nt can take care of itself.

You have often asked me what we have to eat, so this will be a good
opportunity of introducing our daily bill of fare, prefacing it with my
recorded opinion that here is no place in the world where you can live
so cheaply and so well as on a New Zealand sheep station, when once you
get a start. Of course, it is expensive at first, setting everything
going, but that would be the case in any country. I will begin at the
very beginning:--Porridge for breakfast, with new milk and cream _a
discretion_; to follow--mutton chops, mutton ham, or mutton curry,
or broiled mutton and mushrooms, not shabby little fragments of meat
broiled, but beautiful tender steaks off a leg; tea or coffee, and bread
and butter, with as many new-laid eggs as we choose to consume. Then,
for dinner, at half-past one, we have soup, a joint, vegetables, and a
pudding; in summer, we have fresh fruit stewed, instead of a pudding,
with whipped cream. I was a proud and happy woman the first day my cream
remained cream, and did not turn into butter; for generally my zeal
outran my discretion, and I did not know when to leave off whipping. We
have supper about seven; but this is a moveable feast, consisting of tea
again, mutton cooked in some form of entree, eggs, bread and butter, and
a cake of my manufacture. I must, however, acknowledge, that at almost
every other station you would get more dainties, such as jam and
preserves of all sorts, than we can boast of yet; for, as Littimer says
to David Copperfield, "We are very young, exceedingly young, sir," our
fruit-trees, have not come into full bearing, and our other resources
are still quite undeveloped.

However, I have wandered away terribly from my first intention of
telling you of the daily occupations to a description of our daily food.
After I have finished all my little fussings about the house, I join
F---- who has probably been for some time quietly settled down at his
writing-table, and we work together at books and writing till dinner;
after that meal, F---- like Mr. Tootes, "resumes his studies," but I
go and feed my fowls again, and if I am very idly disposed I sit on a
hencoop in the shade and watch the various tempers of my chickens and
ducklings. A little later F---- and I go out for some hours: if it is
not too hot, he takes his rifle and we go over the hills pig-stalking,
but this is really only suitable exercise for a fine winter's day;
at this time of year