Mother Nature Lends A Hand

In my last posting I discussed the onerous job of watering the newly planted trees. Well, Mother Nature (a fervent fan of this blog) stepped in for me this past week. The whole week I was in Auckland we had sunny skies and NO rain. Coming up on Thursday night, it rained!! And it rained on Friday; and on Saturday...you get the picture. Mother Nature lends a hand so I don't have to. Keep on reading, M.N. you are deeply appreciated.

So since I didn't have to spend several hours lugging water, I turned to my seedlings. What remained of them. The rabbits and insects have pretty much destroyed most of my beautiful spinach, beans, peas, and coriander. Indeed, I can't even find where I planted that coriander. It was eaten down to the roots and beyond. I hope the rabbits ate far enough to encounter the possum carcess under the plants. Possibly the smell will make them think twice about returning for seconds.

This rabbit thing is pretty interesting. According to local yore, the previous owners' son had pet rabbits which escaped and now are eagerly populating across the countryside. Needless to say, the farmers are not pleased!

Also interesting is running an organic farm. This means no insecticides. Okay, I get it. But the corollary is that it also means many insects chowing down on my seedlings. I am busy investigating which plants would repel which insects but it seems to me to be a never ending cycle. If I plant, say Marigolds, to keep away beetles, then up comes some other creepy crawly who happens to adore Marigolds so then I have to plant something to keep them away. And in the meantime, back come the beetles to eat my spinach. I am seriously considering soapy water. No honestly, I am. No one wants to eat soapy water, not even insects. And the soap would be biodegradable, organic soap. I promise.

Since I had plenty of spare time at the farm this weekend, I started cleaning the wool. Dan built me the most elegant trestle table with room for the wool bags and everything I needed. He set me up in the garage where there was good ventilation and I could be out of the rain (once again, thanks Mother N.). My task was to take the wool, cut away the unusable parts (i.e., the poo drenched parts) and keep the rest for cleaning, carding, and ultimately becoming part of a duvet. We have 3 1/2bags full. It took me 1 1/2 hours to do 1/3 of a bag.

This is a major time investment. But the work is pleasant enough. I don't like the feel of wool lanolin on my hands so I bought rubber gloves. I was cheerfully snipping away when I realized that I had also snipped my fingertips. After some massive mental persuasion, I convinced myself that I wasn't really rummaging around in sheep poo; my fingers were mostly covered and the fingertips didn't count. I still have more than 3 bags to go and I don't know what my reaction will be to the next load of shit but I'll try for the power of positive thinking. If that doesn't work, I guess I'll grit my teeth and bear it.