July 28 Change is Good

Like most gardeners, I'm sure, I am never quite happy with the way things are. I am always moving plants to better spots, building something, making improvements, extending this or designing that. Change is good.
Winter is a wonderful time to be making something better or new, as the weather is cool enough to dig and delve without getting hot and bothered and the rest of the garden is asleep anyway. 
My project this week has been the vege garden. It was recently enlarged with the addition of the recycled post and rail fence,
so that gave me the opportunity to both enlarge and improve.

The improvement was the structure holding up the boysenberry vine, previously 4 star posts with baggy wire inadequately supporting 3 bountiful berry plants. I asked Pa to install 2 heavy fence posts around which we wound 2 rows of plain wire, which sandwich the vines neatly in place without strings: a clever idea I saw in a gardening mag.

The enlargement was an extra bed for more veges: potatoes this year. It was meant to be a small vege plot initially, but producing one's own food is so addictive!
The winter veges are doing rather well. I am a fairly recent winter vegetable gardener and still get quite amazed that plants actually fruit in the cold.The little cabbages make excellent coleslaw for that winter favourite, baked potatoes with the lot.

July 20th Nanne's Girls

Allow me to introduce you to Nanne's girls, otherwise known as the chooks. No farm is complete without them, for they are as endearing as they are productive.

First there are my two Isa Browns, the remnant of the last lot bought from the Farmers Market. They were a miserable lot from the start, featherless from perpetual hen pecking and intermittent layers. Two previously went for the chop and these remaining two have been threatened times without count. SO why are they still here?


To explain, meet the other three. The 2 white girls belong to the grandchildren, who raised them from chicks: sweet tempered and good layers.

Finally, the magnificent and handsome rooster with the unfortunately unimpressive name of Chirpy, also raised by the kids. I never planned on having a rooster, but now I would never be without one. From the moment he arrived, peace has reigned in the henhouse, feathers have returned

 to bare bottoms and necks and

squabbles have ceased, even when combining the two flocks. The Browns are even laying better.
And now to my chook tale which explains all.

I have two lovely clean and cosy nests for the girls to lay in but they have made their own nest behind the feed bin and all four insist this is the best one to use. Everyday they line up to use it, waiting patiently and crossing their legs till it's their turn. However, someone got impatient today as a great kerfuffle came from the henhouse that sounded awfully like

"GET ORRFFFf!"...." I'M NOT FINISHED"..... "YOU ARE.  YOU'VE BEEN THERE FOR AGES"

It was loud enough to send Molly scurrying for the house and bring Chirpy flying in from the orchard where he rose to full height and gave his best Sargent major impersonation with "WHATS' GOIN' ON IN 'ERE?".

Nothing now! Feathers immediately deruffled and eyes widened with 'who me' expressions.
I went in to see what was happening 10 minutes later and here were two quiet chooks sitting double decker on the preferred nest. "Oh for pity's sake!" exclaimed Nanne.

Always the same nest!

July 18 A Good Read

I an currently reading a most delightful book by Kate Llewellyn called "A Fig at the Gate". It's a book about gardening, and growing old, and life. Kate (she already feels like an old friend) has written in a journal format, sharing her ordinary days in her Adelaide garden, what she grows and loves, about her chooks and the sparrows nesting out the window, shared wisdom of gardening friends and memories from childhood.

This is not a 'can't put down' book. In fact, I read it slowly, to savor the beauty of her thoughts and the words she uses to portray them, just like some people use a teaspoon for their dessert to make it last longer.

Here's an example of what she writes about her mother, just a thought or memory, but it both moved and inspired me:

"Why do some of us feel we must... have made some progress daily? To have something to show that you have lived this day. That is what diary writing is about. To have planted something, to have fed something or somebody, or given somebody something. It could be a country thing. My mother and the mothers of my friends fed, delved and gave daily almost to the end.

It might have been a bowl of soup to a workman or a child, or a bunch of flowers to a neighbour, or some eggs, or almonds: just anything could be a gift. In the case of my mother, it was a sponge cake she made five or six mornings a week. Beating the eggs in the Mixmaster on the table behind her while she was washing up. As soon as the cake cooled, it was sandwiched with apricot jam she had made from her tree and with cream she had whipped from her cow. Now there's a thing which cost almost nothing and which didn't need to be changed, as different men came to eat it".

How lovely! I immediately want to grab the Mixmaster out of the cupboard or go and pick some flowers for someone.

But to answer her question, why are we like this? I would say, because we are made in the image of God, and He is a giving, generous God. So when we imitate Him, it pleases both of us.

When I (sadly) finish this book, I will be checking the local library for her others, and there are quite a few. Or, I just might re-read it.

July 10th Before and After Woods Clean-up

Before

During

After

Cow tracks, now hiking tracks

After, towards billabong

After, winter's afternoon

Looking towards house

July 9th School holidays

An absolutely golden day, one for working outdoors and enjoying the scenery. It's a bit of a shame that the grandchildren have just gone home after a cold, wet 2 days in which they had to spend several hours indoors. I do love school holidays and grandchildren sleepovers. They are such good kids, and getting to an age of being quite interesting and funny as well as independent.

After vacuuming and washing the dirt from 4 kids and one dog off the floors they looked a shade paler. 3 loads of washing went out to the line, mostly sheets and towels, and that was it for housework.
Morning tea on the verandah and hay for the cows were the last jobs before we set off to the bush behind the house. Slowly clearing up fallen trees may not be exciting for some, but it suits us just fine. Chainsaw, pick up, build fire piles, burn. Many fire piles, much burning! Then, ahh then, stand back and just gaze around. There is something so uplifting to the spirit to work with nature to create, or recreate, beauty.  If you can do a little creation of beauty each day, your heart will remain light. Just another sign that we are made in God's image, the greatest creator of all.

Just gazing around

Feeding the cows

A Year on the Farm

July 5th
It has been a wet and miserable day on the farm, so indoor activities have been to the fore. Started off with some sewing, my coiled baskets, and turning an old hand towel into 2 much needed face washers. I often receive pretty hand towels as gifts but never face washers, so.....

The horses don't seem to mind the rain as it makes grass grow I suppose, and they are nice and dry under their warm rugs. It was raining at feed time so Molly and I went out in it all at feed time, me in Drizabone and she in her new raincoat I made out of some old vinyl. It actually did the trick.
A small dry spell in the afternoon was an opportunity for a walk to see how yesterday's weed spraying went in the arena paddock. To my delight, the capeweed was nicely curled up.

Lunch was homemade zucchini soup and a cheese and Vegemite sandwich, consumed in front of the fire while watching the Tour de France: our annual 3 week tour of France. Love all those cathedrals and chateaux and quaint villages. Travel without the angst of long flights and airport delays.