt had pulled out all our other roses & I didn't want to spend a fortune on glorified dog toys. Yet so far ( after all these months), he hasn't touched these ones. As I pulled the numerous weeds, I found yet another reminder to be joyful always!
Our cows are flourishing with the pastures so abundant in spring. We are still awaiting hearing from a guy who does AI nearby. I will admit that I am getting rather impatient. The girls are currently just paddock ornaments & while they are pretty, I would rather they be fulfilling their role of meat & milk producers. In the meantime they come regularly up near the house for a pat! They are such busy bodies. When we recently had some extra kiddos here visiting, the cows had to come & see what the fuss was about. I'm sure they would move right into the house if we let them!
This is the latest batch of chicks. We really need to incubate some more eggs, but the eggs seem in short supply. It's not that the girls aren't laying, but rather, that our children are cooking themselves eggs every morning for breakfast. Ellie is regularly baking as well. This combination means that there are very little eggs left over for the incubator. Hopefully as some of the younger 'girls' in the henhouse begin to lay we won't have this problem!
Homeschooling is going well. We are still so thankful that we made this choice for our children. I was looking over the learning outcomes today to do my final planning for next term. Ellie is at the end of a stage & so I need to ensure she has covered everything by the end of the year. It was only as I looked over these that I realised how much the children have learned & progressed. It seems in the day-to-day it is easy to overlook how far they have come & instead focus on how much further they have to go.
We've been studying plants this term in science. We had to dissect flowers the other day & the children enjoyed finding the different parts of some of the flowers from our garden. The most interesting was the Bird of Paradise. It took some doing to locate the ovary with the unfertilised seeds in it & to work out which parts were the stamen & the pistil. It really is amazing, when you study these things, how they were created.
We began our seeds for our summer garden a short while ago. Our seeds have just begun to sprout in their sunny location next to the window. I had such success starting seeds last year that I have expanded the varieties this year. With a newly purchased water truck & the added blessing of full dams, we are hoping that we will be able to water the gardens this summer! I love watching these little plants grow!
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