Life in my winter farmyard

Vege garden No 1 and 2



Urkkk a sqelch skurge here..

And a sqelch skurge there..can you see my newly potted raspberry orange canes, some new compost in the tub and two lots of hidden doggy doo compost in the tyres..

No Ginge!!! Not by the little baby brassicas..Bad boy (our neighbour who is growing tulips has had to net then as they come up she said our cat is not always welcome!!!!)

Christmas: Head chook and proud of it

The girls enjoy the old brassicas I pulled out this morning

Sad chook who is three by now enjoys some reprieve from the mud and squalor

Aforementioned mud and squalor

The GHIU (Gorgeous hubby in uniform) answer to mud and squalor...le chateau du corrugated iron..

Impossible to contain the muddy back yard with giant golden paws galloping all over it..

So that is a quick foray around the "farm'. I enjoyed taking these photos today. I sat down with the chooks for ages taking photos and talking to them. Christmas left everyones company to brood a bit in the box but it was all a SCAM as I checked after and there wasnt a egg and she was there for a good twenty minutes. The last two days have been extrodinary with five eggs each day. As most of the chooks are now over two, one or two in moult, feeling the cold etc etc we have been well down, so ten eggs in two days is fantastic. here comes some more bacon and egg pie methinks! The farm is just so muddy and sqelchy and gumboot only territory. I look at it this time of the year and despair a bit but then i think of all the things that await in the next few months. Im not sure if we will see this summer here as we are hot on the trail for a property and have decided that if we have to go up country then we will down grade the car to a cheap 1.5 or so and learn to live within our petrol means. The GHIU has a company car as he can have callouts and odd things and so it will be running only one car.
Last weekend I thought Id found the property. it was 2 acres on a napier road, and had pig pens (On concrete) 1/4 acre of not bothered about asparagus, two pet ducks(who lay), a pet goat(Not a nanny unfortunately) , a huge chook area and shed, and enough room for this bloke to bring on some calves each season. GHIU would not even comprimise as it was on a very busy road (The main Napier/taupo road at the begiining and the traffic and trucks would drive him mad) I thought we could comprimise for now as it was AFFORDABLE...but no. He promised me that he knows there is the perfect property for us and I have to trust him as he has uncanny and excellant esp skills..or what i call his woo woo abilities.
So while we are here I am thinking of the potato plots i have been working on, the strawberries i have just planted out the front, the lettuce garden I will plant out in the wine barrel full of delicious compost and also some more fencing to protect this all from the marauding chooks when i free range the,. Despite my elaborate fencing system they still managed to get into the vege garden the other day. Hokey is the worst. She is one of our young ones and she stalks the fence lines forever looking for a place to make her escape..including into the neighbours. Her "sisiter" Pokey is the sweetest little thing in comparison. Hokey will be a future leader I think if she ever gets the chance to stage a rebellion, shes just that type!

Beetroot and Schoolhouse quilts

Despite it being a very cold Winter...actaul days of frost hwere the chickens trough and parts of the swimming pool were frozen solid!! I have still had great delight in out vege garden. in our bigger garden we have a lot of brassicas: now either past their best or very young and not growing with any verve, we have some gorgeous healthy looking broad eans begiining to flower. I got a complete shock when i pulled out what i thought would be ay carrots and came away with giant monsters that had split down the middle (but very tasty they were that night our first ever carrots!!!) But the best performer in the garden has got to be our beetroot. These are only some I pulled (the rest still in the ground). I fancied a bit of bottling and found a chutney in the good ole Edmonds book. Well It is delicious...especially when eaten with bacon and egg pie.....

BEFORE:

 AFTER:

Im thinking of making some more (I do love seeing all the produce bottled and ready for use over winter)

So I finally gor some of my quilting Mojo back. In amidst the frenzy of scrapbooking I really suddenly felt like just stitching away at something. I soon found a schhol house block quilt I hadnt finished and with only one trip to Spotlight (!) I have just completed it. I am quite please with it if i do say so myself!! 

I am currently cleaning out my closet in time for our "move" (SO close to finding somewhere now!) and have so far come across six pieced tops to quilt.....I actually desire to quilt the school house blocks, but need in the closet jumble to find my quilting hoop. After all it IS winter and what better way to spend inside than with a quilt.

It is the school holidays and I was so ready for the break. I love having the girls at home and just doing what we ant. We went to see harry Potter today at the movies. Actually I thought it would be heaps more expensive than it was. I enjoyed it but almost went to sleep..darkened room, warmth, my girls by me but quiet...the conditions were just right!!!!

As I write it is raining rather biblically...my poor chooks..I do feel sorry for them in this weather.however the ghiu made them a lean too and they go under there and see even today that they had made a dust bath in the corner!!

Ive also been watching reruns of the GOOD life that programme never fails me..I laugh, get inspired, the girls love it as much as I...why isnt ther anything on like that now.Right now the way things are going back to basics would be a great time to have a sitcom about self sufficiency..well I think so anyway.

Love to you all Keep warm and dry

Love Cherry

doggy compost and other interests..

I am interspersing this post today with several pictures of recenet scrapbooking endeavours. I had to improvise for the royal weddingone as I could find no union jack or royal m,emorabalia to make some pages up...

I really love Becky Higgins Project life however I cannot get it at the moment in NZ. So I found these pages at the scrapping shop and have bought a few. They are great and its means I can catch up on my scrapbooking AND keep things in chronological order. This is my first one....

 And the other side..... With these you can be creative or as boring as you want. And the varieties of photo sleeve types are many..

Here is double lO I did at scrapping class the other night...

Then we finished early so our lovely tutors ran around and at no further cost put togehter another few bits for us to do this simple but effectiove LO....Another few photos from this year put away now and I feel SO on top of things.!

 From the beginning of the school year another WR Memory Keepers photo sleeve completed.:

 I need some smaller photo sleeves to store these wonderful treasure handed to me today after school:

Ill buy some tomorrow when I attend a four hour layout class. Four pages in four hours..:) Four baby pages..just what I need for the as yet unscrapped million and one baby photos.

And on to news from the Urban farm. The chooks are laying about four to five eggs a day. There is a bit of moulting going on although sad chook is now growing back lovely silky  feathers and looking years younger than her two and a half years!! This is CHristmas, leadre and general pretty girl showing me how sick she is of the murky muddy chook yard. I managed  to put a bit of sawdust and hay down inbetween rain showers but there is still plenty of mud to cover up.

And the broad beans are bolting...

The beetroot and Rhurbarb are running...

The brassicas are blooming...

 I know I post a lot of my hobbies here ut this blog is also meant to be about our ongoing challenge to find more ways to be frugal, eco friendly and self sufficient as we can. And on that note i introduce this new consept to my blog....



 I have a giant labrodor..and for the past five years of hios life I have been cleaning up after him....ugh..hate that job!!! Anyway normally i have to dispose of this at the dump..and its a hassel anyway i do it. Plus its really unenvironmentally friendly what with the leechlates and the plastic bags and the whole landfill issue...and its a hassell. But recently i read about making a doggy toilet by adding septic starter to a barrel especially for the purpose. When I looked at this further i discovered that some people actually make compost with the doggy doo. NOW this is a pretty funny subject. Some people rave about this and some people DONT!! I fugured I would give it a try. NOTE this compost is not for the edible garden!! Anyway the idea is to only put the doggy doo in and add earthworms. I have been doing this and adding both red wrigglers and earthworms, aies and giants...we have plenty of both. The first lot of tyres was full, so I covered it over and began another. The other day after only a week unattended and covered I pulled ack the cover and the heap was HEAVING with worms, who all dissappeared under the surface at the sunshine. I cannot tell yo how happy this made me. IT. IS. WORKING. Woo Hoo!!!! I hope I havent made any one sick!!
Ill now post a pretty picture to make things all better..

Anyway take care.

The first game of the netball season is on tomorrow morning (before scrapping course) but rain and not just any rain but heavy rain is forecast.

Whatever the weather have a happy weekend

Love and happy gardening

fom Cherry

The School holidays

Its the School holidays her in NZ. Two weeks of fun with the kids. Pjs til lunchtime, sleeping in...bliss. The thing is every holidays I vow to clean up, find lost library books (so far found1/3!!) and keep ahead of my girls and thier messes/ playchaos. Again I appear to be failing..... I also cant seem to get my act into gear to finish off Georgias PJ pants. I have sewn her top and she loves it and wears it with some old ottoms, and youd think that would motivate me wouldnt you?? ut no..Ive cut out one and cleared a space on the kitchen/craft table and cant seem to take the next step. However I have begun walking again. Boy am I knackered!!! My shoes are rubbish and I feel as if all my toes have been hammered tonight. Honestly I can hardly walk! I really need to svae and buy some decent Nikes (they fit my hooves well last time)

I am trying to get all my wedding photos scrapped. Gets a bit tedious. Their is no journalling or not much. Not really a lot I can say and so its just coming up with different artwork for the photos. Sometimes it all comes together and Im really happy with the result others Im not so happy  with and I keep thinking i should have used the same colours or papers throughout...but it is what it is and if in the furure some grear great grandspring enjoys them then my work is done!!!!

So this one I have actually written in white pen the guests pictured here..Im semi-happy with this one..  kaiser paper La di dah collection..

This one I started to pull apart and rearrange half way through still not sure what I think. I used kaiser love Notes (lots of Kaiser in Spotlight at the moment!) I also bought  a new bottle of gloss for the embellishments and have gone a bit crazy...youll see lots of glossy accents from here on in..

I used some stazon ink and acetate for the butterflies. First time Ive used this medium. The papers were free with a magazine and I pretty much copied thier layout they had used as an example inside...lazy huh?

More free papers, a copied layout and glossy accents going on here.......

More of the same here........

ANd this one I got from this site. Loved the sketch and practically used it exactly as it was drawn. I have so many gorgeous photos of the ballet days with Alex and am sad they are over. But now we are going to riding lessons so onwards and into new directions.

I have good news from the chook pen. My concerns over Sad chook not being well were quite true. SHe became jittery and upset and I couldnt get near her. Then I read that often chooks heavily in the moult can be paranoid. Now that a few new feathers are coming forth she has calmed down a lot more and with the new glossy feathers I keep telling her thats she going to be gorgeous!!
I do love my chooks. Everybody knows it!
Im sore and tired and Sons of Anarchy has begun so I bid you happy scrapping and happy chook keeping, until next time
Love Cherry

News from down on the (urban) farm...

I was reading a great simple life type blog here

and there were pitures of the chickens on this particular urban farm, with good and evil listed. It gave me the imputus to get into the yard and remember my camera to take pics of my girls. It has been raining really hard today and for the first time is fire starting cold so the chook pen is in a bit of a state ...(just warning you)

First up is Sad Chook. Somethings up with sad chook the grande dame of the yard. Shes eating, and drinking, occassionally pecking the young guns and looks bright and cheery enough, BUT something is up. I just feel it. Hopefully it is justthe moult. Sads has feathers poking out everywhere but a lot of glossy ones now to replace her rather dull old brown ones that living ina cage the size of a mouse trap gives you after righteen months..... I thinkshes responsible for laying the monster eggs every four or sodays and Im sure her laying has mellowed off. Im pretty sure its the moult and my GHIU can just stop making knife across the throat gestures when I mention it.... my poor babies. They will die as god intended. Hopefully falling off the perch replete and happy..

And then theres the ever gorgeous Christmas, UNdisputed Queen of the pack. She lays her cute little rown eggs every day and looks such a sight with bare feathers sticking out of her bum like pieces of straw. Bless her shes sucha little character. She is small but mighty. Look at Hokey next to her. Shes hoping for some green scraps (they had last nights left over stew a couple of hours efore at lunch so neednt look so hungrty and needy)

Here are the girls in their muddy yard . I really want to put some straw down ut the stuff Ive got is so full of grass seed and I have nightmares using it in their nesting box as it is of grass seeds embedded in bodies and inhaled down throats into lungs (this happened to our labrador Sam ....Marleys younger dopier brother..) .

From the back we have Sad Chook,Hokey, Pokey, Christmases bum, and Shelley (fitting the evil label in this photo) helen Cluck is out of shot.

 So that sums up the Animal side of the farm. Now onto the winter garden..

 Bok Choi and (can you see them) our onion seedlings are up!~!!!! First time we have ever grown onions!!! (musnt get too smug too early obviously)

Nasturtiams and beetroot, baby brassicas and (below the ground) hopeful broad bean seeds.

And just when you thought it couldnt get anymore photographically more exciting. The brassica patch interspersed with celery, spinach and the last of the basil..

 Of course i couldnt finish with out some scrapping.  last Tuesdays class was this double layout. I had just torn my muscle in my shoulder and was in pain, but nothing comes between me and my scrapbooking outings..

You can tell though that this is not my bestwork. I really was in pain and the rest of my body seemed to be in sympathy with the shoulder and so I made lots of boo boos. Ive yet to write in the little tags we made to fit behind the photos, Maybe some writing will lift this L/o

I was speaking to our gorgeous tuor who comes up with these l/os and she uses her granddaughter as a model in her layouts. She said that she had about elevan albums of her that she had used. I told her what a great legacy she was leaving her and that when she was older she would treasure it. Then I thought Golly am I doing the same thing!??
I have another photo of a layout of my father duckshooting from years ago and it was in a truly AWFUL layout I did a few years back. I have redone it and was quite pleased but my camera battery just died before I couldl get it to this blog.
Check out this sketch too. I want to use it soon..
Happy scrappin, good living and frugal thoughts
until next time
Love cherry

Another posting finally

...But I have an excuse. Whilst looking forward to Christmas and all that holds with that small frission of fear financially, Alex took REALLY sick and got pneumonia. She was in hospital for five days and this was after four days of illness at home. So on her admission we were both fully exhausted!! I stayed with her all the time with a bit of a swap with GHIU and georgia to go home shower, buy some self sufficiency magazines and Christmas special magazines and rush back again. Then when Alex got out and was still recovering I immediately got the flu and bronchitis....it was ggoing around and I went straight to the Dr for antibiotics as I didnt want to end up in Hospital, but I ended up sleeping for days straight, and a week off work (Boo Hoo bank account), then Georgia starts to cough......lets just say I wasnt leaving the surgery without antibiotics.!!! Amazing how many children and adults have succumbed to this bronchitis bug in the last feww weeks although Alex was the most severe.

And so we got the Christmas tree and can I say it is beauty, but we were all too miserable to decorate it properly. it took days, not even the children got into it!! Talk about a miserable run up to Christmas....

I am slwly making up for lost time, although this year will be bereft of my Christmas cake and other goodies. I will however soon be cooking up lots of pavlovas for Christmas Day cel;ebrations in the country with family. It seems the most ovious thing to do with my chickens laying happily!

We finished School yesterday at 12pm....oh the bliss in that. This morning we were having a busy sleep in and were flat out (literally). Its a gorgeous feeling six whole weeks of holidays in front of us. I hope I can save up enough peenies to buy a large tent (rather than our two small ones) and go away at some point. I have willing house/chook/cat sitters arranged!

I have also been scrapping previous Christmases. It seems so much easier to do while in the middle of Christmas moods! I really will post some pics when I can locate my camera!

The rain has been falling finally in between great yawning banks of humid and heat and my garden is producing its first raspberries, strawberries, its first zuccini..trying to become a marrow, the garlic is looking thick and strong and I am immensely proud of this and am looking forward to the shortest day to harvest (when is that?). What else have i had, well there a re weeds aplenty, it is wild jungle out there, and when I can battle out into the humidity and sweat profusely for a short while while I pull out weeds and wild wheat

the chooks get that plus some silver beat gone to seed. Tommorrow i am going to dig out the potatoes that didnt do so well (How could they covered in lawn clippings and scavenged and dug up by the chooks. Who knows if there will be any treasure?)  Also have a date with the chook area..a serios date one that right now in the cool of the night seems inviting but by tomoorow will seem less so!
I should go and get some sleep . Although I havent been blogging i have been reading others and its lovely to see the English and Americian season preparations. So cold there right now....we are melting here!

WIshing you a warm Chirstmas run up
Love Cherry

chicken news from the urban farm

We had the sad demise of Henrietta the other day, Despite the fact that she had been sick on and off for ages and then this time really waswnt going to pull through and despite the fact that I went around saying:wheres theres livestock theres deadstock and despite nme saying all the right things to the children and thinking of the tiny hen brain contained within I was still very depressed when she died. And of course I was the one that found her..and had to remove her...GHIU buried her though. A very touching funeral service was had around the base of the grapefruit tree and Georgia put a lovely cross of pebbles down afterward. The next day while checking my plants over in that area I inadvertantly stepped on the mound of fresh earth simking my foot into the mound and the cross and ruining the grave site.
So having lost one of our little hens we then went to the egg farm and bought two young pullets. Hokey and pokey..I cant tell them apart really. Anyway we have had them segregated off from the others and all the attendent problems that brings. (a real pain in the  butt frankly). They have been laying gorgeous little deep brown eggs. I would like to have got one older hen but they arnt available until November end. Still the feeling that weve rescued these guys does the  soul a lot of good...as long as I dont think of the other few thousand chooks left.  The oppressed has becomes the oppressor with Sad Chook marching sentry like up and down the fenced partition grabbing mouthfuls of feathers from screeching chickens from time to time. She of all chooks should feel some empathy. Maybe shes just trying to make her mark before she again gets pushed to the bottom of the pecking order y the young ones!!!
Its been great seeing the young hens learning to live in the fresh air and experiencing life as it should be for the first time. They are still quite skittish and I think just realising now (day six) that human equalls food! ut to see them dust bathing in sctasy or fanning their wings out to catch the morning sun is just delightful.
I have no digital camera at present . It is in room 5 at twyford School in georgias desk. SHe and I are both as bad as one another at rememering things and so that camera has been out of my reach to use here for a week now..... I did want to post pictures here. So Ill do it next time.
Crafts:
I have been having a ball scrapbooking and making mini albums as well and lots of Christmas layouts .
My fingers are munted from trying to finish qulting a CHristmas quilt. Im down to stippling the order and then of courser theres the binding. It has been embellished with merry Christmas 2010 so it is imperative that it goes up this Chhristmas!!!!
Hopefully more photos sson.
We are all holding our breath over in this side of the world for our trapped miners. Just awful news so close to Christmas (well anytime actually)

Best wishes Cherry

Easy Urban permiculture..

Chooks peck the insects and scratch around the compost at the front of the garden.

Chooks by scratching up compost then aerate and turn it for us.

They also manure the heap that then acts as an activator for even better/ faster compost.

The insects give them protein that then goes into their beautiful eggs for us.

I am very happy watching my happy chickens at work.

With much chooky love

Cherry

The shaky Isles

Sisters Choice

Ongoing scrap hexagon quilt

Scrap cushions

As promised my latest crafting exploits... The top is the Sister Choice quilt. I decided it wasnt wide enough and so I added flying geese. I am OVER this quilt..Officially.

So thats leaves five quilts to actually quilt I think..and half a quilted Christmas stocking, and two unfinished patchwork scrap quilts...SIGH..

So The GHIU is away with the navy this week patrolling the outer reaches of NZ from the poaching foreigners and after the big (and ongoing) Quakes in Christchurch I said that if the big Quake came to Hawkes Bay (we live on a fault line) while he was gone I wouldnt forgive him (Im a woose). Sure enough yesterday as I was home with my two coughing spluttering sniffing girls The room started to sway quite decently. My first thought (after here we go) was that at least the girls and I were together during the long awaited Big one. Thankfully althouigh it lasted a little while nothing major happened. it was a 5.1 on the scale though.

The last two days and nights have been mild and then there has been a bit of gentle rain at night..perfect for my young crops a growing . I am definately running out of room!!!  My new plants, the grapes, the boysenberry, the raspberry and the thornless blackberry are all budding up nicely. And there are flowers on a few of the strawberries.

In the henhouse there has been a downturn in the economy.. three eggs per day. Henrietta is still off. She is just not herself and on Monday I found a ruber like eggshell with yolk embedding the straw. At first I thought this was henriettas return to laying (if she is infact off) but the next two days have not proven this. Otherwise they are happy and today had a breakfast of susuages, just to cheer them up. On the weekend I have been free ranging them out in the front of the garden. Imagine if you will five chooks scratching through our mound of compost, sunning themselves in the  dust. People gawping from their cars as they drive past and me out in the sun in my lounger reading the latest edition of Urban farmer magazine. Complete. Bliss!!

 Ill leave yoiu now to watch Nanny Mcphee and the Big bang with the girls,

Happy days

Love Cherry

Lesbian hens and other news from the urban homestead..

Its been a cold few days here in the backyard homestead. Spring arrived in a flurry of freezing cold temperatures and rain. This was after many days of balmy springlike weather. Thankfully we have just enough firewood to keep us warm.

With all the warm weather I had been getting a bit over excited and planting everywhere i can. I have hardly any space left for the seedlings growing inside. Some of the tomatoes are growing quite big and will have to go outside soon. Below is a shot of my basket by the bedroom back door with mesculin salad growing in it. I copied this from a Burkes Backyard article. I think Ill do this when I can find some more baskets.

I

Things have been a it off in the henhouse. First of all henrietta the sweetest kindest of the flock has been unwell. Fluffed up and we think not laying. This has been for the better part of seven days. She eats a little but just fluffs herself up and stands in the corner. Weve massaged her crop and she seemed to come right the next day but then by the end of the day she was back to square one. We dont think shes egg bound but who knows. Poor thing, She nots suffering that i can tell as such just off somewhat. The thought of finding a dead chook in the morning is countered by the brighter thought of repacement with a couple of Aracaunas. Every cloud does have a silver lining..

This afternoon taking snaps i was joined as always by the cat who thinks he is infact a chook and always joins the girls in their day. He bought his first pigeon in today..feathers everywhere and a big bird to get rid of. At least Sara used to eat them all up..

And here she is Henrietta the sad..

Peas are popping up in the raised bed

Everything seems to be doing great in the raised bed..

A new area I have enlarged and fenced off for more veges. There is also some citrus and a eatable grape here.

Spring has sprung. Blossoms on our neighouring Apricot tree that overhangs onto us.

Ive even stolen flower space for peas.. Should have lots for Christmas lunch this year!! (Just like my dear old Late Dad)

And here she is..Christmas. Christmas plays by her own rules ..she flys out of the coop, has the dog doing amorous things through the fence with her and is the Queen of the pack.  If you watch "The Good Life" as I do (Often on DVD) You will know that Tom Good thought he had a queer cockeral. Well I have to say that we have a lesian hen. Shes Queer and out there. At first I tried to deny it. She was "fighting " with Sad Chook because Sad chook was in her sunbathing spot, but then "it" happened again and again, it even happened today when I was taking photos, if I hadnt turned the camera off then franticaly turned it back on but it is so slow then you could have seen it for yourself. Although we have only ever seen her "liason" with sad chook (who she also bullies), Sad Chook is a bit confused and lovestruck and follows her around everywhere. When Christmas flied over the coop (as in the above photo) Sad Chook paces up and down the fence line. Christmas is very vocal too, we have taken to calling her the rooster. She could be undergoing a sex change (It has happened before to chickens) and begin crowing any day..either that or charging around the yard with gay pride banners..

Next post will include crafty things. I have been pottering away at many things.
Till
Then Love Cherry