Although it was fairly cool, the sun was out this morning and the views across the farm were lovely to see as I moved my sheep. I'm always observing my animals on the occasions when I'm close by. My ram Romy, has been showing interest in one of my newer girls, but was getting a little upset with some of the younger boys who's castration wasn't terribly successful as I've mentioned before. He was spending more time defending the young lady from these youngest, who were also interested, when he should have been spending this time wooing her. I managed to move the two lads into a fresh paddock ahead of the flock to give time to the ram to do his thing!!
It's time to get my food forest pruned and mulched - chop and drop we call it in permaculture. As I was checking out my trees I noticed that my one successfully growing avocado had been decimated by my constant escapee young lamb, Beau. I think once the threat of foxes to my lambs had passed I may have become a little lax with keeping the fence hot and he learnt that he could just go under them. No one else crosses the line, just him. Besides completely eating a passionfruit vine, he hadn't done any major damage to this point, but I was very upset to see my avocado. Just a reminder for next lambing season - check the fences, always!!
So I managed to cut down five tagasaste trees yesterday and got just over half of them cut up and on the ground as a mulch. My two hazelnut trees were very happy to see the sun having been sheltered all summer by two of these support species. I also mulched my young orange tree who has three oranges coming along and also my fairly dormant mulberry tree. This tree showed signs of life in early spring but was affected by a heavy frost and didn't grow any leaves right through the growing season. I trimmed a little off two of the branches and they still seem alive, so I mulched it and will cross my fingers that this spring it will spring back to life!
I would have loved to spend my whole day getting this project further along but I am juggling many things at once so have to divide my time. While I'm a little over kitchen time, it's hard to avoid when you are living a self sufficient lifestyle, so it was back to the kitchen in the afternoon for that all important food prep. Looking forward to more chop and drop tomorrow!