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A bunch of alpacas, all but one thin necks and little bodies other than one brown alpaca in the front, being fluffy and puffy

It’s almost February

Feels like yesterday that we celebrated Christmas, had a break and were looking forward to a nice and warm summer. Turns out, that summer never really happend. Okay, we had two nice weeks of good weather just after everyone was back at work, but during the national Christmas break and summer holidays, no such thing eventuated.

A misty valley with a serpentine like layer of fog winding though it

On a positive note, the grass was growing like crazy and the animals have been happy – and so have we been really from a farming perspective. After all it meant no feed needed and less work and cost.

The garden has been growing fruit and vegetables. Contrary to last year we harvested quite a lot of blueberries this year and the persimmon tree is bearing fruit for the first time.

Mid month was also the annual alpaca shearing day, turning fluffy teddybears into stick animals.

A bunch of alpacas, all but one thin necks and little bodies other than one brown alpaca in the front, being fluffy and puffy
A paddock with lots of ducks

Our domestic ducks seem to be attracting a lot of their wild cousins. We think quite a few of the guests are actually some of our ex rescue ducks but I cannot recall that we had that many. Well, maybe we had over the years – not sure 😉

This week brought some heavy rain yet again and severe flooding in the area and in the wider Auckland region.

Out thoughts are with those that have been effected by the floods.

Flooded valley with lots of brown water and some grassy hill sticking out of the floods in middle of the picture
Some alpacas wading through lots of brown water with more water in the background

And here we go, January will be over in no time and 1/12 of the year has already gone.

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Stormy dark sky with sun lit valley.

The weather is a roller coaster

And the weather is a bit of a roller coaster with ups and downs in temperature, wind and sun, interleaved with rain. One day you burn and roast in the sun, the other days it’s southerly with clouds and 10 deg.
Green paddock with some fenced off parts

The big break of the year is near

The goats decided to go through the fenced off area with shrubs and decimate them. No good. Turns out, the poly wires were too old and did not work any more as they should.
Car boot full of feed bags

Saturday morning shopping

The other type of grocery shopping.
A photomontage of 4 different wasp traps made from coke bottle hung up

Wasp and Hornet traps

We typically put a waap trap up around the house in summer to keep the number of wasps at bay. This year, they discovered a queen yellow legged hornet in the early stages of building a nest in Glenfield on the North Shore in October, while two males were spotted earlier in the year in Grafton and Albany. It is the first time a Queen has been found in Aotearoa.
Closeup of some flowers

Spring has arrived – with its usual mixed bag weather.

“If you don’t like the weather, just wait 5 minutes.” Spring came with beautiful warm and sunny days, storm, hail, rain and sunshine in between. It was cold and a few hours later warm again and vice versa.
Cows steaming in the cold air against the sunlight

Winter done and dusted

There was nothing extraordinary to write about this winter, really. It’s not been too wet and not too dry, neither too cold or too warm. We had a few frosty nights and a few pretty rainy days but all in all it was reasonably warm and okay from a mud perspective.