Down on the farm...

It has been a while since we posted anything about the animals down on the farm. They are still multiplying and doing their thing. Since Edward and Bella we are on our 3rd pair of Hereford calves (all the others having gone on holiday to a cooler clime). Peter has our latest ones wrapped around his little finger - literally...

We are also on our second calving of Highland Cattle since we bought the herd. The bull is good at doing his thing and the calves are all very healthy. You can see how we are strip grazing them (below) to ensure we manage the pasture well over the wetter winter months. There is still plenty of hay should we run out of grass.

The Dorset Horns are doing very well. They now regularly lamb twice a year, which means that we may get as many as four lambs per ewe each year. Here they are frolicking about...

And the pigs are doing well well. We have 3 sows and 1 boar (who is regularly 'pimped' out to other farms). I managed to catch Caramel, one of our Ginger Saddlebacks, giving birth the other morning. Here are some pictures and some videos (videos not for the faint-hearted)...

Above: Caramel resting in the sun after her efforts.

Below: The rooster 'Madison' would not leave her throughout the whole event.

Winter Update...

Here are some of the pictures of WBP and the progress to the end of this month...

Above: A hyacinth pushing its way up through the frosty bark mulch.

Below: The frosty Bluebell Walk

Above and Below: Cobwebs in the early morning light.

Cobwebs on the recently pruned grapevines...

Above and Below: Some pictures of the lake on a frosty morning. The frost was so deep the top of the earth was frozen and the lake had very small patches of ice on the top of it. There was a beautiful crisp crunch underfoot as I walked across the lawns.

Above: A view of the project from the same vantage point as last month. You can see the carriage house now has a roof on it and is just awaiting the slate tiles to be placed (and the cupola to be built and craned on). The raised lawn is finished (and will be sown with grass in the Spring once the earth has finished settling). We planted 200 hornbeam trees around the 3 lawns close to the house, which will start to give the closer parts of the park some definition. They were planted as per the plan below...

The sun did eventually come out. Here are some views from the opposite side to the lake...

You can see how wet it has been. We were planting the hornbeams in mud, and almost got the tractor stuck on a few occasions. It will soon grass over again - much of the dirt you can see has been newly dispersed as we had the surrounding soil leveled prior to planting the trees. 

Here is a sneak peak inside The Stables Suite of the Carriage House. It was cosy and warm up in this loft space...

The windows have also started to arrive in dribs and drabs. Here are the french and bifold doors from the Kitchen (left) and the Salon (right) onto the loggia. The glazing with the cross bars has yet to be fitted in the Salon doors.

Below: The French doors in the Gold Drawing Room...

We also planted a further 100 trees in Badger's Wood. They were assorted English and European trees such as Oaks, Alders, Chestnuts, Linden Limes, Liriodenrdons, Ginkos, Rowan, Ash, Junipers, Holly...

It will look a lot more impressive when spring comes and the 'dead sticks' as one friend calls them, bush out in green leaf. 

We made a little video of walking the serpentine walk through the wood. It transpires that there are 365 steps through the wood, and it starts facing the sunrise and finishes facing the sunset - two lovely but unplanned co-incidences!

A picture paints a thousand words...

Well, it's been a while. Thank you to all our dear followers who emailed, texted or tweeted to find out what we've been up to and why we have not posted anything for a month now. Do not fear, all is OK, but it's been a busy time at work and at WBP, moving things a long. 

I have just come back from a few days at home this week. Last weekend was Peter's farewell from the cathedral and they put on a series of leaving dos. His last official day is tomorrow before he 'retires' to manage WBP full time, and we have come up with a list as long as his arm of things he has to do before spring arrives. We managed to make a good start of things last weekend (photos to follow).

The weekend before last I was down in Sydney for the first time since I moved to Australia (I had been down twice for rushed daytime business meetings, but not socially). So I decided, given I had a rare 2 days off in a row, to go to visit my aunt Pam and uncle David.

They had arranged a lovely time for me. I got to see my cousin play for Manly United Football Club (at the height of the hype of the world cup); and I also got to do some shopping. 

Pam and I took a drive around the inner suburbs visiting plenty of antique shops. The one I fell in love with was called Austiques in Glebe. It was run by an expat Julie, from Lancashire, and her husband Ron. They were absolutely lovely and I ended up buying 5 oil paintings for Willowbrook, the tallest one over 7 feet tall (seen behind me in the photo below).

Above: the lovely Julie and me, at Austiques in Glebe. Behind us are a couple of the paintings I bought.

Below: Some of Julie's other lovely wares...

She had an amazing array of clocks, French porcelain, continental furniture and art. Here are the paintings we purchased. Below: Unsigned English oil painting of Galleons, 19th C.

Above and Below: Unsigned Italian Landscapes (modern), but in the style of 17th C landscape artists such as Claude Lorrain. I think they will look lovely in the Blenheim suite and will fit the bill for decorating a Georgian period house as if recherchéd on a grand tour.

Below: The tall 18th C styled oil of a classical scene, likely Rome, showing a bishop and courtiers amongst an architectural capricio...

Above and Below: Details from the painting.

Below: A pair of Nubian candelabrae. I almost bought them, but it is going to be difficult enough getting the paintings to NZ let alone these.

Above: The final painting we bought, a copy of Melchior de Hondecoeter's 17th century painting "Peacock and a Peahen on a Plinth, with Ducks and Other Birds in a Park". There have been many variations on this painting since the original. This one most closely resembles our painting...

other variations include...

a version with the monkeys and fruit on the lower right hand corner...

others have more birds, architectural capricios and farmyard animals...

There was also a collection of bear themed furniture, which on the whole I didn't fancy, but I somehow thought this bench with a carved back including a bear showing his belly was quite amusing...

It would go well in a hunting lodge with a large black forest cuckoo clock and perhaps this other hunting themed furniture there...

After a day of antique shopping, suburb cruising and a few drinks we had the most amazing 7 course degustation meal at an asian fusion restaurant in Pott's Point called Jimmy Lik's...

Above: David and Pam, at Jimmy Lik's.

We then went to a bar in Darlinghurst Rd called Eau de Vie and had a few more interesting cocktails before clambering into the back of a cab and hightailing back to bed.