Teralba's Reports

So Summer's here...

2011-11-26T03:30:00.000-08:00

I know it's not a regular post, but a short one to say I haven't forgotten to update this.

Today I've harvested about 1.3kg of zucchinis and 400g of beans, along with lettuce, herbs and celery sticks. Not bad, eh?

An exciting news - a chick was hatched a couple of days ago and the broodie's still sitting very tight so I am not sure if there'd be more hatching the next few days before they'd be moved into a safer home away from those big and 'nasty' roosters.

The weeds have gone crazy, so do the vegies and fruits so I cannot complain. Fruit flies are here as they're all over the nectarines. Ugh! So time to put bags over grapes. I only could see ONE kiwifruit on the kiwi vines!! Boo!

Last Thurs I spent an hour helping bottling, corked and labelled kiwifruit wines! Yummy, so will have to buy some for our "cellar" soon I hope. I am surprised to learn that kiwifruit wine is considered as 'dry'.

I've been planting many plants over time around the place, but mainly at the backyard. Got a long list of areas to fill out over the next couple of years. Should be fun, me thinks.

That's about it for now. I've been busy sewing, cooking and organising so I have not really shared much here. Sorry - more coming when I've worked out why Photoshop Elements's Organiser not working.

Cheers till later, peeps!

Spring's here...

2011-10-10T04:50:00.000-07:00

All have gone crazy with growing (as usual every Spring, eh?)

According to the 28th July post, I should have 6 nice pears growing - however those cursed cockatoos have gone ahead and demolished them before I could take photos! Not a happy gal!

Anyway, I've gone crazy with vegie planting lately - lots of beans, eggplants, zucchinis, tomatoes, lettuces, kale, strawberries, peas, cucumbers... can't have enough of them! Once I've done with the plantings, I will put up what I've got going then.

The red cabbage is not doing so well. Out of 7, only one forming a definite head while the other is only barely there - so I am guessing the wicking beds are bit too warm for those cold vegies? It is really nice and warm in the soil this evening when I planted in the rest of eggplant and cucmber seedlings.

The fruit trees are doing really well! I really have to take photos of them soon. Out of 13 plum trees, we'd have 11 fruiting. Out of 10 apple trees, we have about 8 flowered. Out of 4 peach/nectarine trees, we've got 3 fruiting. Out of who knows pears, we've got 4 flowered. 3 huge elder trees are full of elderflowers, so here to the elderflower cordial - I just need to find a suitable recipe and get more sugar (many recipes are asking for 1.5 kg!!! All citrus trees are flowering, fruiting and basically going crazy! The recent rains helped. Even the figs are joining the act with numerous fruits on them as well as the tiny Hick's Fancy mulberry tree's full of fruits - yummy!!

The hazelnut and chestnut trees are in leaf now, with the walnut close by.

The banana trees' fruited and I am still waiting for the fingers to be bit more bigger before I'd harvest a bunch.

However with the recent violent storms we have been having around here last few weeks have took toll on the native trees with 8 of them down (as far as I can see) and I'd need to go into the bush area to see if there are more gone down, etc. Looks like it's time to call in the tree-choppers...

The mozzies are not nice - they've been harassing my baby boy the last few days - so that means it's a season of nasty mozzies here now. Ugh!

We're down to 7 chookies now - and I am fixing up my incubator so I can order in some more fertile Croad Langshan eggs from QLD to build up my flock.

Harvested a wheelbarrow full of potatoes and we had some baby potatoes into warm potato salad which tasted so good! :D

The garlic, onions, and leeks are doing so well - in a couple of months they will be harvested.

Grapevines are doing great, as two of them have fruited! The baby kiwifruit is also doing great, so that means soon I'd have two female kiwifruit vines growing next to the male one. Yah!

See what I mean - there's lot going on here and I barely have enough time to do all. A bit at a time I guess, eh?

I just need to shop around for some sheep to help keeping grass short!

Photos coming up in the next post! Anything else you'd like to know, pls let me know.

Cheers till later!

So it's September already again?

2011-09-13T17:26:00.000-07:00

I blinked ... again!

Anyway, just a short one to say I've not abandoned this - just got side-tracked.

Saw a bright yellow&black Regent Bowerbird feeding on one of my tree this morning! Gorgeous... :D

With this bird sighting, I decided to write up a list of birds we've seen on our property for past 3 years and it is incomplete as we are not brilliant bird spotters by a long way!

Land Birds:

Tawny Frogmouth (it crashed into our patio one very early morning and disappeared that nite)
Australian Brush-Turkey (everywhere, the cursed birds - they terrorise my chooks!!)
Indian Peafowl/Peacock (I saw 2 pairs of this strolling around the roads nearby twice!!)
Superb Lyrebird (saw them on my way out to shops late arvo outside our property)
Spotted Turtle-Dove (in the bush nearby)
Rock Dove (ditto)
Crested Pigeon
Wonga Pigeon
Glossy Black-Cockatoo (not as often but very noticable)
Sulphur-crested Cockatoo (anyone welcomed to shoot them down! Damaging fruit trees!)
Yellow-tailed Black-Cockatoo (same as black cockatoo - quite large and nice)
Galah (they're ok - not as annoying as Sulphur crested ones)
Cockatiel
Musk Lorikeet
Rainbow Lorikeet
Australian King Parrot
Crimson Rosella
Sacred Kingfisher (saw only twice and it's much smaller and bright coloured than Kooky)
Laughing Kookaburra (several permanent residents around here!)
Scarlet Robin (rarer visitors)
Eastern Yellow Robin (regular visitors)
Red-whiskered Bulbul
Superb Fairy-wren (everywhere - great gardener's helper! But they love elderberries!!)
Lewin's Honeyeater
Red-browed Finch
Regent Bowerbird (first time today or first time I noticed! heh)
Satin Bowerbird (occasional visitors)
Australian Magpie
Pied Currawong
Grey Butcherbird (very good at stealing food!)
Magpie-lark/Peewee
Willy Wagtail (love them!)
Australian Raven

Water Birds:

Great Egret (we got a single one who would love to stand and do nothing?)
Australian White Ibis
Australian Wood Duck (too many of them on the dam!)
Mallard (ditto - at least the snail population's down, eh?)
Purple Swamphen (very annoying birds!)
Banded Lapwing (gotta love them - they bombard our neighbours and not me!)
Australian Pelican (they fly overhead frequently but never stopped by here)

Not bad, eh?

I've noticed some eagles flying overhead several times - huge!

Also a few times I'd see some kind of falcon sitting on fence - not sure which though and the chooks were not happy whenever it visited!

Will post more next time, much sooner I promised.

Oh to the person who asked about the infused vinegar - yep it's for both cleaning and cooking if I use el-cheapo vinegar. I've used it for dishwasher rinse which turns out nicer as I'd get a nice sniff whenever I opened the dishwasher drawer. It works quite well so I've started another with mandarin skins now.

Cheers till later!

About last week...

2011-07-29T05:48:00.000-07:00

It rained for the week - heavily. I really thought the chooks would need to metamorphose into ducks then.

Today I did more vegie bed weeding - there are man little seedlings which I just pull out and flip upside down and leave it there... Many vegies are looking well. I might have to harvest 5 swedes very soon. There are lots of broccoli heads developing as well as few flowered (I was too slow). I took a photo of two types of broccoli I grow out here - the main broccoli type and broccolini (quite peppery).

Anyway, here are the photos I took last week and the week before as well...

Misty sunset... the colours were gorgeous but very cold outside!

This is the lemonade peels vinegar brewing jar

And this is a jar with mixture of orange peels and peels from a mandarin with full strength cleaning vinegar...

Result of the vinegar brewing:

Lemonade with el-cheapo ordinary white vinegar - smell very lemony, colour quite yellow, there's a film on top with some shiny bubbles (possibly the oil of the peels?). The peels themselves have gone very pale that it's almost white. In few days, I will take the peels out and use the brewed vinegar. And top up with the fresh ones.

Orange with full strength cleaning vinegar - It is still clear in liquid, the smell is so faintly of citrus but nothing like the lemonade jar! So I am not sure if the full strength cleaning vinegar works for this kind of project - I will decide when I drain the jar next week or 2 anyway.

Cheers till later!

We may have pears!!

2011-07-28T17:03:00.001-07:00

Noticed other day that there are 6 baby pears growing on two pear trees... and they survived the heavy deluge over the past weeks!

All are well really not much to share but that the vegie beds are powering away like maniacs on greens!

Will report in later the week with photos!

Cheers!

Oh, what a frosty morning...

2011-07-17T03:32:00.000-07:00

Last Tuesday (12th), it's minimum was -2, according to the outdoor thermometer!

First I saw this on lawn

Then I realise it was a nice and light frost so took photos.

Thus it is mainly a photos blog, rather than an informative blog...

Blades of grass

Beaded daisy flower - Gorgeous!!

Jonquils (hoped I spelt it correctly)

Then I checked out the vegie beds zone and discovered they were dusted as well...

Ice beads on broccoli leaf

Dusted spinach leaf on dusted mulch

Even some potato plants were dusted

The edges of lettuces were laced with frost - colour isn't good here.

Another beaded kale leaf

You can see some ice on this leaf!

It was gorgeous to see very tiny ice cubes on the red cabbage leaf

Once again dusted baby spinach leaf

A geranium leaf really shows it attracts frost really well

The front were dusted as well...

Not easily seen but almost all lichen were dusted but as sun hit, all dissipated...

Nicely laced leaves of weeds in lawn

View to South - frost all the way

Lovely yellow rose - all beaded

One of first two plum trees flowered for the year

Magnolia - ready to open soon...

View to West - frost all the way with Tassie following me

Finally went inside and saw this lovely sunlit fake flower arrangement so thought I'd add as well...

So I hope you've enjoyed all this.

Teralba report: 6 baby pears are growing out of two pear trees (the only pear trees I can see have flowered and fruited - seems to be a while to grow, etc); plum trees flowered - two trees so far, but already other three are not far behind; several apple trees budded; an old nectarine tree all budded and a few flowered. Harvested another bucketful of Lemonade, oranges and broccolinis.

Cheers till later!

Bread making skill - DONE!

2011-07-06T05:22:00.000-07:00

Yep,

First bread - left over slices - had to save this for DH that evening!

Finally got the hang of it now so been baking like mad!'

So delicious!

I will be posting the receipe in my other blog - the cooking blog for those who would like to have one or has a Thermomix! :D

Proper bread rolls I made - all gone in an instant with kids!

Baking more tomorrow... Yummo!

Cheers till later!

Today's photos!

2011-07-03T06:07:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd share some photos I took today as it was a lovely and sunny day.

Gorgeous little broccoli head

My dear DH came out and helped with weeding!! Such a rare sight so fortunate I've got photos to prove that he can weed! :D

Weeding the oldest boy's bed

The north side of the beds - see potato plants!

Mid beds - all green eh?

I think all the rains have helped a bit...

Another potato plants bed in front

From ALS, I thought I'd have a go with making home-made lemon oil vinegar for both cooking and cleaning.

My Lemonade tree's full of fruits and its' still flowering! So gotta lighten up its load and used the peels for this special project.

Lemonade oil infused vinegar

The idea is to infuse the vinegar (in this case I used cheap white vinegar) in a glass jar with citrus peels for two weeks to allow the oils to leach out into the vinegar. From 5 mins after peeling lemonade skins into the jar, the vinegary smell has been replaced with lemony smell! So it will be interesting to see how it goes over the time.

I will juice the lemonades for juice and freeze them for summer - lemonade sorbet anyone? :D

A bucketful of citrus fruits from our Citrus orchard - lucky us, eh?

Cheers till later!

Greening the wicking vegie beds

2011-06-29T00:03:00.000-07:00

Here it is. The photos were taken almost 4 weeks ago and now it have doubled the sizes and growth rates. Yah! Will take photos later the week when sun's out again.

Let's go on a wicking vegie beds tour now...

Here we see the first bed, with its baby or english spinach plants, celery and beetroot seedlings growing. I am hoping to plant in carrot seeds next week here. And you can see bed #10 at the back, it's full of allium spp. (onions, garlic, shallots) along with a couple of curly-leaf parsley plants and a small number of purple carrot seedlings.

Bed 1 in front and Bed 10 at back

Move along to the next bed, here we see the same stuff as bed 10 but we have leeks growing in the middle. Everything's growing great here, it remains to be seen if it's successful though. The bed at the back has a climbing thingo there for peas and snowpeas. In the bed, there are lots - swedes, broccoli, cos lettuce and a sage plant.

Bed 2 in front and Bed 9 at back

Now to the next bed, here I've planted only two things - potatoes and lettuces! Pretty dull but I am interested in how well potatoes do in wicking beds. Hence a trial here anyway. The bed at back is full of root and big leaf plants - red cabbage, broccoli, swedes...

Bed 3 in front and Bed 8 at back

Now we've reached the slim vegie beds and they belongs to kids. Bed 4 is for my oldest boy Nat while the other bed, bed 7 is for my baby boy and my only girl. So far all's doing well, but kids got bored as it's a slow growing season. They're waiting for spring/summer... In both beds they've got a good mixture of leeks, shallots, lettuces, beetroots, spinach, silver-beet and chives. My baby boy got a strawberry plant growing in his half and he can't wait to munch on the fruits as they'd be all HIS.

Kids' - Bed 4 in front and Bed 7 at back

This is the non-wicking beds area, bed 5 and 6 at the back. We decided to have those beds free draining so we can be more experimental with what to grow because there are certain plants that may not do well in a wicking bed. At the moment, there must be over 50 potato plants growing crazy along with 10 lettuces, and a row of peas at the back. It is interesting to see that wild mushrooms grows more on those beds than on the wicking beds. Location or something else cause this?? Something to keep an eye on anyway.

Non-wicking beds - Bed 5 in front and Bed 6 at back

The rest of photos here are self-explanatory anyway so enjoy the rest of the tour...

Bed 8 - red cabbage, broccoli seedlings

Beetroot leaves

A purple carrot seedling growing between onion seedlings

Celery seedling

East side of the area, facing south

The west side of area, facing south

Garlics!! Lots of them

Thought it was a lovely photo to share... garlic sprout

Bed 7 in front and Bed 4 at back - kids'

Kiwifruits of 2010/2011 awaiting to be harvested

Leeks, lots of them - yummo!

onions, garlic and leeks everywhere!

In Bed 9, snowpeas, swedes and cos lettuces growing together

Potato plants growing like crazy from Bed 3

Onion and garlic seedlings growing next to each other in rows

Baby/English spinach leaves - there are 5 plants of two types growing well - harvesting this for a while now.

Any questions or comments?

Cheers till later!

Finally this blog works!

2011-06-13T05:05:00.000-07:00

Sorry for a long silence. I was having trouble with this blog.

Anyhow I do hope it will be fine after this post.

Thought I'd share how we built our wicking vegie beds.

We are going with the concept of wicking - you know how an oil candle/lamp works? Inside a bottle, a long strand of cotton with its end at bottom of the bottle and the top just poking out of top of the bottle, right. And with the oil in bottle, and a flame going on the top tip of the strand, it will continue to burn as long there are oil that is going up by soaking into the cotton. So with this idea (it's not our brilliant original idea though as we 'stole' it from others!), we built similar for vegies, where we have water behaving like oil with soil as the 'strand' for the vegies on top. Sounds complicated, eh? Not really.

We got the corrugated beds from 'Birdies' (actually we bought them from Bunnings when it was on special, our bad I know). It is measured at 2.9m long x 1.5m wide and 820mm high, quite large. We got 8 of those, however we shortened two of those into 2.9m long x 1.3m wide as we removed one panel at both end because of the space available. The two 'slim' beds are for our kids to grow their own produce there, while I have other 6 modular beds and 2 'homemade' beds for my use.

We built each bed on both side (East and West as I am facing North when I was taking the photo below!). Then we fill it up, and move to build the next set of beds heading south.

Now we put in the lining (we used Pond lining - it may not be good due to plastic but it's the best we can do to get this going). The lining goes up to about 50 cm high, but we are not getting pools here. To prevent floodings, we put in a drain-point at about 30cm high from the bottom.

Here Tony was sealing the pipe to plastic with glue - he sealed behind the plastic and now here you can see him sealing it on plastic. So this is to ensure the water exit one point rather than slip through the hole in plastic and flood out the bottom.

This is the outside drain-point of bed. It is also sealed.

There is no way we can do it manually, so we got to call in the dingo!

Being a typical male, Tony would not let me have a go at all on the dingo!

Anyway, we first filled the bed with river sand, just to cover plastic before pouring in the aggerated blue stone, which goes up to about 30cm. We then added in poor quality soil and topped it up with very good quality soil up to about 50cm below the top rim of bed (50% garden 'organic' soil and 50% compost - it smelt so nice!). Mulched it with both old hay and 'minced' straw to keep stray weeds/seeds from growing.

Oh, forgot to add that we have put in the water pipe - no photo unfortunately as I was busy trying to hold it while the base was being covered with stones! The slotted ag-pipe (its not covered with 'stocking') with the end being capped is shaped as 'S' to ensure the water is distributed 'evenly' across the bottom of bed. The ag-pipe is joined with an elbow and a straight pvc pipe that stood just at the rim of the bed. The pipe is also capped with a removable cap. This is where I put in water if we haven't got rain. Since we built the beds, it has been raining quite heavily and regularly - so I've never got to fill those beds with water yet. I can see the reflection of water at bottom of the pipe which tells me that the water is holding there from the rains.

I intend to put in a small bucket with holes at bottom and sides for compost worms in each bed, where I can add compost in each bed - feeding the worms there. At the moment the beds are rich in compost so I am leaving it till after winter.

I drew up a diagram but it is located at other computer so I cannot use it yet. Will have to dig it up soon for those who want a bit more visual example of a wicking bed.

I am happy to report that the vegies are growing really well at the moment! :D

As of the beginning of June, I've got 3 beds full of potato plants (peppered with lettuces), 2 beds with onions, garlic, shallots and leeks, 1 bed with baby spinach, celery, beetroot, 1 bed with broccoli, red cabbage, swedes, and 1 bed with peas, snowpeas, swedes, cos lettuces, bit of broccoli.

Coming next with vegies in beds. It's raining lots here lately so fingers crossed all will be fine.

I've harvested elderberries and will need to do more harvestings. There are kiwifruits and citrus fruits waiting to be harvested.

Cheers till later!

A close finish to the race!

2011-04-23T05:18:00.000-07:00

A race to the completion between Teralba's Vegie Corner and Spain's La Sagrada Familia (by long-deceased Antoni Gaudi) had begun a while back and the winner will be confirmed tomorrow.

For those who are so uncultured enough to not knowing what or who is the La Sagrada Familia or Antoni Gaudi, allow me to educate you:

La Sagrada Familia:

photo from http://architecture.about.com

Known as Holy Family Church located in Barcelona, Spain. Apparently this building started in 1882 and was Antoni Gaudi's most ambitious work and that he drew up alot of ideas and plans for this poor church! However Antoni died before the construction was completed and now what's the funnies thing is that the construction is still going on! I believe the Spanish Government aimed to have the construction really completed by 2020...

Antoni Gaudi was born in 1852 and died in 1926 - he was an architect who liked to use the forms that represents nature. I've been to one of his works at Vienna - it was awesome. Anyway, he had this crazy idea of building a huge church and he realised he won't live to see it completed so he had everything planned out, however as there were so many designs so it was left open for interpretations! No wonder it is still not finished!

So now you may ask what's the connection with La Sagrada Familia and Teralba's Vegie Corner.

Well, the connection is that both are still not finished after a long stretch!

Here's the latest progress report of the Vegie Corner:

Yep, we managed to built up 9 beds out of 10 as of today!

Sorry about the muddy mess - it was raining last weekend and today! I think the gods of landscaping and whatever are still not impressed with our works!

So who do you think gonna win the race?

Sorry the betting is not permitted!

In the next post, I will describe how we built the wicking beds. 8 beds out of 10 are wicking beds, not just beds for the wicked vegies! There is a certain difference...

The two back beds are free drained ones, intended for large spaced plantings such as potatoes, melons, etc. Yesterday I planted in 10 seed potatoes. Next week I will be planting in garlic bulbs and onions in other bed.

Once the grounds are cleared, it will looks fab. We just can't wait to see this finished, after nearly 9 months - just about right? lol...

Catch you later, folks!

What a weekend!

2011-03-20T00:17:00.000-07:00

IT RAINED!!! All weekend...

We were short in rainfall this year by 35cm! So the rains are very much welcomed here. The dam's filling so fast and looks lot better. Let's hope there'd be more rains over the next week or so... Also the cool weather is welcomed!

Hope all's well at your corner of world.

Cheers till later!

YES!! All's done!

2011-03-14T04:36:00.000-07:00

Yep, all the pavings done!

Here are the photos - Enjoy. Just ignore weeds, mess, etc!

The path from house to the Chook Palace... I am never without my furry assistants around

At the future Vegie Garden Zone - all paved, just waiting to have the weedy holes to be levelled and the garden beds on them then I can go happy sowing/planting vegies, herbs, etc!

From the Chook Palace to the house...Almost a straight paved line, eh?

The Compost area - just need to make slats to keep dogs off the compost mix!

The end of Compost area - we have ensure that the pavers goes under the fence so there would be no chooks digging under to get to the delicious fresh tucker...

See the contrast of new and old pavers! We got the factory seconds pavers for great price and it looks good. Now my challenge is to keep weeds out of the gaps between pavers!! Any tips or tricks, apart from pulling them every day? :D

The trampoline view over the paved area...

Not bad for two amateur landscapers... :D - Your comments?

Sorry we cannot accept any commissions at any time!

Cheers till later!

Yah!! 3/4 done!!

2011-03-07T01:58:00.001-08:00

Yep, we've done 3/4 of the pavings now!!

So it's only 1/4 left which is the compost bay area - I got carried away with the excitment that the end is nigh that I kept going on the compost bay area and this morning I really paid it with very sore legs!! Lol...

Photos coming up tomorrow - be patient. It actually looks great... :D

Cheers till later!

Our Doggies - Swedish Vallhunds

2011-01-30T18:13:00.000-08:00

Well, I know there's too many photos here, but a bit of too much is better than nothing, eh?

(By the way, did you know you can click on photo themselves to enlarge them.)

Anyway, for xmas, we went up to the Forster area for a week holiday, taking dogs with us. It's first time for Brumby and second time for Tassie. They were very good and loved their morning and evening walks on the beach everyday, as well as walking around the little village we stayed at. They found the place to be too busy - the house's on the corner and there are many people walking past down to the beach so dogs been barking almost every minute. They have finally calmed down by Day 4!! A big difference from living in rural area and in a village, eh?

Tassie is now 3 years old - her hair's very wiry and coarse with hint of red and grey with black. Definitely has double coats as she rarely get soaked to skin after a dip anytime. Still very neurotic and has her own mind, which makes the training more difficult. And she can climb up fences like a cat, so for her sake, we need to make sure the area's resembled a prison!

Brumby, the one with green leash, has just turned 6 months old and is still testing things out, following Tassie and me. She's fabulous, easy going little dog but knows how to be sneaky when she wanted something. Her coat is grey and black, more smoothy and does have double coat but not as 'waterproof' as Tassie. This was actually the first time she actually get into water and she doesn't really loves it, but will just go up to her chest and that's it. Brumby get distracted easily but is easily trained - just need to be consistent with her however. Her tail's more like a screw tailed (whereas Tassie's a sickle tailed) and strong.

With my girl Jackie - she gained so much confidence with handling and caring for dogs. It is amazing because about 5 years ago she has phobia with dogs!

Nice photos of me with dogs on beach, taken by Jackie!

After the beach... tied up and waiting to be loaded into car to go home after a week.

There you go. Photos of our dogs as of early 2011.

It will be interesting to see how Brumby get herself classified as within a year as I have to make a decision (with assistance from others of course) whether to breed and show her or just keep her as a desexed pet. My big boy, Nat, is now at a selective high school which includes agricultural course (with showing as part of it) and if Brumby's good enough, I might get Nat to show her then - it will help him to make sense of the world and gain experience and skills then.

When we picked up Brumby after she gone missing for 5 days, the people who looked after her remarked that she's so easy to train. She's so eager to please which is a pleasure really, compared to Tassie. Guess we got baptised with fire when we had Tassie then as the most difficult and stubborn pup and dog.

Cheers till later!

Paving Day# Whatever!

2011-01-30T17:03:00.000-08:00

Here it is - paving update. I have to admit that I'm skipping the order of photos for this marathon paving project - I have yet set up my new computer fully so bear with me for the next 2 weeks before all's back in order.

Now this path was compacted by machine, so it's ready to be lathered with sand and topped with pavers.

Gorgeous, isn't it? Paved and gap filled. Just need to wash it down and it's completely done! Actually the paving with pavers is probably the most easier and quicker than any part of the project!

That was 3 weeks ago, and most are already done, including the areas in the old beds.

So now we've done the rest, we just need to do the compost bay area then we're done with the bloody long paving project and can do the real work then - growing vegies, of course!

Cheers till later!

Hello 2011!

2011-01-28T02:55:00.000-08:00

Well, Xmas and Summer been and nearly done by. Lot of stuff happened around here!

First of all, we're about 2/3 done with the marathon paving project! Photos coming on next posting (within 14 days!!).

Secondly, our big boy got into a high school he wanted and we just bought his uniform. Sighs - he's growing so fast but excited for him, there's a big wonderful and exciting world out there for him to learn and explore!

Thirdly, there's a Brumby Saga - she went AWOL and was 'arrested and dispatched to report for duty' only a couple of days ago! The long story short - she didn't come home with Tassie after they got escaped from the backyard (gate was not closed) on last Friday arvo. We searched, called, knocked, asked and waded through a big area out here, but there's no sign of Brumby. Tassie was not so concerned - which means not so good. Still nothing over the weekend, even after putting up flyers on posts and in letterboxes on Saturday morning and Monday morning. DH was ready to throw towel in by then, but I advised him that there's a 'week' to see out before we concluded that Brumby's gone for good. Ah! On Australia's day morning, DH got a call from a lady saying they've got Brumby over their place! So we zoomed over, it was actually about two and half kms away from here and yep it's our Brumby still alive, happy and well fed!

Her first time at the beach - this is the creek that flows out to the beach.

With her very muddy feet! It's hard to take a good photo of her sitting calmly!

It seems that she must have walked along the creek valley to their place up and got herself temporarily 'adopted' into two households for the over 5 days, enjoying the attentions and food! Our kids have written up the 'Thank You' cards for them - we're so grateful that she's alright after all. She's only 6 month old now which means a lot - too young to know the actual directions to home and to know the difference in safety and danger. So for now it's "all's well" here.

Lastly, I hate the heat that comes with summer! I know where I'll be living if we have to leave this property - TASMANIA! heheh! However my heart goes to those in QLD and VIC with the hardships arose from floodings and bushfires in WA. May the rest of the year bring nothing but nicer weathers and simple living situations for all.

Please excuse the short posting here.

Cheers till later!

Our latest 2010 chick

2010-12-01T02:15:00.000-08:00

Mum Chook and chick strolling

Their temporary home on top of watertank

Here it is - our chick. Although it is quite grown by now, but these were taken a few days after they were allowed out without the rest of flock harassing them (they were locked up!).

Still not sure of its sex.

In a few weeks, they will be back in the Palace with the rest before xmas break.

More to come. Enjoying the rains, but it throws a huge spanner to our paving project!! We're getting lots of pools developed lately - all too shallow to swim though.

Cheers till later!

Day 5 at the Construction Zone...

2010-11-17T16:16:00.000-08:00

Well... here's old 'Day 5' photos and report. 'Day 6' is coming up next. We're basically on 'Day 7' now. Still with me, eh?

We had to put in slats because the edge of the paths were 'crumbling' in, if this is such way to describe! After putting in 3 areas in this bed, I realised we may have way too big paths between beds, so suggested we put in one more. So this means we'll have 4 beds each area! Yah! 6 large beds and 2 med ones.

We are being generous by giving the 2 med ones to kids to do their crops.

You can see from the photos that other 'bed' has not been worked in yet. Now it is.

Quite exciting but depressing - we cannot move on until rains suck up and allow the pools to dry up!

Cheers till next!

Quite a wet November so far.

2010-11-08T20:17:00.000-08:00

Am trying to stay afloat lately!

Anyway, so much have been happening and growing around here and I am not sure where to start! Surprising, eh?

Had another check on my fruit grove yesterday to find many apples are growing! Yah!! Fingers crossed all will develop into delicious apples by next Jan to Aug!! Yep a while away... all good things come to those who waits, eh? lol...

Brumby's doing very well - developing into a great young dog who is trying to curb her chewing implusions and listens to me as much as she can if there's no distractions! Tassie and Brumby play nicely most of time, but there are times when Tassie simply doesn't like Brumby to do the same as her - like barking. She hates it when Brumby tried to bark off the silly bush turkey that loves to try to come over and taunt the dogs!!

No further progress done on the paving area - it has been stalled for a few weeks now due to weather's up n downs, of course.

Noted we got fruit flies on our old nectarine tree. Not good... Time to rig up some traps for them but then again may be too late for this year crop me thinks.

We've had an awesome Halloween party here on 31st Oct and kids enjoyed themselves - built scarecrows, went on the witch hunt, and smashing the pumpkin (pinata).

I've got heaps of photos but today I don't have time - sorry folks. Next week I promise.

Cheers till later!

October's Newsflash!

2010-10-30T03:22:00.000-07:00

1. We've got a cute new chick - naturally hatched by one of two broodies last Monday. Only one. Pretty sad. However the other broodie is still broody so I am trying to find fertile eggs for her to hatch then. Fingers crossed I'll find some asap.

2. We may get to eat home-grown bananas this summer... yep our banana plant finally flowered and there are numerous fingers now. Will need to take photo of it soon to prove it. But it took them 2 and half years to get around to do this! No other banana plants have done much yet - hopefully it will be staggered growth?

3. Out of 20 apple trees, 12 have flowered and half of them have swollen buds! So this is pretty exciting for me.

4. All three mango trees died. One out of three avocado trees died as well. So it is definitely not a sub-tropical region here as it is apparently by the councils?? The lone custard apple plant is really struggling at the moment so am not going to plant any more 'sub-tropical' plants until there is a micro-climate happening that would be suitable for those in future.

5. What - you want more? Gotta wait till next week when I get around to finish picking photos to upload for this blog.

Cheers till later!

Well... it has been a month!

2010-10-25T22:00:00.000-07:00

And we're getting those lovely rains (except for the winds and thunders that we did get eventually over the last 2 weekends).

I think it was a nice test to see how the plants and structures we've put in over the years held up. They've done it nicely except for the Kids Zone - the trampoline was almost thrashed and the cubby house has temporarily lost its top! We wasted a lovely Sunday fixing this up, but we've ensured it's secured properly except for the trampoline which needs to be fixed up.

Topless Cubby House

Flipped-over Trampoline - the posts are bent so they'll be removed (and anchors set in)

We had to put together the roof for the cubby house - we were pretty happy about it because it gave us some practice for the 'gazebo' we'd like to build behind the cubby house 'one day'.

I will have to take photos of the Kids Zone now with its wonky trampoline! Happy to say the plants haven't lost their roots or fruits (that I could see) - so the locations are fine for now.

Just a quick report...

2010-10-05T04:42:00.000-07:00

This morning I did a quick check on all gardens and am happy to report that all have survived the wet Spring.

Exciting news is that there are a couple of pear trees, couple of cherry trees flowering and a grapevine fruiting!! Will take a photo or two of them tomorrow if sun remains in front of clouds...

However the sad news is that the grass and weeds are about to colonise this property...

Cheers till later!

Day 4...

2010-10-05T03:34:00.000-07:00

Now it was Day 4 at the construction site:

Looks like a good place for pools?

Path has been 'divided' so the section can be removed at a later date for a pond... (of course you cannot see it - just take my word for it as I put a lot of work there!)

That's the whole view of the construction site - impressive, eh?

Just need to take more photos of 'Day 5' as that's much about where we are at the moment - rains have not helped us much lately. Looks like the completion date is being pushed further than I'd prefer. That's what we get for doing it ourselves, eh?

Cheers till later! (next posting in the sewing blog...)

I want to report September missing!

2010-10-04T00:20:00.000-07:00

I know I did blink but I can't believe how fast September went!

So here are assorted photos and reports of what we've done in September - I promise I will do wee better this month reporting! :D

1. General gardening photos - it was taken on the first day of September and it was a lovely day. Thought it was a good day to take stock of all fruit and nut trees on this property. Took way too many so will just put up a few for you to enjoy.

Plum flowers - it looks like we'll get heaps of plums if Spring is going to be nice to us and give us mild and gentle spring weather (so far we've got a bit more rain and winds than we usually get for the last few weeks...):

I have to say that plum flowerings are the most showy - so good and full of both honey and native bees...

Elderflower is also in bloom (well, it has always in flowering for the whole year, but it is much more fully than the usual. The bush was only planted in July 09! Had tripled in size and I am going to plant many more as it seems that this area's suitable for them -I've got three of them and all going crazy!):

Apple-shaped Quince in bud (I think it has to be the amazing pome tree - the leaves are so 'furry' and the flowers most beautiful!):

Now this is the messy Fruit Grove! It does needs to be mulched, fed, etc - all will be done 'one day':

This is one of three mulberry varieties - Hick's Fancy and it seems it is doing very well, considering it was only planted a month before this photo was taken and already covered with fruit!:

As per Spring's style, here are numerous ornamental flowers - all have to host for all the winged bugs anyway:

Gorgeous wattle - native to this area:

Iris - its close to the bush, so not waterlogged one?

This is the plant with berries and flowers that the native birds go crazy over, and they're almost everywhere here - I've let them grow as I thought it would be a good plant to encourage birds away from our fruit trees. I still need to find out what it is and how 'good' it is, etc. Any idea?

She-oak flowering - gorgeous!

That's from the front gardens!

Now its the backyard's turn...

Grapevine budding and growing well at the moment so naturally we are quite excited about this! I think out of 9 grapevines, we've lost one to puppy chewings!

Nectarine already fruiting - still have a month or two before we'd harvest before the tree drop the whole thing like it did last year without any warning!

Orange tree is finally flowering - it didn't fruit this winter at all, so we missed its delicious and juicy oranges!

First time ever grew any asparagus and it actually shoot through very well - had to put cage over it to stop dogs from knocking it over before its ready to be harvested. It crops up so fast - now I understand what others meant about harvest almost everyday - I think I did watch one shoot up literally!

Spring onion flowered and a bee, along with other hunderd of bugs, knows it.

Don't ask me why they're lined up there! As of today, we're down to 9 - one of black chooks went AWOL and we could not find her. However, our Broodie's sitting on a nest of eggs at the moment so there's a replacement coming up...

Lemorange/Lemange - it needs to be harvested as it's already budding and flowering! I need 40 hours day and 4 sets of arms!

This is just a random photo - just loved how lichen grows on the bark:

Hope this post got you satisfied?

Let me know what else you'd like to see.

Cheers till next posting!

Day 3

2010-08-31T17:35:00.000-07:00

Now we're definitely making a good progress here! This is from the house to chook palace. We just need to fill in the road base and then we'll start putting in sand and pavers - exciting but back-breaking, I spose!

This is the compost area - at the moment it is mostly completed.

We just need to fix up the front area of the compost bay (I am thinking of building the sliding in slats to prevent dogs from going in and dig up - and it would be easier for me to turn it over without spilling any onto pavers - less mess).

You can see Brumby sleeping on the tiny grassy patch where the passionfruit vine grows over the fence! The worst areas to work in is the vegie beds themselves - the base's almost like concrete! Arm-jarring exercise, ugh!

The path to Chook Palace - its nice and neat-o, which is just how we like it. Can't wait to see how it all fit when the paving's done!

By the way, the chook fence is already mended! All good as new now! :D

This is the view from path of the Chook Palace.

Nice progress, eh?

Day 4 should be today, but I am taking it easy!

Cheers till later!

Introducing Brumby...

2010-08-29T05:28:00.000-07:00

(and me - please excuse my bad morning hair!)

We brought her home on 1st August and she settled in right away and loves us all!

Here are numerous photos of her from my August photos collection - Enjoy!

Brumby and her pinkie toy (it is now missing, so please report if you've seen it in your yard!)

Playing with Tassie...

And sneaking in to have a nice indoor doze...

And with my girl Jaz (this has to be one of my favourite photos - so mellow and gorgeous...)

Here she sleeps while we work hard around the compost area today...

Please do feel free to pop around and introduce yourself to Brumby

Cheers till later!

Mayhem in Chook Zone!

2010-08-29T04:25:00.000-07:00

An ungrateful gummy tree decided to remind us that he's a bit taller, stronger and 'above' us...

By dropping one of its arms... oh I mean, its huge branch!

And bent two sections of fencing down and out...

Fortunately for this tree, as no living creatures were harmed so it will remain there - aloof and outside our boundary fence. For it's our neighbour's tree!

Our chooks were so excited and were telling me all about it with 'bokbok book bok!' and flurry of feathers, etc.

The flock - minus 4 (they were camera-shy chooks)

Roy Boy, our glorious rooster!

And his very annoying offspring, Boy Orange (he really wants to take over Roy Boy's flock!) - anyone looking for a lovely rooster? Let me know...

One of our two original chooks, Leghorn cross - a very reliable layer

The branch have long ago chopped up and into mulch for our trees. The fencing will be mended very soon - we are awaiting to get details from our insurance company about when it will be done.

Lesson you could gain from here - Get your insurance sorted out before letting any tree, whether in our out of your boundary fence, drop a branch that cause a considerable damage to your property!

Cheers till later!

Finally here!

2010-08-28T06:43:00.000-07:00

My dear readers, please excuse the mishmash postings for a while while I catch up here...

We were blessed with beautiful weather by God of Landscaping - so we decided to do something here...

PAVING!

I am pretty sure I heard him rolling on 'heavenly floor' laughing hard at this - us ignorant and puny heathens wanted to pave!!

I also think there may have been a meeting held up there between gods (of landscaping, gardening, and weather) - debating whether they should stop us here.

We need to have a path between our house and that chook palace. We had few years to think it over and we finally decided it's time - we'd do it ourselves!

See that pile of gorgeous dirt - that's a pile of brown gold for me and God of Vegetables! It consists 2 years worth of compost, from the old garden beds that we've demolished to make way for 6 new vegie beds!

What new bed? This!

We will do an experiment called Wicking Bed with them and will have them standing close to the path - so kids have no excuse for not collecting, munching or planting more vegies! Bwahaha...

You can see where we've marked the path, from the old paved area to the house. There's a dip half way there and we hope God of Pond will bless us with a pond in a year or two.

His most loyal subject is working hard here - scooping the precious dirt so we can prepare the area for more paving and build beds on it.

DAY TWO

(Please understand that we're not blessed with super powers the half-gods seemed to have been bestowed by their godly parents, unfortunately so when we say day two, it doesn't mean the right next day. We're working on this mostly on weekends.)

Hallelujah, an outline of path is revealed! We're just using edges to ensure the grass would not begin its invasion here.

Putting in edgers was a challenge itself - curves and degree of slope here. But we did it, we know our God of Landscaping would be so proud of us!

We're having a row of 6 pavers across so there'd be enough room to walk over...

I am sure the God of Landscaping and God of Gardening are fuming with us as we may have broken many laws here - remember we're a bunch of ignorant peasants who have no experience with this!

More digging here - see the old beds are gone. The ground is quite hard after only 5 cm were dug up. Mattocks are used heavily here...

We're also having the compost area renovated...

Not much to see from this end, but just wait for Day 3 photos which will be proclaimed tomorrow!

We do hope the God of Landscaping is pleased with our offering!

Cheers till later!

A proper post coming this week!

2010-08-08T06:22:00.001-07:00

Sorry folks, I will post a long and well pictured one this week, so stay tuned!

Cheers till later!

We've got SNOW!!!!

2010-06-10T20:22:00.000-07:00

This morning we've got a cold snap warning report...

A quite smart young reporter have informed us that our area have been covered with white stuff...

The temperature have plummeted to the lowest of 2 degrees C so far...

And that we'd need to bundle up this morning.

We'd find some plants knocked off from blast of the cold...

Some will be covered well...

The rest will survive to deal with the next cold snap if there will be another one coming.

What...

Oh?

It is not ... snow... ?

Oh! Just a light frost??

Oh a lighter note, here are the rest of Teralba...

Dogs:

The last one - doggy trio - shows Tassie greeting her next door dogs, Hoover and Seeker.

Chooks:

The rest:

Hope you've enjoyed those.

Cheers till later!

Welcome to Jacari Cafe...

2010-05-18T05:44:00.000-07:00

Much to our surprise, we've got a cafe opening right at our backyard.

The service was exceptional and the menu's fresh and simple.

The price is just right... and a great 'do-it-yourself' refill counter!

Seems the cafe is quite popular... customer's already lining up.

And the manager fielding calls for reservations... always with a big smile

While her staff serves... with utmost concentration

Must find out more about this cafe. Excuse me while I sample some of its dishes.

Cheers till later!

Mother's Day Banner

2010-05-18T05:35:00.000-07:00

You know where you could get a great Mother's Day Banner done? Just get your little slaves to do it...

Here's my artistic slaves with their banner:

Yeah I know... they looked so happy to have that arduous task done!

What? Oh... ah of course, sneaky things - they must have known that a very delicious dinner was on its way.

Anyhow, the youngest slave's side:

Not bad, eh? He has a couple of years to catch up and improve the quality of his artistic expression. I had to instruct him to write names under those Barbie-alike legged creatures.

By far in his opinion, I must be the giantess? At least I was well-dressed one!

Now for the impish long-haired slave's side:

She has obviously got the need to divide the mob into two - mine and my in-laws. Again, it seems that I am still the giantess... Even when I stand a inch or two shorter than my own female relatives.

Oh... I know!

We must have spent too much time with the in-laws.

A very belated Happy Mother's Day to you all!

Cheers!

Port Macquarie photos!

2010-05-16T20:32:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I scooted up to Port Macquarie to give a workshop on sign language linguistics and I got to stay there for 2 nights - can you believe that!? My family actually let me go!

I woke up early on the last morning and decided that I have to take lots of snaps! So here's my brilliant snaps of sunrise, beaches and plants. Go ahead and be in awe with them!

On the next posting, I will show more snaps (great you are saying with enthusiasm, right?) so come back soon!

First snap of sunrise at 5am from my motel room's window:

Then about ten mins later:

Then 15 mins later:

I know those photos does not show the glory of its sunrise, but it was stunning watching it for half hour before I doze off...

Then I woke up to watch the rolling clouds doing its best to hid the rays of the rising sun.

Anyway, then I got this urge to drive along its coast and take more snaps of the beaches. So those are what I've got:

Those two are just random ones...

Working on the next posting now, so come back to be inspired, lol...

Cheers till later!

Yes I do make our own butter at home!

2010-05-04T18:54:00.000-07:00

Very CWA-ish?

Heheh

Since I've obtained this wonder machine called "Thermomix", I've stopped buying butter from the shops. Instead I just buy cream and turn it into butter - an much healthy option for us! Sally Fallon says so in her book "Nourishing Traditions" - there are many links, but actually this book's so good that I can't bear lending it out... Links: http://www.rejoiceinlife.com/books/bookNour.php and http://www.westonaprice.org/ .

Anyhow...

Last night, after making two batches of butter, I realised I need to document on making butter for your pleasure. So here it is:

What ya would need -

a carton of cream - it is always best to buy them when they're on special!
Thermomix machine
Water (filtered and chilled the better for this - I've only got rainwater so I've got the best, heh)
EVOO - Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Salt
A container for butter - I found this container at Spotlight a few years ago and loves it

Please excuse the mess - I ve 'grated' the large block of perconi cheese and stored in the freezer for future use - quite yummy cheese - and I've done two batches of butter before this demo. And I got the dinner going in middle of all this as well...

This is the Thermomix - my favourite kitchen assistant:

My family call this "RobotChef"! You can look up more from this link - http://www.thermomix.com.au

Right - let's start making this homemade butter!

Just bung in the cream - the whole 600ml of it in the Thermomix:

And let it 'churn' for a minute or so with that feature (it is called a "butterfly") in place - if the cream is closer to the due date, the process will be quicker than any fresh-er cream. It only took me a minute here! I am sure my great grandma Alma is turning over in her grave and muttering, "what it is with those young people nowadays - so lazy!" - it would have taken her hours to get hers churned into butter with one of those equipments!

Anyway, when it has churned into butter - the difference between 'thick/whipped' cream and this is quite obviously:

We'd just need to drain out the buttermilk, a lovely fresh buttermilk good for cooking, drinking or feed to chooks - I do any of those three, whenever I feel like it :D

This 500ml glass jar contains buttermilk from 3 x 600ml cream cartons drained after churned. It is stored in fridge for a while till I get around to cook something with it.

See what we ended up with after draining buttermilk:

Full of yellow lumpy thingy inside the bowl, eh? That's butter, uncultured and unsalted but also uncleansed!!

Let us cleanse the unholy thingy so it would be divine for us to spread it to the world, er um, I mean, on the bread!

So how do we do it? Wash it... Duh!

Put approx a cup or two chilled and filtered water, (I just use rainwater off the tap, a wicked gal that I am!) and let the RobotChef wash it for us 3 or 4 times (yep, repeat the hard and draining step - draining water and refill with 'fresh' water again and again, like three or four times!):

Hallelujah! The water looks more 'clean', however it needs a bit of working. Sighs, here we go, more working to do! A mother's job is never finished... er um, sorry - back on butter...

Lets squeeze every water drop out of butter.

Unfortunately this almost useful RobotChef cannot do the step, so it calls for me to do it. The sacrifices I do around here....sighs...

Using my trusty green spatula, I kept pressing on the butter so water can drain off to the end of bowl as seen above - drain it off and do again until you felt you've beaten up the butter enough.

From here, there are two options:

Leave it as uncultured (how could we do that to this poor butter?) and unsalted - which would be suitable for cooking. However it would best to store in freezer until needed, as it would only last less 2 weeks in fridge. Out of three batches I've done here, I kept one such in freezer because I do run out of butter so fast around here.
Or we could have it cultured to our taste - and not so salty that it's not too pungent for us. This is where EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil) and salt comes in. There is no certain amount of each in butter as it is all up to individual's taste. How nice buttery thing to do, eh?

What I have done, was to pour at least a tablespoon or two of EVOO and a teaspoon or two of salt in the butter and let RobotChef (finally!) mix it for 30 secs.

And that's it - we've got a divinely spreadable butter on our hands! And all for 5 minutes at most, including up to 3 mins with RobotChef - not bad!

Now, I am not done here - I gotta do the extra step!

Yes, I need to put it in this cute butter container! It is porcelain so I felt it is ok to keep it in pantry rather than in fridge - butter will just disappear within 1 week without us noticing it until it's time for me to make kids' school lunches one morning!!

Let us have a close-up of this divinely spreadable butter... ooh!

Yum!

So haven't I convinced you that I really do make my own butter without preservatives, additives and those whatever stuff other butters at shops have? Why don't ya try it one day?

Sorry my RobotChef is not available for hiring out! Definitely not... so there!

Off to make my own lunch with the most delicious butter... have I got you drooling yet?

*insert evil laugh* heheheh

But I have to be nice here - so here's the link to making your own butter with food processor:
http://www.allotment.org.uk/allotment_foods/Making_Butter_at_Home.php

Let us know how you go with yours...

Cheers till later!

Sad News...

2010-03-24T22:15:00.000-07:00

Within 3 days, we've lost 2 members. The most important member is Bilby, our Swedish Vallhund pup aged 10mths old to a road accident. He escaped one night through the unlocked gate and next doors heard him along with other dogs playing around their yards though the night and then someone informed us that a dog found dead on road near the bridge the following morning. I didn't notice him being missing because they were in the backyard when I went to bed, and the following morning I saw Tassie near door and didn't think much of it. Bilby never really stray far away from Tassie so I know wherever Tassie is, Bilby would be there - but this time I was wrong. Another neighbour brought him around for us to bury. We buried Bilby in the banana circle. Of course we all are very sad to lose such a sweet nature dog like Bilby, but Tassie is probably the most upset. She lost her great playmate as she is just slumping around for few days not sure what to do. At the moment, the search is on for another pup to replace Bilby for both Tassie and our kids sake. And yes it will be another Swedish Vallhund - I cant seem to be tempted to pick another breed.

We've lost another chook - this time its Shay, the PekinXSilkie. Not sure why or what happened but it seems she was attacked by some animal, possibly either a wild cat or a rat? So the chook count is now down to 12, and we will be getting rid of other two cockerels. I am considering selling off the young Croad Langshan pair because they won't mix with the main flock.

Last nite when I checked on the chooks after the killing of Shay, I noticed one of the CL chooks brooding again, so her name's now "Broodie"! I think its the same one that hatched the CL pair mentioned above. So I might have to source for eggs from afar as there's not enough coming in from ours at the moment - moulting time here.

The gardens going really well. Green climbing beans going very well, as I've harvest heaps the last few weeks and there will be more for the next 2 weeks. These beans tasted good - I am referring them as 'berns' cos they are beans but tastes very like corn!! Weird but yummy. The cucmbers are coming out very well, both green and golden globes. The rest of vegies have wounded down and dying off now, so time for replanting for autumn and winter. I need to clear the old vegie beds so I can plant more. Time is the most valuable commodity that I am pretty short at the moment, apart from water!

I've considered ordering more fruit and nut trees for this winter planting but decided to hold off till next year because the gardens have not been worked on and needs to be prepared, etc. However not enough time to do so...

I do admit sometimes it does get quite depressing when I realised I am actually behind the schedule however I know that it will be done no matter when. In a way, this property is teaching me the true art of patience. Funny, eh?

I've gone "CWA" according to my DH! I've started on sewing, cooking, preserving, mending and make-do with many things around here. I even brought home some second-hand stuff too. I think it's more a balancing act to ensure what is needed and what can be salvaged rather than discard and buy more 'new' but environmentally destructive items. This reminds me of a great clip that I recommend everyone to see it, I even suggested to my kids to have their teachers showing it in classrooms - they just give me a look! hehe...

"The Story of Stuff" - Just click on the clip called "The Story of Stuff".

In case you haven't worked out yet what CWA stands for - "Country Women's Association of Australia"...

I've set up other two blogs on top of this blog:

Sewing - Sew Clucky

Cooking - Food Box Recipes - this one I will work on more as I've obtained an interesting kitchen helper called "Thermomix".

Anyhow, when it really cools down around here - Summer still haven't let go of the reins over the seasons at the moment, although Autumn is doing her best to push Summer off, especially in the mornings! - I will start doing more jobs around the property and post it here, along with the news on Teralba's critters.

Cheers till later!

From the book

2010-02-02T16:45:00.000-08:00

"The Gardener's Wise Words and Country Ways" by Ruth Binney (UK: 2007).

Page 137:

"Helpful Signs

Look out for all these good soil indicators growing in your garden:

High Nitrogen - stinging nettles (Urtica dioica), black nightshade (Solanum nigrum)

Lime rich - bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis)

Lime deficient - chamomile (Chamaemelum nobile)

Loam - tansy (Tanacetum vulgare), dandelions (Taraxacum pp)

Clay - coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara)"

I was wondering if it applies to us here too? If so, then I must have a number of soils going here!! heh... but definitely not lime deficient! I am not sure re coltsfoot - need to look up anyway.

And from pages 196 - 197:

It recommends planting garlic on the shortest day and harvesting it on the longest - meaning garlic should survive the winter and produce its crop in summer. Plant them anytime from mid-autumn before the ground's cold and hard with frost

Thought Id share anyway...

That's it for today, peeps.

Cheers till later!

Photos for ya!

2010-01-26T03:22:00.000-08:00

Yup, I do remember!

Hope those won't disappoint you. Lately we've had light showers which have helped a lot with greening up all plants, however it made grass even more determined to colonies this property!

Harvested 2 large zucchinis, handful of cherry tomatoes, 2 green tomatoes, 1 climbing bean, some baby cos leaves - not bad especially for a long time. Will take photo of them tomorrow.

Here it is - the latest photos (approx. 1 to 2 months ago! sorry).

In the chook run, green figs (white figs or whatever) grew in abundance but we haven't eaten some yet as birds always got them before us, even with netting. Looks like we'd need a lesson in netting, eh? lol...

I mentioned last year we've got 5 chicks and 2 broody chooks with some eggs and chicks. This is how we set up - fenced off some area from the main chook run and put down 2 hutches. The triangle hutch is for 5 large chicks where they'd roam around outside the hutch during the day and bunk up inside the hutch at night. The squat rectangle chickbox on right was for the broody chooks with their babies. It has no way outside the box into the yard - we cannot afford to let baby chicks being attacked by large chicks, etc. So gotta keep them secured but provides area for scratching, etc. The arrangement worked.

You can see two broody chooks sitting closely with a baby chick on top. Between them, they sat on 24 eggs and, unfortunately, only 2 hatched! One each, I s'pose. I booted one of the chooks into the main run after 4 weeks, figured the main chook can mind both chicks. It worked and I also booted out the main chook when chicks were about 8 weeks old. Both chicks seems to be Croad Langshans, and as of today, I am certain that I have a cockerel and a pullet here - so might give the cockerel away and keep the pullet if I can replace the cockerel with another pullet. We'll see in a couple of weeks time anyway.

So with this arrangement of chicks, I booted out the 4 large chicks into the main chook run, along with the large chooks - they took a while to get over the shock that they cannot get the feed first! I moved the tiny one named Shay into with the baby chicks as all were at the same size then. Now the baby chicks and Shay are in the hutch with the chickbox resting on the side of the enclosed chick run. The chickbox may be required very soon as we've got another broody chook sitting on 3 eggs already! In middle of summer, she managed to survived the 41.3 degrees other day sitting on eggs, how insane is that!?

Chooks aside, here's the rest of the gardens.

Gorgeous pink flowers, I think some kind of roses - they're bush and smaller than ordinary roses. But has lots of flowers on each bush...

Around the dam, I've got this patch of water iris growing. I love their bright green stems and leaves with lovely purple flowers - however it only flowered for a short time, approx 1 month!

I've planted the dormant enchinea flowers and only a few actually grew. I love how their flowers looked here. Looks quite laid-back, eh?

On the Pear strip, at the end, I've got three plants growing together quite closely and somehow they thrives on this. There's apple cider tree, elderberry plant and dahlias, along with the bloody grass! Gotta work on the strip and the area in winter when grass is in dormancy...

Elderberry - however it doesn't form into berry after flowering, so looks like I didn't get the actual elderberry or too young?? Gotta look up on this. The flowers are so gorgeous - mass of tiny white flowers against dark greens.

Thought I'd snap this one up - bees working hard on a thistle!

Unfortunately, while the banana circle is powering away now, the grass is doing its hard dominating this circle! Another thing to work on in the next few months huh? No bananas yet! And its over a year...

Another Red Hot Poker flower for you to enjoy!

And I've got this lovely bottlebrush flowers at front gate area. Nice and bright red, eh?

Will need to take more photos and make more detailed reports on conditions of all plants I've done so it can be recorded for future reference.

Any requests?

Cheers till later!

Ugh!!!

2010-01-22T18:39:00.000-08:00

Ugh! It's second day of over 35 degrees and I am definitely wilting away!

If there's no electricity power to run the air cond, I'd move all the way to south for 6 months then move up here for another 6 months so I'll be kept 'cool' all year around. Fab idea, eh? But then again, no electricity = limited transportation available, so means I'll be pretty much stuck where I am. Oh well... I am really enjoying the air cond for now, heh. ;)

Anyway, reporting in from the Teralba's gardens - there's not much happening! Just managed to harvest 3 x 15cm-long juicy lebanese cucumbers, a handful of cherry tomatoes, and a nice sized tomato (still riping away on kitchen window's till)! There's a few zucchini fingers waiting to be harvested - will do so tomorrow morning, I hope. There are a few salad vegies still growing, the eggplant just stopped and lost its only finger for some reason but it's just now barely there atm, and the corn's buggered, but the climbing beans' doing very well now.

I felt that everything have postponed with their growth and fruiting to a few months later than should be according to the 'experts'. I would say its a combination of unseasonal heats and winds, along with yo-yo temperatures we've had around here for 3 months now. A few plants just curled up and died in their own puny spots, while others just halted and took their damn time growing along.

I think I might be losing a few hazelnuts and a chestnut trees, but amazing the pome, stone and other fruit trees still powered along so far. Of course, the grass have literally took over the whole property, except for the house, chook palace, cubby house and shed, thank goodness! The dam have been cleared of its carpet weed for a few months now, thanks to those winds! However the downside to this is the lowering level of water in dam becomes progressively rapid... Sometimes you cant just win it all, eh?

I am just waiting the summer out. Then I will do a lot of gardening while my kids goes to school, yep, my lil man's starting school this year as a Kindy. Sad for me as I get to lose a great gardening companion then, but it also means I get to do a lot more then without him stealing my time...

It is just amazing how grass around here still looks so green and lushy - its growth is quite specatular! We have started to notice that to keep grass under control, we'd need to mow more than once a week... I've never fed or coddling the lawns around here and they actually thrives on that. Sighs... However I think both chooks and dogs love the cool and lushy grass to sit in and eat as well. So there's something good out of the useless stuff. I am getting very tempted lately to buy a small cow and a couple of sheep to keep grass low - might look into this at end of year if my DH finally crumbled under the grassy pressure from the property maintenance guy - me! ;)

Am trying to find photos, but will have to sign off now without them today. Sorry dear readers.

Cheers till later!

First post for this year...

2010-01-12T03:16:00.000-08:00

12 days late, I know!

Got lots happening...

All's well here though. Will post with more photos next week, so stay tuned!

Cheers till later!

Harvesting first spring produce

2009-11-26T03:08:00.000-08:00

This evening I decided to have a quick look to see if there is anything else I'd need to harvest or clean up in gardens.

Got to harvest two nectarines from the old nectarine tree in the chook run. Two of them weight a whooping 170g. There are heaps on the tree but also heaps of bird damaged and rotting ones too - I'd need to make a time to go and work on that tree.

Decided to check the vegie bed to see if I did grew any potatoes - YEP! However they're all small - baby sized. I am attributing this to the heavy soil and not enough mulch. I still need to unearth many potato spots - so will be interesting to see which thrives out here, etc. This batch weight at 685g. Gonna harvest some more later for xmas potato salad in few weeks time - Yummy!

Ari, our friut boy, nabbed the first white flesh peach from our fruit grove. It is so delicious - smell superb and very juicy! There are few more on the tree (one of many I planted last July) so we all will get to eat one each, I hope. He loved it and wanted to plant the seed for more fruits!

A dog fence is being built at the moment, so will take photos this week to show how much have changed at the moment. The entire Jasmine climbers have been cut down to make way for grapevines.

Cheers till later!

Hot... hot... hot.... Need rain!

2009-11-19T01:57:00.000-08:00

I know I should not complain...

However it's too hot!

The land's already starting to dry up, dam's level lowering slowly only after some rains last week!

Glad I've mulched the most of gardens, just need to finish it off and save all the plants before the worst of Summer hits.

It will be interesting summer for us. More plants and animals to look after during summer...

It seems that I might get 2 (two) apricots soon, along with several peaches and numerous nectarines.

I need to get rid of those pesky Stinky bugs off the citrus trees soon so I can fix the irrigation system and add more feed and mulch on them for the summer.

I've been getting up at 6am most mornings to do gardening works before kids get up and back in house to organise kids by 8am. I love this time of morning because it's all quiet and many are just waking up - air's cool and bit damp from dew.

Not much to show really because it's all just planting, mulching and watching...

Cheers till later!

Spring's here...

2009-11-08T17:17:00.000-08:00

And it has done so much for us here!

Summer's definitely around the corner and I am not ready for it...

I took lots of photos this morning for your viewing.

On the news of chooks, we only got 2 lil chicks, hatched from 25 eggs under 2 broodies - looks like their diet may not be so good that the hatchability is low. Something to look at over the next month I think. Photo coming when they've stopped being shy!

Now to the gardens:

Found this gorgeous lil green frog hiding on a leaf of Trevatt Apricot tree.

I've been eyeing on this lovely Gulfbeauty Plum tree for last few weeks, watching the plums formed and grow into red plums. This morning they're ready to be picked! Will give the verdict on the taste later.

Turned into red from green and feels abit soft. It comes off so easily when I pulled. Glad the birds haven't got to them before me! Only 3 plums - which is abit too much for this newly planted fruit tree but I wanna see how it goes with growing out here. A success then - more plum trees coming next year, me thinks! heh...

Three plums waiting to be tasted by family tonite. I know my girl will want to try, so does my lil fruitboy so it may be a hard decision on who else gonna taste it, apart from me, of course!

Anyway, here's the portable greenhouse with a number of pots awaiting for the seeds to sprout. So far the flower seeds sprouted first (in the foreground). The rest are: Cape Gooseberry, Rockmelon, watermelon and one more I cannot remember!

This self-seeded parsley plant flowered and got heaps of ladybirds on it. Yesterday I counted 12! This morning I could only find 8... We have heaps of ladybirds everywhere here lately - which is quite good.

I bought 4 grapes in pots from a local nursery because I want to test which will grow well here. So far one grapevine got fruits growing in the pot! They will go in the trellis area when we've removed the Jasmine plants from it. That spot will be a lovely and cool once the trellis is covered with all the fruiting climbers - cannot wait as I've got a hammock ready to be hooked up there! heh... (of course I will always make time to sway in the hammock relaxing and dreaming what to do next once I've kicked the kids off it!).

I've decided to try an experiment called group planting with a rough lemon tree and it seems it is so successful! I've never seen this tree looked so healthy and full of fruits. The plant in orange circle is a large parsley plant and the grapevine in yellow circle. There is also several flowers and vegies growing next to them, so probably with extra waterings helped alot too.

Strolled down the front garden, I noted there's so many small brown mushrooms sprouted everywhere (due to rains of course), all interesting. No idea what they are.

In the fruit grove, I planted a couple of watermelon seedlings, and only one survived. It would provide a lovely ground cover for some of the area.

Here's another plum growing on another plum tree. Only one plum though, this is called Gulfruby. So looks like we'll wait a few more weeks before we'd get to taste this one.

I noticed there's two clusters of flowers growing on the cider apple tree "Yarlington Mill" but only 3 did fruited. I will need to check when is the harvesting time for this apple. They're only a bit bigger than a golf ball.

Comfrey flowers so gorgeous! They're also growing like mad out here too. Will subdivide to grow more next winter I think. They're great for stopping grass from coming close and provide high potassium, much more than the chook poo!

I saw this beautiful pink rose and could not resist taking a photo of it!

Back in the trellis area at the back, I've got two zucchini seedlings growing well. Both are flowering - love how it opens at morning and close in the evening!

I am happy that I've got a female AND a male kiwifruits growing! I've also got two small ones planted recently growing slowly, but the two established ones, I was not sure. Those flowers tell me which is which. Another thing I've learnt about kiwifruits is that we should not have cut off the branches that are a year old as fruits grows from the second year branches!! So this crop will yield less than I expect but next one will be much more - I hope so!

This is the male kiwifruit flower...

And this is the female kiwifruit flower. Gorgeous, aren't they?

That's all, folks!

I will do more next week when I get a chance. Enjoy the weather, everyone!

Cheers till later!

More chicks!!

2009-10-26T03:34:00.000-07:00

Yep, now you can laugh at me!

We've got two broody chooks sitting for a few weeks (by my estimation, 4 weeks but looks like not so?) and today we saw first natural hatched chick!

The broodies have over 20 eggs between them and what so strange about it is that they're sharing the same nesting box! Thats right, they're sleeping, sitting and breathing into each other for 3+ weeks - I'd be raving mad after a week!

So now I am in a difficult situation where I have to make some tough calls regarding how to manage this. They're in the chook house with the rest of flock, so I have to decide to leave them as they are or separate them. If separating them, then I'd have to find a spot and some shetler for them... I've always thought it is fine to leave as they are, but apparently from some quick research it is not recommended! Some stated that other chooks will try and kill the chicks, and even worse - the rooster might lose his feather and boot out his descendants into nothing!

So I will have to sleep on this and survey the situation tomorrow when the weather dries up and make decisions and take photos whereas possible.

Anyhow, during my quick online research I've found several great sites about the broodiness and take care of chicks, etc.

"Working with Broody Hens" - http://www.themodernhomestead.us/article/Broody-Hens-1.html
"Setting Hens" - http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/4175/hens.html
"Raising Chickens" - http://www.fishpondinfo.com/birds/chickbreed2.htm
"Raising Chicks with a Mother Hen" - http://www.ithaca.edu/staff/jhenderson/chooks/chicks.html
"Brooding" - http://www.chicken-yard.net/keeping/brooding.html
"Brooding Chicks: Two Options" - http://www.themodernhomestead.us/article/Brooding+Chicks.html

Will post here again in few days time. So come back for some more laughs! ;)

And yes we're getting more soaked today - it's so nice to see puddles everywhere and everything much more green and 'lushy' now.

Cheers till later!

It RAINED today!

2009-10-25T03:42:00.000-07:00

Yah!

It has been a while since we got a nice soaking.

This morning I was working in the Fruit Grove and I was amazed to see hundreds of bees, hundreds of ladybirds and, unfortunately too many cabbage white butterflies everywhere, along with hoverflies, several unidentified insects there! It is awesome to stand in middle, with all the insects buzzing around you, non stop and think they're so happy...

I am seriously contemplating asking a bee keeper to put in a hive - imagine someone's getting free honey elsewhere from my hard working green manure! heh. I am still working on getting fruit trees staked where needed, mulched and such. I think there's about 2/3 of the whole area to go! Sighs...

Find the fruit trees inside this yellow flowered area! They're there...

See how tall are those green manure plants compared to my lil boy! I am not sure what plant those yellow flowered ones are - however I am gonna plant them again next year! They grow so well and fast, kept the soil so well and cool down there, etc and most above all, the insects love them!

Even this cursed Cabbage White butterfly!

Here are the evidence the Fruit Grove's thriving...

Plum: Only 5 fruits can be seen from 2 trees! It is only first year, so we'll see how next year bring...

Apple Cider "Yarlington Mill": There's 4 and perhaps other 4 growing on this tree alone. Not bad...

Nectarine: It's fruiting so well out here, I think there's 3 trees and there are numerous fruits on them, and there's the old nectarine tree at the back with hundreds on it. (Got the bird netting over it today so fingers crossed we'd get some this summer!)

Peach: I've got heaps of peaches growing as well. All are about golf ball sized at the moment, but will needed to be netted asap anyway. Interestingly enough, all are in different colours, such as rosy blush, peachy blush, greenish blush, etc. The trees are at about a metre tall.

At the Pear Strip, this Elderberry is flowering slowly. Am looking forward to see what it looks like when its fully flowered with its fruits.

Now to other important stuff...

Here's the Chickbox that my DH with our older son made for me when I was away for the weekend to accomodate the chicks.

Inside the Chickbox, there's 5 chicks, including those two black chicks. Pippa and Rosie loves to get their cuddles with me!

Remember Shay the questionable Silkie. Her feathers are still so yellowish grey so it is most likely that she is a cross bred. A bit shy though - shame.

And one of the Light Sussex twins, a suspected cockerel...

And his twin sister.

When I was in Ballarat during the October Long Weekend, I went to visit an ALS friend who is also a great chook expert. I got her to teach me how to tell which is boy or girl with the chicks and we had fun! Thanks Roogz! So this is why I am abit more confident that I've got 4 female chicks and a male chick. In few more weeks, I will know if I am right anyway.

Right next to the Chickbox, I've got heaps of potatoes growing like crazy! Most are in the vegie beds like this...

But I also got lots in the bags as part of experiement. They actually thrives in bags too, so I will have plenty of areas to plant potatoes for the years to come. As we are not to plant the potatoes in the same area for a couple of years once grown there.

Well, there's more, but I cannot disappoint some without those lovely flower shots...

That's it, folks. More to come soon. Thanks for the comments.

Cheers till later!

Time to re-stock...

2009-10-17T04:21:00.001-07:00

Hey, thanks to those who wrote back saying they've read the past postings - it make a difference to me cos it means someone really read it! ;) So I'd really appreciate it when you write back.

On re-stocking, I've had a quick stroll on the property and realised I am really way behind on the works! Sighs... I have thousands of excuses and none will be suffice anyway! So thought I'd write up a list of things I really need to get done here:

Cut down the Jasmine climbers and correct the soil to be grapevine friendly as I have 4 gorgeous table grapevines to plant out! I have other 3 grapevines growing quite well, and would like to add several more grapevines, but not sure what type yet. Grapevines I have so far: Isabella, Pink Iona, Golden Muscat in ground, with White Muscat, Black Muscat, Sultana and one more I cannot remember at the moment are still in the pots.
Stake up the young trees that are wobbly after those strong nasty winds we've got lately. I think I've lost 3 trees already out of 200 - not so bad I guess, but still it's sad...
Put in water irrigation system in the citrus strip as I've only got half done a few weeks ago, just before the rains.
Mulch everything! Vegie beds, Citrus, Pear and driveway strips, Fruit grove, banana circle, rose bed, trellis area...
Put in the edgers at the west of the house for the agapathus and a tree - before the ground hardens again. I jarred my arms when I tried to dig up edge - so hard, even with mattock!
Paint the cubby house and playground.
Paint the Vegie Wash Stand and Shoe drawers stand... as well as the rest of the west side pergola.
Put up the colorbond sheets for the westside pergola, as well as getting the sailcloth blinds installed.
Dig up rims around the trees on the driveway strip - so water can fall in and soak into the ground, rather than run off to the next door's grass area.
Get the windmill replaced ASAP! It wobbles badly after every wind - kids are not allowed inside the dam area at all now as kids love to check out the frog pond, but with the rusty windmill next to it, it is just too dangerous.
Remove the agapathus and edgers from the back lawn and clear the area, in preparation for the Vegie beds to be built there (we are, once again, revising this! So stay tuned!) next year.
Throw over the bird nettings on the Fig trees area in the chook run, some peach and plum trees in the fruit grove and perhaps in the trellis area if there are more food, esp. the grapes, growing in the next few months.
Finish filling in the trellis area and expand the fenced area.
Get the dog fence built in! Bilby was hospitalised for a week from a severe ticks attack.
Weeding out the eastside strip - its choked with weeds which I can understand why - it is just pebbles there.
Finish off planting out all the potted plants.
Try and grow plants from seeds within a month time. Get a greenhouse built in before summer. We'll see anyway...

All those things above I must do before summer. Wish I could clone myself sometimes!

On an interesting note, my baby's starting school next year, so that means I get more time... which I don't know if it is a good or bad thing! hehe...

Anyhow, time for me to sign off and fix up some photos then.

Cheers till later!

Cold October, what a lovely way to start Spring?!

2009-10-10T03:58:00.000-07:00

We're now 1/3 way in October and its quite cold - I wore my jacket all day today. Brr!

And my poor clueless chicks have been standing in the rains for last few days! I've added 2 more chicks to my flock - 2 Light Sussex. All playing together nicely whenever I looked in. However they have no idea that they're not supposed to stand in rain but to seek shelter and to go in the enclosed area at evenings. So I do recommend getting a broody chook to do all that work for ya!

Tomorrow, if it clears up a bit, I will take a photo of all the chicks, and the chooks as well as the new Chook Box my hubby built for me last weekend. I also hope to take photos of the property as all have huge growth, thanks to the 'cold spring rains' we've had lately.

I've planted in many more vegie and flower seedlings today, weeded and cut down green manure in the fruit grove. Oh, on an exciting note, I've bought 5 grapevines today - 3 'white' and 2 'red' table grapes - so I need to find places for them to grow.

I still need to put mulch in around hundreds of trees! Anyone wanna help?

Bilby's fitting in so well that the ticks have had him hospitalised for a week! Grrr... He's ok now, but we're getting more fences done around here so the dogs will be more restricted with their wanderings.

Am going to make most of the cool October to do lots of work around the gardens as I've been laid off for a month due to the knee injuries from playing Netball.

Photos coming in very very soon! Remind me if I haven't done any for a week! heh.

Cheers till later!

Chicks!

2009-09-22T22:33:00.001-07:00

Our second-hand incubator - big enough to fit 70 eggs!

Hatched on 7th Sept!

Unfortunately, only one hatched out of 12 originally, then culled the number, when I candled them, to 5. Other 4 has dark masses in them however something stopped them from developing any further as the yolks were runny. Who knows...

A day old inside the cage with lamp keeping it warm

Two days old on the lounge, posing for me. It recognised me as its mother and would hop on my hand when I call 'pippippa'...

Ah as chooks need company to feel good, so I had to do a mad dash around and obtained two extra chicks - Here they are on the floor for their 'outside cage exercise' while I clean their cage. The fence's not chick-proof as the two little ones kept escaping! lol...

This is Pippa, our hatched chick, with the large chick 'Rosie' (an Australorp chick) on left. Rosie have adopted the mothering role for me however it's only 5 to 6 wks old.

And 'Shay' the silkie. It's the smallest of all and will always be due to its breed. I am not sure what type of silkie as I was told it could be a cross bred. We'll see when they've feathered out fully anyway.

Inside their cage in the lounge - it is getting smelly lately so soon they'll have to go outside. I will have them moved outside within 2 weeks and hopefully the other chooks will take them in kindly.

I am hoping like mad they're all pullets! If they're cockerels, then they're in trouble. heh...

Things I've learnt with raising chicks are:

They eat way so much!
They make too much mess.
They don't drink much water as I've led to believe. However the water get dirty regularly.
They only need chick crumble from day old till they go outside.
Treats including shredded lettuces and peeled apples (though chicks didn't really take apple as much as they did with lettuce).
Cage needs to be cleared every day.
I used newspapers however it is recommended that wired floor or wood shavings are better. Today I've thrown out newspaper and put in a mixture of wood shaving and straw. They absorb better than newspapers. Chicks shreds papers too easily when they scratch!
Chicks like to be on the shoulders - view or closer to voice?
Its harder to raise chicks on your own - get a broody hen to do it for ya!
They make lots of noises.
I constantly worried about the ceramic lamp - overheating or whatever.
Chicks can jump and fly from 2 weeks old.
Pippa likes to roost! So time to put in a dowel in for them to roost during day as it will be above the lamp. Gotta train them now anyway before they join the flock.
Next time I'll just let a broody chook to do all the work for me!
Wonderful experience for kids as well as for me.

Cheers till later!

Chicks and dust storm

2009-09-22T21:19:00.000-07:00

Hey, what an interesting day it has been today...

Dust storm hit us here big time as it did all over Sydney, Nth NSW and Sth Queensland... Woke up at 6am by DH saying we got dust storm - and to see window. Gosh! So eerie - orange-yellow coloured sunrise with winds bending plants all over the places.

Took photos for your pleasure:

Facing Southwest:

Facing North:

Just throw in smoke, I'd swear we're in midst of a huge bushfire!

Anyway... up in next post about chicks!

Cheers till next post!

All budding...

2009-08-30T05:27:00.000-07:00

Hey its last day of August - the most finicky month of the year! And must be the most driest month as well. According to BOM, we only got 4.2mm of rain for the whole month! And July held the second dry month with 47mm. It seems that the most driest month of the year in Gosford area was whooping 0.8 in August 1995! So this got me quite worried.

However, it's not all bad here - so many plants are budding, flowering and got leaves out, etc. So exciting for me to see the hard work is being paid for. I've taken so many pictures and will upload them here the next few days. So be patient! heh.

10 eggs are in the incubator for 2 weeks now - so need to candling them to see if I am successful! Expect a report by end of week!

At the moment we are just doing the maintenance around the property, making plans of what we need to do, getting some paintings done, etc.

More interesting details with photos coming soon.

Cheers till later!

Photos of fruit groves

2009-08-12T04:26:00.000-07:00

Here are the latest photos!

The playground is being built in the kids zone. Kids cannot wait!

Facing north on the driveway, you can see some changes here!

Here's the pine nut tree - one of two! I won't get to sample any pine nuts for at least 6 years!

Overlooking the covered dam, toward the groves.

Tidied Banana Circle, including a Paw paw, few clumping bamboos... Still no bananas in sight - it has been a year now!

Done up the Pear Strip - although it is not all pears here, as Mangoes, Avocados, cherries and few others are planted here along with pear trees. Still need to find a great climber for this arch!

The Fruit Grove (it is really two groves now) - with over 50 trees in it!

For the driveway, its Nuts Alley - almost all trees planted along the driveway are nut trees, including this hazelnut 'Lambert' (one of 7) and

A chestnut (one of 7).

Still working on this trellis area, half is fenced to stop dogs from pulling up seedlings and plants! Here where grapes, kiwifruits and seedlings are planted on the south side. Inside the chook run, are just citrus trees.

Now our puppy Bilby is doing very well. Fitting in well and besotted with Tassie and me I guess. Here they are having one of their numerous 'mock fighting' sessions.

A quiet Bilby - he's actually quite very tired little pup! Gorgeous pic...

So there you go. Any questions just zap me!

Cheers till later!

Grow, fruit and nut trees, grow!

2009-08-10T17:27:00.000-07:00

Teralba’s Fruit and Nut Tree Plans

Going with the present evidence of kiwifruit, fig, nectarine and citrus trees currently growing on the property, I’ve taken on a gamble and took out a large list of fruit and nut trees to plant.

According to this chart of chill hour factor (http://www.daleysfruit.com.au/fruit%20pages/chillfactor.htm):

Avocado - None

Citrus – None

Pomegranate – 100-300

Fig – 100-500

Grapes – 100-500

Quince – 100-500

Persimmon – 100-700

Peach – 150-1200

Nectarine – 150-1200

Pear – 150-1500

Pecan - 150-1600

Plum – 275-100

Apricot – 300-1000

Apple – 300-1200

Almond – 400-700

Olive – 400-700

Chestnut – 400-750

Kiwi – 400-800

Walnut – 400-1500

In my area, it is officially a Warm Temperature with a mean annual rainfall of 1300mm. Frost starts from March and ends around Sept, with the mean annual temperatures going high at 23°C (although a record of 43°C were recorded a number of times) and the lowest at 11°C (and the recorded lowest at -4.2°C). The property is situated at the near bottom of a valley sheltered from East, while bearing the brunt of elements from South and West.

So with the list of trees listed here – it will be a trial and error process for us to see which actually thrives out here on the property and which doesn’t. We have gone to mix the list of trees that covers cool, warm temperatures and subtropical regions to test with.

Fruit Tree List:

· Apples (20 varieties) x 22

· Apricots (5 varieties) x 5

· Avocado (4 varieties) x 4

· Bananas x 6

· Cherry (3 varieties) x 3

· Cherimoya – Custard Apple x 1

· Citrus (Lemon x 4 varieties, Mandarin x 4 varieties, Orange x 6 varieties, lime) x 17

· Fig (2 varieties) x 3

· Grapes x 3

· Kiwifruit x 4

· Mango (3 varieties) x 3

· Mulberries (2 varieties) x 2

· Nectarine x 4

· Passionfruit (3 varieties) x 6

· Paw Paw x 1

· Pear (13 varieties) x 17

· Peach (4 varieties) x 4

· Plum (15 varieties) x15

· Quince x 1

Total Fruit trees = 119

Nut Trees List:

· Almond x 3

· Chestnut x 7

· Hazelnut x 7

· Macadamia x 3

· Pine nut x 2

· Walnut x 1

Total Nut trees = 23

Others List:

· Lillypillies x 18

· Bamboo x 4

· Elderberry x 4

· Ice Cream Bean x 8

· Guava x 1

· Strawberry x 40

I have planted a variety of windbreak and shade trees for those fruit and nut trees, along with existing Golden Robinia trees:

· Silver Birch x 4

· Forest She-oak x 4

· River She-oak x 6

· Swamp paperbark x 4

The structure of fruit and nut trees planted is a form of food forest – we do not have the time to let the legume trees to grow before the fruit and nut trees. So in our situation, everything get to grow at the same time!

Photos coming soon...

Cheers till later!

Another New Addition to the Teralba Family!

2009-07-02T05:39:00.001-07:00

Yep, we've finally sourced and obtained an adorable Swedish Vallhund puppy!

Meet Bilby! He's only 8 weeks old this week:

Tassie was so excited and happy to have another dog on the property - I wonder how long before she'd regret this! Bilby loves to torture Tassie by biting her tail! hehe...

Of course, kids were sooooo excited about Bilby that they want to join him in his cage (it's too cold to leave him outside at the moment!)

Jackie was not feeling well then and insisted on sleeping with Bilby, so here it is! Cute to watch them curl up with each other...

Bilby's almost like Tassie, but much more relaxed and more attentive. He already knows two commands! "Come" and "Sit"... impressive! His mother had very similar colourings as Tassie, so we'd think Bilby will be about the same as Tassie, except bit bigger and lighter being male. We'll see in a couple of years time anyway.

Ari's so into Bilby, picking him up, tackling and 'catch' Bilby whenever he could! How long before Bilby would slink away when Ari appears or they'd be best buddies?

On the gardening note, today I've planted 75 seedlings (all legume trees, shrubs and flowering plants), as well as 7 vines... Phew! Still waiting for 100 fruit trees to arrive.

Cheers till later!

Teralba's Critters Update!

2009-06-18T04:40:00.001-07:00

Thought an up-date on the critters is due.

So enjoy the online tour heh.

'My Boy' - he proven to be quite a good rooster to his girls and almost ready to take on Tassie whenever she comes too close to the fence.

He is now approx one year old. No 'descendants' yet. I had a worrying time when I noted his tail feathers fell out and thought it may be because he was sitting on floor during nights and that maybe rats have irritated him or something. It took me a while to work it out - he was just moulting! So now he's all in his own glory... ain't he beautiful?

The Alpha Pair!

This is Bertha - the best layer of the original trio. Still powering on at the moment...

Norma, one of the original trio - she's more timid and still moulting at the moment. You can actually tell the difference on conditions of those two white girls - colour of comb, size of tail feather and volume of feathers overall...

Now this is Reddy - one of my favourites as she's the most confident, noisiest, and greedy little pig! She is never satisfied with the food I left for the rest, keep following me afterwards and hoping for some 'hidden treats' I could be carrying all just for her!

Quails - one have left the coop and their owner's sad. So there's only one male with 2 females. And no eggs for such a long time now - guess its past their 'due-dates'?

Now, part of the gardens, next to the compost bay. We have this gorgeous pink Salvia growing there and its like the epi-centre for all winged critters!

Bees...

And native bees - they're so tiny... this one is like black specks on edge of lower petals of flower. Too fast so hard to catch them motionless...

Here's my gorgeous littlies - my boy and my dog. They're also great playmates.

Thanks to someone, I am now a proud owner of a second-hand Egg Incubator!! It holds up to 70 eggs! Can you imagine me minding 70 chicks? NOPE! However it was a 'bargain' and comes with the brooder light so gotta have them as none of my chooks were broody for ages. I want chicks now...
This is called "Rat Zapper" - an awesome device that aims to reduce the rodent population on this property - very effective so far! Leaves no mess or smell! So I am giving it a top rate!

Come on, you think I'd leave a dead rodent there to show!?

Cheers till later!

We're half way with our Project now!

2009-06-15T02:49:00.000-07:00

The view of the front lawn and its groves, etc., facing east and south-east:

Out of 5 big soil piles, this is the last full pile left. The other pile at south is less than half pile and it will be used up soon anyway.

After considering the sizes of groves and such, we decided to 'bulldoze' the path between the fruit grove and rose bed - making it accessible for the mower. I am thinking of building a gate at this point, to make it an interesting point of the area as I would love to put a sitting area just at the back of the fruit grove because the little tree just above the fruit grove is the white mulberry - supposed to be quite large when grown and it would provide lovely shade? Time will tell...

What to do with your in-laws/parents who have nothing on their hands? Make them work! har har (insert another evil laugh here) Although I suspect my dad-in-law actually enjoyed the work and having a go on driving the mini-loader dingo...

A close-up of mum-in-law being supervised by the acting head gardener!

Here's the filled-up pear strip... looks quite good. The space between the strip and grove is for the mower, of course. We just need to cut off those little heads off the pegs then plant pear trees, bulbs, seeds and little plants, especially one for the arch...

This is the view toward west. I think the strip is about 3 metres wide and about 30 metres long! Plenty of room for 14 pear trees, eh?

Another west view - this time to northern, over seeing the fruit grove. I think we measured the area of the fruit grove as 220m sq. And I am only planting about 50 trees in this grove - so there should be plenty of space for adding more understorey plants and such.

We also used the oppprtunity to re-do our banana circle here, putting in the edgers and spread some manure and top up with soil to keep it warm and smothers the weeds/grass down. Amazing the bananas are doing quite well, despite severe frosts we've had here the last few days! However the growth is really slow - I am still trying to work out if we will get our bunches of banana by end of year or next year! There's 6 banana 'trees' growing at the moment and all at different growth so that means we will or should get a continuing supply of bananas when time comes...

Now, going to the back of property into the chook run, this is the top area of the citrus strip. Looks more tidied than before.

I estimated that we will be able to plant between 6 and 8 citrus trees in that strip.

This is the lower citrus strip, I am hoping to plant more here too - probably can only get away with 3 or 4 trees. All this will be fenced off to keep chooks away from digging up and eating up all the new plants.

This is the trellis strip - I have 2 kiwi fruit plants and a couple of table grapes waiting to be planted here. I still need to do bit of work in this strip, clearing weeds and bits before rolling out the cardboard and fill up with soil.

In all, I think it all looks great - more tidied and (gasp) more organised! I will put in another post when I have planted all the trees and take photos with list of fruit trees next month or two. I am still waiting for two large orders to arrive - they're expected to arrive eary to mid July. Fingers crossed they arrives so I'd have fun planting them all before it get too hot!

Cheers till then!

3rd day on the Project

2009-06-07T05:02:00.000-07:00

On 3rd day of our Project now... so here's the latest report of its progress.

The pear strip's edged in, just needed to be tidied up, screwed in, etc.

And the Fruit Grove area:

We used all the cardboard boxes we used for moving - however it seems it may be not enough so will be using newspapers when we've run out of cardboard.

Testing how the mini loader works with moving and dumping soil onto the cardboarded area. You can see soil on top above.

Here's the mini loader we hired for 2 days, starting today. We're having fun operating it!

Here's the big piles of soil we have to move to both grove and strips! The soil's awesome - ANL with manure mixed through, so it's so soft, smells great and is at neutral in soil pH.

We're going with the general concept of "$10 hole for $1 tree", so the soil's one of the good ones we can use here. Have to heap on lots for the fruit grove and let it settle for few weeks, before the rest of fruit trees arrives.

Here's the whole fruit grove we have to work on...

Me on the mini loader - great fun, but hard when the ground is so muddy!

Now you know what we do with our kids... make them WORK! (insert evil laugh here)

Great team working hard here

Our trusty lawn mower/tractor...

At the end of day 3, we are blessed with double rainbows! Wonders what it will mean for us..

Will report more either tmw night or Tues pm. Stay tuned!

Cheers till later!

The First Project has begun!

2009-06-05T06:20:00.000-07:00

Well, for a while I've been waiting for this to start... The establishment of the fruit trees grove and strips!

This is the view of the unspoiled front lawn facing south

And the view over the front lawn area where the grove is going to be.

Standing on the knoll of the area, next to the white mulberry tree looking out to west.

And this is the largest strip we will do - the Pear trees strip along the fence. We got sick of trying to keep the grass under control along the fenceline so I got this crazy idea that we could use the area for pear trees - time will tell if this will work!

Now to the back of the property. This is the main trellis area where kiwifruits grows. We want to improve this area, removing the lemon tree to another area (whether it will survive is another question we cannot answer at the moment), etc.

As citrus grows well around here, we want to expand our citrus area by using the strip along the fence , adding bed to the area - less grass to cut.

This is the lowest part of the property, on the left is the fig tree, growing so well, but too close to the septic tank (so far its staying in as it is behaving!). The citrus strip will extend to the bottom of here.

How will we achieve all that massive jobs??

By using the most-sought after Weapon of Mass Destruction, aka trencher!!!

Hired and unloading... its our first time using this tool.

T's concentrating very hard handling the Weapon...

And using the edgers to control the grass and dividing the areas. Its ACQ treated pine sleepers - reputed to be more safer than the usual ACC treated pine sleepers. They're 2.4m long and 200mm high and 50mm wide. Quite heavy actually. We will be using hardwood pegs to hold them in place.

Now you see why we're referring the trencher as weapon of mass destruction...

More stripped area...

Now the edger's fit in nicely. We will be putting all the edgers in tomorrow and Sunday. Gonna be a long hard days for us - carrying heavy pieces across lawns, drop in trenches, hammering, drilling, etc...

Now, the first batch of 140 fruit and nut trees are here!

More coming when its completed.

Cheers till later!

Photos here!

2009-05-12T04:21:00.001-07:00

Finally got myself organised enough to fix this post and add more photos. So enjoy!

The first ever Compost Bay built finally!

The Coloured Tribe - our chooks!

The Kids Zone with its new trampoline and cubby house - this area will be developed further by us soon hopefully as getting it done by a landscaper was way too expensive!

Lastly, the neighbour's cattle often grazed on the strip beyond the chook run fence. However they're easy to scare off so we dont bother try to come any closer. It just give the property a nice touch.

So that's for now. Be back with more soon.

Cheers till later!

April's Fool Day - not!

2009-04-01T03:13:00.001-07:00

Its pouring heavily outside and there's floods up mid-north coast!

However I am enjoying it at the moment... knowing the water tank is getting its fill! As March was fairly dry month this year, according to the B.O.M. site, we only got 80.6mm of rainfall then. Today we've got 28mm! More rains expected over the week...

Now to the fun news:

We've acquired 2 more chooks! We've called them the Coloured Girls, to match the line-up: White Girls, Black Girls! One chook is RIR, so naturally she's reddish brown all over, more timid than all, and may have trouble roost as she prefers to sit on ground... The other chook is Leghorn Black - much more 'pure' than our Leghorn X, as she's more bigger and looks almost like the Black Girls, except for the comb (smaller) and leg's colour (white). They've laid an egg for us yesterday, a promising start however they were so shell-shocked at the vast space in the chook run. They came from a small backyard, housed in a metal aviary house, shared with other 4 or 6 small chooks there. So they'd need time to get used to the space, structure of the place, and find their own places in the chook family. At least they knew where to roost at the night! Photos coming when weather clears up...
I am about to put in the order of the fruit trees for our orchard! At this stage, we may get 16 apple trees, 4 pear trees, 1 quince tree, 2 apricot trees, 1 nectarine tree, some hazelnut trees, and perhaps 2 to 4 plum trees (the kids just discovered plums and loved them!). I will have the trees planted arranged as part of food forest in the front area. Photos coming when they've planted to see how it all works and what was in each grove, etc. Exciting for me cos it's time to see something 'permanent' of a plant or many to grow and fruiting for us on this property. I've never thought I'd ended up here on this property and that I'd have more than 20 fruit trees going to provide for us... You can tell I am bursting here! heheh...
The boys finally got their cricket pitch built inside their shed. So they're contented...

Oh, I've set up another blog focusing on cooking... Food Box Recipes.

Cheers till later!

It's March!

2009-03-09T03:55:00.000-07:00

Wow... how fast time have gone by!?

It is official - we've been here 14 months and we barely have anything really done up - we're fakies!

Lol...

Actually we've done lots however they're "small" so doesn't rate much to mention here.

The only exciting 'news' are:

A new 13ft trampoline for kids - we all love it! :)
A Cubby House, built with 100% recycled materials. We just need to landscape the spot and build some small shelves inside along with extra window then kids will move out of house into this cute Cubby house!
We hosted a large party here (over 50 people) for friends as part of their Renewal Ceremony - great but very wet day!

Icky stuff happened here such as:

We found a rat nest with 6 babies - had to bury them alive as mum abandoned them when we dug up the Quails Run to put down the Vermin-proof wire net down as we've noticed holes and food going down too quickly. Quails Run's all done and looks great, just need to buy something wet-proof sheet for the top of cage.
Putting down old recycled Sleepers at the Chooks Palace's Egg Collection Zone - it can get quite muddy and slippery so need something there for us to walk to. The rest of pathway will be paved soon, I hope! I just need to re-do the Chooks Palace's Egg Collection Zone's Door as rains got it warped out of shape and rats/mice been getting in. I'd need time to organise this anyway.
Had the water pump at the dam repaired - it has been out of service for about 4 months. Now we just need to get the frame of the windmill replaced as most have rusted out! The dry creek at dam have been cleared of grass and such and looks good now. I would need to get it done up and plant more appropriate plants there - more native and water-loving plants, and put in more pebbles to make it more easier to walk on, and to get the frog pond cleaned up and refitted. Lots to do!
Cleaned up and refitted the Shed - looks lot better now. Glad it was all done - took us a while thou.

Now, I just need to get someone in to build those raised gardenbeds for vegies and do some landscaping for the Kids Zone (where the trampoline and Cubby House is at moment) and adding a set of swings there.

For the next three months, I hope to have 1/3 of the fruit orchard set up, 1/4 of the windbreak planted, 2/3 of the vegie beds planted in, building 2 compost bays, and adding a few more chooks!

We've lost one chook to heat and egg-bounding... And the rooster is not looking too good either - his problem is that he would not perch on the roosting rod!! Lost his tail feathers... Gotta get rid of rats/mice then try to get The Boy to be more 'brave' and try to roost on rod at nights.

The bushfires in Victoria got us re-thinking how we'd be prepared for ours here. We are very tempted with the idea of building a fire bunker - however we think it may be easier just to jump in the dam with wool blankets! Anyhow, it is something we need to put into plan especially for kids. Also for flooding issue too, just in case...

Apart from all those above, the vegies and herbs are doing quite well lately. Harvested a HUUGGEEEE watermelon - it was so delicious! Unfortunately we didn't think to weight it before cutting it up - too excited! I think it's more heavier than our 4yo son, so that means about 20kg!? Harvested roma tomatoes, finger eggplants, more green beans, beetroots, lettuces, a couple of rockmelons (delicious too!), as well some herbs - parsley and basil. Oh there's nice celery plants going too - harvested a few, but they're still quite small though, and a burpless cucumber plant's fruiting now.

The banana circle is going well - we're definitely having 6 banana plants growing with a pawpaw tree in middle. At moment, the grass' overgrowing - but it is on the list of To-Do for this week and next week. No fruits yet - probably wont get any till this Summer anyway.

I've decided not to plant anymore until the hard landscaping have been done. So that means we'll have to buy more - there's a food box going on and a dry pulse Coop happening - both should help tiding us over till I get the whole system up and going by Spring if I am lucky. There's an organic butcher that delievers meats weekly, so will use that service soon.

See what I mean, all bits and nothing newsworthy to report about! heh..

Cheers till later!

So close to end of the year...

2008-11-27T15:50:00.000-08:00

Know what this means???

It just means we've been here for nearly a year already!

Where have the time gone to?

Oh well...

Guess it is a good time to make a list of what we've already done around here for the course of 10 months living here. It would help us seeing how far we've gone...

List of stuff we've done:

Painted the inside of house (bedrooms, living rooms, bathroom, hallway and study)
Fenced around the dam
Fix Chook palace and fenced it (including installing a water tank)
Brought in chooks
Brought in a dog (Yep, Tassie turned one human year / 7 doggy years old a couple of weeks ago!)
Fix up my own study
Fix up all stuff in house
Worked out how all the plumbings worked
Hired a Permaculture Design Consultant for ideas and design of what we can do here
Planted banana circle
Planted vegie beds
Harvested and pruned fruit trees
Fix up both little and big sheds
Weeding, mulching and planting around the citrus orchard
Got involved with Central Coast LETS
Got involved with ALS
Studied an Introduction to Permaculture at Wyong TAFE
Planning all the areas for the property
Held many parties here already
Hosted many sleep-overs
Met all the neighbours (all lovely)
Kids settled in the local school
Kids joined Scouts (Jackie in Joeys and Nathan in Cubs)
Nathan joined local cricket club
Ari's in local child care and loves it
Giving away surplus of our produce (fruits and eggs so far - chooks get the greens from vegie beds)

Not bad, eh?

At the moment, those are what is coming for 2009:

Build pome and stone fruit orchard
Fix up the dam, including the pump
Build kids zone (including hideaway, swings, etc)
Build Vegie Zone
Build West side pergola for shading
Breed chooks
Fix up the front gardens
Installing cricket net inside the shed (for boys)
Fix up little office into art studio (for kids)
Create more spots for plantings
Fix up more on chook run

Still heaps to do, eh?

Till later!

Been a while...

2008-10-16T04:50:00.000-07:00

Didn't realised it has been a month since I last reported here.

Sorry to those who have been checked in here to find me being a slack ;)

Anyway, lot has happened over the last month, so let me summarise them here:

Croad Langshans - we got a trio, 2 hens and a cockerel. All at the age of 8 months old. All black with nice green sheen on feathers. Lovely personalities. Quite brown eggs, so that's a plus - we would be able to tell the difference and put aside those we want to keep for chicks and to sell the fertilised eggs. Already got an order! They're quite larger than our Leghorn X chooks! They've not really mixed together well yet, but still early days. Fingers crossed all will settled in as all 6 chooks are in the chook palace together tonite.

My boy, the Cockerel
Azolla on the dam - we've got a carpet on our dam! The carpet is called Azolla, apparently a water plant that grows double its size within 10 days if the water's still or slow moving. So this is the clue that the pumping is not working! Already called the pumping guy to show up and fix it up. I suspect we will need to replace the tower frame and perhaps some parts. I hope we'd get to keep the fan! Azolla's a great plant fertiliser, so I've been busy 'raking' it out so I can put it around plants. Hard work here, need volunteers! ;)
Growing - we've got a veggie patch up and going. So far we've enjoyed those wee tiny tommies, some herbs (basil, parsley...), lettuce and shallots. Quite yummy. The Fig trees and nectarine tree are growing fruits now, so we've built a stand to throw bird netting over to stop those cheeky natives from taking our fruits! The citrus trees are flowering wildly at the moment, with bees being very busy! So it will be bountiful by next year!
Planting in - we've got a long long list of plants we want to plant. However it is subjected to availability so we've just go with the 'flow'. Planted passionfruits, more vegies, white mulberry tree, raspberries and boysenberry. I just need to plant a Meyer lemon tree in and buy an 'Eureka' lemon tree soon.
Ticks and Tassie doesn't mix! Tassie our puppy-dog already got 3 tick attacks within 2 months and we've nearly lost her twice. The vet bills have climbed too high now. My hubby's giving me the 'told you so' look, heh. We've got to somehow keep Tassie away from the bush area and any tall grasses. Not a easy task to do, but we're looking at a few options at the moment, so stay tuned.

That's about it for now. I am tired at the moment, worked too hard! I dug up heaps of daffoild bulbs today from a small garden bed, so I could use the bed for more plantings.

Anyhow, I will post more over the next week with my wishlist of veggies and fruits.

Cheers till later!

Herb plants list

2008-09-06T05:28:00.000-07:00

List of herbs I'd like to grow:

Achillea millefolium (White Yarrow)
Allium ssp.: Allium sativum (Garlic - Australian Purple & White, Elephant Garlics), Allium schoenoprasum (Common Chives)
Ajuga reptans (Bugle)
Aloe vera (got some growing now)
Aloysia triphylla (Lemon Verbena)
Artemisia absinthium (Wormwood) (3 plants growing now)
Althaea officinalis (Marshmallow)
Anethum graveolens (Dill)
Angelica archangelica (Angelica)
Anthriscus cerefolium (Chervil)
Armoracia rusticana (Horseradish)
Artemisia spp.: Artemisia dracunculus (French Tarragon), Artemisia abrotanum (Southernwood)
Borago officinalis (Borage)
Calendula officinalis (Marigold)
Cedronella canariensis (Balm of Gilead)
Centella asiatica (Pennywort/Arthritis herb) (1 growing, poorly)
Cochlearia armoracia (Horseradish)
Coriandrum sativum (Coriander) (1 to be planted)
Cymbogon citratus (Lemongrass)
Dianthus (Pinks)
Echinecea spp.: Echinacea angustifolia, Echinacea purpurea, Echinacea pallida)
Filipendula ulmaria (Meadowsweet)
Foeniculum vulgare (Fennel)
Glycyrrhiza glabra (Liquorice)
Helianthus tuberosus (Jerusalem artichoke)
Helichrysum italicum (Curry Plant) (given by a former classmate, thanks!)
Hesperis matronalis (Sweet Rocket)
Hyssopus officinalis (Hyssop)
Inula helenium (Elecampane)
Juniperus communis (Juniper)
Laurus nobilis (Sweet Bay)
Lavandula angustifolia (English Lavender) (8 growing!)
Levisticum officinale (Lovage)
Lippa citriodora (Lemon Verbena)
Maranta arundinacae (Arrowroot)
Matricaria chamomilla (Chamomile)
Melissa officinalis (Balm)
Mentha (Mint - Mentha piperita (peppermint), Mentha suaveolens (Apple mint))
Monarda didyma (Bergamot)
Myrrhis odorata (Sweet Cicely)
Myrtus communis (Myrtle)
Nasturtium officinale (Watercress)
Nepeta cataria (Catmint)
Ocimum basilicum (Basil - Sweet basil, lemon/lime basil (Ocimum americanum), Thai basil) (only sweet basils growing)
Origanum spp.: Origanum vulgare (Oregano), Origanum onites (Pot marjoram), Origanum marjorana (sweet marjoram) (1 Marjoram growing)
Pelargonium spp.: Pelargonium citrosum (Lemon-scented geranium), Pelargonium tomentosum (Peppermint-scented geranium), Pelargonium graveolens (Rose-scented geranium) (3 lemon-scented geraniums growing)
Petroselinum spp.: Petroselinum crispum (Curly parsley), Petroselinum neopolitanu (Italian parsley)
Phlomis fruticosa (Jerusalem Sage)
Prostanthera cuneata (Prostanthera/Mint Bush)
Prunella vulgaris (Selfheal)
Pulmonaria officinalis (Lungwort)
Rosmarinus officinalis (Rosemary)
Rumex acetosa (Sorrel)
Salvia officinalis (Sage) and Salvia rutilans (Pineapple Sage) (both growing now)
Sambucus nigra (Elderberry)
Santolina chamaecyparissus (Cotton Lavender)
Saponaria officinalis (Soapwort)
Satureja hortensis (Summer Savory)
Stevia rebaudiana var. Bertoni (Stevia)
Symphytum officinalis (Comfrey) (3 growing and 30 cuttings in pots now)
Tanacetum spp.: Tanacetum vulgare (Tansy), Tanacetum cinerariifolium (Pyrethrum), Tanacetum balsamita (Alecost/costmary), Tanacetum parthenium (Feverfew)
Thymus spp.: Thymus vulgaris (Common Thyme), Thymus citriodorus (Lemon Thyme) (1 thyme growing)
Trigonella foenum graecum (Fenugreek)
Tropaeolum majus (Nasturtium) (a few growing - chooks love them!)
Valeriana officinalis (Valerian)
Vanilla planifolia (Vanilla)
Verbena officinalis (Verbena)
Viola tricolor (Heartsease)

Native Plants list to follow up

2008-09-06T00:55:00.000-07:00

This is just a list of plants that I'd like to plant on the property over the time. I have not looked at 'large trees' yet because it depends on what we have decided with the area as we have already got a sizable bush on side.

If you know a plant that I should include or have some you can offer, just let me know, cheers!

Natives (bush tucker n plain) in alphabet order:

Acacia spp.: - Acacia longifolia (Sydney Golden Wattle), Acacia decurrens (Black Wattle), Acacia prominens (Gosford Wattle)
Acmena smithi (LillyPilly - with white berries tinged with purple)
Apium prostratum (Sea Celery)
Araucaria bidwillii (Bunya pine)
Austromyrtus dulcis (Midyum)
Alpinia caerulea (Native Ginger)
Backhousia spp.: Backhousia myrtifolia (Grey Myrtle), Backhousia citriodora (Lemon Myrtle)
Banksia spp.: Banksia ericifolia (Heath Banksia - Giant Candles?), Banksia integrifolia (Coast Banksia), Banksia serrata/dentata (Saw Banksia/Old Man Banksia)
Billardiera spp.: Billardiera scandens (Apple Berry), Billardiera longifolia (Climbing Blueberries)
Brachyscome spp.: Brachysome angustifolia (Grassland Daisy)
Callistemon spp.: Callistemon salignus (Willow Bottlebrush)
Carpobrotus glaucescens (Pigface)
Ceratoptalum gummiferum (NSW Christmas Bush)
Dianella caerulea (Blue Flax Lily)
Eugenia reinwardtiana (Cedar Bay cherry)
Goodenia ovata (Hop Goodenia)
Grevillea spp.: Grevillea speciosa (Spiderflower)
Hibiscus sabdariffa (Wild Hibiscus - Rosella)
Hymenosporum flavum (Native Frangipani)
Leptospermum spp.: Leptospermum scoparium (Manuka tea-tree), Leptospermum laevigatum (Coastal tea-tree)
Lomandra longifolia (Spiny-headed Mat-rush)
Melaleuca spp.: Melaleuca linariifolia (Snow Storm/Snow in Summer), Melaleuca thymifolia
Podocarpus elatus (Plum pine/Illawarra Plum)
Prostanthera spp.: Prostanthera ovalifolia (Mint Bush), Prostanthera incisa (Cut leaf mint) and Prostanthera rotundifolia (Round leaf mint bush)
Rubus moluccanus/Rubus hillii (Native Raspberry)
Scaevola aemula (Mauve Clusters Fan Flower)
Smilax glycophylla (Native sarsaparilla)
Syzygium spp.: Syzygium oleosum (Blue Lillypilly), Syzygium paniculatum, Syzygium luehmannii (Riberry)
Tetragonia tetragonoides (Warrigal Greens)
Tetratheca thymifolia (Black-eyed Susan)
Westringia fruticosa (Coastal Rosemary)

More to come...

The Jap Quails

2008-08-25T04:37:00.000-07:00

We have four Jap quails - 3 females and 1 male.

Two females - the white one being my boy's favourite quail - she is also 'smart' but can really fly if she wants to!

The female from above, my boy refers her as one of the twins - the other twin is below. This one is more active.

Other twin, she's more shy, likes to hole up in the quails cage all day - have to push her outside all the time!

Here's the lucky male quail - get to have 3 females to look after. He is not doing such a good job though - no eggs yet and he's not that great at herding females to suitable spots! Definitely not like a rooster ! heh...

You can see the neck and head markers - male got the most distinctive ones than females.

At the moment they're nameless - but they're not destined to go on the table, our boy would not let us. They should be around 4 months old, way past their time to lay eggs, so have to look at the causes for not supplying us delicious eggs! Not enough light is the most likely cause at the moment.

Cheers!

Introducing Tassie...

2008-08-24T18:21:00.000-07:00

Thought it is time to introduce Tassie, our 9 months old puppy.

Her breed is Swedish Vallhund - one of rare breeds in world. Such delightful breed in my opinion. I came across this breed on an article from a magazine "Grass Roots" and really liked the size and potential of the breed. So the hunt started in Jan, just before we moved to this property and I found a breeder not far from us. So contacted them for info and availability of a puppy 'now'.

They do! So by March, we got Tassie, a 4 months old puppy then. She was very shy, nervous and has a low appetite (still do though - probably in her nature as she's small for her breed). However we all fell in love with her and cajoled with her to be more relaxed around us. It took many months before she is.

This is Tassie, at the grand age of 8 months.

She's a fast learner, run/play really fast, loves to have a cuddle or two, and is always curious about what we are doing - following us and try to 'help'. We will put her on agility course when she is older as I think she will enjoy that kind of sport the most. At the moment there is a pair of masked lapwings who are bomb diving on her everyday and she treat this as a game!

So next time you come around, please do take time to greet Tassie and play a ball game with her.

The Jap Quails

2008-08-09T05:06:00.000-07:00

My older son, Nat 'owns' 4 Jap Quails - 3 females and one male. He is still waiting for those 'money-making' eggs to arrive...

Their accommodation: They live inside with the chooks, inside their own large cage with an exit to their outdoors zone. This outdoors zone is covered with anti-bird wire-net and has two doors to open from top. Most of time, the quails seem to love it outside.

One of the quails did the Betsy's Escape last Wednesday, much to Nat's dismay. He told me that he was trying to encourage quails to go back inside for the night, catching a quail to push it inside through the trapdoor. The white quail decided she won't take the treatment and flew straight out of his grasp and through the door, and alllllllll the way out over the chook run and landed on the next door's trailroad! OVER the bloody 6 feet tall fence, a wee tiny quail! What a waste re having the fence built!

He came to me, quite upset so told him to check where she is quickly as it was getting dark then. I found a sheet of light cloth to use to trap quail under. We walked quickly around the gate again, me thinking the irony of the fence and pattern of poultry's escapes! Nat looked at me relieved as he spotted his favourite quail squatted under some brush, very still. Captured her and passed her to Nat to be put back inside the quails cage. She, who remained unnamed, was a bit indignited about the mistreatment.

I've already decided I will have to plant a couple of tall shrubs or small trees in front of the fences to discourage them from flying straight to the Betsy's spot. Now I need to find the plants asap before any more attempts.

The Chook Palace

2008-08-09T04:33:00.000-07:00

Here it is, folks! Teralba's Chook Palace:

The Chook Palace was recently modified, by my wonderful and patient hubby. It was used as a garden shed or as a cubby house before we bought the property and thought that cubbyhouse is so cute. Kids didn't really want to play in it so we thought we'd let chooks have it as their own pad. The fence was done recently too, including gate. The modifications we did to the Palace are:

The fireplace: We took off the cover and fixed it so it can be accessible, without spoiling the rustic beauty of it.

Presto, egg collection zone! Even kids can open it. It has a catch on it to hold during wind days.

Inside of the Palace - we added two roosting posts, salvaged from a fallen tree on our property with a spare rod as well. Chooks seem to love it. There's three nesting boxes - we are dreaming of adding more chooks!! We are only "allowed" to have up to 10 chooks. Wood shaving as floor covering because there's wooden floor under it. We have the windows removed, added chicken wire to cover the windows and put back the window but so we can open them for ventilation. I still need to fix the door so it won't scrape the floor as we open.

See, the chooks are so grateful for their own Palace that they left us a little gift! We would get up to 3 eggs per day. Yesterday we got three, but today we only got one. The white egg in picture is just a plastic egg to encourage chooks to lay in that particular box.

The one who flew over the Coop!

2008-08-02T05:23:00.001-07:00

Yeah there were some dramas happening last week.

Last Tuesday evening, as usual, my older son closed the chook palace's door and check that there are 3 chooks & 4 quails inside. I put our puppy Tassie inside the fenced area that contains her 'dog pen' and the chook run. Tassie decided that night she will not go in the dog pen (we are still training her as she's 8 months old atm). So I decided that since chooks are in the palace, it should be ok.

As I walked back inside the house, I briefly wondered if I should check that the door to the chook palace is really locked... but didn't.

Woke up at 7.30am the following day, got kids dressed, etc and happened to glance out of window and saw the chook palace's door is OPEN!!! Ack! And then I could see Tassie was still inside the run! Oh no! I quickly checked with my older boy how he closed the door and whether he checked again to ensure its really locked once he closed it - nope he didn't think so. Sighs...

So I had to walk toward the chook palace and got Tassie out of the fenced run, and quickly checked the chooks inside... One, two... oh no!! Where's Betsy!!??!!

No signs of feathers, struggles nor blood anywhere inside the palace, surroundings or even in the run!

Looked everywhere again... nothing! And looked at Tassie again, she looked back happily and waiting for me to play with her. sighs... She may have got inquisitive when she heard Betsy clucked after she laid her egg that morning and nosed inside, and probably scared the poor chooks out their feathers!

After taking kids to school, I came back home to have another look around the property. Lo and behold, she's at next door property! She flew over the Coop! Over the 6 feet tall fence!!

After putting Tassie inside the house with my young son, I tried to entice my Betsy back in our property. After 10 mins, we were nearly there then suddenly she flapped back into the bush, away from our property - there's Tassie, wondering what I am doing at the gate alone! Arrgghhh!

Walked back to the house to ask my young son why he let Tassie out of the house. His reply was that he's worried she would do poo'ing inside and that the smell will be really yukky! right right... sighs

So I spent all day glancing out to see if Betsy is still flapping around outside the coop - so far yep.

Finally when it was late afternoon, I asked my sons to help me out. My girl refused to go outside to help as she's battling her phobia with our poor Tassie!

I've set my older son as a look-out (for Tassie as she was not seen for few hours) and gate-closer, my young son to be my 'assistant' (he insisted he gotta help me get Betsy back inside - you know what kind of help you can get off a 3 years old boy?). We managed to encourage Betsy to go straight to the gate after 10 mins flapping here and there. From the gate, she was able to zoom straight into the Coop and clucked around quite noisy with other two chooks.

Phew... now we have 3 chooks together, safe and sound for time being.

Why we make big fuss over Betsy? Because she's our best layer!!!

Lessons learnt - never rely on young son to help ya out at any time. Get your older son well trained in how to lock up livestock every night - not just assuming he knows! Me - Listen to my own little voice at the night before to double check the door of the chook palace!

As for eggs the chooks laid for us - it has gone down after giving so many eggs. One egg each day now and I'd find 3 soft broken eggs under the roosts. So I guess they've not got over the shock. Fingers crossed all will start laying very soon. I will have to find a way to spoil them so they'll forgive us, heh...

Today I noticed Norma has an injury - her leg. It looks like a wound, large gauze and looks like some dried blood around it at the back of her leg. Still researching as what to do about it. Those chooks doesn't like being caught and handled - so will need to do it at night to investigate the severity of her injury.

So there's alot more work ahead with chooks for me. One thing at a time, I guess.

Cheers till later - of course I will report how I deal with Norma's injury. (in case other readers wondered, the third timid chook is named Anne.)