The Morning Job!

My all time favourite job of the day is one I do every morning without fail. If l go to work or not............. (Hmmmmm ok maybe not if it's pouring with rain) but pretty much apart from that...... l am there.....

With my secateurs and my funny little green carry pot l use for weeding....off l go. Round the garden. Snipping here, chopping there. Saying hello to every single plant l have. Scolding the borage for getting too rampant........praising the Ajugas for sending their beautiful purple blue spires up into every available nook and cranny.....

Waiting for new growth whether it's the blossom on the Quince Tree .....nearly there!

.....or new leaves on the Maples....

Every new plant gets studied and congratulated if l see a new shoot...............

Mollycoddled and protected from intrusive foxglove leaves.............

Or just simply admired for being so beautiful or pretty.

The older beds get constantly thinned and over zealous Forget- Me- Nots get reprimanded and gently pulled out away from everything it threatens to envelop with its mantle of smothering blue flowers!

Completely dotty? Possibly .........but it sure beats Breakfast Television!

 

Burn burn.

As the garden gets ready for Spring.........................

Geoff and l took the opportunity with rain forecast tomorrow to get ready for Summer!

A bit of burning off in the Wild Paddock.......with goats of course!

And Lilli!

We WILL get on top of this paddock one day, but being tucked away at the bottom of the property we often don't get down here for months at a time. Years  and years of neglect has it overflowing with bracken ,blackberries, Spanish Heath and every other imported weed known to mankind! Burning it doesn't of course get rid of it but it certainly reduces the fire fodder should a fire ever go through here.

These two girls are not too keen on the smoke and flames (which is quite understandable!) and keep a fair distance away.

Just watching!

But Toggles Fatty Boomba LOVES fire and follows Geoff everywhere with the torch not wanting to miss out on anything! Cars and Fire. Her big loves! And us of course!

Very satisfying to watch the wretched Spanish Heath burn and sizzle away!

With an hour or so before darkness fell ,we let everything die down then headed back to put the goats to bed and bring the ponies in.

Very happy with what we had achieved!

Now back up the hill for dinner!

Shadows

This time of year is so pretty in so many ways. One thing in particular that always strikes me is the shadows that fall across the lawn from the Walnut branches of our massive old tree.

Covering the grass in a maze of crisscross patterns.

It's like someone has taken a spray can and painted all over the lawn!

To be enjoyed until the leaves come out and the branches all meld together in one huge dark shroud!!

Just hanging.............

Jeez l love this goat! She is grumpy, aloof and cantankerous .She pretends to hates us but loves us the most out of all three of them. (as long as they are not watching!) And l LOVE the way she hangs!!

None of the others do this..............

Just her...........

Comfy?? Doesn't LOOK like it!

Just love her!

Happy Anniversary!

Five years  ago today was Moving Day for us to Candlestick Farm.

And what a big day it was too!!!

Sometimes it feels like we have been here forever, other times it feels like only a heartbeat.

Here's to us and here's to the next 50!

All the heavy stuff!

We have spent the last few days refreshing and getting the garden and property ready for Spring. New gravel on the paths as they tend to blend into the grass after a year or so!

l love it when they all look new again!

And a great score from one of our neighbours who has just built a milling shed for old timbers on his place. 15 bags of sawdust/shavings! Free! So we topped up the chook shed, the duck shed, the hothouse, the pony stable and the Potager Garden.

Great for supressing weeds and killing mites and bugs in the hen house!

The Potager Garden in particular was getting a bit messy and out of hand! A few minutes with the Whipper Snipper and 8 bags of sawdust and it's now as neat as a pin and a great mulch for the paths!

Before!

And after!

Then as the day slowly started to end we managed to dig the last few remaining holes and get all the fence posts in for our post and rail fence.

 Going to look great!

But all too much for this little black duck!!!

Busy Busy Busy!

Warmer weather (apart from the savage frost this morning!) prompts me to get the seed thing happening in readiness for Summer. More time consuming and tedious than buying glorious 'pre grown' flowers but a lot lot cheaper! l bought this groovy little mini greenhouse (within a greenhouse!) to propagate the seeds to get them going a little bit earlier. It's proven itself very well and is almost full already!

We have Hollyhocks, Cornflowers, Pentstemons, Salvias, and host of vegie seeds on the go.

 All at different life stages! Now we just need the weather to warm up and out they go!

Summer should be fun and colourful this year!

 

 

New Fence

Geoff and I decided a while ago to divide our Hay Paddock in two. The main reason being to try to stem the tide of Wallabies in at least the half that gives us the most hay,then later on down the track attempt the bigger challenge of stopping them in the other half. It's difficult as the paddock borders the Creek which is full of the very beautiful but very destructive Crack or Black Willow.

A total pest by any standard. The trees constantly fall down, drop branches or sag to a point where they rest on the wires and stretch or break them Chop them down? Easier said then done trust me! For starters the trees are MASSIVE, they are on Crown Land and in deep leech ridden swamp. There are HUNDREDS of them and we HAVE chopped plenty down over the years but one falling down simply makes the rest of them lean into the empty space till THEY fall down. Nightmare. Sooooooooooooo we build a fence...and the Wallabies pound up and down up and down ALL night trying to get to the grass. Day after day, week after week. Somewhere in the swamp a trees falls and diverts the water to a new path. Along comes a flood of rain and the water finds its way to the new well worn trodden path alongside our new fence that the Wallabies have made. The water then flows along the path and into the paddock. Ground gets soft and erodes away......Wallabies push under the fence. Reeds grow, our paddock gets slighter boggier and marshier and the Wallabies win again.  The only solution we have (apart from lots of men in little red suits to come kills the buggers!) Ahhhhh we can only dream............

...........is to concentrate on the easier bit and forget the other bit for now..........
So.....................FENCE TIME! Aaggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!
This stretch is going to be post and rail with 40ml barrier netting buried a foot into the ground. Lets see them dig their way or jump over THIS one!

 Six holes done so far with another 5 to go. We have some beautiful trees already in place to grow up (one day!) on the other side.

Gate in place to give us an idea. Should look lovely when it's done! AND hopefully give us a few more bales of hay!