Bee watching!!

Watching bees.

First you have to sneek up to flower. 

Make sure your shadow is away.

Slowly hold flower and if you are gentle you can bend it towards you and get really close! 

Diversity

 Regenerating soils means farming your underground livestock.

It then comes back at you tenfold -better drought resistance, healthy stock, good water absorption and retention and as amazing bird and insect life above ground. Such a beautiful place to be!!

We have a diverse range of tree/shrub species to feed the different types of fungi, birds and insects and our 'big' livestock in times of drought or when they can reach. These also give us materials for building, and making baskets, charcoal, fire starters, mushrooms, mulch, fruit and nuts........and shelter when we need it.

Our pastures are diverse too this one has; Chickory, 4 types of clover, birdsfoot trefoil, yarrow, 2 plantains, dandelion, foxtail, perennial rye, yorkshire fog, paspalum, dock, buttercup, comfrey, jerusalem artichoke, ............ 

Pulsing animals through this system supercharges it.

Webs

These cold frosty mornings highlight the amazing mahi of our spiders. Everywhere you walk there are dew droplets on webs. In bare branches, long grass and sometimes trailing from who knows where.

Spiders are an important cycler of nutrients and controller of insect populations. Keeping things in check in all important balance.

I like that spiders are web builders. Webs that span between. A reminder that everything is connected.

Hay

Many hands make light work.

Haymaking is so  much fun when you have extra hands to help out.

This year we had more hands than pitchforks so had fun.

The haystack at the end is always so satisfying.

Daily move

I love watching these guys every day. What herbs or grasses they eat first, how they dance into the next paddock all this knowing daily moves mean regeneration of soil systems.

Detectives

We have been exploring our land in places we have not been before. Finding clues. Still to find out who has been living here.

3erd hay

This paddock was compacted and waterlogged. Not much grew and it was hard to find a worm.

We cut down tall kanuka for our winter wood and then;
-pulsed chickens through with bales of hay for fertilizer, seed and organic matter.
-made a giant carbon rich compost (after turning once we added a lot of leaf litter from our bush). To bring back a diversity of microbes and fingi.
-planted the drain with native stock fodder, plums and tagasaste for diversity, shade and ramial wood.
-replaced an old blocked drain.
-put on some lime for calcium and to flocculate soil (soils are very high in Magnesium).
-annually we add a compost tea/slurry.
-managed the animals with portable netting so that they were only in a 'paddock' for one day at a time, let the pasture recover for longer, left more residue behind animals.

We still have a way to go but it is so amazing now!!
We have gone from  2 days grazing to 8. Residue, diversity, recovery and worm numbers are all up. It is also very easy to put in standards now.

As life is I cannot wait to see how much more this paddock will improve?

Bringing in the sheep

Bringing the sheep into the yards is just a call away. Because I move them most days they will follow me quite a way (as long as they are not too hungry and there is not too much food along the way).

Frogs

Frogs in the pond are an indicator of life.

Life in that the land is healthy as they are very sensitive animals.

Life in that the weather is warming and I need to get a move on with summer plantings. When the frogs start singing every night I know it is time to strat planting straight into the warming soil.

Grass

One weeks growth!!

Our sheep never stay long and the grass just springs back. I love looking back down the paddock where they have been and seeing the growth.

I usually move them daily. If grass is grazed once and not too low it will grow back fast. My favorite feeling is that as it is growing it is pumping a large proportion of the energy it makes back into the soil. These root exudates feed the diverse range of micro organisms who then make nutrients available for the grasses growth. Magic!!!

I like to think this aliveness is helped by the diversity of my pasture and the long rotations that allow things to grow back strongly.

On the lay again.

Yay!!!

Chickens are on the lay again.
This time of the year they are tractoring over Asparagus -weeding and fertilizing.

We swap a bucket of scraps for eggs and the Asparagus is right next to the citrus so is usually topped up with Grapefruit and Oranges.

Carding

Carding our wool.

It is a little harder to felt than some but we have been learning.

This basket full will be a pair of slippers or boots.

Hay stack

Most years we only have the hay cut. We then sped a few days with our pitch forks tuning, wind rowing, and then stacking.

This year we had lots of helpers so the stack grew quickly..

Then went for a well deserved swim.

It is always satisfying to pass the haystack.

Mason Bee nest

Mason Bees are an important early pollinator. They are a solitary bee and build nests our of clay. The nest is a series of chambers each containing paralyzed  orb web spiders and a single egg.

It is easy to make houses for these guys that can be moved into a dry winter spot to maximize hatching rates.

Pupa

The giant pupae of the Convolvulus Hawk Moth.

Found when digging our Kumara. Kumara belong to the same family as Convolvulus so share the same pests. This guy did not effect the Kumara harvest. I only wish I got to see the beautiful caterpillar.

Native weevil

This beautiful iridescent weevil loves eating the pollen on the Amaranth.

It is a native weevil and can often be found in our gardens.

Frogs

You know you are doing something right when your garden is full of frogs.

We created a new pond a few years back and even with children, herons and ducks we are still inundated with frogs.

Sausages

Pig weekend. Time to make sausages, bacon, pate, braun, hams and salami. A few extra hands always make the weekend fun.

Sheep fodder

Late summer when a lot of the nutrients have dropped out of the grass and the worm population is peaking we feed out from our shelter belts.

Kinuyangi a Japanese fodder willow is perfect. It coppice's, has lower tannin's than other willow and the sheep love it.

After they have had their fill we let it dry and use it for rocket stove fuel, bow making and whittling projects.

Fires

The cousins are here for the holidays again.

So a fire is lit for toasty pie lunch.