The Hebron Herald

We have had a productive and enjoyable couple of days, firstly at Zarepath assisting Nathan and Joy in erecting goat fencing, and then at Hebron ticking off a number of chores.  The blessing and encouragement given and received at times like these is incalculable and I'm sure gives Yehovah just has much pleasure to see His children supporting common visions. Zarepath - Nathan on his trusty steed in the background. Yakira was a big help passing tools and writing down all the sheep numbers It was time for the annual drenching and vaccination for the flock so this was a big task, mainly because we need proper sheep yards and a race, so that has moved up the priority list. Nathan giving Brendan a hand  We also rounded up Gulliver, our alpaca, who was extremely obliging today, and the boys to give them their annual constitutional. Gulliver willingly came through the race, knelt down and took his medicine like a man :) The boys were surprisingly easy to handle today

Trees.  I love trees.  I love bushy trees, tall trees, spindly trees, blossoming trees, I just love trees.  They are a source of wonder, hope and joy.  No wonder they are used so often in scripture to symbolise life, purpose and vision.  We are naming all the rooms in the Hebron homestead after a biblical tree so we can identify which room we are referring to and as the years go by the views out of each room will be filled with trees of all descriptions.  These are the trees that we grew from seed and watered throughout the drought.  Most of them are now doing well, although one of the wattle species tends to be susceptible to disease and bugs, so we won't plant anymore of that variety. I especially love to see unexpected green popping up in unexpected places.  This little wattle growing amongst the rocks near the power pole has obviously been deposited there by birds.  Another has popped up near the shipping container and even one up near the top water tank.  A bit li

We've been blessed with another three lambs (2 ewes, 1 ram) this week, including one set of twins, which Dad and I vaccinated, tagged and neutered.  I closed off the little area around the water trough and it worked very well for this purpose, although proper yards will be very welcome indeed. Our growing flock - 65 sheep now. This week I seeded two boxes of tree lucerne.  We've been talking about planting these out in all of our paddocks for a few years now so I finally bought some seeds.  Hopefully these will be ready to plant in May next year.  I resisted the temptation to go overboard and limited myself to two boxes, which equates to 110 trees.  There's a lot of good information regarding this valuable little tree at the following URL: http://lucernetreefarm.wordpress.com/ Our inaugral caper bud is doing well and I eagerly awaiting for it to open in flower, which when it does will be the most photographed and welcome event to date :)  There are a few plants

This day is worth remembering - the 2nd of December, the day our first caper bud appeared!  It's been 5 years, or is that 6, and our caper venture has been fraught with unfortunate events, but despite it all they are determined to do their best. You can see the auspicious little bud at the centre of the plant, in front of the leaf with two little holes in it.  Brendan has suggested we could auction it off as they do with the first mango of the season :)  This plant would be the best example of how they're going, but there's quite a few others that are not far behind.  It's interesting that it's the plants that get the most water that are doing the best, so as we fine tune the irrigation with different dripper sizes I'm hoping that the others will pick up as well.  Naturally quite a few have died, but I would say the majority will pull through, although how productive they will be is another question. It's probably a good time to mention that when we bo