June, a pop up and a persimmon tree

June was a fairly quiet month as far as the farm calendar goes but there was still plenty of activity so the month flew by and I can’t believe we’re already half way through the year.

With another 68mm on top of the May rain, the season has gone from strength to strength so we’re sitting pretty comfortable heading into the remainder of winter at Mudgee. The mild temperatures with only two or three small frosts so far this winter mean the soil is a lot warmer than usual for this time of year which has further aided the grass growth. It’s been absolutely wonderful watching the landscape transform over the past months and Mother Nature sure put on a few shows lately.

It has been a month filled with valuable learnings: attending the Beef Muster event in Blayney where I absorbed fascinating presentations about the latest industry trends, experiencing the puppy blues while working my way through an informative online working dog training course and navigating the changing nutritional requirements of livestock as the pastures rapidly transform with the season.

Over the June long weekend my sister and parents ran a lovely pop up event for our wine, a significant step in this next stage for the Optimiste Wines brand. Excitingly we’ve also begun bottling the latest vintage with more details to come later.

Other activities included fixing irrigation, general tidy up jobs, the first major pruning for the fruit trees planted a few years ago, planting a Persimmon tree in the orchard, moving the sheep into the vineyard for their winter grazing and continued cleaning up of some vines that were ripped out last year.