May 2017

May and the weather starts to cool. l built a sort of return for the duck shed in the corner of the Pond Garden. Just a wooden wall really...

With a window.....Looking out...........

And looking in............

 And painted it dark grey. Still a bit scruffy at this stage.........

The trees began to really put on a show and seeing these photos make me look forward to the next month or so very much! l do love Autumn.

 

And unlike this year, last year we were still awash with hollyhocks! This year they faded away months ago!

 And lots of other colour..l think these got killed in the frost too! 

And this!!

So beautiful.............

And such fun mowing the lawns this time of year!!!!

The ducks looked like they really enjoyed the month of May!!!!!!!! I do wonder about them sometimes! They have ponds, creeks, rivers and grassy paddocks galore to sit in and they choose this??

And someone who definitely DIDN'T enjoy May was poor little Pushka who got hung up in a picket fence (we assume) and very badly tore her cruciate ligament. Operated on and then cage confined for a month (then room confined for two more months!). This photo was taken by the lovely surgeon who sent it to me on my phone the minute she woke up from the anaesthetic.

So the rest of May she spent in this......

The cage ended up on a table so she could look out of the window. She was such a good girl and was remarkably patient and calm the entire time.

And to commiserate over the enormous vet bill l obviously went out and bought THIS !! Which l do absolutely LOVE!

So an expensive month but worthwhile Pushka has made an excellent full recovery and shows no signs of soreness or lameness . What this Winter will bring though we shall wait and see. No doubt she will be spending a lot of time keeping warm in front of the fire. 

 

 

 

April 2017

Beautiful April... A lot colder and more advanced last year maybe compared to this year. We are still having relatively mild mornings and nights.

This particular Maple Tree is not even hinting of turning this amazing shade of red yet.........

And the shrouding mythical mists we love so much have yet to eventuate...

The Pond Garden took on the look of a construction site as the bridge (well it's a pretend bridge really) went in and l tried to determine what way to put the rails....

 

This way won!

As these guys looked on..............

This stunning row of Salvias were absolutely magnificent until a heavy frost at some stage came along and completely killed the lot of them in one fell swoop! A good lesson to learn for me about putting all my eggs in one basket as far as plants go!

This year the same flower bed ended up a riot of colour, filled with Nasturtiums, Lupins, Poppies, you name it....l found a seed l chucked it in!

It has been fabulously colourful all year...and hopefully (unlike my poor Salvias) most will reappear next year!

Talking of colour........The Walnut Tree started to shed its harvest........... leaves........

And Walnuts galore !

And it was April that l obviously decided my garden wasn't big enough and started on the driveway........

 

Both sides..............

THEN decided THIS side wasn't big enough............

 

And made it bigger.........

And l definitely remember planting a tree (a poplar) and wrenching all these rocks out of one very tiny hole!!

l hope the tree appreciated it!!!

The Forestry Fires began and the sky (as it is this year) filled with smoke.

And turned everywhere a slightly surreal shade of orangey pink

Horrible but always pretty at the same time.

And THAT was April!!

 

March

 

March....but for starters here is a photo l took this morning of my lattice screen from the February post. Still a long way to go but the Boston Ivy is slowly creeping its way out there even though the main contenders for space at the moment are the crazy Nasturtiums which l just love...........until the first big frost and then they will all be gone!

So now back to March (which seemed to be a lot less busy than February!)

We had our first frost by the looks of it........

And l took lots of photos of flowers..........Not that THAT'S unusual!

And baby chickens in hats!!

l then decided to build my SECOND more ambitious pond in what was the old netted vegie garden. l pulled out all the netting, ripped down most of the old fence and started to dig. This pond took me a while and l don't think l actually started to fill it up with water until November but this was the very beginning!

And because l am sooo proud of this area here is a sneak peak of what it looks like today...Hard to believe after less then a year isn't it? l still find it hard to believe how much it grew..

Autumn colour must have been late as the front veranda looks still pretty green here.

As opposed to today, almost exactly a year later the whole front is turning brilliant red already. 

And Georgie decided the very best thing in the whole wide world of her new life was the stable....She loved it and still does to this day. She adores coming into her yard every evening and most mornings she greets us covered in shavings.

And Barney kept on eating grass..................

Yep, March certainly was a lot quieter!