Becoming Self Sufficient...

 I have always prided myself on being "sensible" so I like to think I prepare for anything, while not getting overly caught up in lingering on negatives and there are certain things I've WANTED to do for years!!!!  I WANTED to put solar on the barn on the 5 acres when we built it, but it was way too expensive.  I WANTED a hybrid (to help with fuel costs, not to save the planet) from the time they came out, I WANTED a glasshouse because I hate picking bugs out of my broccoli over summer, and I had ordered a glasshouse back in 2021, and when the decision was made to relocate I just got the company (shameless plug for Wintergardenz) to hold onto to it and not ship it til after we'd shifted, so that got put up January or Feb and planted out ready for winter growing!  I priced up solar and we now have 20 solar panels and the appropriate other bits and bobs we need and while it would take careful planning over winter to be "off the grid" over summer it's not only easy but we're sellling so much back to the power company we have over $200 credit on our powerbill and that's only for 4 and a bit months.  The hybrid was decided on when my little Honda Fit (most economical car EVER!) ticked over 250K kms and fuel was rising big time, so Marcus had just turned 16 and could go for his license any time (come on kid, when you're ready..... geez he only kept me waiting 6 mths before he did it!) and he said he'd buy the wee bomb off me.

 

So we're making our own power, growing our own food, making our own milk, have our own meat with beef, lamb and will be chickens (and eggs) less reliant on the whims of our absolutely useless government.  It's a bloody good feeling, and again, if it hadn't been for my Scrooge McDuck of a mother, it would all be a dream really, so I know I'm VERY lucky (lucky?  because she knew how to work her ass off and save but then never got to spend her own money? I don't think "lucky" is the right word...) very BLESSED to have what we have and be able to do what we're doing.

Oh and we have some beehives on our place too!!!  Not our own, just letting a honey company park them here, but they pay us cash for that and give us $250 worth of product each year too (and the honey just arrived today!) 

The Family Grows!!!!

 So, with a bigger property, there is room to expand the animals!  And so we began LOL.

First came Paragon Little Boy Blue who flew down from Masterton 3 days after my birthday in January, another "meant to be" in that I wasn't even on the waiting list for a puppy out of the litter born 30th November until when the pups were about 5 weeks old, one of the potential buyers pulled out and got a black dane from another breeder, leaving one spare and I was next on the list!  

A blue great dane.... the dream I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever see fulfilled!!!

Tai, is his home name, recycled from my 2nd black great dane, as Tai in Chinese means Great/Grand/Supreme.  He has just turned 1yr old and is the most amazing dog.  GREAT guard dog!!!!

Anyway, since I'd chucked my resignation in in January with all the fecking around with the mandates, I was able to be at home and watch him grow!  It's been a dream come true. 

Vada is now 10 1/2 and I thought we were going to lose him a couple of months ago, but he's rallied again and is hanging in there, he will suffer terribly with the heat of summer (he did last year!) so we will just have to see how he goes....

Then we got some more chooks.  The other half likes Orpingtons, so we got 2 pullet hens and a young rooster to add to the 3 older bantam cross wee girls I already had, and then got a Wyandotte and a Barnvelder too, so the family expanded there....

 

 

Then in July we got some BIG rains, and we found were we get flooded!!!  Right thru the hay sheds for one thing!  LMAO oh dear, fun and games, thankfully most of the hay was already up on one layer of pallets, so we didn't lose tooooooo much, and that that got wet and then started rotting, the cattle were happy to eat their way thru!

Also in July I found my darling little Jemima thru FB, a rising 2yr old heifer who slipped her calf and then presented an opportunity for her owner to sell her as a house cow as she'd been obviously pretty much hand raised, so a mad dash drive down to Canterbury with the horse float to pick her up and got her home in the wet and wild weather!  Poor darling!  She was still only producing colostrum at this stage, didn't know us from a bar of soap and she was STILL a super star!  She had mastitis in one teat she hadn't passed all the afterbirth, so she was put onto Activated charcoal, Vit C, D3 and we cleared up those 2 infections within a couple of weeks and then we got our first calf from the dairy farm up the road... If Jemstar was Jemima (because her horns reminded me of the plaits/pigtails from Playskool's Jemima, then the first calf HAD to be Little Ted LOL....

And then came the 2nd calf.... Carlos, AKA Cookie (cause he looks like he's been dunked in milk LOL.  Cookie is THE most placid, laid back, do anything to, calf, so calm and collected, we decided to leave his nuts on him, to be a daddy to any future calves out of Jemima....

And around the time of the 2 calves, our Dorper ram died, and we bought a Damara ram since all our girls are self shedding already, so Ramses arrived .... 

AND the ewes started lambing .... and last of the Wiltshire/Dorper crosses, so we will probably keep one of the 3 ram lambs entire to father some babies too, and split them into 2 flocks.  And yes, the one that will be keeping his nuts, made himself known to me the same way as Cookie showed me he'll be staying intact and long term (ie not destined for the freezer!) so Doc (like Doctor Seuss) made himself known to me too... Doc being the one on the right.

And then came the last calf Spot who should have been a racehorse!  Not at all touchy feely and very "energetic" not sure I even got any photos of him when he first arrived LOL.  All calves have just finished being weaned now, Little Ted being 4 mths old, and Spot the last to arrive just gone 3 mths old, and knocked Jemima back to one milking a day, and knocking the quantity back to half what she was giving so she can keep some of that calcium for her own growing body.  And I'm making yoghurt, butter and icecream and really need to learn to make cheese now cause we have so much milk!!!

And now, lastly (or nearly lastly!) the rooster has been doing his job well and 4 chooks went broody and all of them have hatched chickens! The first couple of chooks abandoned the eggs once they had 2 hatched, so the left overs got shoved under the last 2 still broody ones, and when they get off the remaining eggs the left overs will go into the incubator to see if we can get any more, but so far we've got 6 babies out of it, very cute!!!

And now, lastly!!!!  After having had Tai for nearly a year another breeder I'd contacted prior to getting him, messaged asking if we'd gotten a pup as he knew of some that weren't spoken for.... so hey presto on Friday Marcus and I are heading up to Auckland to pick up another blue great dane puppy!!!  Already named Casanova of Lolaslanding, he'll be known as Nova (also a recycled name from a dog we had the same time as the first Tai)  Merry Christmas to us!

That is the animal catch ups done for the year.  It's so wonderful to have the space to be able to "collect" them and decide there is room for some keepers, and absolutely blessed to be able to spend my days with them at home!

2021 brings BIG changes!!!

 Covid was still shaping the landscape here in New Zealand, lockdowns, Delta evolving to Omicron, vaccines being pushed like they were our Lord the Saviour, the only thing to stop you dying and going to hell!!!!  I was a LOOOOOONG way off being a conspiracy theorist back then, but I am also anti doctors and BS medicine and unnecessary pollution of our bodies, so I held off on getting caught up in that propaganda and started listening more to my trusted source of holistic doctors and what THEIR research into it all was starting to show.... very interesting to say the least....

I put my notice in at work in about April after landing a job at the Air Force base, dispatching and driving their fleet of vehicles, ceremonial big wig driving, ferrying troops around for their training stuff and started that in June.  By November the mandates caught up with me there and by Jan 2022 I was a day away from being unemployed when the High Court overturned the mandates for Police and Defense Force, so I put my resignation in instead LOL.  But let's back track a couple of months, back into 2021....

Blessed I was with a mother who's Scottish blood ran strong in her veins and she was able to save, and manage her money very well, and blessed that SHE had secured for my father in their divorce an Auckland property (they used to own a couple of flats in Auckland that got split up in the divorce) so both when they passed were freehold with Auckland properties in a property boom time, so when after they have both died the properties sell and get split up, it means I'm in the position to do what my mother only ever, sadly, dreamed of doing, but didn't complete.... I bought 20acres.  

I sold my little puny 5 acres that had been home for 18 yrs and still wasn't finished LOL.  And I bought 24 acres 7kms down the road, and one year and 10 days ago we made the shift, and the man shifted in with us.

So now rather than just horses and a pushy pig (and the cats, dogs and chooks of course!) we have some cattle beasts, ewes a ram and a couple of lambs that I bought with the property and room to finally let the horses stretch their legs and be horses, instead of having to keep moving tape up behind them to get grass growing back, day after day after day!!!  

One of those meant to be things again.  It was first on the market when dad's inheritance was just being settled, but mum's wasn't, and selling my place wouldn't have been quite enough to get into the bigger farm.  Then it went OFF the market, didn't know what had happened with it, but cursed my luck and kept looking around for properties in preparation.  Then hey presto, all timed to perfection with mum's house selling and us being able to access that money, it came back on the market!

I offered quick smart on it, knowing all the time it was mine, (the rapid fire number is the year of my birth, how could it NOT be mine?!) and knowing from the moment we came and looked at it, that it would have been mum's dream property too.  Got Code of Compliance for my old place, found a cash buyer for that, and BAM!  We were in! Just in time for Christmas, and on the one year anniversary of mum passing.  She loved the place, I felt her here all the time!

Catch up in Bite size Chunks

 Of course 2020 became a year of change didn't it, with the Plandemic/scamdemic/Agenda 2030, whatever you want to call it, Covid, altering our landscape... 

1st of August I went for a coffee to meet an old git who lived "just down the road" from me (in rural terms LOL) and that was the end of life as we know it.  Who'd have thought HE would be the one?!  There you go, you never know what's round the corner!!!

We made it up to Auckland in between lockdowns and covid drama to see mum in the rest home in October, and then had to RACE back to Auckland in December and made it just in time to say a final goodbye, before mum slipped peacefully away, free of the disintergrating brain... 2 yrs and 2 days ago she flew free.  I know she is watching over us, she has shown me in numerous way over the last 2 years!  More of THAT as we go!

So in the space of 4 months at the end of 2020 I found the man of my dreams and lost mum.

Roll on 2021!!!!