Yesterday I made my own hay. "Why not?" I thought. Surely you don't need a ginormous tractor, baler and scores of hefty young men? Recipe for haymaking:
Cut the overgrown kikuyu with the ride-on lawnmower.
For a few days, kick it around every time you visit the chickens.
Once it's dry, rake it into sweet little piles.
Stuff it into old feed sacks, smash it down as hard as you can, that stuff takes up a lot of room.
Itch like CRAZY.
Run to have a shower before you scratch yourself to ribbons!
I'm going to use it for bedding for the rabbits I'll get soon and nesting material for the chickens. And because of the drought, hay bales are about $18 when they are usually about $5-$7. Mind you, I probably only picked up about two haybales worth...but hey, every bit counts, huh?
And then today, it rained.
So I was very glad - it was RAINING, which it hasn't done for about four months, and I'd already brought in the hay harvest (tongue firmly in cheek!).
The dam we had dug needs sealing before it will hold water. Apparently you do this by running a mob of cattle through it for a day when it's wet or driving round and round in it in your tractor. We don't have a mob of cattle and Dear Hubby didn't want to drive his tractor in in case he got stuck. So we used the children!
They didn't complain. Lets hope it works or we might have to coerce our calves into dam duty.Just a little footnote. If you click on the top photo to make it big, you can see the block of land that's for sale. It's the big paddock behind the wheelbarrow and includes the half round barn and the big woolshed, plus lots more that you can't see. In fact, 180 acres or 72 hectares. We want it. In fact I want it so bad, I'm pretending not to so I don't get disappointed. It's too expensive for us so we are putting it out there to the universe to help us find a way. I'll keep you posted.
Kids and mud - the perfect combination!! 72 days without rain and counting. Apparently the record here is 83. And the second hottest January on record for Perth - average of 33.5 degrees C!!
ReplyDeletethat looks like such fun! Did you join in?
ReplyDeleteI also thought about making some of our own hay, glad you mentioned how itchy it is - I am over itching with the mozzie bites :(
So so happy to see some rain - our ducks are out and about eating mud by the looks of things.
In their lives they haven't seen rain yet ( Mmmm don't want to tell them about winter!)
I'll collect some seeds for you once the pods look ready.
xx
Oooeee, what fun! Bet the kids loved it, how'd they clean up afterwards?
ReplyDeleteO still has mud in her hair!
ReplyDeleteI just love your posts!!! The land is so, so beautiful. You are so self-sufficient & what a blessing for your children to grow up so close to nature. I wish I had the $$$ to give to you - unfortunately I don't. Sigh. I'll get a lotto ticket tomorrow, how about that? ;-) Paradise. Really. My "dream" was always a lil' house on lots of land with my love. Raising a few sheep organically, spinning wool, having a few kids together on top of the ones we already have, him retired... Anyhoo. Sending good vibes FOR YOUR DREAM your way. --- I just checked. The Megamillion jackpot is $12 Million US. That would suffice - right? ;-)
ReplyDelete