Our hols and some pics

Hi everyone, I'm back from hols. We had a nice little tour around, visited our lovely friends and had a break from the daily grind on the farm and our paid work.

Get this though, we got all the way to Mt Ruapehu and then could not get up the mountain as the road was closed because of snow and ice on the road.......GO FIGURE..! Not sure what the tourists here for the Rugby World Cup would think of that!! We were not impressed and D was disappointed. However we did manage to find a smattering of snow nearby so he could throw snowballs!

RUN!

We really enjoyed the beautiful scenery:

Tongariro National Park

Bush (native forest)

We happened upon the Old Coach Road and drove along it as far as we could following the track along farmland. We reached a gate and went through on foot and shortly we came across a beautiful sight:

Mountain Cabbage Trees

Just fabulous! We'd never seen so many together like this.

More beautiful bush and a mountain stream

Snow-capped mountains

Lake Taupo

Thermal activity by lake

The week went very quickly indeed. Now we are back on the farm, and it will be time to swing into action again with so many jobs still to do before the heat of the summer kicks in. We have just had a big thunder storm pass over so a hoorah for a bit more much needed rain water in the tank, but it has been a pretty dry Winter so we are conscious of the fact we don't have a lot at present. Getting the veg garden in order, seedlings underway/planted and also planting the last of the trees/plants we have sitting around the place will be our priority. Sometimes it feels like we're not making a lot of progress, but I guess we'll get there someday!


And lastly here is our lovely view of the kowhai trees with their yellow flowers. They blossom every Spring in early September and put on such a great show all along the wetland area at the bottom of our property.

Update

Time for a little update as it has been a few days since my last post. May not be of any interest to the vegetarians among you!
As of yesterday, we no longer have our pigs. They have been home killed and are now with the butcher who will process them into the cuts we have asked for, mainly lots of bacon! but also hams, pork chops, roasts and belly strips. We ran out of our last lot of home grown bacon a couple of months ago and have since then been buying it from the local butcher in town, but this does not compare to the bacon from our own pigs! No photos this time. I happened to be out at the time of the home killing but can tell you the pigs had a very happy life with lots of space, good food and plenty of pats/scratches behind the ears from us here on CTF. Can't ask for better than that.
Last night we enjoyed a roast chicken dinner, the chicken courtesy of our own flock. This particular bird (one of our Light Sussex hens) had been flying out of the coop for a while now, and despite clipping her wings, was determined to continue. Since she had a habit of scratching around the newly planted citrus trees, I'm afraid drastic measures were needed to keep her from getting out. What a tasty table bird she made! Quite fatty, but the meat was very tasty indeed and tender too.
In the veg garden I have harvested the last of the purple cauliflowers. Only one of them formed a reasonable sized head -

I made it into a nice creamy soup, using this recipe. Pretty to look at, but not much actual density, which is what we prefer.
I am still harvesting the broccoli which is sprouting off the sides of the plants, although will be pulling these up soon to make more space for summer vegs.
The coriander is starting to go to seed, I will probably end up digging this up also, and the chickens can eat it, as I also need the space where it is growing. I have loads of coriander seed, so not a problem to get more going, although it does grow a lot better here in the cooler months.
Have not progressed much further with gardening apart from digging out a few seeds in readiness.
Next week we are heading away for a much-needed holiday so there will be no posts for a while. We are going south to visit friends, and to see some snow and mountains (Mt Ruapehu), and maybe take a dip in some thermal pools at Rotorua.
Bye for now!

Weeds

Does anyone know what plant this is?
It came up in the garden and I (somewhat foolishly) left it there because the bees love it, but now it is appearing all over the place...arrrgh!
Weeding is not my strong point, as G will readily testify, and the little plants are not that easy to rip up by hand. Now I have some serious digging to do..
Other plants that are growing like weeds up in the veg garden are borage:

The bees also love this plant and it doesn't spread in quite such a rampant way as the unknown one above. It is also very easy to remove, although the leaves and stalks can be a bit on the prickly side.
And just look at the globe artichokes:

I gave last years plants a severe pruning and they have sprung up again really well. They do self-seed and in fact I did dig up and replant some of the little seedlings, but they didn't like the spot I chose for them (in the main orchard) and so I'm glad that these ones have done so well. They are quite large plants but aren't getting in the way of anything where they are at present.

On the bank garden this purple osteospermum, or South African daisy, is starting to bloom. I think this is a smaller variety of the red/pink flower I posted the other day, it certainly looks very similar.

However, these purple ones are on just little cuttings that I only planted a few weeks ago, so I was surprised to see flowers on them already. They obviously like the position they are in. I will try to get a better photo of the other one, it has several flower heads almost ready to bloom and they are very large - about 15cm across! These little purple ones though are only about 5cms! Still I like them with their interesting blue and orange centres.