The chooks, Poor Mark, Friday night dinners and planting the roof

Our flock of 8 mature brown shavers, which are called the "plain chooks" are getting old. These good old fashioned laying hens give us 6 or 8 eggs a day, but their laying life is coming to an end.







The young "pretty chooks" (as Wwoofer Doreen calls them) are kept in the pen next door. Wwoofer Jenn has taken a special interest in the pretty chooks, naming them and interpreting their behaviour for the rest of us. We have Oprah, who is always trying to get an interview with the other chooks, the Turner family (Ike and Tina and siblings)named because of their mop hair styles and Pamela and Jasmine of Baywatch fame.








Most of the pretty chooks were hatched here on the property or at our friend George's home, and they are a mix of purebreeds and crosses. The two new comers, Pamela and Jasmine are light Sussex pullets, and were sourced for us by our chicken expert George. Here Jenn lets us get to know Jasmine........







....and Doreen introduces Pamela. Like their Baywatch Babe namesakes, these two "chicks" somehow manage to stay perfectly preened and clean, even in the muddy farm yard.








The very strange chickens we talked about in a previous post have both been put out of their misery - without feathers to keep them warm they just couldn't stand the cold,and were suffering, so Ali and Doreen made sure they died humanely and were buried properly.








Which brings us to poor Mark. We all knew that our Steer Mark was destined for the freezer, and his time has come. Last week the homekill butcher came to Earthstead, and killed and slaughtered Mark, giving the Woofers an amazing anatomy lesson into the bargain. I could not watch, we have had Mark since he was a small calf, and he was sweet natured and I felt sad for him. But......this is the way of farming, and we believe the most honourable thing you can do for a beef cow is feed and care for it superbly, kill it humanely, cook it appropriately and eat it with great celebration, which is what we have done. Mark has given us some of the nicest meat we have ever produced on the property, and we remember him fondly as we enjoy our meal.








Speaking of meals, we have instituted a new aspect to our Friday night gatherings - we now enjoy a Trivia quiz, with questions being submitted by the wwoofers, and teams formed. Prizes of chocolate are awarded to the winning team. Matt, Doreen, Gee and Jenn are joined by their mascot Bella.









We've had a request from former wwoofer Sayshoe for a photo of Bella to be included in this post. They were great mates while Sayshoe was wwoofing at Earthstead and he wanted to see her once again.









Sayshoe was the champ at table tennis while he was with us, and kept us entertained with his musical talents.














Another job well done by our wwoof team is the planting of the earth roof on the earthouse. This time last year another team of wwoofers planted succulents, but the hash winter put paid to them, and not one survived.








This time we have decided to give a native grass Carex Testacea a try. It is a beautiful grass, greenish with orange tips and growing to 60cm with long attractive seed heads. I am really excited about the beautiful soft finish this grass will give the roofline, but we will need to set up some kind of watering for the dry summer months of Jan. and Feb. as these grasses are not completely drought proof.










Jenn, Gee,Doreen, Meagan and I had a wonderful day on the roof, the weather was spectacular and it was such a satisfying job to complete.