Bees.

I used to be scared of bees. If one flew near me, I would freeze and stop breathing until it had gone. Nowadays I see bees as friends, useful little insect friends with a very important job to do, and I love their presence in our garden. We have a lot of bees here, but the next step for us was installing our own hive, so that we could collect honey from it, another thing that we will no longer have to buy. As we use honey instead of sugar in our family, it seemed like a sensible thing to do.

We've been on the wait list for bees for a few months now, and yesterday, we got the call. So Nath and Brannen drove down the hill to collect our very own bees, a buzzing, humming closed hive of activity. The entrance to the hive was obviously blocked so they wouldn't escape during transit, but you could see their busy little legs and wings in the tiny holes in the hive 'gate', desperately trying to get out.

 Nath placed the hive in our chosen spot, under the grevillea bush in the otherwise unused pool area. It's a great spot - morning sun, afternoon shade, and locked so the kids can't get in. Once we demolish the pool, down the track we'll be able to get a couple more hives and the old pool area will become the bee area! Nath carefully opened the little gate to let the bees out to explore, and in a week or so he will open the hive to make sure the queen is healthy and laying, then we will leave them for a few months to do their thing. We have to get a couple more hive boxes ('supers') so that they can expand and have room to produce lots of honey - for them and us!

I may not be scared of bees anymore (well, not much, anyway!), but the actual beekeeping part is definitely Nath's job!

The beautiful grevillea.

 We are feeling pretty happy with how our garden and home plans are going, as we are well underway to producing a lot of what we eat here at home. It is such a fantastic feeling to be so connected to the food we eat.

A Garden Post

Our little garden pixie, Eden.

It has been a while since I posted on our garden, but as we in in the full swing of Spring, and loving spending these tentatively sunny days ticking things off The Great Gardening To-Do List (which is less like a list than a carousel on full speed) I thought it might be time to share some pics.

We were late planting our winter seeds, and equally as late getting our spring seeds planted, so we are a little behind schedule. That hasn't mattered this year, though, as the temperatures are still quite low and we have had fairly steady rain for all of spring so far. The onions, garlics, leeks, beetroots, silverbeets and beans are all going strong.

We have planted all the citrus trees (a Lemonade, a Meyer lemon, a Kaffir lime, a Tahitian lime, a grapefruit, an orange and a Feijoa - yes, I know, not a citrus!) with an understorey of nasturtiums, chillis and artichokes.

The little kaffir lime tree with an understorey of nasturtium and artichoke.

Beautiful citrus-y blossoms.

The greenhouse is full - little tubes and toilet rolls containing (many, many) tomatoes, chilli, rosella, rockmelon and sunflower seeds.

We have been harvesting our green manure crop of oaten grass before it went to seed and drying it on the fence to become mulch for summer. We have also been trimming down the wattle trees to use their foliage as mulch (as well as feeding some to the goats).

Wattle foliage as garden mulch.

Oat grass drying on the fence.

The apricot trees have flowered and are now in full foliage and beginning to set fruit, so the next task is to net them to avoid losing nearly our whole apricot harvest to the local 28s (like last year).

Chickens fertilising the apricot trees. Behind, you can see the large goat pen.

We are putting in a grape vine near the kitchen window to stop the summer late afternoon sun streaming in. It won't help this year but next year it should be established enough to make a difference. The beauty of a living screen is that, as it is deciduous, it loses its leaves in winter to let all the available sun in.

I counted the other day and we now have 20 fruit trees! That's not bad at all for a half acre block! We should be getting our bees within the next month to help with all that pollinating.

It's three assignments on the agenda for me this week so I daresay I won't be seeing much of the garden until next weekend!

Meet Elsie; Chicken Babies; and Getting Ready for Spring!

I've been flat out lately, with uni work and our family making the adjustment to having Nath home full time! It's a great adjustment to have to make, but an adjustment nonetheless.We have a new family rhythm now that we are all getting used to. We are loving having Nath at home, though! The kids have taken it in their stride, as if it has been this way all along, and Brannen particularly is loving 'helping' Dad do everything from cutting wood to weeding gardens. He loves putting his boots on just like Dad and puffs his little chest out as if to say, "Right, lets get on with it then!"

Elsie is the little one in the front.

One of the biggest things to report is, we now have our goat! She is being agisted at a friend's property until we get back from Bali, mainly because our goat run isn't built yet, but she has company there so she is happy. She is pregnant, hopefully with twins. This is her first pregnancy - she is only eleven months old. We named her Elsie and she is a Saanen x Boer. Saanen goats are good milkers, and Boers are good eaters, so we are hoping for the best of both worlds! She isn't the goat we were planning on getting, for a number of reasons, but she is a sweet little thing and we are very happy. I have been holding off writing this, as the lovely Jessie from Rabid Little Hippy and her family have just gone through the grief of their goat Anna kidding two stillborn kids. Such a sad story and even though there was nothing they could do I will be watching anxiously for the safe arrival of our babies.

Our silky hen became clucky a number of weeks ago, and now that we have a rooster, I thought I would leave a clutch of eggs under her and see what happened. None of the eggs she set were hers, she stole them all from the other chooks, and ended up with nine under her. A few weeks down the track we were very excited to welcome six new chicks into our lives. They look largely like crosses between Plymouth Rocks and Australorps, so I am very happy.

Silky and her brood.

Spring is just around the corner, I can see blossom buds beginning on some of our fruit trees and our blueberry bush is flowering. So many bees are visiting our garden and the birdsong is lovely. It's time to get organised for spring planting so tomorrow I am propagating seedlings from seed into toilet rolls and putting them into our greenhouse, to give them a head start over the end of winter, so they will be ready to plant when the warmer weather decides to stay. Tomatoes, chilli, salad greens, sunflowers... I am excited! This is a great time of the year in the garden, when we can really get into maximising garden bed space and eating from what we grow as much as possible.

Hope everyone is enjoying the first flushes of spring (or autumn, or fall, depending on where you live!)

Reminiscing and a Lovely Handmade Card Swap.

Ten years ago, Nathan and I made our first major move as a married couple from Perth to the Pilbara mining town of Karratha, about 1500km north. It was our first year out of tertiary schooling and the beginning of our respective careers. Nath was working as a youth worker, and I was teaching. It was a fantastic experience and one I am so glad we had. We eventually left Karratha to travel around the country in a beaten up old Landcruiser but the wild Pilbara landscape still holds a place in my heart.

I was thinking the other night about how different our lives are from back then, ten years ago, when we were fresh out into the workforce. For one, I hated cooking. To me, opening a jar onto cooked pasta was 'cooking from scratch'. I spent as little time as possible in the kitchen, but I did spend hundreds thousands of dollars on Tupperware to make my cupboards look stylish!

I hated gardening, too. We had a very small yard and it was reduced to a dust bowl by the time we left. I had no idea about where my food came from, and didn't care, to be honest. I had never grown anything edible (or anything at all!) and thought people who enjoyed spending time getting dirt under their fingernails were, quite frankly, a bit mad. A friend of mine at the time started a worm farm and I remember thinking worms were a strange choice of pet!

I shopped like crazy back then. I struggled with depression and feelings of low self worth. Every time I felt low or anxious, I would go shopping. I would buy things I did not need, even things I did not particularly want. It was the first time Nath and I had earned a 'proper' wage and I went to town with it. We got into a bit of debt and it took a few years to pay off, and taught me a valuable lesson along the way. I am not great with money even now, but I now know a thing or two about avoiding debt!

The one thing that my time in the Pilbara did give me is a great respect for the environment. Without getting too political, I watched the landscape change over the years with the development of new mine sites and supporting infrastructure. Our trip back last year was bittersweet, as the change was drastic in the years since we left. The Pilbara awakened in me a dawning awareness of the impact human behaviour has on the Earth. I am so grateful that our journey has brought us to place we are now, living a more frugal and sustainable life and teaching our children a different way than we would have if we were parents back then.

In lighter news, my lovely sister-in-law Mezz is hosting a handmade card swap over at her gorgeous blog Mezz Makes Stuff. It looks like a lot of fun, and I'll be joining in! You don't have to be a blogger to join in, so why not give it a go!

One of Mezz's lovely handmade cards.

Tomorrow for us is all about getting those darn fruit trees into the ground! I am sure I am only procrastinating because I know that once they are in, I am not moving anywhere until they have been bearing fruit for a good few years!!

Things I Have Been Learning About Lately.

My head is so full of new information this week! I really should be enjoying this last couple of weeks before Uni starts, not filling my mind with all kinds of topics, but it gets a little addictive. My internet tabs bar is very busy, and I thought I would share some of the things I have been researching.

Registering our property for livestock ownership: The WA Department Agriculture and Food requires anyone who owns livestock to register their property. This is to make tracing and isolating disease easier, and applies whether you own one tiny, little miniature goat, or 20,000 head of cattle. I have the forms here now and am excited at how close we are getting!

Adding non-nano zinc oxide powder to homemade body butter to turn it into a homemade, natural, safe sunscreen. Safe, commercial sunscreens cost about $20 for a rather small tube, so I decided to look into whether it was possible to make my own. Turns out, it is! I found a recipe here at My Healthy Green Family and discovered I could buy the zinc oxide powder on Etsy. Summer is a way off yet, but when it hits, I will be ready!

Making my own vanilla bean paste (saving me a bucket load of money!): This may be extravagant of me, but I just can't do without buying vanilla bean paste. I use it in so much of my cooking, but it is one of the most expensive items on my shopping list, at over $20 for a very small jar. I can buy vanilla beans much cheaper, though, and this recipe I found at Tick Of Yum makes quite a lot of paste. Much cheaper! It is a Thermomix recipe (I do love my Thermomix!) but could probably be recreated on the stovetop.

Making beeswax-coated cotton food wraps: It has been a long time since we have bought plastic cling-wrap, and the food-safe pouches I bought a couple of years ago are starting to be... er... not so food safe! Since I bought mine, they have become all the rage, though, so the prices are a lot higher than I remember! I wanted to recreate them in a much cheaper way, and today I found this tutorial at My Healthy Green Family that uses beeswax to coat the cotton. I have a big block of beeswax, and once we have honeybees, beeswax is something we will have more of. I'm going to give this a go.

Planning and creating a productive permaculture food garden: I have been watching a DVD I actually bought from a friend quite a while ago, and never got round to actually viewing. It's ABC Gardening Australia's Permaculture and Organic Gardening. It documents Josh Byrne (love him!) transforming a 1000sqm Perth yard into a beautiful permaculture dream. It has inspired me so much and given me lots to think about as we move forward with the planning of our own gardens. I highly recommend it if you are gardening-minded.

What to do with a broody hen: My little old silky hen is 'on the cluck' again but this time we actually have a rooster (hopefully) sterilising (obviously I should have written fertilising!!) the eggs that all our girls are laying, so I have decided to let her sit on a clutch of about seven or eight and see what happens. I've marked the eggs she can keep with a permanent marker so I know which ones have been there for a while. If all goes well, this will be our first batch of chicks that we have had hatch out here. The only problem is, she has developed a nasty little attitude and is scaring all the other hens off the nest, so I am going to have to move her to her very own brooding box. I plan on putting her in our chicken tractor, but was worried that if I moved her, she would abandon the nest. A quick google search informed me that if I move her at night time, my chances of success are much higher. Fingers crossed that in a few weeks we will have a little clutch of cheeping chicks running around here!

I do love learning, and i am so excited about starting my Sustainability degree in a couple of weeks' time! I have no idea where it will lead me, but I am going to enjoy the ride! What have you been learning about lately?

Backyards, Bees, Buttons and Having Husbo At Home!

This little creative space of mine has been so neglected lately. There is no very good reason for that, just the days slipping so quickly past us and a dodgy camera cord (blogging without photos seems a little boring!)

I guess the big news for us is that Nath finishes full time work on the 19th of this month, and then only has two weeks of part-time work until he is done for good! This is a hugely exciting change for us, as it will free up so much time for us to work together on our goals and family values, work in the garden, produce more of our food from home and enjoy our children growing up. Nath and I will both be studying - Nath will completing his Masters in Mental Health Science, and I will be commencing a new Bachelor course in Sustainability. We will be living on Austudy and Family Tax benefits and making do with what we have. It will be tough, but we have been doing a lot to prepare and we feel we are up to the challenge!

One of the biggest things we have been working on is transforming our backyard from an expanse of resource-thirsty lawn into a landscape capable of producing much of our own food. We have been dipping our toes into the principles of permaculture (and loving the learning around this!) and have created a series of raised, no dig garden beds around mulched garden paths. Most of the materials we used were 'found materials' - horse manure and used straw from a friend's farm, newspaper and cardboard from our local recycling skips, bricks for garden edging from Freecycle, and compost, leaf litter and chicken manure from our own garden. Nath and a good friend built a fence from recycled copper logs, chicken wire and old timber palings from the property's original boundary fence. This fence will (hopefully) keep our free-ranging chickens out of the food producing section of our garden, allowing them access to the orchard and most other parts of the yard.

Before we began, after killing most of the grass off over summer.

Starting the paths with free mulch from the local tip.

Two of the beds built up and waiting to compost down.

Two gorgeous garden helpers.

One side of the garden, done.

Mum watering in the mulch on the newest bed.

Backyard landscaping complete, ready for planting.

Our new fire pit.

Nath building the fence with some 'helpers'.

So cheap and so rustic!

 Speaking of chickens, our chooks are all co-residing happily in the big pen at the back now, free-ranging during the day, and the temporary pen has been dismantled in readiness for the arrival of our mama goat and her baby. We culled all of the roosters except one, and he has taken to his role of flock caretaker with relish. We are being rewarded for our love of these dear creatures with four to six eggs a day.

We are extending our 'livestock', as I have written about before. This week, I ordered our first swarm of bees and a beehive to house them in. We are all very excited about this, especially Eden, who is now a bee 'expert' after spending a term at kindy learning all about them. Hopefully our buzzy friends will be joining us in November. Our mama goat and her yet-to-be-born baby are due here in September.

In other news, I recently took part in a Button Swap that was held over at lovely Taz's blog Butter and Buntings. My swap partner is not a blogger, so I can't link to her, but she perhaps should be! She is a beautifully creative person, and the sister of a very beautiful friend of mine, and I would like to share with you some of the loveliness she put into my bundle of buttons. (I'm afraid my return parcel wasn't nearly as pretty or creative, so I won't share photos of that!)

So beautifully packaged.

So many buttons! All stitched onto vintage-inspired card.

I absolutely love these wooden buttons! So cute!

My button collection has never looked so pretty!

Thanks, Taz, for the fantastic swap, and thanks, Erin for my beautiful buttons!

Fox.

It's one am, but I am too wired to sleep. My senses are alert; I am waiting, listening.

A couple of hours ago, I woke up to the crashing of tin and the screaming of terrified chickens. A fox had gotten into our side pen, the one that houses our will-start-laying-any-day-now beautiful Plymouth Rock speckly girls, and two docile Australorp girls, as well as three very-noisy-but-not-quite-fat-enough-to-eat-yet young Plymouth roosters. Before we could get dressed and outside, he had killed three of the girls; the two Australorps and one speckled. Our next generation of laying hens, that we have been feeding from young chicks to now, has been halved.

We chased the fox out of the yard (if I only had a shotgun.......) and rounded up our traumatised brood of remaining chooks and locked them into the little shed. The fox hadn't had the chance to start eating, so we have fridged the carcasses in the back shed until morning, when we will process them. I'll be damned if I'm not going to at least eat them. After checking the older chooks in the back pen (all roosting and blissfully unaware) we climbed back into bed.

Not ten minutes later I heard the scrabbling of foxish paws on metal and bolted outside to find that wily fox in the side pen again, trying to dig its way into the little shed. I'd never have believed that chickens could sound so humanlike when they are terrified, but they were all huddled up, one on top of another, in the corner of the shed, wailing like mourners at a funeral. Nath came bolting in with a handful of rocks and an axe but the fox slipped out through a hole he had dug and vanished. I am sitting awake, waiting to hear him again, so we can try and kill him before he makes a meal out of any more of our hens.

I know it's Nature's way, I know that fox is doing what is natural to him, but I am furious at the wastage laid. It takes five or six months for hens to start laying, and in that time you get to know their funny little personalities, and you eagerly await the day that those months of feed and attention pays you back with their first egg. These chickens were the ones that would take over from our older girls, whose egg laying has become sporadic at best. I'm glad we can at least turn them into soup.

I stood outside tonight, in the chilly night air, wearing my pyjamas and barefeet, and I had that fox cornered between myself and a fence. He stared at me, his eyes flashing in the moonlight, and I saw his fear. His fur was up, his tail between his legs, and he quivered as he looked for a way to escape. As angry as I was that he had made my henhouse his hunting ground I feel strangely privileged to have been in that moment with him. It is a privilege anytime we are able to witness wild Mother Earth at her worst.

Preparing For Change

Our family is about to embark on an adventure, one that we are very excited about. I have posted before about our goal to reduce Nath's work hours so that he can spend more time at home, and so that we as a family can live more closely aligned to our values of living simply, frugally, environmentally and in a community-focused way.

After much discussion we have decided that come September, Nath will be taking a year off from work to study from home. He plans to complete the Masters course (Mental Health Science) that he is halfway through, and also complete a Graduate Diploma in Grief and Loss Counselling. These qualifications will bring him closer to achieving his work and community goals in the future.

This decision will mean that he is home, full time. Obviously he will spend a proportion of this time with his head in the books, but he will also be spending much needed time gardening, playing with the kids, becoming involved in their school lives, watching them grow, nurturing our relationship, hunting, foraging, building on local relationships, making, fixing, growing and many other things that he has had limited time to do in the past.

Obviously, we will be living on significantly less money. We are okay with that. We are making plans and preparations to be able to do this without incurring great stress or sacrificing our QUALITY of life. We are looking into getting a milking goat and a hive of bees. We are building up our soils and constructing new garden beds. We are planning what we will be needing to grow, and when, and where. I will be making soap ahead of time so that it cures ready - one less thing we need to budget for. Little things like this, little ways of reskilling ourselves, will make all the difference.

Another change that we are busy preparing for is the change in the air that Winter brings. Winter Official is still a little over a month away, but the nights and mornings are cooling right down already and reminding me to do the seasonal 'change over'. First on the list was our clothing cupboards. I go through each of the kids' wardrobes, as well as our own, rotating summer clothes that will still fit next year to the top shelf, winter clothes to the more accessible shelves, and too small clothes to the charity basket. I 'stocktake' as I do this, making sure that each child will have enough to see them through the coming season, and making a list of things we are short on so that I can keep an eye out at opshops over the next few weeks. Next on the list is shoes. Summer shoes of Miya's that will fit Eden next summer get put away, Eden's summer shoes get handed down to smaller friends, and winter shoes are bought out for wearing.

After clothes comes sheets and blankets. I bring the winter blankets out of storage and give them an air. Some are for putting on beds and some are for a handy blanket pile in the loungeroom - perfect for sitting under and crocheting (or blogging!) I will need more winter sheets for the kids this winter as I have two children no longer in nappies overnight, instead of just Miya, and the odd accident means I need more on hand. Last winter we got by on three sets between the two girls but I wanted to add another couple of sets in case we have a night where both girls have accidents. Also, I anticipate that Brannen may well be out of a cot sometime this winter, so he will be needing single bed sheets as well. I have jumped on Gumtree and found a couple of well priced, secondhand winter sheet sets that I will pick up later this week.

Next on the list is our winter pantry. I stock up on soup staples, like lentils, split peas and beans, and restock my spice cupboard with all of those warming winter spices I use a lot of in the cooler months. Cinnamon, cardamom, chili, paprika, ras el hanout, cumin, coriander seed and curry spices are filled up and I make sure I have condiments like Worcestershire sauce, Tamari, and fish sauce on hand. I have many Fowlers Vacola bottles of passata, whole peeled tomatoes and diced tomatoes lined up in the cupboard ready.

In the garden, we plan what winter vegetables we will be planting. Potatoes, garlic, onions, kale, brassicas and soup vegetables all need to go in soon, so we are prepping beds ready and planning where things will be placed. We need a good stock of wood in the shed ready for when we need the wood heater, so we are making plans to fill our newly completed wood shed with wood from friend's blocks. The chainsaw needs a service so that it will be up to the task of keeping us in wood for the whole season.

I look forward to the cooler season.  I love getting 'layering' clothes out - scarves, and leggings and boots become my uniform! I love sitting in my rocking chair under a blanket with a nice hot cocoa next to me, working on some craft project or another or tackling the mending pile. I love the changes in the garden, everything is lush and green (especially the weeds!) I love the smells that are ever-present in the kitchen.... bone broths and soups simmering on the stove, curries and stews and scones and pies, fresh warm bread on the wood heater..... yum, yum!

Are you excited about the change in season?
What do you do to prepare?

Keep Your Cool

We are already a week into 2013, and I hadn't intended on being away from the blog for so long. Sometimes, though, it's nice to take a break from all the things we think we should be doing, and instead spend time on things we actually should do more of.

We have been camping, and swimming (lots of swimming!), and playing cricket, and frisbee, and having water pistol and water balloon fights. We've been bike riding, and scooter riding, and kite flying, and going to the beach, and sand castle making, and kayaking, and searching for fresh water mussels in the river. We have been to wineries, and breweries, and distilleries, and ice-creameries. We've been through a giant maze, and four wheel driving through a giant forest. We have been spending time with lovely friends, and lovely family, from near and far. Nath and I went to see Katie Noonan, Mia Dyson and Wendy Matthews, playing an intimate acoustic gig at my favourite hotel in the Hills. Miya learned to swim in the river near where we were camping, and now she is like a little fish, so full of confidence. A very happy sight, from my girl who screamed whenever we took her close to water when she was younger. She was the oldest of the eleven children we were camping with, and took to the role of pack leader with reckless abandon. Our little tribe of barefoot, grubby little campers became independent explorers and friend-makers, and were right at home among the tents and caravans.

What a lovely holiday.

Too soon, though, it is over, and we are back amidst washing and work and weekly routines. It was very hard to drop Nath at work this morning. I told him it felt like he was a book I had borrowed from the library, and now had to return. Like he doesn't fully belong to us anymore.

Nevertheless, this is where we are at and our days are largely about coping with the heat right now. While the news stories focus on heatwaves happening right across the Eastern Seaboard, our little town in the West quietly goes about it's business of enduring strings of days of 40-degrees-plus. Tomorrow, it is expected to be 45 degrees with a possible thunderstorm (which usually means no rain but bloody muggy!) and as I type at 7pm it is still 37 degrees.

Despite the heat, we have managed to avoid using the air conditioner (apart from a very short spell one afternoon, when Nath's brother and his wife were staying with us from the UK. Nath's brother was unwell for a day or so and definitely needed some cool air! They coped extraordinarily well for the rest of the time!), and we even handled the weather okay whilst camping when nearly every day was above 40. We are acclimatising to the heat again, this being the first year we have chosen not to use air-conditioning, and are finding other ways of 'keeping our cool'.

We get up early to do the things that it is just too hot to do later in the day, such as hanging washing, feeding and watering the chooks, or going for a run. We use the ceiling and pedestal fans and have the windows and doors open in the evening, overnight, and in the early morning, shutting the house up and drawing blinds and curtains at about 9am. We then try to do very little in the heat of the day, to keep as cool as possible. We drink loads of water and have a thirty second cold shower if we need it. That's usually enough to manage the heat. In the evenings, we put the kids to bed, then utilise the rest of the light to do some more of the labour-intensive or 'hot' work, like cooking or gardening.

It has been surprisingly easy to get used to. In some ways, it is almost easier than having the air-con running all day, because it can be hard to acclimatise to the outdoor heat when your house is a constant 18 degrees. I often wonder at people who have their house so cool, that they need to wear warmer clothing! Some days are harder than others (I don't cope as well with the humid weather) but none have been unendurable.

We have chosen to do this for frugality and environmental responsibility, but I definitely do not think this is the right thing for everyone. We are young and fit and healthy, and used to the warmer climate, and are able to keep hydrated. People who are elderly, or unwell, or not in good physical health or families with very young babies should definitely use the air conditioner in extreme heat. Hot weather can be dangerous for some.

So, how do you keep your cool?

Weekend Home Happenings

Another weekend is wrapping up, and thankfully it has not contained the wild weather of last week! Instead, we have had two perfect days to get some things done around the house and yard. Some weeks, the chores just build up and rolled over to the next week, especially the outside chores, so it is nice to be able to tick things off the list.

The storms this week left us with leaves and twigs and debris all over our yard, which meant we had lots of raking to do. Raking half an acre is hard work! The bright side is, it gives us good leaf matter for the compost bays.

With the rest of it, we will lay out some new garden beds and leave them until the leaf matter breaks down a bit, ready for Autumn planting.

We have been nurturing tomato seedlings, quite a few heirloom varieties of them, and they were ready for planting this weekend so we popped them into the spaces in our existing beds, then we prepped one of the backyard beds that previously had daisies in them and planted out some leafy greens and herbs. I plan on replacing the daisies we have ripped out with other kinds of flowering bushes to keep our bird and bee life active in the garden.... but I can't stand daisies when they aren't flowering! We will probably plant out more lavender, rosemary and bottle brushes.

Our Plymouth Rock mama and her eleven babies are rapidly outgrowing their little coop and as the weather warms up they will need more space to make their dust baths to cool down, so it was time to extend their pen. Also, right near their pen are two apricot trees, just young ones, and the early ripener was picked clean by the 28s (parrots), so we wanted to protect the late ripening tree from the same fate. We spent most of today building a large run for the chooks and within that, closing off the young tree with chicken wire to keep it covered. The hen and her babies are most grateful to be able to stretch their wings and scratch and bathe!

Our blueberries are ripening beautifully on the bush, and I can't wait to pick them off and make myself a smoothie!

The quails are laying, we think we have at least four girls on the lay so far. They really are the most beautiful eggs! I am tempted to sell them off at a premium as they are sought after by fancy restaurants, but I think we will just eat them!

We finished drying our garlic crop out, and picked out the biggest ones to save as seed for next planting season, then braided the rest. This should keep us in garlic for a long time, and they really are the most beautiful, fat, fragrant garlic heads!

The next door neighbour invited us over to raid her overstocked, bursting-with-fruit apricot tree today as well. We came away with a bucketful AND a bagful, and will make jam, sauce, liqueur and bottled apricots for the year to come. Her peach trees are ripening now and she would like us to pick them before the parrots get to them too. Feels like Christmas!

Lastly, the girls had a lovely time yesterday going for a pony ride on our good friend's old pony. Miya was very wary to begin with, but once Miss Eden blazed the way, she suddenly found her courage!

We hope your weekend was as enjoyable as ours!