Random Farm

Some of the fleeces on our ewes are looking quite nice. We're looking at doing some pre-lamb shearing this year so last week we selected who would be shorn in July and who would be left till October/November

It's a bit of a juggling act because if their fleece is left on for October/November shearing they can't be shown in the spring shows or possibly even the autumn ones as they won't have enough wool. If we shear them now to be able to show in the spring shows, the wool isn't long enough to make a heavy competition fleeces.

Our solution is to select animals that we'd like to show and shear them now for a shorter fleece to be millspun into yarn, and those with top quality fleeces that are not necessarily going to be shown themselves can keep them until spring when they'll have a bit of weight for competition. The sheep that don't fit either category will also be shorn in spring for a good handspinning length and convenience.

We are now 6 weeks off the first lambs being due and Panda is expanding at a rate of knots. She had twins her first year, triplets the second, will 2026 be quads year?

Yesterday was dahlia sorting day. This is one of the most boring garden jobs, and involves going through all of the lifted dahlia tubers, removing soft ones, separating them where possible, getting as much dirt as possible off them, and generally getting them ready for storage.

They're also all marked for colour. Usually we make at least one mistake with sometimes hilarious results next season in the garden. This year, surely we've got it right.

This year we've also got spares, and there are three people on our list of folk who've asked for tubers so all the spares were divvied up and put in boxes to go to their new homes. The ones we're keeping will sit for another week like this and then be packed in vermiculite for the winter.

We don't lift all the dahlias. There are some in raised gardens that can overwinter in the ground - they just get trimmed back and covered with mulch to keep the frost off. However, we get very wet here in winter and we've found anything that's in a ground-level bed does better if lifted. They tend to rot in the ground when we have a wet winter, and all the forecasts say that's what we're in for.

Given we only got 2.5mm in May, that's possibly a good thing.

Wayleggo Minty. The sheep are yarded, the gate is shut, time for a rest.

She was the best pup.

This is her yesterday morning, after putting the sheep away for the last time. She was always so pleased with herself, even after she couldn't see any more to know whether she did good or not. The clang of the gate latch told her the sheep were away, and that was good enough for her.

Rest easy, old girl. You earned it. 😢

We have some sheepskins available from our coloured flock. There are four in various colours, please click the photos for full description and price.

We use Classic Sheepskins for our tanning. Their process uses a chrome-free solution so it's better for the environment. Skins have been tanned and brushed, and 1st quality ones are trimmed.

We also have two bags of offcuts for anyone who would like to use them in crafts. Pieces in bags vary in size up to 20cm width, most are around 10cm and there are some long strips.

Can be mailed at buyer's cost. Also we're happy for you to collect, and if you're around Wellington or South Wairarapa we can drop off. PM if you're interested.

Last night we cracked the first bottle of 2026 cider - this is an Asian pear variety and is beautifully clear, slightly sparkling, and quite mild. Probably the best cider we've produced so far - hats off to Mr Random for his efforts on this one.

The apple cider was bottled yesterday so we'll give that a month and hopefully that will be just as good!

Everyone loves a good squash right? How about 14 good squashes?

This year we actually deliberately planted some instead of just letting them come up in the compost, and ended up with this haul. 12 of them are spaghetti squashes, and 2 are butternuts.

The spaghetti squashes are the easy ones. We even had three come up in the chook run this year! Given they're our favourite, it's good we've managed to produce a few although this many is probably more than we'll eat. We'll probably give away about half of them for others to enjoy.

We've been doing them stuffed mostly, but would be keen to hear any recipes you have for interesting ways of cooking them because as you see, we have a few to get through!

We have a harekeke in our garden that had grown to twice the size it was supposed to, and was bullying other plants. Today we replaced it.

Harakeke are notoriously challenging to move - they are survivors and will usually survive the move, but getting them out of the ground can be a mission. They cling hard to the soil and have a dense mass of shoots/roots and everything in between at their base. This one was about 2m tall and had a base about 50cm across.

We started by removing the primulas that were growing around the base and potting them up, then cutting off all the leaves except new shoots so we could get in around the base. A bit of digging with a spade and prying it with a digging bar got it out of the ground, then it was chopped into quarters with the axe.

These we took down to the southern end of the Mushroom paddock where we're building up a shelter belt. This part of the paddock is low lying and water can sit, but harakeke are swamp plants and once they are established they do well in these conditions. They look terrible right now but each clump has a number of roots and also new shoots which we preserved, so hopefully by spring they will have recovered and start sending up new leaves.

We planted an ornamental maple in the hole it left behind, then replanted the primulas underneath. The maple will also grow to about 2m tall but it won't bully the other plants like the harakeke did and the primulas will be happier without that massive bush stealing all their water!

The whole job took about 2 hours and we are stoked to have it done.

It's been a while since we had a sheep post. In that time we've finished tupping with all the ewes and 3 of the hoggets likely to be in lamb. Both Handsome and Shy Boy have been sold and we're working our way down to our winter numbers. We intend to winter without any rams and have begun to put the word out for our new ram which we will buy in spring or early summer.

But our big news is that we attended the Black and Coloured Sheep Breeders' Association annual conference this last few days. This conference is hosted by various branches each year, and this year it was in Gore. We had 5 fleeces entered along with one sheepskin, some photos, and some handcrafts made from our wool.

Last year our best results were second in the strong handcraft fleece class, and third in the mature strong national fleece class. This year we stepped it up a notch with the following results:

1st Strong Handcraft Fleece with Shadow's fleece
2nd Strong National Fleece with Shy Boy's fleece
3rd Fine National Fleece with Biscuit's fleece*
3rd Sheepskin class with a spotted Finn X lamb skin from Zelda.

We also had a win and a second in the photography comp, and a win in the handcraft section.

Overall these results are a step up from last year and it's reassuring to see that our wool and sheepskins are becoming more competitive at national level. We work very hard on breeding, conditioning, and preparing the fleeces to provide the best we can to handcrafters so it's really nice to see them do well against breeders from all over the country who have both more experience and more sheep. We also sold two of our fleeces which was a bonus and helped pay for the trip.

And as always, it was a great time and nice to hang out with other sheep nerds. They're a special breed!

Here are some pictures of our prizewinners.

* This fleece originally placed 4th but there had been a miscount of points and it ended up being moved up a place after a recount. Biscuit's fleece is tested at 31 microns but it's one of those borderline-looking ones. We've had her fleeces entered in strong wool classes and moved by the judge to fine, and also had them moved from fine classes to strong by other judges. Now we just go eeny meeny miney mo as to which class we enter it in and let the judge decide.

Yesterday before the storm we did a big pick. The tomatoes are still going despite being basically brown sticks now, we got another full bucket of capsicums, and we now have several giant spaghetti squashes ready to go too.

But the coolest was this little pick of tomatoes. It's about an ice cream container full, which at this time of year we might go through in a week. These are the tomatoes from the volunteer bed, which is what makes them special.

These came up by themselves and have received no watering, weeding, or other kinds of care as they grew. There are two varieties, money maker and a cocktail one, and they've just sprawled out across the bed in gorgeous disarray among the weeds all summer. They started fruiting later than the deliberately planted ones, and they were absolutely laden. They are still going too with green ones coming on, and it's likely we'll get tomatoes from them in May and possibly even June.

Things are slowing down now, but thanks to these little guys we most likely won't have to crack our winter tomato stash till after the solstice.

We are very keen to volunteer as many types of food as we can. Food with zero work sounds great!

Last day of February and it's harvest time on Random Farm. We didn't deliberately time it that way, it just seems everything's come ready at once. So, today we picked a bunch of apples and pears, some capsicums and chillis, narrowly averted the tomatopocalypse, and picked about 2kg of beans, all the while enjoying baby peas from the pods of the volunteers that came up from the pea straw mulch.

Back in the kitchen it was all about pasta sauce. The first big lot of tomatoes always goes to this since it's something we use a lot of. And this year, Mr Random is also trying his hand at pickled chillis.

We grew three varieties of tomato this year - cherokee purple (a beefsteak), roma, and moneymaker. They all got chucked in the pot with homegrown garlic, onions, basil, oregano, salt, pepper, and a k**b of butter and simmered for an hour. A whizz through the blender and now the house smells like an italian restaurant and we have enough pasta sauce to last us till next tomato season.

We also picked the first of the goldenrod flowers, which will be frozen until the rest are ready. The intention is to use them as an overdye over indigo, to dye Hanky Panky's wool a deep green. We need about 400g, pictured is 110g.

This on top of the bowls of blueberries and bumper crop of potatoes, and we're really feeling quite self-sufficient. In reality we're far from it, but it's still a nice thing to be eating food you grew yourself.

Any more tomato gluts will be used to make tomato paste for pizza. One day we'll get around to building a solar dehydrator and then it'll be all about sun dried tomatoes.

Now it's time to go see if the grapes are ready before the bees get them all.