Hey there,
How are you? How was your Christmas and New Year? I had every intention of putting together a Christmas letter to share with you, but somehow I was pulled in more important directions. Hopefully you knew I was thinking of you and your family and you were able to enjoy holidays and spoil yourself.
Our Christmas and New Year were lovely, lots of time spent with family and a visit to the fire station on Christmas Day. It’s been year’s since Joel worked Christmas Day and it was nice for the kids to go into the station and see Joel at work on our way to Mum and Dad’s. We were gifted some extra hours on Christmas morning with one of his colleagues staying back, thank you so much. This meant Joel could be at home and watch the kids open and play with their presents without having to leave at 7am like he usually does when on shift.
January on the farm is hot and dry. We have golden grass and plenty of dust. We have had some summer storms roll over us and brought rain and some crazy wind but doesn’t change the overall feel. Fresh green leaves pop up from summer annual grasses and our lawn looks lush for a week or more, and then the green dries back to gold. (Don’t mention weeds at the moment… January seems to be the perfect environmental conditions to germinate any 3 cornered Jack or kahki weed seeds, no matter how long ago they were left hiding in the soil!)
Our lambs are growing and they really do look a picture of health. We have managed to maintain good ground cover which means there is still a good amount of feed in the paddock, plus the summer storms bringing rain are so valuable for our lucerne paddocks. Our first load of market lambs will be sold in the start of February and they are thriving on the lucerne for now. We have committed to selling lambs 4-6 weekly to Gundagai Lamb from Feb until June this year, and by that time our 2025 lambs will be on the ground looking for their share of grass.
The farmstay has been busy, as it always is over the summer school holidays. Most of our guests seem to be travelling Sydney – Melbourne and really like having a place to stay that offers more than just the basics. When we meet our guests they tell us how they love the history we share about the farm and that everything has been thought of, making their stay so comfortable. They also tell us they wish they could stay longer, hopefully they can come back again and spend more time exploring. We were a little under prepared for the amount of guests that were buying our lamb meals while they stayed, I think we ran out of all our chops, cutlets and sausages! Thankfully we have restocked and there is so much produce coming from the vege garden that there are no worries there about supply!
I have my summer vege patch in and it seems that everything is ready to harvest now, as always happens! Slowly the plants grew and then all of a sudden we have SO much corn and cucumber and beans and tomatoes. Zuchinni production is a law unto it’s self, I just need to blink and there is another oversize zuchinni to challenge my skills of camouflage. Chocolate muffins and chocolate waffles are no longer successful with the family, do you have any winners you can suggest? Before you offer zuchinni slice, it’s not my favourite so doesn’t get baked at our house! What has been my favourite at the moment has been a cucumber and tomato salad with halumi and lemon juice – that’s it and it is delicious. Quick, fast, simple and very good at using handfuls of cucumbers and tomatoes!
The whole month of January is summer school holidays and I really enjoy the break with the kids at home. If we can get away from the farm for a few days we try to, but definitely no big commitments to be away. We have lots of visits to our local pool and water play at home with the sprinkler. Friends come over to visit and we go to bed way too late. The evenings are so beautiful, I spend as much time as I can outside after the heat of the day disappears. Of course the kids follow me, they are always close by and I can’t stand the thought of being inside putting the kids to bed when everyone is so happy outside! Early nights will come with winter and the shorter days.
January is a hard month to work though, I can do what is essential but beyond that seems to be a stretch too far. I want to be present with the kids, I want to share their time with them, be their mum. It reminds me a little of home schooling back during COVID, I tried to change the home dynamic to teach them the resources we were provided. The kids knew the boundaries I hold as their mum, the rhythm of our home and the expectations – so different to their teachers and their school environment. Holidays are for holidays, working from home is amazing and I am getting better at accepting the reduced productivity.
I hope you are having a lovely January where you are, is it dry there too? Hopefully there is a little piece of lush green around you somewhere, I know that is nourishing for anybody’s soul! Enjoy all the produce from your summer garden too, or someone else’s that you are lucky enough to have access to. Let me know your recipes for over producing tomatoes and cucumbers. If you are close by, I have plenty to share!
All the best for 2025, if you have had a moment of piece to consider your hopes and plans for the year I would love to hear them. As hard as I have tried over the last couple of weeks, I think I will have my moment when the kids go back to school. My thoughts won’t be interrupted by the ‘mum, I’m hungry’ comment that seems to be on repeat! I do enjoy the school holidays…… I really do!
Until our next letter, sending my love from the farm,
Em.
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