Oh Daisy you wrecking the garden

Well she's only doing what a goat does naturally she going to jump into the veggie beds and eating the peas and anything that looks tasty. What are we going to do?

Only one solution and that is forget about planting right now until we can fence around the patch. The to do list is getting longer, she needs a house and yard of her own, free browsing and sleeping in the bathroom is not good enough anymore. The sheep are not very welcoming and she can't live with the chooks, the dogs might love her to death ... Husband keeps saying she needs to go outside but she was to little. We still bottlefeeding her, but have noticed she is starting to like the pony mix that I messed by the feed bins. So now I mess a little everyday, adding a few sheep pellets and dried carrot peels in a little bucket for her. She is about 7 weeks old now. A home for Daisy will be next weeks project.

Well we off to the farm for the weekend, 2 vehicles both with trailers, "the big sandstone run", my latest EBay purchase 6 pallets of rocks. Sometimes think I got rocks in my head carting them that far but they were cheap and great for landscaping the garden. I do like a nice garden We only have shale and round river rock our way and if you bought rock there, you would be paying heaps more. Hmmmmmm good excuse.

Until nexttime
Rina

How to keep the kids busy at home .....

As mentioned before my grandsons aged 6 1/2 are visiting from Brisbane for the holidays, and gee can kids get bored quickly. It really depends what age they are I suppose. They go to the same school and see each other daily and most weekends, hardly ever go anywhere without the other one tagging along.This holiday the word MacDonalds is not going to happen, end of storie. We're going to eat healthy food and fruit, even the odd veggie. If I have to disguse it I will, but first we try the old way. Starting with real oats porridge, butter & sugar and touch of milk, I could hardly believe my ears when they requested porridge. This morning it was 4 boiled bantam eggs, toast, cheese sticks and milk. We have sliced and roughly cubed fruit to make fruit sticks, they scewered it themselve with their choice of fruit and gobbled it up. As I am typing this we waiting for the lamingtons in the oven to bake, then dip them into the chocolate sauce and then coconut. Tomorrow we might bake cornflake biscuits. Just chatting as we work I asked them does mommy not bake biscuits, no she doesn't know how. It can't be that hard.

We going to book for horseriding lessons, something my kids had the privilge of doing. That should be an ongoing thing but holidays will have to do. They brought their tennis rackets with to play Aunty T. Every holiday the boy paint egg boxes for me and decorate them, we just waiting for Mia (neighbour)to get back from school ... we use posterpaint. Feeding Daisy is their job and so it going well taking turns. It smells so nice so the lamingtons should be nearly ready, better go make the choc dip ...
Until next time
Rina

Canberra's Floriade ... a show not to miss.

This wonderful flower show is held every year around Sept/Oct in Canberra. We had a lovely day walking around, then a fish and chips lunch with a toss salad with cherry tomatoes cut in half. Bought fudge from the fudge lady, heaps of different flavours M&M's on chocolate, Cafe Latte, Coconut Rough and the list goes on.

Until next time
Rina

Planning the next school holidays and long weekend.

Oh boy it's Queensland school holiday again, the boys saw on Facebook grandma's got lambs and got rather excited. They will be flying in Saturday evening. It's only a little more than 1hr flight, just as long as it takes us to get home again. There lots to do here, feeding the chooks, giving Daisy(goat)a feed from a bottle and giving Miss Bella (lamb) a good scratch. Bella has tamed up beautifully and loves the attention. Who needs the animal farms or zoo when you got grandma's house. We plan on spending a few days here, the we will head up to the farm for 2/3 days (6hr drive north),might do a spot of fishing by the river. 1/2 days in Coffs Harbour, visiting the Big Banana and the dolphins. Not to forget the main attraction water slides and fun park, grandma promised next holidays, so I will keep that promise. Then head back to Brisbane by the 3rd October. It's all planned just hope the weather keeps.

On the way back near Grafton where sugarcane is grown, you can buy mulch straight from the farms at a very reasonable price. Every trip back we pack the 8x5 caged trailer full of bales of sugarcane mulch. Sometime I run them through the mulcher for a finer mulch and work that into the soil. Amazing how the last bales left always turn into fine mulch before I get to use them. I need to replace the mulch under the fruit trees, just another job for the long weekend.

Scott and a mate have decided to give Husband a hand digging post holes to try get the fence finished. So the long weekend will be spent fencing, with Husband and myself concreting them in. Reacon we got a good hundred post to go, not including the crownland section that also needs to be redone. Scott's my green buddy, they have 2 acres at South West Rocks with heaps of citrus, stonefruits and other stuff I have never heard of before. He's into Thai food so has planted gingers, galangha, basils, rosemary and chillies. He makes this awsome sauce for steaks ... will still get the recipe from him oneday.

Until nexttime
Rina

Time to start planting some sweetcorn

What to do with a little spare time, actually had the day off from work. There was a few things that needed doing around the house but decided I rather garden. With Daisy the little feral goat, around my heels wanting a feed and running around the backyard, jumping on the chookhouse, then trying to squeese through the fence to the pool. You just have to keep watching her. Her little horn have been removed, I felt bad for putting her through that but in the long run she will need to earn her keep as a dairy goat someday.Hmmmmm Feta cheese.





After digging in some mushroom compost, soiled sugarcane mulch from the chookhouse, the garden bed was ready for some sweetcorn seeds. Hopefully by christmas we will be eating corn. Planted a few potatoes in a tub with still plenty of space to fill up with more soil. We never seem to eat all the potatoes before they start sprouting buds, before I would have thrown them out but not anymore. Even if I get only 2/3 new potatoes I would be happy. Planting +- 10 coliander seeds in groups make for easier picking. The veggie garden is just starting to take shape here in Sydney.

Happy gardening
until nexttime
Rina

Finally found some Orpingtons!

Sadly our Buff Pekin rooster "Fred" died of old age last week as well, poor thing tried his best at crowing but somehow it started good, only to end up quite badly. But he was a good little rooster, taking Ginger off to bed real early and always the first to crow in the morning.





On a brighter note, I finally bought my orpingtons! Wow they even bigger and heavier than I first thought. A trio of black orpingtons! These birds are giants, I kid you not! There is a good feed here ..... but first we need eggs then chookies and lets hope a few roosters for eating. I wonder if they bigger than Cornish hens and do we have them in Australia? In the pic are Henny and Penny they young Astrolopes, let hope they start laying soon.




Knight got a new girlfriend, his Aunty Tamara (Tammy) a retired english springer spaniel showdog. It's sure going to take gentle coaxing to get her settled. She and another pup was badly mauled by a stray at a dog show, everybody rushed at her traumitizing her even more. She is very shy and gentle like her mom Lacey Pants, who died a while ago.



Until next time
Rina

Good new and bad news

So the good news first then the bad: the last Lamb was born yesterday, a very tiny little girl, she seems well and is suckling at mom. Atm I am keeping them seperated from the other girls and their kids, who seem so big compared to her. Mom was very scrony compared to Miss Lashes and the others. Her lamb last season died at about 5 months, so maybe not good news.




And now the bad news: our old man Chester died sometime during the night, suspect a heart attack or kidney's failure. We got him as a rescue kitten, who had very little chance of making it. He lived a good life for 13 years, always ready for a play. George is very upset to lose his cat but he has still got Jellybean to cuddle.

It's raining at the moment, a cold miserable day. The grass and plants needs it so badly, without water now, we probable have more water restrictions this summer. Due to climate change we heading for a very hot summer this year. We have repaired the fence where our dog Knight keeps escaping this morning, hopefully thats sorted. It's only been since Lacey died that he gets out looking for company but His Aunt Temara is coming to live with us Saturday, so he will have another dog for conpany again.

I going to miss my Son badly as he was my helper build chook houses and fixing the fencing. He is moving back to Queensland tomorrow.