Not about the farm or the garden

Yesterday was Grace's 15th birthday so it is all about her. She is easy to please and was really taken with her birthday cake this year. I have to say it was one of the easiest I have had to make. I saw the idea on Pinterest and it really requires no instructions, what you see is what you get, a chocolate cakes iced and surrounded in Kit Kat wafers and topped with Snarties. I chose the smallest cake tin I have because I knew it was going to be a big ask for the four of us to get through that much decoration. As it happen, only three of us have tried, I really do not like cake overly unless it is a cheesecake so I passed (so far).

 

Kit Kat and Smarties cake

5months

 The fifteen years since she was born have flown by which I am sure is what any mother would say about their children. This is the girl who at three thought that headstones in a cemetery were to tell you the name of the flowers there and that because of photos she had seen, that I was alive when the world didn't have any colour.

5 years

 This is my very favourite picture of her. Five years old and truly a sweetie.

15 years

And now almost grown up but still there is quite a bit of the little girl in her personality. She loves her family, her violin and piano and just about any creature you can name.  And I love her.
Tracy

Nesting

Black Indian Runner ducklings

 I had to be patient today but I was rewarded with a glimpse or two of the new ducklings. They are cute and tiny but it is always a marvel once they are hatched, how they actually fit inside their eggs. The mother duck is being very protective of these new little hatchlings and she isn't afraid to use a bit of force to keep onlookers away. Though her quack is much worse than her bite.

There is a lot of nesting going on amongst the poultry.

 Our white turkey has a clutch of eggs. She chose the nest which is a bit on the small side for her having been made with chickens in mind. I guess in real estate jargon, it would be called cosy. She isn't sitting tight yet but I don't think she will be too long because she has quite a collection of eggs. A turkey can cover quite a few eggs when the settle down and we have had thirteen hatch out from one mother before. Too many for us to eat so we sell them privately or through local poultry sales.

Marie, the Wyandotte has chosen an old lawnmower catcher as her nesting site. She is sitting on a clutch of duck eggs. There isn't any point in us hatching out the chicken eggs because they are cross bred with the little Sebright rooster and any birds would be too small to be worth the effort of plucking and their egg laying potential would be questionable too.

There is another duck incubating a clutch of eggs but her picture refuses to load onto blogger today. She has made her nest out in the open (in their night pen) which is typical for our ducks. They don't care if they get wet, they just sit tight.

I love the baby poultry. They have cuteness in spades but it doesn't make me want to touch them. I loathe the feeling of birds. The girls will pick them up and pet them but I only pick up a bird if I have to. Not sure why but they just freak me out a bit.

Pink geranium-gives a 1970s retro feel to the garden

 

Lastly I wanted to mention a new online gardening community. Blooming blogs has just started up and looks like it will be a good place to link up with other bloggers or even just to get some feedback, advice or to find a new blog or two to read.

 

We have a big birthday here tomorrow so it's action stations in preparation.

Tracy

No batteries for the camera. Not a big deal but... there are brand new, freshly hatched little black ducks I want to snap.
Tomorrow.

Running on Empty

Empty water tanks that is. We have never had both of our water tanks on the house go dry before but it happened on Sunday night. I'm thinking that there may be something amiss with the tanks because we have had much drier conditions before, had an extra household member and haven't run out of water before. I am definitely giving thanks now that we installed other tanks for 'just in case' because we now need that water. When you live in town with mains water, it is easy to not give water much of a thought. Turn on the tap and out is comes but relying completely on rain water is a completely different matter. Anyway, we have water at the turn of a tap now that we have pumped some into our house tanks from the auxillary tanks. A spot of rain would be much appreciated though just to be sure.

 

California poppy- Red Chief

 I know others are feeling the dry too but unlike the garden at Thistlebrook, my garden is looking pretty good. Things are growing well although the grass areas are quite dry but I have never been one for a manicured lawn so that doesn't trouble me a jot. In fact, if the grass doesn't grow too much then I don't have to mow it which can only be a good thing. Grass in the paddocks is another matter entirely, that I want to grow and be lush and fresh.

Chameleon rose (always in bloom for Grace's birthday)

So, even more careful water usage is on the cards here.Mulching the garden(almost all done), perhaps using a wetting agent, watching for ways to reduce evaporation of stock water and being vigilant in the house. I'm not sure if the predictions for a hot, dry summer are going to come to fruition or not but I am going to act as if they are and take the right actions and precautions. It doesn't hurt.
Tracy

Broad beans

Today is HOT. It is amazing what a difference that week makes, sub zero temperatures last Thursday night and the mid thirties today. I have taken off the flannel sheets and replaced them with light weight summery ones. Grace was most impressed yesterday with her fresh bed linen and said it felt like a motel bed. I must have tucked hers in extra tight. Hope has even requested a swim tomorrow but I'm not sure I'm quite ready for that.

In preparation for the heat and the even hotter and most likely from predictions, drier weather ahead, I have been spending the mornings in the orchard replenishing the mulch around the trees and berries. I am certainly getting a cheap workout.

I think this week I will mulch the vegetable garden too. The soil is warm and if left unmulched, it dries out quickly and in summer some plants would need more than one watering a day. I use lucerne mulch that I get from the same place we buy our lucerne hay which we feed the sheep when necessary. They usually have bales which for whatever reason are not suitable for stock feed but are more than adequate for the garden. The only drawback is that weeds are introduced to the garden that haven't been here before, Johnson grass and Thorn apple just to name two.

Today I have been processing beeswax. And slowly but surely, each time I do it I am for one thing getting better at it and for another, I am actually starting to enjoy the process. Thank goodness for that.

It is time for chickens to be fed and that's my job too.
Tracy

Paying it Forward-seeds

Carrot- purple dragon

Seeds are big deal to me. Almost everyday I am planting seeds or collecting them or even eating them. Most of the seeds I use are heirloom varieties which come with a history and often a little more flavour too. Swapping seeds or even giving them away is great way to keep things growing. Last week Gillian offered some of her excess seeds and I took up her offer.

If you would like to learn more about the plight of seeds the impact on food production/freedom then there is a film that can be downloaded from here.

Anyway my little bit for spreading seed is to give some of my own seeds away. I have some beans (climbing princess) and a few moon and stars watermelon seeds(I don't have a lot of these)  that I will give away. Unfortunately I can only send these within Australia and not to Tasmania or WA because of quarantine restrictions. But other than that I am happy to post them. Just send me an email (sunnycornerfarm  at  hotmail dot com    or there is a link on my profile page) with your name and address and which seeds you would prefer.

happy growing
Tracy

Sidetracked

Life's hard

Is it just me or do others get sidetracked regularly?  I have a pile of things on my to-do list and at the end of the day I find half of them un-done because I had to do something that cropped up. Yesterday it was an unexpected jaunt up to my Nan's house to dismantle a chicken pen which is now going to be useful here. Today a goanna has been disturbing the chickens so I have to put down tools every so often and scare it away. Thankfully it can't get into the pen and do any damage there. It is all good though. How boring would life be if it went too smoothly and all of my troubles a trifling. For that I am grateful. I think the real answer would be to make a shorter to-do list.

I could very easily get sidetracked online too. Maybe on the next rainy day I will let myself because there are a number of blogs out there that I really want to spend some more time exploring.

Now back to my jobs.
tracy