Chickens – Page 2 – Head in the Clouds

Planting New Stuff

Hello!
Cats are not helpful in the garden! Pip kept me company for a while but mostly he just tangled his lead around the garlic then sat his furry fat backside down on it!

I got a few more things planted today – started with the beetroot

I just popped a number of new seeds into the patch and am hoping for the best. The limp looking ones here are actually growing ok – new shoots showing so they might perk up alright.

There were quite a number of good sized self seeded tomatoes in here too – thought I could rehome them

The area I wanted to put them in was rife with twitch so it took a little time to clear a suitable spot.

Moving right along to the failed broccoli patch:

Its a relatively new raised bed, so I am puzzled about where the potatoes came from

They are doing well so I left them in the bed – accidentally dug up a couple of spuds too

The punnets of onion and leek I planted pre Japan were going well so I thought I might as well put them in here. I won’t have broccoli ready for a while… probably if I plant some now then I can put them in where the garlic is as I hope to get that out in the next month.

Happily fit in all the onion (brown and white) then dug up another little patch for the leek.

Lots of my lettuce is about going to seed, so I planted another pot full so I can start again. Going to be annoying to have tomatoes ripen and no lettuce!

The cucumbers are getting visibly bigger each day. Can’t wait to add them to the salad

And some capsicum happening!

I let the two broody chooks out of chook-purgatory. They were so happy to be out! However they were on the nest again tonight when I closed them up – I did drag them out (much to their disgust) and perched them on the roost. Dunno if they stayed there. But they will be back in the trailer tomorrow if they persist!

Hope your day was great!

Cheers

Broody chook happy to be let out of the trailer this afternoon!

Tomatoes, Chooks & More Flowers

Hello!
How has everyone’s weekend started off?
We have been busy. Lots and lots of little things to take care of.
At least the cash I ordered came in early and my travel cards finally arrived so have them sorted out (and tested)

I decided to plant those tomato laterals in the other side of the raised bed. I made a little fence so they hopefully won’t loom over the carrots too badly.

My plan is to go and pinch off a bunch more laterals and leave them in a jar of water – my guess is when we return from swanning about Japan they will be well and truly ready to be planted out.

I took time this evening to clean out the chook house. It was due – nicer to leave it with a fresh start for Beau, our house sitter.

Poor little crook chook is not really getting better. We think we may have to dispatch her before we leave. We are so sad about that, but we have run out of time to do our usual nursing and we can’t expect Beau to either nurse or dispatch (He is about to enter into his final school exams so we are trying to make things easy for him)
I have left her sleeping on the nest – she has had lots of lovely special feeds in the past week.

The other girls were happy to snug up together in their clean coop.

The compost is now well and truly full!

The lettuce patch is full of sturdy little self seeded tomato and broccoli plants. I am hoping to relocate them (goodness knows where) before we go.

The white iris should unfold tomorrow!

Even got a bit of a sunset tonight! By that point it was getting dark so I had to quit and come inside for the evening!

Hope everyone has a super fabulous weekend!

Cheers!

More Rainbows & Rain

The weather each day is being rather predictable! I seem to have caught a cold – mind you its the most pathetic thing ever. It has taken me about a week to convince myself it even IS a cold! (Kind of on the opposite spectrum to a Man-Cold) !!
Weird sore throat – an occasional unconvincing cough and a slight sniffle.
All in all I don’t feel sick and its really nuisance value.

There are the three fully complete shawls. Now I am only in the middle of two more.

Since I was happier inside today, I did some baking. Some fresh bread and a tea cake (Great grandmothers recipe) for us.

And a couple of loaf cakes for the chooks! I whizzed up some leftover broccoli stems, added the bacon rinds/fat also some old dates as well as two eggs & their shells, some rolled oats & flour. Oh, and molasses.

Cake with a side order of wheat sprouts!

Much appreciated I think!
One of the shyer girls picked up a chunk and ran off with it so she could eat it in peace!

Eggs in return!

The first planting of snow peas going well!

We are nearly in Friday again!! Weeks are just flying by!
Hope you have a great day!
Cheers!

Cherry blossoms will be the next to appear!

Lettuce Begin… (haha??)

G’day! A rather nice spring day! Even reasonably warm out there!
So back to the garden it was… this time it was the lettuce seedlings turn to go out.

I had to rake all the seaweed off, dig up the twitch that was determinedly growing and dig in a couple of bags of mushroom compost

I managed to dump the whole tray out on its head… oops! Such a klutz! Happily didn’t squash/kill many

They always look so limp and pathetic when they first go out

Hopefully they will perk up in a few days (the broccoli are already sitting up beautifully!)
I gave them a watering and covered them with the rest of my saved recycling bottles.

I still have a LOT of seedlings. Some I potted up with the intent to sell out the front if they grow nicely and look good

Right now they are not at their best!!!

Keeping the passionfruit company!

I am thinking it is about time to feed, weed and mulch the garlic.

The girls enjoyed the weather today – and we got three cackleberries!

Hope your weekend has been great and stay safe all those in the path of Irma!! She’s a bit frightening!

Take care

Fluffy New Neighbours & Nearly Spring Flowers

What an adorable little face! We have three lambs next door – cute little bleatings drift over the fence at random times of the day. I love their little leg-warmers. They need them. NOT nice out there tonight.

Anyway, they make me smile as they wobble about and then go for a drink with their tails madly wagging!

As mentioned – utterly miserable out there.
I thought I better do something to brighten the day for the chooks – so I baked them a cake. Lots of weird things added from the fridge/pantry/scraps.

My wheat sprouts that are sitting under the leaky skylight are growing well

So I yanked off a handful of those too

A perfect chook picnic basket.

My oh my wasn’t it a hit!

I went back later and nothing was left!

So – whats on the growing front??
I checked out the duck yard… no sweet peas showing but I did find the snow pea shoots! (This means I need to get back into the garden as soon as its not feral weather to plant the rest of my snow peas!)

The lettuce is growing fabulously… the marigold germination rate is a bit sparse so far

I was also a bit excited to see some of the rocket sprouting so quickly!

Because I was outside, I took a few other not-quite-spring flower photos. Its nice to concentrate on the pretty things and breathe the (very) fresh air!
Enjoy
Cheers!

Not sure of the name but its a scent that catapults me straight back to childhood!

Odd Jobs/Smelly Jobs

Hello and welcome to the middle of the week!
I enjoyed the sometimes sun and view as I sat out the back and ‘podded’ my runner bean seeds

Easy job to do but also easy to put off!

Anyway – now I have more runner bean seeds than you can point a stick at. I’ll plant some, sell some (hopefully) and give a lot away.

Because it was a reasonably sunny day with a breeze… I risked putting a load of laundry out on the line.
And it didn’t rain… well, not until I had my hands in stinky kelp water then down it came!!!! I swear the weather does that on purpose!

I put them undercover and they got mostly dry outside and are now finishing off in front of the fire.

Oh yeah – stinky kelp juice!!
You are supposed to soak it for about 2 weeks not, um… however many months its been!

I got a good number of bottles filled with the liquid and then tipped the remaining seaweed sludge over the base of a few plants. It looks what I can only imagine dinosaur vomit would look like…

I’ll let you know later in the season if the blueberries appreciated it!

Then there was kindling box top up time…

And since the weather has warmed a little, trying to grow some wheat sprouts as treats for the chooks.
*** Squirt was out for a lot longer today. She was very impatient to be out of her box this morning. Good sign.
She ate a lot and even ran away when I tried to pick her up! Impressive. I would not have bet in favour of her survival 5 days ago!
I did catch her as after a while she was just tired!! She told me off about it but into her cat box she went for a rest. Mind you, she ‘talks’ every time she wants to be spoon fed some more porridge! I have created a monster!***

I made rash promises to a friend to make him some hot sauce. So I went and picked all the chilli’s that were left in the hothouse.

I found a recipe that I will adapt somewhat.
What’s the worst that can happen??? (Its not like I will be tasting it haha)

How about that!! A red capsicum in winter. Not sure what it will taste like…

Anyway, thats a wrap up for Wednesday! Hope your week is going along fantastically!
Cheers!

Squirt Update

Miss Squirt had a pretty good day today.
I got up early (7am – don’t judge, haha) to stoke the fire back up again so the house would be warm when Jeff came in off his nightshift.
Hopped back into bed and about 20 minutes later someone is making chook-chook noises.
So I got back up to see if Squirt wanted some breakfast.
Did she ever! Ate quite a lot of her porridge (which also has molasses in it and some tuna…mmmmm) Good start to the day.

Later when I got up properly, there was a reasonable amount of sun out so I thought she could try to stretch her legs while I cleaned out her box again.

Pip insisted on coming outside too but then sat behind the gumboots and took zero interest in chicken-rehabilitation.

Meanwhile Miss Hairdo was really enjoying herself scratching about the strawberry patch

I fed her some lettuce but it was a bit beyond her to shake it into pieces small enough, but when I shredded it into little bits, she really gulped it down.
She also got some bread treats which she loves!

Her poo is a bit better formed (you wanted to know didn’t you?) but its a little hard to tell with her as, um, well, she wasn’t named Squirt because she was little… (That was Jeff!! Nurses!)

So… she is not out of the woods but I am happy she has a much better appetite. She cares about cleaning porridge off her beak – another good sign.
She is now snugged down in her cat box, head under wing in front of the fire.

Time for me to get to bed too!

Have a great day!
Cheers!

Sunday Stroll

Fiona was keen on a walk today – Jeff got his exercise on the stationary trainer upstairs where he wasn’t in the wind or cold!! Smart boy!
Actually, it wasn’t too bad as we were walking – kept us warm and we didn’t get rained on

We went in the opposite direction today – Fiona wanted to see the views coming from the other direction. Made a nice change. However – you are confronted with an awful lot of steps to start the whole walk… but we both agreed that overall, going ‘backwards’ around our loop is actually a lot easier.

So – here you go. The lay of the land.
Sister’s Beach. The community spreads back inland a bit as well.
Here you can see where we live in comparison as you can just see the faint outline of Table Cape which we live just a bit inland from.
You can also see where we park our car – its a big area that lots of people with boats come to as that is where the boat ramp is… and where we normally start our walk from.

It was a nice treat to come down all those inland hills for a change! Mind you… that’s a whole lot of other muscles that are complaining about it now!

***Squirt Update
I have been feeding her frequently off the spoon to try to get her energy back up. She will eat enthusiastically then tire quickly. But I found going back every half hour she is ready for more.
Jeff cleaned her box and put her with the other girls for a short time – it was heartening to see her try to dash for the bread scraps and eat them up. So she is still trying her little heart out. Then she fell over a stick onto her beak in a little bundle of feathers!! Time to pick her up, give her another feed and put her back in front of the fire.
She may or may not make it, but she will be the best palliated chook ever.***

Hope your Sunday is/was wonderful!

Cheers

Chook B&B

Sitting in my lounge room hand feeding warm porridge to a chicken!
Poor Squirt… thought she was doing great the other day. But yesterday she was in the yard being very listless.
We don’t know if she will come good, but she has every chance. We figured she was better off inside in the warm and didn’t let her out today. The weather has turned cold and now its terribly windy out there!
Pip is fine with the arrangement as long as she doesn’t make loud chook-noises! Then he hides behind the couch!
My big brave cat!!

Cheers!

Chicken Coop Cleanup

Hello!! That’s Monday done and dusted! (more dusted I think)
I started with my winter rose photo instead of chook poo just in case some of you were having breakfast or a cuppa… so fair warning…

It wasn’t a bad day – the sun was mostly out. A good day to balance a few more wedding photo processing before getting my gardening clothes on to go and sort out the chicken coop, which was getting fairly manky.

Blah!
On with the gloves!

I gave the big compost a bit of a turning then dumped all the chook-poo-hay on top.

It can now do its thing – lots of worms in there. Hopefully all usable by mid-late spring.

Look! I can balance hay AND take selfies!

So much nicer!

I figured a decent handful of herbs festooned around the coop wouldn’t go astray… plenty of rosemary (for remembrance? They can remember about laying more eggs) and a bit of basil-mint.

(and fennel)

I poked it in all over the place, including the nesting boxes

The coop smelled awesome when I went back to close the girls in for the night!
Glad that job is done.

I then had a good scrub up in the shower and went down to catch up with Ruby for a cuppa where we swapped snow stories!
Where as I loved my day in the snow, she didn’t have the same sense of joy when she lived in Waratah nursing and sloshing through the half melted snow in winter to visit patients around town!

Hope everyone has a great start to the week!

Cheers!