First of all, I have to tell you that it is freezing cold, grey and miserable right now! I think it is about 20C (68F) or less. Right now, we are wearing woolly hats, scarves and many layers including a t-shirt, jumper/long-sleeved shirt and a body warmer all zipped up to the collar. You would think that this is ideal cool weather for working outside but you can actually get sick because the sweat does not evaporate from your clothes and you are left feeling wet, cold and shivery. Hot water showers are a must right now. We are so used to 40C (104F) that it is difficult for our bodies to adapt quickly to the sudden drop in temperature. Having said all that, we still like this short winter time because we know that the dry season is coming soon and that is extreme in the opposite way.

Okay, I promised some pictures from Sunday; Sunday was a gloriously bright day and Gnome (the Adventurer!) had the notion that he wanted to drive the truck to the newly cleared area. Note that in all this time that we have been on the farm, we have always parked the truck in the driveway and never ventured forth into the unknown. There was no road so we had to weave in and out of coconut trees, dodge geese, stumps, bumps and little trees to boldly go where no Munchkin and Gnome had gone before. Weeeeee!!!

More Pictures; adventuring into the wilderness! This is the newly cleared area:

Another picture from further away:

One of the geese (Chinese goosie) poked his head out of the pond to see what all the fuss was about. I don’t think he felt as excited as us:

The goosie noise level has quadrupled in the last week or so; there is shrieking, cackling, screaming and squawking every-day and throughout the night. Noise levels start increasing at about 4am in the morning right outside the house. Interestingly enough, the levels reach a crescendo at our waking time which is 6am and do not stop until they hear our bedroom door open. As soon as this happens, we see all four goosie groups scattering off in the direction of the pond. I swear…I am convinced that they have diabolical minds and are deliberately making our lives difficult!

Anyway, yesterday I wanted an extra hour in bed…just another extra hour! My sleep had been broken all night by the sound of Squeaky…there is one goose that squeaks (not squawks) but actually squeaks. The noise is very high pitched and occurs constantly every two seconds ; it felt like he was just standing right outside the house all night and had not moved an inch. Finally we could bare it no more and got up at 6.30am and I opened the front door to shake my fist at Squeaky and tell him what a terrible night I had…of course, it was really just for my own benefit…goosie would be totally un-fazed by my gestures of indignation.

When, I opened the door, the squeaking was still constant and close but the goose was nowhere to be seen. Gnome looked out of the window and spied Squeaky about 50 yards away going off towards the pond. However, the constant high-pitched EEEEEEEEEEE noise was still outside our house…

Oh no…we both realised it at the same time…we have spawned a second Squeaky!!

There was indeed a Squeaky Junior standing proudly and all puffed up giving his best. The all-new Squeaky doesn’t look like his father…he is a Chinese goose. Here is a picture: the Chinese goose type is the one in front; normally these types make a quacking noise like a duck but we seem to have hybrid that squeaks.

Gnome says that in order to preserve our sanity (and our ears) we should try to breed the squeak out of our goosies. 😉 Ha-Ha…project #312 Breeding the Squeak out of the Geese!!

Anyway, that was just a little amusing story for a Sunday morning. The weather is bright and sunny today so I will go out and take new pictures to post up later on.

We had a lovely two weeks holiday together; this generally consisted of switching off our phones (do you remember the good old times when we didn’t have mobile phones and people had to contact you at appropriate times on your land-line?) and switching off other communications including FaceBook. We did still have other forms of communication for family to get in touch if needed. I informed (mostly) everyone that we were off camping in the mountains and so we cut a trail off in to the mountains and carried food and goodies back and forth from the farm to the camp-site. It was nice to do something together and we ate very well. We did come back regularly to make sure that the goosies were behaving themselves.

So now that we have packed on the calories we are ready to start work on the farm again. Gnome said that eating lots of food over this festive period was the perfect way to store energy for the physical labour ahead of us…after all, this is the traditional way that farmers sustained themselves through the seasons and we feel that this is a more natural way for the body to gain and shed energy. I guess that it is important to point out that if you choose this lifestyle, you do have to increase food (caloric) intake in order for your body to remain fit and healthy. Incidentally, I also had to give Panda guidelines on increasing caloric intake with specific food preparation instructions since he is now upping his level of physical activity. I have worked out that Panda (and also Gnome) has to eat 3 whole chickens a week (or protein equivalent) plus the other food groups to sustain this type of lifestyle. Now, we can all eat bacon and eggs in the morning and not feel fat and guilty…Ha-Ha!! This life has its advantages…

Anyway, back on the farm we are trying to get back into the swing of things. Gnome started today by moving wheel-barrows of sand to our designated root/tuber beds…what a way to start! There is a reason why this has to be done quickly… it’s because the geese are having too much fun running up and then sliding back down the sand pile. ARRRRGGHHH!!! It’s ruining our lovely pile! We decided that the best course of action was to get rid of the sand as quickly as possible so that it doesn’t whittle down to nothing on the ground.

You should see the geese at feeding time…they are all on top of the sand pile giving their best to shriek and honk at me and when I do come out with their corn, they all slide down the hill in the midst of complete and utter chaos and mayhem. Yes, oh what fun!! Here are two goosies walking on flattened sand.

Wishing everyone a good start to 2019!!