Category: Chickens

While I wouldn’t have classed today as a beautiful spring day… the wind was absent and so was the rain – it was just cool (ish) and overcast.

We still pulled on our gardening clothes and made a really good start in the bottom vegie patch

We pulled out the rest of the broccoli and the chickens made a feast of it!

We left the gate open and one by one they all eventually found their way in – mostly I would have two or three waiting for every spade full to turn and in they would dive for worms or other bugs!!  Our chooks must have been full-to-busting today!

The bane of the garden in this area is twitch. It grows these long ropey roots that go EVERYWHERE!!

We are still also digging up weird things

We got through most of the area today – once we have finished that off we will re do the fences and probably take out the middle fence. Once chicken-proofed, we can plant!

In Seed-News, I was pleased to see that a corn seedling had broken through the soil! I wasn’t sure about planting out my collected seed, but if most germinate in this pot, then I will be more confident of planting them out in the new corn patch

Excited to see some basil peeping up as well…

My sister, Michelle, just gave me these heirloom tomato seeds… I am pretty excited to try them out so I put in plenty today…. and because my track record with tomatoes from seed is abysmal, I have put in a lot and will nurture them inside to give them the best chance!

By the time we wound up for the evening, I was a bit of a mess.

That hot shower was pretty divine!

Cheers!

I spent quite a lovely afternoon scratching about the garden. I had domestic overload yesterday, so I was pretty keen to get outside.

As I mentioned a few days back, the main vegetable patch is a bit over run and weedy and I was pretty keen to start sorting it out.

I really didn’t get very far before the weather set in and got colder and damper than I was happy being – and the weeding here is pretty slow as there are so many tiny little weeds to fiddle about with!

I kept having to catch and throw chickens over the fence that were getting into the lower garden somehow! I need to revamp my fences ASAP

I noticed I was lacking a few chickens during the bread frenzy – I stuck my head in the coop to see 4 of them trying to lay an egg in the same nesting box! Idiots! (Two jumped down straight away before I could get the photo as they spied the bread!)

Since I was already filthy, I didn’t want to quit my gardening day, so I figured clearing out the hothouse was a good move

The tangle of dead tomato bush on the right bottom is a plant that has been growing for over 18 months! I had taken a lateral at the end of a season, kept it alive over winter, then replanted it in the hothouse. Amazing. (By the way I managed to kill ALL the laterals I was trying to winter this year!!)

After I cleared things up, weeded and dug, I put some of the compost that we got from the local nursery around all the remaining plants.

I sadly picked my last tomatoes. Now the long wait until the next season gets underway (I won’t buy shop tomatoes anymore. We just go without for a while. Too expensive for no flavour.)

I found a bag of bulbs that were desperately trying to grow! Poor things.

I shoved them in the little garden behind the hothouse, so its up to them now.

And what is a day in Flowerdale without a rainbow or six??

Hope your Sunday was/is brilliant!

Cheers!

Hello! Midweek already!

It started off lovely and sunny today… had a minor lapse early afternoon, then fined up again! All in all not too bad!

It was good to get out and do ‘this and that’

Thought the chooks would like some fresh greens

Then they all stood around, clearly asking where the bacon was?

I left them to it and went to collect the eggs, only to turn around and find the whole squadron had followed me to the coop -still looking for bacon or hot mash no doubt!

I am pleased to report that when I returned later in the day, all their green snacks had gone! Good girls!

Time to finish mulching the rest of the salvia! It was easier this time as it was drier and whizzed through rather nicely

I was also keeping an eye on the weather – the rain was creeping slowly closer

I fed the worms too… some of the peelings that the chickens tend to ignore and eggshells and general grotty bits I put in the Gee Whizzer and put the slop into the compost.

The chickens did get into this and now the broccoli looks kinda bedraggled

Even a fragment of a rainbow today!

Things are going well in the hothouse for this time of year

I do think it may be time to remove the last tomato plants… (maybe)

I even have some accidental celery! I left it in a pot outside the hothouse door and it has rooted into the ground and is looking really quite good!

Having done all my yard tasks, brought up some barrow loads of wood, watered the hothouse plants etc, I took my rake and headed to the beach…

I know – why be normal??

I was doing an elaborate wedding message in time-lapse and figured that taking a rake to smooth the sand would be useful.

I get a lot of weird looks when I go to Fossil Bluff lately!

Have an awesome day everyone!

Cheers!

It wasn’t too bad out there today! Both Jeff and I got out there to get into some tasks before the rain sets in from now! (Yes and even another load of laundry done and dried! I am on a roll)(Lets not talk about the folding ok?)

I finished pruning off another bush while Jeff got into the lawn

While all the mowing and whipper-snippering is going on, the gates are open and the fences down – its heaven for the chooks as they can free range a little further than normal. Its very exciting for them!

Pip also got dragged out from under the doona to get a little sunshine as well

Although his idea of ‘helping’ is to sit on my shoulders while I am trying to prune – wasn’t what I had in mind!

I got about halfway through the Salvia clippings, putting them through the little mulcher

They actually looked quite pretty all chopped up

I started filling up the second of my new composts with the clippings and chippings!

I did notice the first bin was warmer and showing condensation on the inside of the lid! I figure this is a good sign

Jeff had moved on from the lawn and was making a dent in all the rocks and gravel that had washed down the backyard in the flood and was starting to reconstruct the path. I was getting chilly, so I left the mulcher and started raking gravel.

Its a bit less of a free fall going down this path now, and starting to look a little tidier down the back

In the hothouse, one of the smallest broccoli plants is actually showing a tiny broccoli starting!

These are looking healthy, but they could still turn out to be cabbages…

Its so nice to look back after a day outside and see things looking markedly better!

Time for a snuggle down in bed with a good book!

Hope your day was great!

Cheers

 

Well… Screecher was clearly feeling better, because I found her wandering, bold as brass, up near the house! No idea how she got out. All the other girls were where they were meant to be!

The fire was well overdue for a clean out – so I got my bucket and got to work

I took the ashes down and threw them in the main compost. I decided against putting them in the new ones, because my best friend told me how she did that and the ashes weren’t quite cold and set her compost bin on fire!! I decided to err on the side of caution!!

Now our fire is beautiful again

Speaking of composting things, I decided to chuck the extra food scraps that the spoiled chickens ignore into the Gee Whizzer and get them nice and fine to hurry the composting along

So I went and fed the worms

A lot of my bulbs and rhizomes are coming up already. I feel its a bit early since we only just started the second month of winter!

The Day lilies are looking good!

Lots of iris well on their way too

My Protea is looking so nice at the moment. Plenty of big bold flowers!

The photo below was taken the day after our flood. Its a bit hard to see, but the garden outlined by the driftwood on left has half of the mulch washed away thanks to the flood

I was impressed to see all the dirt smoothed and covered over yesterday. I thought my fabulous husband had done a bit of random gardening for me. Turned out it was the chickens!! On their accidental day out yesterday they must have had a lovely industrious time in that garden!! (Although I suspect all my worms have long gone!!)

I finished off my day by making sausages in pineapple gravy, draped over mashed potato and fresh broccoli for dinner…. and a chocolate self saucing pudding for dessert. 🙂 Yum

Hope your weekend has gone fantastically well!

Cheers!

OK – just kidding. I am not going to write a whole post about chook poo! 🙂

The poor chickens. Their coop was a bit horrible. We had trouble finding hay recently- of all things in the country to have difficulty finding mind you!! Bad weather, bad timing etc. Finally picked up a couple of bags of chopped hay off my favourite vendor down at the local markets. Lucky I went early as he said there is no more for a long while!!

We threw some lime about – helps with mites and lice (And apparently odours) then made the whole coop lovely and fluffy with new hay.

Of course – five minutes later of unsupervised chickens had them kicking it out the door already!!

Once the weather changes back to not horrible I am going to whitewash the whole coop!!! I will feel like I am living in an Enid Blyton book!!

The weather was pretty nice for most of the day – that is, we had gorgeous sunshine until the washing went out and we started in the garden! 😀

So, we got to and dug a couple of small rows for the raspberries – extending the existing ones.

The chickens were most helpful (not)

Every time I dug a hole, someone got in it, in a frantic worm-search and another would kick all my dirt all over the place!!

Despite all the feathery ‘help’ we got the canes in. Hoping they are happy about their small move and produce some fruit this upcoming season.

There was still enough daylight left to get back into the duck-yard and try to finish up the weeding we started last week

The chickens weren’t our only company – I looked up to suddenly see this lot staring at me!!

Right on dusk, Cousin Jeff pulled up at the gate with a load of firewood!!!

We had seen his wife at the local school market that we went to this morning and asked if she could ask Jeff if he has some more dry wood – the last lot is still a bit heavy, so we need to mix it in with drier wood and we were running short of the older stuff.

I didn’t say it was THAT much of an emergency!! 😀

So – I know what I will be doing with the non-rainy days this week!!

Night had pretty much fallen by the time Jeff had unloaded the wood. I did take the time to go back to my ‘garden’ to admire it. Or stand there and imagine what will be next season!!!

Hope everyone has had a lovely start to their weekends!

Cheers!

Hello! How is everyone’s weekend so far?

Lucky me! My fabulous husband went online shopping and bought me a surprise… two surprises actually! Compost bins!

He figured it would take too long to get around to building more and found these!

Luckily I collect weird things, like bags of chicken poo, so I was able to 3/4 fill one already with the hay/chicken poo mix from cleaning the chicken coop.

I have also dumped in a lot of worms, transported mostly from the original compost.

Looking forward to filling them up with more scraps & mulch etc.

It really was a fabulous day out there! When Tassie weather is on form, its gorgeous! I was in a t-shirt all day.

Jeff had begun to dig and weed the duck yard (we have never actually HAD ducks, but because this yard originally had a pond area, we figured ducks must have lived here!)

The weeds really had taken over as its not an area we use – its a chicken yard really.

Screecher, our one remaining original chicken, totally knows the ropes when it comes to us digging in the garden… snacks galore!

The other girls got in on the act too

I thought it would be good for Pip to be outside for a change. He has spent far too many hours buried under the doona, the lazy cat!

Funny to watch one of the new chickens trying to get brave enough to get closer to check out what kind of weird bird he was!

We made quite a lot of progress over the afternoon, along with several chooks coming in to ‘help’ dig

Rewards were plentiful!

I am pretty sure all the chooks had a great afternoon! So much enthusiastic scratching and scoffing of worms!

The sun was gone, moon had risen, about time to call it a day!

Felt so good to be out in the garden again getting some work done!

So pleased with todays work!!

I should be able to finish off the last bit tomorrow afternoon if the weather plays nice again.

We are going to block the chickens access to this area next season and this lovely big space is destined to be one of my new vegetable gardens!

I figured I could have a good patch of corn, and also put the space hungry pumpkins and zucchinis in this area. Also along the taller fence to the right of the below image, I could plant a row of runner beans that can climb up the fence and do their thing.

I also plan to boarder as much of it as possible with marigolds!

I totally cannot wait for spring!