nogsland

Well I think Chris will say that he has had better months when he has cause to reflect on the last 4 odd weeks. This week is his last visit of his now weekly visits to the surgeon where they poke his leg, clean it and burn dead bits of skin off it. He meanwhile is going through boxes of cling film (in which he has to wrap his leg every day when he wants to shower) and has to keep remembering that he can't bend his leg still as much as he would like.

This week represented a break through in that for the first time he was able to do some quite physical work in putting up the last part of the verandah roof (see photo's). Lots of going up and down a ladder which meant lots of leg bending. He was pretty stiff at the end of the day but generally pulled up pretty well. He didn't have to have surgery in the end which was great, the big hole in his leg just filled back up, quite fascinating really if you like that kind of thing (which luckily he does).

Our new found respect of angry mother pigs meant when we finally dispatched the two young boys to their new homes (we ended up driving them to Bathurst about 3 hours away), we did so without Chris having to grab them and cause general pandemonium. Instead they had a week of having their dinner in the trailer by going up a ramp, so that when they finally didn't get the option to leave after a good meal we didn't have a murmur from anyone, including Georgina.

We also were lucky enough to dispatch the 7 lambs from last years drop to a single home. Our friends Esther and Karl were keen to increase their livestock numbers so took them all.  It means with One Ball out the way and the 7 youngsters gone the sheep flock is now a more manageable number.

Work on the farm has been pretty much at a standstill other than feeding for the last few weeks because of Chris' injury. Some lovely friends from work realised we were struggling a bit and organised a working bee one weekend, which was wonderful.  In retrospect of course I should have taken some pictures to record the event but I was hard at work cooking them a big lunch to say thank you so didn't actually see them at work much, just the wonderful results. Steph and Casey managed to do some sterling weeding on the new path so we can get some gravel down and Jamie and Mark helped Chris get the rotivator working (which took some hours) so they could turn some soil so we could get some plants in the ground.  Then we had some comedy moments as they struggled to drive the thing (which is akin to what I imagine riding a bucking bull must feel like). Hopefully the lunch and the meat and veggies we gave them as a thank you was suitable payment for some hard work which was much appreciated.

Meanwhile, with butchery done, we have had the joy of full freezers and eating some wonderful beef and hoggett along with our pork.  Simon's skin has been salted and sent off to the tanners to make into another rug (we decided our pockets wouldn't stretch to leather this year) and I have the horns ready to clean and make into kitchen and door cabinet handles at some point in the future.

Last night we had slow cooked beef cheeks and oxtail in red wine. Slow cooked for 4 hours in stock, red wine and onions having been marinated in olive oil with fresh herbs and garlic from the garden for 24 hours. Served up with some wonderful garlic mash and fresh carrots in spices with mung beans and fetta cheese. Accompanied by a lovely Barossa Shiraz, I think life doesn't get much better than that.

The clocks have gone back and the early nights are approaching. Now we are preserving everything we can before the first frost so that we have some nice summer treats bottled and ready to get us through the winter months.