"Balmoral Park" farm garden

I had noticed that Elisabet, the oldest of my goats was looking a bit thin and then I noticed that Brie, her kid who is now seven months old, was still drinking from her from time to time. I thought I would separate them for a few days so that Elisabet could dry right up. Well Brie was not at all happy, she bellowed so much for two days that she almost lost her voice, she also didn't seem to be eating or drinking. Last night I thought I will just leave her there another night. This morning when I went outside I couldn't hear her so went to investigate. She wasn't there. She was in a fairly substantial pen with a six foot high fence and the gate was still closed. For a moment I feared that she run away and then thought well of course she would head straight back to the others and there she was.   Who me! When I looked at the pen again I can see a few spots where she may have got out. Mind you, I think that she created the holes herself. Still they are pret...

My garden has been quite neglected this summer, partly because of the weather, lots of rain, lots of garden pests and partly because there has been a lot of other things going on. All in all I am pleasantly surprised at how much it continues to provide for us. My latest forage found; The first cucumbers of the summer  Loads of little Cherry Roma tomatoes, these have done really well and have not been affected bu the fruit fly at all. the vines look pretty ragged but the tomatoes are still lovely. There are also these larger yellow tomatoes, I'm not sure what variety they are but will grow them again as they have also done well and been quite fruit fly resistant. The second crop of zucchini are doing quite well despite the ravages of the 28 spotted ladybird. The beans have bean amazing, mostly from one self sown climbing bean and they have been reproducing heavily for months now. There are also are few bush beans that are now producing.   The Raspberries continue to ...

Peter has not been well and it has been suggested that he try a diet that does not include wheat or sugar. In many ways this is not a huge issue as we don't eat much processed food at all but the things that have been difficult have been providing a nutritional, sweet snack that doesn't contain wheat or sugar and the quick meals that include Pasta and bread. I know you can buy wheat free pasta but the stuff I have tried in the past is really not very appetising, so we would rather do without. The good news is that he can eat Spelt, Chick pea flour and coconut flour. So bread and pasta are back on the menu, as soon as i have a chance to get some made. I actually really like pasta made with spelt flour.  http://balmoralparkgarden.blogspot.com.au/2011/01/spelt-pasta.html   so think that I will make a few batches and get some in the freezer so we can still have it for a quick meal. I am baking my first whole spelt loaf a bit later on today. So far it looks fine, just hasn...

We have had so much rain this week. Yesterday morning we got 52 mls in about an hour. It was the heaviest downpour i have seen here but it didn't stop at that. It kept raining until early this morning. There is water everywhere but perhaps because there is also grass everywhere, so far at least there is not the major flooding that occurred last summer. It looks like it might rain some more though so we will wait and see. In the meantime all of our water storage is completely full. The tanks have been full for ages, the two of us don't use a lot of water and we have barley watered the garden in the past twelve months. The dams are full too,    even the little dam on the boundary fence is full to the brim. This morning Peter noticed that there was still lots of water running down our driveway even though it has stopped raining. The dam behind our shed, that is not on our property has a hole in it and is leaking at a pretty fast rate. As we...