There’s still plenty to do over winter at Lavender Abbey.
We’ve had a mild winter so far, not too much rain, quite a few frosts and the grass is still growing, which is great for our pregnant ewes.
Our lambing is over now, we didn’t breed too many ewes this year, only nine. We have fifteen wee lambs running around the property. I am bottle feeding one lamb, Angel, her mother got mastitis on one teat, so she can only feed one lamb.
We’ve moved the home office from the small room to the big room, this has become my big office and workshop now. This enables me to stop taking over the kitchen for my bottling, labelling and having all my ingredients clogging up the kitchen. It has a nice spacious feel about it and I love tinkering around in there with everything at my fingertips. I can even have the two dogs sprawled out on the floor together, I just need to continually step over them.
I finally finished my end of year accounts, year after year I always seem to leave it to the last minute. Being in accounting most of my life, it’s a bit like a builders’ house, unfinished and long fingered. The filing cabinet has been cleared out of last financial years paperwork, all ready for 2019/2020.
The samples for the NZ Lavender Growers Association Supreme Oil Awards 2019, have been sent off and we await the outcome, which we will hear how we got on, at the end of August.
While it’s been really nice having a break from the weekend markets, there is plenty of planning for the coming market season. We already have quite a few markets booked in. September will be here before we know it and we’ll be back into the swing of it.
Planning for our ‘Pick your own lavender’ is underway. The dates are the 4th, 5th, 11th, 12th January 2020.
We are getting our flyers re-designed and they’re coming along nicely. A completely different look and you’ll see them in your purchases very soon.
We’ve been reviewing our product range, sticking to our tried and true products and we’ll be adding some specialty items this year. I hope you will love our new range.
I have a lot of product to make, which will start at the beginning of August, ready for the season, so the products are fresh and will smell wonderful as usual.
As the grey winter days’ tick along, I hang out for Spring. I love Spring with all the spring flowers sprouting out of the garden. And, of course, after Spring comes Summer and a sea of purple in the field. My most favourite time of the year, my happy place, my place where I belong and can relax with the lavender aroma wafting through the air.
Roll on Spring.