Autumn 2011

April 6, 2011, 2:02 pm
Filed under: Uncategorized

My apologies for leaving it so long between posts. All is going well for us here in Clarkville, we were very fortunate to be unaffected by the Christchurch earthquake in February. We really hope that is the end of the earthquakes now.
We are looking after some chickens that had to be moved from their New Brighton home due to their garden being covered in silt from liquefaction. They have settled in with our girls well, and the crowing from the rooster adds a good rural sound to the place. Our girls are well into their egg laying, the 6 of them giving us a half-dozen eggs almost every day, so by selling a couple of dozen a week we manage to pay for the food.
On the selling front the roadside stall has been making a few appearances, but we don’t have regular stock to put it out more often. Goods sold recently include quinces, eggs and finally someone brought some rhubarb! The walnut tree has just started dropping the walnuts and we are hoping to sell most of those through the stall. I have just been out this morning doing the walnut picking and after a sort and wash they are now drying in the sun.
Our walnut income will not be high as it could be due to our walnut eating dog.
Things are going well on the sheep front, wool and lamb prices are good, we had our best ever return from the wool this year, spent $30 on the shearer and got $74 from selling the wool. Our friendly shearer has also leant us a ram this year and he has just gone out with our girls. We have only put two ewes out with him this year so hopefully he is doing the business as I write this.
As always Noah is going great. Lots of crawling around the place, we think he is a couple of months away from walking. He pulls himself up on the furniture and has taken a couple of wee walks behind his wooden trolley.
We have put up two fire guards up around the log burner and the coal range to keep him safe. The fire guards were made for us by a friend down in Cromwell. We have just lit the fires for the first time this week.