Weekly roundup

A few more days down time from the blog as we had to reset our PC from scratch, having too many problems with it as is wont with computers!

Over the weekend we had a big cull of our chickens, long overdue. We had such a mixed bunch and had made the decision to change over from mainly Indian Game birds and some IG crossed with Araucana, to Brown Shaver hens, which are a commercial breed reknowned for their high egg production. So now we have another x14 chickens in the freezer and plenty of roast chicken dinners to come! They ranged in size from a tiny 800g bird to a more sizeable 1.5kg!
While they don't make a pretty picture, as a record and point of interest here they are (the X's didn't pluck well leaving lots of quills which was annoying)

G was out working on a farm and a nice farmer gave him several blocks of homemade butter! It tastes a bit sweeter than shop-bought, and is a lot paler in colour.

This is what greeted us yesterday morning!

This was the sight that greeted us yesterday morning, loads of woolly sheep off down the road to be shorn. When we got out onto the road they were all massed up ahead of us, and up above was a big cloud of steam that was generated from their fleece! It looked quite spectacular against the morning sun and fog.

Sunshine after the rain

It poured and poured with rain this morning and then around midday the sun came out and so D and I went for a walk.
The water runs down from the surrounding hills into the 'wetland' (or this part once was but sadly now looking like this as a result of grazing) and then into the Te Opi stream and out into the Kaipara harbour.
It was just glorious.