A Summer Morning at Secret Waters

What a glorious day for a yeoman farmer! It was quite autumnal when I got up, not a cloud in the sky, but that crisp, cold freshness that usually comes later in late March and April. Great weather for scything though. Scything is best done in the morning before the dew has dried, and the grass toughened up. I am getting better at scything, and did around twelve trees before hunger drove me inside for breakfast. If I keep this up, then this year we should be able to find all the feijoas as they fall on the ground.

 After a larger breakfast than usual - I don't usually do an hour's hard labour before eating - I went out harvesting. I have only ever had one good year of garlic before but this year I have more than enough to keep both the vampires and most of my friends at bay for the entire year.

In my eager anticipation of our trip to Alaska in June 2011, I forgot about buying garlic bulbs for planting until I was checking emails while in Fairbanks, and found one from Koanga reminding me. The wonders of the internet - I ordered some online and they arrived the day after we got home. I ordered lots, assuming I would, as usual, only get a few to grow. Wrong!

Koanga was also offering tree onions, which I had never heard of, let alone grown. They too have flourished, and if they taste good, I'll plant more this July. And this year I will have plenty of healthy specimens to use instead of ordering in.

 

 A couple of years ago I bought a mini green house to start our seedlings in inside. It came from The Warehouse and only cost about $60, so we were surprised that it worked so well, and didn't fall to bits a month later. Now I have found a new use for it. Without it's plastic cover, it makes a great rack to finish drying off the garlic and tree onions.

 It was hot out there in the sun, so I gathered my lunch.

 And after a shower, I ate them with home-grown honey, and store bought yoghurt - must go and start some home made yoghurt now, using the raw organic milk I buy locally.

Then I'm going to settle down and do some work on my Apicultural Knowledge course.

Many people tell me "Oh! You don't work? I couldn't bear that, I need the mental stimulation of my job," just as they used to say the same thing when I was a stay-at-home homeschooling mother. Well, I find my life quite stimulating enough, thanks! Particularly in this wonderful era of the internet, which allows me to talk to distant friends and family in the evening, and of easy travel, which allows me to go to Auckland tomorrow night to spend an evening listening to really good jazz. The life of a modern yeoman farmer is a good one!