a SHEEP or two

Our Hobby Farm... Where it's all going ...
Time to stock the paddock

We are now officially Sheep farmers, well I don’t know about the official business, but we do have SHEEP!

Hubby and Annabel arrived home from a visit to Gran & Pops last week with his homemade sheep float full of SHEEP.  

Me, Annabel and our New Sheep

It was inevitable that we would eventually get a few up here, We enjoy going down to the farm so much, rounding up the sheep, lamb marking and shearing has always been a big part of our holiday adventures. With Gran and Pop starting to slow down a little now and the future of the family farm unkown, we thought it was time we prepared for our own sheeping adventures on our own property.

We have five 1st cross Ewes, 

Nancy, Beatrice, Eliza, Lorraine and Kimmy.

 Two  black and coffee coloured Lambs, 
Cappuccino & Mocha latté.

One young super studly dorset cross Ram named Earl 

and a young fat lamb which we have called Sunday Roast....
you get the picture...

Our 5 Ewes are only young but have spent quite some time with the Ram on the Farm before they were loaded up and brought here, what that all means is that Hopefully in about 6 months time we should have lots of little lambs running around the place, should be pretty cute, however I have been told I should not get too attached...  

Cappuccino and Mocha latté will eventually become mamas as well. 

Hubby gave them all nice looking haircuts before their journey so we shouldn’t have to shear them for a while yet, I think its 6 or 12 months, I don’t really know, I have a LOT to learn about these woolly critters  yet! 

They are a little bit flighty still and I have not been able to get to close to get some real good pics especially of Caps and  Mocha, all they ever do is eat and run away from me so I can only get snapshots of their buts...Cute hey! 

It's so nice to wake up in the morning and see the sheep grazing outside I feel like a REAL FARMER... Just gotta make ourselves a few pens now and build a little shearing shed down the back.

 

Our Hobby Farm...Where it all began..

My husband grew up  on his families farm in Western NSW. He spent most of his early years farming Sheep and Wheat and playing Tennis in the court his parents had converted from an old chook coop.  
When we moved out to our little piece of green we always wondered what we would do with it all, all 5 acres of it!

 We brought chickens and a couple of children with us, we renovated the house and along the way came a few more chickens and a few more children. I established a small veggie patch and we chopped down a few trees and planted some turf to make a nice open green backyard for all to play. We often talked about  running a few cattle, maybe we would sneak a few lambs back with us from a visit to Gran and Pops Farm.   A  Pony for the children? 
 And it's no secret that I would LOVE  a Milking Cow. . .

For a while there  feeding my chooks and children was about all we could  handle. Then, almost overnight, It all happened. . 

 Hubby decided he would fulfill his dreams, he was ready to invest into his Favourite Hobby  'Tennis'.  And what a process,  In came the bulldozers, rollers, semi trailers, and more rollers 

.

We couldn't be happier with the final product.  And oh so much fun we are having now spending lots of Quality Family Time on the court.  Hubby is coaching the kids now with the big kids doing after school lessons and the little ones lessons in the morning. 

 Look out Wimbledon . . . Here we come . . .

Whose got a Sweet Tooth?

My dear dad popped in for a visit Yesterday and

 he left this for me at my front door. 

6250 teaspoonfuls !!!

Obsessed with Citrus

SO I've been thinking about what I can do 
with some of my Citrus,

once it all survives, matures, flowers, fruits and ripens!

Freshly eaten is BEST, Juice is GOOD, Marmalade is YUMMY, Cake is quite a TREAT and then I thought of  LEMONADE!!!


Homemade Lemonade Syrup
2 cups sugar
2 cups water
1 cup lemon juice (approx 4 or 5 lemons)
1 lemon for rind

Peel rind from lemon with a vegetable peeler

Boil the water, sugar and lemon rind for approx 5 minutes
Add the lemon juice
Let cool and strain into bottles . . .
Serve with Ice Cold water or Soda Water 

  Yep! It's that easy... I tested out this recipe today, it's good, I have a few years yet to perfect it! I remember having lemonade once at a market many years ago, it was very lemony, not as sweet as this one but I can't find any recipes that differ to much from this.
 I guess I could just add more lemon juice!
 Anyone got any great (easy) lemonade recipes or tips they would like to share?

Dancing Doily Dollies and Paper Patchwork People

I've been getting  crafty again... 

I'm always looking for something fun and creative to do with my children, I designed this doily garland with my eldest daughter Jess, We chopped and sewed and hung them up high for all to admire... We are planning on doing some more similar to this for all the girls bedrooms, maybe sew on some dresses or paint them some pretty colours....

Then it was time for the little ones to play...

PATCHWORK PEOPLE

This was completely 100% inspired by Duck Egg Blue over at Humble Habit, thanks heaps DEB for the Hours and Hours and Hours of Creativity and Fun shared in our house last week...

The children (apart from my son, who turns 13 this week, no further explanation needed!) all did their own life size portrait.  

We're still not quite finished with these portraits yet, plenty of pasting still to do but I have hung them in the living room anyway.  It brightens up my days...

( I helped little Miss Mads with this one....) It was so much fun. . .Don't know what to do with the face, maybe some buttons, or paint??? Happy for any Ideas. . .

And then there were little patchwork people too . . .

HAPPY CRAFTING!!!

Go to : Kootoyoo  for more Creativity

A fruitful Investment....

 Do you remember my fruit tress that fell victim to the Qld floods, they were removed from their wells and nurtured to a point that I could give no more. We allocated a new spot way out beyond which I named the Special Care Nursery (previously named the Graveyard, but I now remain very optimistic, read on. . . )

  

The Special Care Nursery



I confess, we did actually give up on that last lot, put them in Gods hands we did and  decided to start from scratch and invest in a dozen or so new healthy fruit trees, the holes were dug, the soil  prepared and in they went . . .

 


This is an Elli tree, this one is three years old, lets see how big she grows.

  

Washington Navel, Lanes Late Navel, Blood Orange, Lisbon Lemon, Tahitian Lime, Kumquat, 

Tangelo and a Lemonade Tree.

Also managed to squeeze in a Fig, Two Custard Apples, a Tropical Apple, an Angel peach and a White Mulberry, oh and two little blueberry bushes.

 So you wouldn't believe it but this is what's been happening up in the special care unit

Look. . . Signs of new Life....



Meyer Lemon



Pear

 So we now also have, or should I say originally had, or have once again, pear tree, Washington Navel, Blood Orange, Tahitian Lime, Lisbon Lemon, Kumquat and Tangelo...There's going to be lots and lots and LOTS of Marmalade making here one day in the future...

Still waiting to see how the stonefruits go,

 

Tropical Peach

   We have four that still look like dead sticks but I am hoping these will still miraculously bloom in Spring

In the meantime, we already have a Navel Orange and Two Mandarin Trees well established and loaded with fruit. They sit in our yard next to the Mango Tree and Macadamia Nut Tree....

I have a new Paw Paw or actually I think it's a Red Papaya growing strong and should produce next season and a small handful of banana trees well on their way too....

I'm ready for the next raspberry season, am hoping to double the size of my crop this year...

Oh nearly forgot the passion fruits that are growing crazily out of control over my chook coop, two yellow panama and a purple panama.

 

Near that I have a large Black Mulberry I planted about 12 months ago along with a hand full of wild Mulberries I dug up from the side of the road.....

 

So all in all we've actually got quite a good fruit bowl planted....I didn't realise until I sat down just now and wrote this post...Oh and the Gooseberries. Well, they say in some climates they are perennials and other climates they are annuals, I found out mine were only annuals...

Not to worry I have a bag of Cape Gooseberry seeds ready to plant this spring along with a good handful of Rosella.

So fingers crossed now for a  Productive and Fruitful life ahead.....