Some weeks this missive writes itself and others…well, they take a little more thinking about. I was doing just that as I pulled on my boots this morning because, while we have news (and it’s happy news), you good folk deserve more than a haphazard sentence and a photo. Then I looked up.

Yes, there’s dishes on the benchtop and the papyrus around the water-butt needs to be hacked back yet again before we disappear behind it, but catching this funny, frozen-in-time reflection just made me so damn happy.

There I am, heading off to do the chores. There’s a menagerie out there already bellowing their approximation of my name; their calls will double in volume when they hear the drive gate latch click and then double again when they catch sight of me. Being so wanted, even if it is for the contents of the feed bucket and a quick scratch on the head, is a pretty awesome feeling.

I’m wearing my new farm shirt and the bargain that it represents fills me with joy. No one wants not-white-not-cream-kind-of-grubby-inbetween, 100% cotton shirts anymore (I wonder if there was ever a raging demand for them) and their price reflected that. Perfect for a farm shirt; even more so after a treatment with the dregs of a long-forgotten tie-dying kit. I feel so hippy chick in it!

I’ve got Colin beside me. He’s keen to get started as he gets to test all the different feed buckets…just to make sure they’re not poisoned, you understand. It’s a tough job and one he takes very seriously. He also has his eye on Leonardo the rooster who has led a couple of his ladies over the fence and into the house garden again. He’s not meant to chase them but sometimes I pretend not to notice, especially when they have the strawberries in their sights.

Leonardo has been the subject of much discussion lately. He’s a handsome rooster and utterly charming to his ladies, leading them to the choicest of hunting grounds and always waiting until everyone is eating before tucking in himself. He protects the coop from rodents and hedgehogs – are hedgehogs rodents, too? – and his crow leaves no one doubting this is his domain but…and this is a little delicate…he’s simply not doing his job. Four different times this season we’ve had ladies ditsy-moon-eyed brooding over little bundles of impending joy only to find they are lacking his input.

Luckily, The Princess knows people.

Ms Frizzle is not exactly enamoured with her new charges, four (one of them’s hiding behind her) three week old New Hampshire Red chicks, but she won’t hear of leaving them untended and quickly got her body between my camera and the babes when I played paparazzi in the name of blog illustration. Maybe they’re future laying ladies, maybe successors for Leo; hopefully it’s a mix of both. Time will tell.

And adding their voices to the morning cacophony, these guys are giving me plenty to smile about after a bit of a shaky start.

No sooner had I announced their arrival to you all, than they took a downward turn and I wondered whether I was going to be calling their departure way sooner than planned. In hindsight, they were hot and their house was cool, not used to ogling humans having started life on a farm as two of a great many, and feeling the effects of their journey to the Homestead. They are no longer the bashful babes they were on arrival and are growing at a rapid rate of knots. No prizes for picking who the sty boss is; that’s quite the waistline.

As for the happy news – if all this wasn’t enough gormless grinning, this week the NCEA results were released

and it’s official: Farm Girl now holds NCEA Level 1 with Merit Endorsement.

I searched my Thesaurus for an appropriate word to convey the mood of the Homestead on receiving this news but it was all too flowery; I have a tendency to overthink things.

On reflection, we’re simply proud.

Just really, really proud!