"Balmoral Park" farm garden

It seems like once you have a Border Collie for a pet any other dog breed just seems unacceptable. Our first Border Collie "Steffi", adopted us, we didn't have her very long but fell in love with her energy and intelligence. Then we got Patch, he was a great dog, family pet, weather forecaster, he was frightened of thunderstorms so if we were all away from home he would turn up at the neighbours hours before a storm! They came to know that a visit from patch meant a thunderstorm was headed their way. We had patch for 9 years and were bereft when he was hit by a car and died. We said at that point that having dogs was too sad and that we wouldn't get another one. Within the year we had Angus, such a beautiful boy. Angus is the dog in the banner above. He helped raise Zoe and was broken hearted when the girls left home and again when we moved to the farm here, He stuck with us until the end though, a good friend and  companion. I decided to get Elle as Angus ...

Its been a long time between posts but after a few weeks of having all of the family here at the farm I thought it would be nice to start posting regularly about what we are doing here to keep people up to date in between visits. 2015 was a busy and challenging year in many respects as I continue to work full time and mostly away from home, I am away a couple of days each week. The garden has certainly suffered as I have has to be realistic about what I can manage. Nevertheless it was a pleasant surprise when everyone was here to realise how much of our food still came from the farm, meat from the goats and sheep, eggs, lots of fruit and a few vegies, lots of herbs, it provides motivation to keep on with it all. During 2015 Peter finally built the long awaited Pizza oven. As with everything he does it is a masterpiece and has worked perfectly since the first day we lit it. We are still figuring out how to cook in it but so far we feel we have mastered the art of pizza, done some sl...