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Heading off to bed last night I heard a rather familar sort of kerfuffle on the deck. It's not like Lady Penelope didn't try all the escape routes long before Guinness arrived. But last night - he gave getting out a red hot go.
PermalinkPole Dancing
Don't ask... no idea why she was doing this but there she was.
Ducks and Tomatoes by Christmas!
We've had all sorts of problems with duck hatchings this year - I suspect partially because of the weather, it's been stinking hot and unbelievably dry in these parts. Finally we resorted to some duck eggs under a clucky chook, and even though the hatching rate has again been very minuscule, at least we've finally got some!
Given that it's been unbelievably dry it has been a big big struggle in the vegetable garden thus far. Despite that we're already eating some things, although I can't keep the moisture levels up enough to get seeds to germinate reliably.
The upside of all of this is the holy grail of my gardening life .. ripe tomatoes for Christmas!
Pigs and Geese - because
She's back... hatching more straw for goodness sake! Started off with 20 something of her own eggs - managed to kick them all around the yard, nothing hatched needless to say. Then moved onto a dozen assorted duck eggs. She managed to crack a couple of those eggs, then kicked them all over the place - that time he got involved, and here he is again - keeping her company and we all know this is a complete waste of time....
And just because I happened to have the camera with me when they were having a play - pigs happy as pigs in....
They reallly really really like a wallow around in the mud. Then they want a really really really good rub up against you to scratch straight afterwards....
It's not all poultry around here
We have been sorting out the vegetable and fruit gardening again for another year, although we've had a very very dry, weird spring again. Stinking hot to cold fluctuations in temperature, have made it a bit of a lottery, without all the hassles of trying to maintain soil moisture. Still we keep building up infrastructure in raised beds and making more and more soil in the hopes that another 5 or so years we'll be a lot more weather resilient than we are now...
This is our new long, raised bed, flush up against the wind barrier at the back of the vegetable garden, there's still plenty of clear space between here and the next set of raised beds to be filled up eventually with more raised structures. This is now planted out with zucchinis, cucumbers, pumpkins, sunflowers, watermelons, bitter melons, rockmelons and assorted asian greens.
It's amazing what you can do with a leaking water tank and some old gal that was on the roof of a shed that's now been rebirthed into a duck house.
Meanwhile the original snake bed is back in action this year:
Still trying for the Holy Grail of tomatoes by Christmas....
The red gum sleeper beds have been operational all winter - and I must admit the borage that survived all through the cold months was a bit of a surprise! So they've been restocked with new straw / manure / compost and off we go again.
Other little spots around the place - snake beans on the end of the snake bed.
Crop circles of tomatoes and pumpkins:
Not as many tomato plants in this year - had a problem with the timing of striking seedlings this year which I'll need to sort out next year (no more SheKilda's and things next year - things to be done on the farm!) but all in all, it's great to see the brassica's clearing away and the tomatoes and pumpkins and the things that say summer rolling out.
On the upside we shouldn't be short of apricots - this is just one of the trees that's only a couple of years old - they are all covered in fruit, as is the original older tree.
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