River cleaning ??

A few weeks ago we noticed that from the bridge we pass over on our way to Rangiora that the river bed was being altered.

They've now got to our bit but we're unsure whether this is the finished article or not, rather hope it is as it's lovely down there now, mind you not that it wasn't before.

Think the bears are still there :-)

Graperide

Well for the last 10 to 12 weeks I've , Ben , been training for the Graperide which is a 101K cycle race based in Renwick which is in  Marlborough the North of the South Island.
Last year we did it as a relay team the " The Flying Halibuts" . Well as Sam said he never wanted to do it again and Clare  was working it was down to me to keep the flag flying :-)

I travelled up with 2 of Clare's colleagues from the NICU on the Friday and we meet up with the rest of the gang, about 18.
Saturday dawned bright but with a howling Nor Wester, warm wind. So for the first 12 K wind assisted but then we got buffeted from the side till we hit the hills which I really enjoyed, down into bottom cog and just keep pedalling :-) And of course for every up there is a down.........

The last big hill is just before Havelock and then it was head for home with a tail wind for the last 30K and back in a time of 4 hrs 42 mins.

Was pretty tired at the end but soon recovered with plenty of water and food.

In the Evening there was a BBQ at one of the NICU nurses brothers house where epic tales of hill climbs and saucy french maids on bikes, wobbly tandems and dropped jelly beans were swapped long into the night .................

Rose garden coming along nicely

Livestock update

 

First off the Sky dog

  

Ah the cheese has snuck in here, due to be cut on the 7th march. The 3 ducks which are now looking very much like 2 drakes and one duck.... 

Closely followed by the ever expanding pigs. We've found a supply of bread for them at $4 per bread tray so that will help the budgetting.

 

Daisy and sheepy friend.Followed by other sheepy friend and Sky dog

The Three Degrees

Been a long time ................too long

Well the title says it all, we've been very slack of late updating here so I'd better get on with it.

Clare is onto her 2nd batch of cheese today. We get it from our friendly dairy farmer Paul Sparks at 50 cents a litre and have about 12 l a time. 10 goes to making the cheese and we get about 2 litres left for cereals etc, fresh milk yum yum.


Stirring some whey to make some Ricotta

Looks a bit Heath Robinson but does the trick, I'll build a proper cheese press come the Winter.


Here's one she made earlier :-) This one is due to be tested on Gaz's 40 Birthday on March 7th

hay making

Well the grass got away from us so asked the local dairy farmer for his input and he took a cut of hay off both paddocks









Just checking they're good bales