Home, home on the range 
Thursday, April 16, 2020, 06:12 AM
Posted by Administrator
...where the chickens and lambs roam. Bones has recovered, and is back in the paddock with his friend Runty. We briefly had another lamb in that had been attacked by a dog, but it escaped through the fence and bounded off to join the others. Bronwyn checked on it; it seems to have escaped serious injury. Bronwyn's brother Allan camped out on the paddock that night, but didn't spot the dog, and it's been quiet since.

The chickens no longer roam on the compost heap. Or the potatoes. I used some spare wire mesh, and it seems to have foiled them for now. We've got the first row of potatoes growing well, and the next two rows are starting to come up too. No sign of any carrot seedlings, but the lettuce and other vegetables that Bronwyn planted are doing fine.

Bronwyn's mother handed me a kilo and a half of guavas. "You can make guava jelly!" she said. I've never made any sort of jam or jelly. But I looked up the recipe, and gave it a try. Neither of the recipes I looked at had a temperature, but just had vague references to different stages of gloopiness. So I took it up to about 113C when it started getting sticky. It set solid. Spoonable, but not spreadable. So I dissolved it (with two more kilos of guavas) and took it to 108C. This time it hardly set at all. OK. I tried 110C. That seems to have worked!

Church online has been an experience. The first Sunday attempted to mirror the normal service with four Youtube songs, three audio clips, the sermon on Youtube, various readings and the group Zoom chat as well. Last Sunday was a bit simpler, and we seem to be adjusting to a different routine. Friday nights, we have a general get-together, which seems to devolve into discussions about chocolate consumption and how desperate we are for a hair cut.

Sarah is back at school, on the dinner table. Rachael is doing assignments on the sofa. Bronwyn is getting up very early to watch lectures because they've made the internet free before 9am. I've been working five or six days a week trying to finish a project that seems to get longer as we go along. Nobody is bored, which is probably a good thing. And Sarah's laptop got repaired, and we got a new TV delivered. It's been busy!

And the rain has finally arrived properly. This is good, because we can't pop down the road to borrow someone else's shower!

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