One Friday evening in early January 2020, we sat on the veranda having our usual pre-dinner wine, reflecting on all we had achieved and outlining plans for the forthcoming year.
Next morning that all fell apart as Ken was emergency ambulanced to Busselton Hospital and then straight to Bunbury Hospital for 2 nights before being flown by Royal Flying Doctor to Fiona Stanley Hospital in Perth with acute necrotising pancreatitis. He remained there for 6 weeks in ICU then a week in a ward, before spending 2 weeks in Fremantle Hospital’s Rehab ward, learning to walk again.
So many medics didn’t expect him to survive and although he has had several incidents since, he is almost himself again, except that he is now an insulin dependent diabetic and needs to take digestive enzymes at each meal, the result of having very little viable pancreas left. Loss of muscle condition and age leave him needing to pace himself, so he has read a lot of books when taking a rest. He has also had to give up alcohol, so now he occasionally enjoys a zero-alcohol beer.
We are grateful to family, neighbours and friends who helped us with jobs during the early stages of Ken’s recovery. Marribrook continues to thrive. We love our piece of paradise, in fact when we wondered whether we would be able to stay here, we had no idea as to where we would go.
To make life easier, we have reduced the number of ewes in our flock. However, 11 ewes gave us 22 lambs this season and 2 of our 4 maiden ewes produced 3 lambs, the result of being with a wether who wasn’t!
The cows have continued calving without any problems. Honey calved a few days after Ken went to hospital, so her boy calf is called Stanley in recognition to all the dedicated staff at the hospital. He will be ready for someone’s freezer in February. Honey has since given birth to Choco (boy) who has the same dunn colouring and she recently gave birth to Treacle, a black heifer.
We sold 2 heifer calves, Raine and Friday, at weaning (9 months) to a breeder. Growing in the boy’s paddock with Stanley and Choco we also have Vegemite, a black steer, along with 2019 steers Bundy and Balvenie. Trudy has Woad at foot and Hilda is due to calve very soon. Pauline won’t calve until sometime next year though is looking very sleek as we have had plenty of feed this year with reduced sheep numbers.
We have also complicated life even further by acquiring a pedigree German Shorthaired Pointer at 9 weeks of age, that we have named Sodger, as his kennel name is Soldier Boy and Sodger being an old English corruption of soldier. He is now almost 6 months old and quite at home, though Ella is still not impressed and gives him the “cold shoulder” most of the time.
The vegetable garden has gradually come back into production, so we are once again reasonably self-sufficient. The asparagus has survived being part of a rabbit warren and we had a plentiful crop again this spring. The rats and rabbits have had more than their fair share of the garden, but the former have now found another food source and some of the latter had a lead breakfast, Ella caught (and ate) many youngsters before the remaining population was devastated by the calicivirus.
Last summer we had a good crop of plums from our 2 netted trees but no other stone fruit. The apples did well as did this winter’s citrus crop which was exceptional. However, there is little stone fruit set this year, except some nectarines that we have put exclusion bags over, rather than net the tree fully. There was plenty of blossom this year but maybe too wet and cold for the bees. We have planted 2 new cherry trees, an apricot and another plum but it will be a few years before they come into production. They will benefit from the expansion of the reticulation. The avocado trees are mostly looking good with new growth, though the parrots like to decimate the leaves. We actually had 1 fruit from them last season that the birds had left! They usually get them soon after they have set fruit.
We had a fox in the top chook yard one night and she killed more than she needed to feed her brood, so we had to fox proof the pen and purchase some more pullets. It must have taken her a long time to dig under the door through the compacted dirt. A night-vision camera showed her on a return visit, clearly in lactation.
Wood gathering has continued to be an important chore and more storage has been necessary. We now have firewood maturing that will last several years, but as we never know what is around the corner, better to have a stockpile and replenish it when we can. Cutting firewood has become a lot easier with the purchase of a mechanical block-splitter and we have found that Marri is a lot harder to process than Jarrah. We like to burn both, despite Marri making more ash, as it gives a hotter fire, faster. I like to use the top of the wood heater for cooking. Sodger would show his disappointment when we considered it not cold enough to light a fire as he could never lie close enough to the heater!
We have had a few visitors now that Covid 19 has receded somewhat, both local and overseas visitors. It is always nice to entertain as we live a fairly quiet life. We are looking forward to having more visitors next year.