Enjoying the last of autumn

I think autumn is my favourite of all the seasons.






Although I enjoy the bounty of summer, I don't enjoy the extreme heat and the threat of drought and fire. Winter although cold and wet is a nice time to relax a little. Work still needs to be done, but the pace is not so hectic. I am enjoying these last days of sunshine before we decend into the 'dark' - the winter solistice is now only a bit over 3 weeks away.

We have managed so well on our stand alone solar power system (which is a pretty modest 1kWh set up). We are in a really bad site for solar power generation as we are surrounded by tall trees and as the days shorten so does our little 'window' of sunshine - currently we get about 2 hours of sun on the panels!!! However we haven't had to resort to the generator or hand washing (yet!).

I think one of the best thing about this time of year is that its a great time for planning and dreaming. And there is LOTS of that happening here, with new projects and big projects in the early stages. But I will write about those as things progress a little!

I'll leave you with a funny photo - our new goat Rosie - ontop of the pizza oven shelter! Goats...

Our boy is 2!

Last week our little boy turned 2.

On Sunday we had a small party for him to celebrate. With pizzas cooked in our woodfired pizza oven of course! And of course we made him a cake. Daddy is the cake maker in the family, and this year we made a train.

Meet Rosie

Yesterday we picked up the newest memeber of our family - Rosie (our daughter named her). We bought her to replace Gypsy who left us suddenly last week. Like Gypsy, Rosie is a British Alpine dairy goat, about 9 months old. She is from good milking lines, but a more stocky version of the British Alpine. Dorka our other goat (Gypsy's mum) is a British Alpine (or probably a cross with Toggenburg).


Rosie has settled in ok. She is more vocal than Dorka, and despite not actually letting us near her, she bleats and follows us along the fence when we leave! She seems to have bonded well with the alpacas, less keen on Dorka (as she has given her the butting treatment). Like Gypsy, Rosie has small horns, and will remain horned, as from all available information, dehorning at this age is cruel and painful. We plan on glueing rubber balls to the ends of her horns once they grow to reduce the likelyhood of her hurting the others. Most dairy farmers remove the horns for safety reasons, but when you see so many goats with very badly removed horns you have to wonder if its really worth it. The standard method is to burn off the horn bud when the goat kid is only a day or 2 old, but if its not done properly part of the horn will re-grow and this will either be mishapen and potentially grow inwards, or be weak and be knocked off and become infected. Many people don't realise that the horn actually has blood vessels running up the length of it, and its only the outer shell that is 'horn', to cut this off is probably equivalent to cutting off one's finger!!!

Our plan is to have eventually 3-4 milkers, and alternating which does have kids each year, so they all have a rest. British Alpines are well known for their extended lactation, producing milk for several years after the birth of their kid/s, so we will probably stick with them. We might even look at getting a buck at some stage down the track.

I will leave you with some photos of Dorka and the milking process. We are so lucky to have ample supply of healthy raw, un-tampered milk. Very special.

Frothy, fresh milk!