Posted in The Homestead

Today was a good day. We didn't have anywhere to go (being the last Saturday of the school holidays), so we got up early to get a good start to the day.

I was a bit worried when I pulled back the curtains this morning as there was a red sky in the east, and I always thought a red sky in morning was a shepherd's warning, but the day turned out to be glorious and hot!

Robin says that I must be getting near my third trimester in my pregancy as I've started to get my washing obsession. I don't know why it is, but in the latter months of my pregnancies (once I'm over the morning sickness) I always want to wash everything in sight. I go through the house and grab anything I lay eyes on that can be washed. I'm only 26 weeks - 14 weeks of laundry obsession left!

The orchard trees are starting to look beautiful. Finally the apples are starting to flower, and the cherries as well. This first picture is of my heritage apple called Monty's Surprise. It was a recent discovery from an old tree found on the side of a road I believe, somewhere on a country road in the remote parts of New Zealand. It's my favourite apple tree, given to us by my sister and brother-in-law. I should get another one, because I'd be devastated if I lost it - I think it's my favourite because it is such a unique tree and a fairly new 'old' discovery, so there are not too many of them around yet.

And here is the cherry tree blossom.

And of course, Saturday is the day I clean out the chicken house and give the girls a new bed of straw. So they get to roam free range over the property. I put my 8 year old son, Hugh, on sentry duty - it was his job to keep the girls off my fledgling vege garden. It was not an easy job either - they would make straight for the silver beet! I'm saving up for a picket fence! I took Hugh out a large drink of juice and a large slice of banana cake to eat in the shade while his Dad and I took our afternoon cup of tea inside. See... there's one heading straight for the silver beet with its bottom in the parsley bed.

 I do love watching them scrummage around in the dirt though - and it is nice to see them break into a little trot every now and then. They are being good girls mostly though - we are averaging 6 eggs a day!

Don't you just love a fluffy chicken's bottom!

And this is a photo of Poppy sulking. I had to tie her up for the first time in her life because she was getting rather rough with the hens and even though they were sticking up for themselves I could see that in the end they would come to no good. But Poppy sulked and she doesn't like me now.

It was so hot outside that the children wanted to stay inside, but I wanted them out where I could keep an eye on them, and doing something that would burn up some energy, so I said I'd put the sprinkler on for them if they got into their togs (bathing suits). We don't have a pool yet, and this is the next best thing, and the kids really love it. They had a great time and I could hear lots of laughter and screams as I gardened.

When the chickens were back in their run, we let the dogs off and Cricket (after his ritual dip in the water race outside the gate) smelled out 'something' hiding under a pile of wood scraps and iron behind the chicken house. It was probably a field mouse, as later on I did see something small and brown dash across the lawn towards the vacant field next door. It was rather funny to watch him though. Cricket spent a good part of the afternoon sniffing it out and trying to reach it. As always with Cricket's hunting sessions, Poppy was just content to look on and at times be a little helper, even though she mostly got showers of dirt sprayed all over her.

Here are some pictures of the vegetables that I do have out in the garden, but we're still getting the odd frost, so I'm holding off planting out my seedlings yet. Maybe another week and it should be warmer. I did manage to get a couple of rows of potatoes planted before my energy gave out.

This is the garlic with the chives on the edge.

And these are my artichokes that survived from last summer. I have two plants from about 8 that I grew from seed, but they struggled to grow and it didn't help that I put the hoe through two of them while weeding. I don't know much about artichokes, except that they're yummy, but I'm thinking that I probably won't get anything from these plants until next year.

And these are my peas. The first three rows have sprouted, bless their hearts. I was so pleased with these seeds, because I paid only .95 c for a large packet because this is the last summer before their expiry date and I was a little bit worried that they might not sprout, so it was thrilling to see that little shoot apear from under the dirt. I have three more rows planted two weeks after the first, and I have still more to do - you can never have too many peas, right?

And here is my strawberry bed. I have another smaller one around the other side of the house. The netting is temporary due to the chickens getting into there this afternoon, so Hugh and I quickly threw this over to keep them off the precious plants. A huge thank you to Vickie in Nova Scotia for this strawberry bed idea (I copied hers), but mine don't look as hearty as they should because the poor plants got drowned not once, but twice - in the floods we had during our late winter, but they're starting to come away nicely now and we've even got quite a few flowers blooming on them.

Those leftover blocks from our house-building sure came in handy!

And here is a final shot for the day. It has been a wonderful, happy, productive Saturday. I'm looking forward to the Christmas school holidays coming up in a couple of months when we will get lots of Saturdays like these once Saturday ballet and tennis are finished for the year, and we're right in the middle of the long stretch of lazy summer days.