Morning Patch

Our garden was mulched with rocks when we arrived.

Rocks just don't seem like mulch to me, they don't gather and hold the moisture for the plants below, they don't slowly decay as worms fight their way through, they just sit there, inert. Oblivious to the joy and life of the soil.

So my mission is to move them mulchin' rocks and make them pathway rocks. Lovely idea, terrible reality. The rocks evade the shovel, or bring too much soil with them. It's slow, and boring, but now so very very rewarding!

Today marked the completion of the first large bed. Rocks moved, REAL mulch in, and plants, lovely plants in, where the mulch will keep them fresh and happy.

 (why oh why did I not take a 'before' shot??)

The bed began with a rhubarb boarder over a year ago - the rhubarb approves of the spot wholeheartedly. When I looked closer I realised this was a special spot - surrounded by sheds and water tanks, it gets very little wind and lots of full sun.... it's practically the tropics!!! In went a sad looking Lime and Kaffir Lime, who continued to look sad, but have decided to step up the tempo for spring now. A treasured Tamarillo went in last year - and survived winter, and tree chilli 'Rocoto', both looking more enthusiastic about life by the day.

This morning the mulch went on, news paper and straw, along with my 'Lisbourne' lemon, 5 more Tamarillo (did I mention I grew these from seed? oh well... I did!) and 4 Cape Gooseberry bushes. In retrospect I should have added a Pepino bush too... we'll see how things go, and replace a gooseberry bush or two if they doesn't flourish...



The area is exciting now, along way from it's original Agapathus and Fuscias.

Beyond it, my shadey-potty spot awaits... a proper structure, and maybe a Kiwi ??

But no, other projects await... particularly the glass house, saw the most inspiring glass house yesterday in Paradise, with a Pawpaw fruiting happily.... got me buzzing again with glasshouse envy and aspirations..

They had a wicking bed system, and a water-fall over the rock wall to increase humidity, all a bit more high tech than I had thought of - but now are slowly being weaved into my plan.

Today

Today,

Ducks played,

Gardens were mulched,

goats looked on.

Of course there was more;  spring time sunshine, piles of visitors, lunching, tadpole hunting, trampoline jumping and chook chasing. At the end of the day, when everything ached, and my mind couldn't string together logical thoughts, these three things completed Today.

Today, in all, was a very lovely day.

A Photo-a-day

New Year's Idea, a photo a day.... well keeps a blog alive!

Day 1: Wednesday 18th January

Fertile red soil helps things grow...

Ducks!

I’ve developed an alarming new addiction. Facebook and ebay are well and truly old news now that Gumtree and backyardpoultry.com are in my life. These two sites allow me unabated shopping opportunities from the comfort of the recliner during long unfilled hours at work. When a trio of Swedish Blue ducks popped onto my screen, a little googling confirmed that these were suitably rare but friendly dual purpose and mostly flightless ducks. A phone call, 2 days and some frantic cage building (and moving) later I collected a trio of young ducks, suitably named ‘duck duck duck!’

The girls started off well laying an egg each for the first 4 days, although followed up with a whole month not laying, only to start again, yesterday after I had well and truly given up hope!

The ducks now free-range in the increasingly long grass and are virtually invisible, only trackable by their gentle chatter. They’ve been encouraged down to the dam twice but firmly insist on foraging in and around the veggie garden.

The Goats Have A Play-Pen

We read that goats liked to climb on things and that they do. Heres some of the fun they had with two over-turned cupboards and an old tyre.

Sassafras was first

Then Norris

Oh yes they like to play king of the castle

Goats!

So we are now the proud parents of four goat kids. We bought them off friends of Kathryn's dad, they run a dairy farm called Yondover. The kids cost us $30 each and we got two boys and two girls. Although they are dairy goats the plan is to keep the boys for meat in about 8-9 months and to Breed the girls with a boar buck when we get one. Dairy goats crossed with meat goats apparently give the best meat.

Prior to receiving our kids we needed a kid enclosure. We fenced off an area about 8m x 4m that already had an existing shed. We used some old gates that were laying around and some welded mesh (about 5cm squares).
The shed is about 1.5m x 2m and around 1.2m hight at one end and 1.5m at the other, it has a mesh section on the high side to allow some ventilation. Inside the shed we have a cardboard box for them to sleep in and they do that well. If they aren't playing they are in the box sleeping together.
Kathryn went to pick up the kids with her family and in a cardboard box brought them home in the back seat of the ute. That night kathryn bottle fed them twice (including getting up at 4am to make sure they didn't get hungry). The next day put some holes in the side of the shed to push the teats through so the kids can suckle as they desire. Although the kids seem smart enough when we are there to go over and have a drink we aren't sure if they are doing it if where not. The milk we are using is commercially available goat and sheep milk.

When we were working around the goat pen they bleated at us until we paid them some attention. They followed us around the pen and played with each other. Maggie (the boarder collie cross) didn't really know what to make of the kids but knew they were interesting, she did some barking and some sniffing before promptly going to sleep against the wire mesh of the pen. All in all they are very cute and we are looking forward to what comes next.