Category Archives: life on the farm

let the games begin – kitchen update

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You know the saying?
If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong.
We haven’t even started yet and we’re already starting to hit snags.
Yesterday morning I went into Hobart for a few things and picked up a slab of concrete to sit the hot water cylinder on when we move it. It was at the front of the house when we bought here, then when we built the front porch, it ended up being ON the porch. It’ll be moved to the side of the house outside the bathroom window.
I took the antique style knobs I have with me to compare them to the colour of the stove. I thought they were close in colour. I was right. They’re an almost perfect match. Terrific. I can use what I have for the cabinet doors and they’ll tie in with the stove.
Its not a great photo. The laminate sample is Antique White sheen which is a semi gloss finish. That’s what I’ve chosen for the doors. The knob is a bit more cream than it looks in the photo.
I located some drawer pulls on ebay at a great price and purchased them. I now have the hardware for the cabinets and drawers and they’re exactly what I wanted. This is a photo similar to the pulls I ordered. These will go on the drawers.
I was feeling so proud of myself. I was so on top of things!
When I got home I started on the cabinets.
First I moved the microwave to the ‘pantry’ in the entry. I still dislike that rabbit warren but unless I change everything now and make the job bigger than it is, I have to live with it.
I had to make a hole in the back of the pantry (hello hole saw), then I struggled for half an hour to get the plug through the hole and connect it to power.
I managed, with very little injury to myself or others.
I discovered there are a multitude of power points behind the microwave. I gotta give it to the previous owners of this place: they didn’t scrimp on power points!
Then I unscrewed all the visible screws and started taking apart the upper cabinets on the left of the kitchen. Starting with the shelves, then the rest. It was touch and go there for a while. I was pushing, shoving, swinging panels back and forth, and eventually one cabinet came down.
Crashing down might be a better description…
Good news: 
I discovered there’s plaster behind the cabinets and behind the laminate tile sheeting.
The bulkheads are plaster. Easy to remove.
Bad news:
The ceiling and walls don’t exactly meet so there’s a gap up there. Not totally unexpected.
Since I don’t really want any ‘visitors’, I opted to leave part of the 2nd cabinet up there till its time to do the walls.
Our handyman, who’s moving the windows, dropped in this evening. Tomorrow morning he’ll be coming around and helping the plumber move the hot water cylinder. He was here to make sure we turned the hot water cylinder off properly.
Good thing he came around too. 
He said he told me but I never heard it… Apparently we need an electrician to wire the hot water cylinder in to its new place!
Yep.
So, that ‘two hour’ job just spun out… If I can’t get ahold of an electrician to do the wiring tomorrow we may be taking sponge baths in the hydrobath for a few days.
Also, the handyman discovered that we can’t use the window from the left/mudroom side of the the kitchen in the front. Its the same size as the windows in the living room but it will have to sit higher due to the benchtops, and the porch roof is lower than the kitchen ceiling…
So tomorrow morning I’ll have to call around and see if I can buy an ‘off the rack’ window to suit that spot.
And chase up electricians.
And call my cousin (that’s what I’ll call my ‘almost family’* kitchen designer) to make sure he got my email regarding the kitchen cabinet colour and the solid timber benchtop plans.
*His grandmother and my mother were good friends on Paros when they were younger. That almost makes us family. Heck, given that we’re probably the only people from Paros in the whole of Tasmania, we’re siblings!
Plus I have to go up to Cheeky tomorrow. The vet’s coming out to do the big SNIP. ugh. Poor baby. I’m not sure how I’ll handle it, let alone how HE’LL handle it…
I went up there this afternoon and just sat and fed him carrots and apples and held the rope and lead him around a bit. Yesterday I got him to come and eat a carrot out of my mouth. He’s so darn CUTE. I’ve been building this great relationship based on gentleness and trust, and tomorrow I have to hold him while a vet does unspeakable things to him.
Will he ever forgive me?
z

its official – the kitchen is underway

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You’ve all heard me complain about the kitchen, right? (And the bathroom, the living room, the bedrooms…)

But I put the kitchen at the top of the dream make-over list cause its the room we spend a lot of time in, its the heart of the home and all that.

Plus, our oven stopped working over 3 months ago and I’m over not being able to chuck quick meals in the oven when its my turn to cook.

Not to mention that Wayne always hated our 54cm rental quality electric stove which seems to have no low heat setting on the hotplates.

So. We’re getting a new kitchen.

This is kind of how it happened:

The oven stopped working. I had a dish to bake. I gave it to the chickens.

I asked ‘Is it worth looking at fixing it?’

Wayne said ‘No.’

He was pretty emphatic. So, we decided to buy a new one.

I started doing research. I wanted a double oven. I love the handiness of having the two ovens. No need to heat up a big oven just to heat up pies for dinner…

We both love cooking with gas. I wanted an electric fan forced oven.

I wanted a bigger stove than the one we have now, 60cm.

I wanted a bigger, better stronger rangehood cause the under-cabinet one we have sucks.

Or doesn’t suck, which is the problem.

It took me months to make a decision and act on it.

Why you ask? Well… I looked at the kitchen and measured it and thought about it. Even if we left things exactly as they are, putting the new stove in the gap left by the old stove (the gap is big enough for a 60cm stove), I’d have to remove all the top cupboards to fit the rangehood. And it still wouldn’t fit cause of the window!

This is what our kitchen looks like now. I removed the cupboard doors on the left to make the kitchen look more open. There’s a window above the sink on the left which looks into the mud room (the small porch we enclosed). The window on the right is hard to look out so there’s no way to easily look out to the gate when you’re in the house and the dogs go bezerk in the yard.

I put small strips of melamine between the stove and the benchtop to stop food falling down into the gap. The corner cabinet hinges have both ‘dropped’ and the handle on one has come off and the I need to pack the holes with matchsticks to put the handle back on. We’ve gotten used to using our toes to open the door so I never bothered.

I hate the laminte tile sheeting on the walls. I hate the lino flooring. I hate the benchtop.

Other than that, its fine.

This is the other side of the kitchen.

Ignore the half chalkboard pantry door. Given that we’re redoing the kitchen I can’t be bothered trying to fix that stuff up.

This is the left hand side.

There’s a tiny entry way behind the first half of that wall – we keep the fridge in there and I’ve put in the cupboard I removed from the living room. Its now an extra pantry. Its a great walk in pantry. Its a dark and dingy room when have to come through to enter the house.

Cause in country houses you always come in through the back door.

The front door is on the opposite side of the house, nowhere near the gate or driveway.

Naturally.

This is the right hand side.

The ‘window’ into the living room is handy cause we can watch TV when we’re in the kitchen. We’re not cut off from the rest of the house. Heat from the wood heater circulates into the kitchen.
Smells from cooking fill the house.
Anyway.
I had big plans. 
1. Remove the windows and put in one window in the middle of the front wall.
2. Move the stove to the left hand wall, move the sink to the front, under the new window.
3. Knock out a section of the wall on the left so that when you enter the house you enter straight into the kitchen – the short side of an L.
4. Remove the failed chalkboard pantry and replace it with one of my antique kitchen dressers.
A lot of work. A lot of money.
That’s why it took me so long to get on with this. I had to figure it out. I had to convince Wayne.
Eventually I got started. I have a family friend who’s works for a kitchen place. I asked for his help in designing the kitchen. I got quotes from electricians, plumbers and gasfitters and a builder.
The result is that we’re going to get a new kitchen but its a compromise. Of course. Money is always the issue. And Wayne does a lot of cooking. Need I say more?
My kitchen guru designed an L shaped kitchen which will go along the left wall and the front wall. The stove will go on the left, the sink in the middle of the front wall. The wall between the entry and kitchen will stay (I’ll have to work some magic in there to make that space work better). We’ll move the windows, getting rid of the small one but keeping the bigger one on the left, saving on a new window.
Naturally, one job leads to another 2 or 5. In order to put the window in the middle of the front wall, we need to move the water heater. 
But I won’t bore you with all the gory details (yet). Lets get to the fun stuff.

When looking for stoves, I found two I liked – the Belling and the New World. Both of those aren’t the exact models I was looking at, close enough though. I know 3 people who have a Belling and love it so that was what I was leaning towards.

When we went shopping we ended up with this:

Dont you just love it?? I do! We got it half price as its a floor model. Its a cream Euromaid.

I wanted a canopy rangehood.  This is the one we’re getting. Stainless steel and glass.
I’m getting a Bosch dishwasher (YEAH!) and a Franke huge single bowl sink with single drainer. I love double bowls, but I’ll have a dishwasher!!! Both are stainless steel. 
As for the design, I did what I saw on the DIY blogs. I collected photos of kitchens which inspired me and made me want to live in them. Then I printed out the photos and looked at them. I found the things that came up again and again. That told me what I want in my kitchen: 
White. Painted timber walls. Natural timber benchtop. Wood floors. A mix of old and new. Open shelving.

These are some photos I’ve collected in my Pinterest dream kitchen board. You get the drift.

The kitchen design is going to be L shaped bottom cabinets only. I’m still deciding on the colour/type but they will be laminate doors in a shade of white. (Compromise, remember? I need easy to clean and not expensive. Especially since I want an expensive benchtop.) The benchtop will be solid timber. I want to timber line all the walls*. I want to lift the crappy lino and hopefully find old floor boards I can fix up for the floor.

*today the kitchen, tomorrow dado rails in the whole house!

I saw a man down the road who mills his own wood and has some minor species timber in his lumbar yard. I’m negotiating on some pieces of timber for the benchtop.  I’m considering some 40mm planks of Tasmanian myrtle. Other options are eucalypt or blackwood. He says the myrtle is a better quality timber for benchtops and has an entire kitchen made out of it. Its a pinker/redder type of timber and I’ve always loved it.

So there you have it. I’ll be updating progress as we go along. It should be interesting. Wayne and I have never lived through this type of ‘invasive’ rennnovation before….

Lets see who survives…

z

PS. Feedback needed on my blog layout/look. Do you find the links easy to find/see? Do you think the type should be a bit bigger. Being a graphic designer I tend to go for the look I like. Small type looks neat but may not be so easy on everyone else’s eyes.

the pitter patter of little feet

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 We’re getting a miniature horse.

Yep.

You heard me.

Wayne, who always said miniature horses were a waste of space, good for nothing, etc, was the one who decided we were getting a miniature horse.

First, Wayne said we were going to SEE him.

Yep.

You already know how THAT goes…

Meet Cheeky. At least that’s what he’s been called till now. I’m sure he’ll have a new name soon.

One look and I was in love. He’s so tiny that all I want to do is pull him on my lap and cuddle him.

He wasn’t so keen on that. He hasn’t had much work done. He’s only had a halter on once before and he got it off. I bought him a new one yesterday and Wayne managed to catch him (with a lasso!) and we got it on him.

He wasn’t impressed.

But he needs to get used to being handled. I plan to handle him a LOT. We went up to see him twice today and Wayne worked with him a bit both times. Wayne really is incredible with horses. All animals.

This handsome fellow is his dad. Indy. The sweetest quietest stallion I’ve ever met.

(I’ve never met a stallion before, but he’s quiet, trust me.)

The plan is that little Cheeky has a visit from the vet next week during which he’ll say goodbye to some parts of his anatomy which he won’t need and which he’s probably very attached to, then he’ll be coming to live with us.

Its going to be interesting.

He’s about the same size as Romeo.

I’m so excited! I’ve always loved miniature horses.

z

january = rain and wind

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Things have been crazy around here lately.

Holidays are meant to be time to rest, aren’t they? Wonder what I’m doing wrong…

The weather has taken a turn for the worse. Summer in Tasmania… It got windy, really windy. So windy the poodles were pinned up against the fence yesterday. Then it started raining. Its been windy, rainy, windy and rainy, sunny, windy, sunny and windy, sunny and rainy, any and all variations of that for 3 days now.

The ditch on the side of the driveway seems to be doing its job… we haven’t had a waterfall on the garden path. So far so good.

Herman Too has joined the other ducklings and I’m pleased to say we can’t tell which one he is. That’s great news as it means his limp is so much better we can’t see it any more.

I kinda miss having him in the bathtub and saying good morning to him every morning.

I don’t miss the stinky duck poop.

Things are moving along with the plans for the new kitchen (more on that in a separate post), and the retaining wall is mostly finished. Photos of that to come once the dirt settles and the rain stops.

Could be a while…

z

a nice start to the new year

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I hope you all had a Happy New Year.

We did nothing at all to celebrate on New Year’s Eve, but we started the year in a great way. An old friend of mine came to visit with her family.

We had been good friends long LONG ago in Melbourne but lost touch when she moved overseas to live. It was years since we’d seen eachother. A few months ago I got an email from her, she found me on the internet!

I guess the upside of having such an online presence is that you are easy to find for old friends.

The downside is being easy to find by ex-boyfriends.

I mean, I’m not on bad terms with every guy I ever went out with, but really …? I’m middle aged now. (If I plan to live to be over 100.) Asking me what I’m wearing is a bit inappropriate!

Anyway, I digress. We had the best day. Me and my old friend caught up on old times and the intervening years, the men bonded over the BBQ and a walk on the hill, the girls spoilt the dogs and Herman Too was permanently stunted by all the cuddling.

It was great. We ‘girls’ even had a dance for old times sake, to one of our favourite tunes: Red Cadillac and a Black Moustache. We listened to my Straight 8’s cd and remembered our rockabily days.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned my passion for rockabilly and rock’n’roll on the blog. Maybe one day I’ll post about my musical adventures and dig up photos to share, but for now suffice it to say that rockabilly really speaks to me… almost like I was a hillbilly in a past life. Its the double bass and the rhythm that gets my heart thumping and my feet tapping.

The Straight 8’s are still playing. Back then I used to go dancing 3 or 4 times a week. And when I say dancing, I mean dancing. I would go see my favourite bands (the Straight 8’s were my very favourite) and I’d dance all night. I may have stopped to have a drink of water now and then, or when the band stopped for a break.

I sure miss those days.

And my slim fit self who could dance all night, wring my shirt out and keep dancing.

z

retaining walls and eliminating glassware

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Things are progressing… Every day is a small step forward.
Wayne’s been working really hard on the new retaining wall. This is how it looked yesterday when he stopped for the day. 
He worked in the heat all day to get this far. He’s definitely a better man than I am! Even the small bit of heat I got was enough to knock me out.
Today the weather is cold and windy. It rained most of the night too. It is Tasmania after all. 
But I’m not complaining. 
Anyway, this morning we went in to the hardware store where Wayne bought 24 bags of concrete mix. I bought 2 towel rails. 
Turns out I wasn’t quite done in the bathroom yet.
While Wayne continued on the retaining wall, getting all the posts in, I put up two towel rails. 
Till now I’ve had an over the door type of coat rack for Wayne to hang his towels and 2 hooks on the wall for mine. I was sick of knocking Wayne’s towels off the coat hooks every time I walked past them. Plus I much prefer rails to hang towels on, so today I made the leap. I know that one day I’ll be re-doing the bathroom, but till then I may as well make it more bearable. And I’m definitely liking it with the new shelves.
I’d like to say it was quick and easy. I’ve done this before. But once again it was a comedy of errors, putting the fittings on backwards, putting screws in, taking them out, re-doing things. You get the picture. At one stage I was sure I was going to hit an electric cable so I put on rubber gloves and rubber soled shoes, told everyone I loved them, closed my eyes and drilled.
Luckily I didn’t hit anything.
But Wayne did.
He hit another water pipe.
I told you, the guy should hire himself out as a water diviner. With a crowbar instead of a rod.
Luckily he hit it but didn’t puncture it. Thankfully. Herman Too is too young to hear the foul language that puncturing the pipe would have brought forth.
Did I mention Herman Too is back in the bathroom?
We released him the other day and he ran to the other ducklings in his slightly off-kilter way. They didn’t shun him for living in the big house. All was well. 
Or so we thought.
Yesterday afternoon, after the weather had turned cool, I was watering my flowers when I noticed two ducklings in a deep water bowl. One hopped out. The other was soaking wet and did not look good.
Have you ever seen a soaking wet duckling? I sure hadn’t and I was sure he was a goner.

I fished him out of the bowl, gave him to Wayne to dry and warm up while I went in search of the large plastic tub, the heating pad and blankets. The poor little thing couldn’t even walk, he just kind of crawled. I was sure he wouldn’t make it. But he did. He’s back to being chirpy and a bit brave.

Looks like Herman Too has moved back in. I suspect he’ll be here till he goes to college.

Maybe he can be our house duck.
(I’m still pretty sure Herman Too is a girl.)
Other than that, I spent most of the day today cleaning the kitchen. And by cleaning I don’t mean washing dishes and floors (though I did that too). I mean clearing out cupboards.
The work in the kitchen will be done. I need to start preparing. All the top cupboards are empty now since they’ll be the first to go. I packed up a ton of stuff we don’t need on hand and filled up boxes with things to go away.
Getting there slowly.
z

christmas morning – the booty

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Montana with her new toys.

Well, its Christmas morning. What a great start to a great day.

First thing I saw when I got up was this little gift train on the kitchen table. Each chocolate had a note on it saying “Merry Christmas Zefi” from all the animals: Montana, Romeo, Barney, the chickens, ducks, horses and even Herman Too.

Yep. That’s the limping duckling’s name. It was a lucky name for Little Herman, so that’s his name now.

Or her name.

Wayne’s not much for wrapping. He said he was going to wrap presents last night so I left out wrapping paper and tape but didn’t hear any wrapping noises.

This morning I found out why.

This was my first Christmas present, carefully wrapped in a throw. Romeo stands guard.

This is my second present, carefully hidden for me to find. heheheh

I laughed so much this morning. I adored the chocolate train and the presents are great! I got power tools! What more can a girl want?

One is a Dremel moto saw (click image to see what it does):

I’m so excited!!!!! I’ve wanted something like this for a while.

The other one is a Rockwell contra saw:

Woohoo!!!! Watch me now!

How can you not love a man who gives you power tools for Christmas?

The dogs got some home made dog biscuits and some toys. The poodles were into the toys instantly. Barney only wanted the biscuits.

Wayne got a new soft leather wallet, a 1932 indian head coin on a leather thong and a hand forged viking feast knife.

He loves the knife.

He collects knives.

… in fact, if you think about it, its a bit of a worry. I gave him a knife to add to his collection, he gave me 2 power saws… Plus we now have 2 bows each and a LOT of arrows…

If I wasn’t actually in this relationship, I’d be a bit concerned.

z

ps. I’m sorry about the alignment of this post. All posts, but this in particular. The alignment isn’t working for some strange reason!

a primitive bird

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Time to share something creative. Its been all ducks, geese, seeds and driveways lately on this blog.
Here’s a primitive* little bird I made out of some old fabric scaps. The inspiration came from artwork I’d seen on, where else, Pinterest.
*Primitive = my hand stitching is pretty primitive.
The idea was to make a picture using fabric instead of paints or pastels.

I learned a couple of things doing this.

I enjoyed doing it.
Its much quicker to paint or draw.
I’m way better with a brush than a needle.

It was worth trying it, though, right?

Still, I had fun. Hand stitching is therapeutic. You can do it while you watch TV if you’re not too invested in actually watching TV.

I framed it in an old frame I’d got at a tip shop. One of those ‘slide a photo in and stand it up on the dressing table’ type of frames.

Its a cheerful little bird. And its made up almost entirely of small scaps which had been destined for the bin cause they were too small to make anything else out of.

When I get the chance (time, inspiration, whatever), I’ll make another one or three.

Meanwhile, the duckling is still alive. Maybe even a little livelier today…? He cheeped at me.

I checked on him this morning, dreading what I’d find, but found a snug little duckling, some food eaten and all the water gone. Most likely spilled. Still, he was alive! That’s a win.

This afternoon I gave him a bigger box, more space but still snug and warm. I hope his foot gets better. I really do.

z

ps. When I say ‘he’, I have no idea, he could be a she like Little Herman is.

pps. Little Herman was the runt of a duckling we saved and raised a couple of years ago. I named him Little Herman and he turned out to be a she.

the driveway, the garden… its all happening here

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I thought I’d share some photos of the last couple of weekends here. Its been rather hectic.
As you already know through my posts on the ducklings, last weekend we had an excavator here digging up the driveway and shoring up the dam. 
The driveway is something we knew we’d have to do from the day we bought the farm. See, the guy who originally put the driveway in created a nice slope from the bottom of the hill straight to the house.
It successfully funneled all rainwater from the hill under the house and into the front yard. In heavy rainstorms we’d have Niagara Falls on our garden path, right down into the casita. All winter our lawn (or what passes as lawn) is like a sponge. You walk and squelch.
So, we booked this job in as soon as the weather was good enough.
Below are some photos of the excavator at work putting a slight slope and a new surface on the driveway, and digging a trench to catch rainwater and move it away from the house.
We hope.
Below, Barney overseeing the job.
Now, of course, we have a trench under the gate so need to find a way to stop poodles getting out and wallabies getting in!
Cass (aka the Masked Avenger) checks out the works behind the garage.
The view of the new sloped sides… What will I do with them? I had thought we’d get a steeper ‘wall’ which we’d put in sleepers to create a retaining wall. What we have instead is a slope of hard clay soil. 
I think the rain will end up washing that down so I know we need to do something about it. But what? Ideas welcome. I do plan to put in a lot of plants up the top, things like pigface and other hardy plants which will grow and trail downwards.
Its looking a bit stark and moonscape-ish right now. It needs something, don’t you agree?
The dam looked quite pretty with all the reeds and grass on its gently sloping sides, but it was leaking and all the area below the dam was soggy and marshy. Lately the sides of the dam had started collapsing too. It definitely needed fixing.
This is what the dam looks like now. Another moonscape. But hopefully, no more leaks. What the guy did was build up the lower side of the dam and scoop out the high side. That way rainwater from the paddock will flow INTO the dam, not around it. It was wierd, but the dam walls were higher on that side and lower on the bottom side. Wierd.
Anyway, we hope this works. We’ll see if things dry out around the dam this summer and see how it goes in winter. That’ll be real test.
This weekend there was some gardening work done as well. I’d mowed and organised what I wanted to have done, then I got a friend to come over and put some new plants in for me plus a new garden bed.
I’ve already proved to myself that I’m not made to garden so I decided to pay someone to do it for me. That way I can have a pretty garden without the pain!
Below is the back of corner of the house (the office window). Our old picnic table and an old metal table serve as my potting area and seedling raising benches.
I have to admit… I’m absolutely loving growing plants from seeds! I get a rush when I see the tiny plants breaking through the dirt, then plant a heap of things in my garden which I grew myself.
I have more seeds to plant now. I think I’ve become addicted. Soon I won’t have room for more plants in the garden unless I put in more beds…
I’m gonna need a bigger yard!
Below is the corner of my cute timber shed. The hydrangeas are going really well. Even the stumpy one the horses ate and which was in a spot it hated. Its been moved and is starting to grow now.
I got Sharon to put in a few of my seedlings and a bog salvia I bought last week. The tag said it’ll get big. I hope so!
Here’s a sneak peek at some plants I bought for the driveway wall. I’ll re-pot them till they get bigger, then put them in in autumn. That way they’ll have time to settle in before the next hot dry summer.
My snap dragons are going well. Except the red one. That seems to be dying. That’s fine by me. I didn’t like the red one anyway.
Actually, I dreamed of a garden of blue, purple and white flowers only. Then mauves and pinks snuck in. I have a salvia hotlips which is red and white. I put in 2 pale yellow banksia roses. I planted a ton of osteospermums which are pastel yellow, orange and white… I have the yellow snap dragons (I’m hoping the red one is really on its way out)…
Looks like I’m not getting my blue, purple and white garden. Its more of a cottage garden with all colours, but I would prefer not to have red or bright yellow. Or bright orange… I’ll be ok with those on the driveway, but not in the garden itself.
I can always pull things out, right?
I’m a floral racist.
Anyway, here are some photos of the front of the house. I really need to finish painting. I have a huge potato vine dying to climb but I can’t let it till I paint the post its meant to climb up on. The lavenders are doing really well, and most of the other flowers are doing great too. Some not so great. I had to replace a few which died with my home grown seedlings.
Any ideas on what to do with this area? Its where the septic tank is and I have these pipes I’d like to hide somehow. I have plants growing on both sides, and up on the trellis. That will hide it a bit, but the pipes in the ground… maybe I need something cute, little gnome houses or something…
Excuse the washing on the line. This is the new garden bed I got Sharon to put in for me. I wanted to pretty up that area of the yard. I had tried to grow 2 blue plumbagos there before but managed to kill them both. Hopefully the new plants will do better. I have a sort of orange blossom tree (no idea what it is but its not an orange tree) some lupins (no idea what colours), plus my homegrown seedlings including swan river daisies and columbines.
Watch this space. One day it will be a garden! I can’t wait to see it all growing and full.
When Sharon finished doing the gardening she had some leftover pine bark. I had her put it in the swampy corner near the carport. For now it is a good place to grow my succulents.
I really have become quite interested in gardening. I blame old age. A friend of mine once told me that the older you get, the more you appreciate watching things grow. I think its happened to me.
Dad would be proud.
z

love our geeses to pieces

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The geese have settled in well. Yesterday they started to seem comfortable in the penned enclosure, playing in the buckets of water and not phased by us looking in on them.

We decided it was time to introduce them to their new home. It involved Wayne and I ‘herding’ them out the pen, through the  yard and out to the paddock and the dam.

First photo shows them making their way through the yard. Henry leads the way. Turns out Henry is quite the brave boy!

 Scrambling up the steep dam side was a bit of hard work…

But the view from the top was worth it!

Of course, they then had to scramble down into the water. Henry led the way, of course.

Then it was just enjoying the water, after 2 days of dry land.

I think they like it here. Well, they’re still here, so here’s hoping. At least we now know they’re not homing geese.
The ducks are a bit put out. Till now it was just them on the dam, now they have to share with these gigantic birds. They’re not too impressed. I think they’ve reached a truce – sharing the dam but keeping a respectful distance.
Meanwhile the duck saga continues.
Yesterday morning we enticed the 2 mother ducks and their brood (which had halved in the last few days) into the chicken coop. From there we were able to catch the mothers and then the babies. We put them all into the safe pen. All seems well there. No losses yet.
However, this afternoon Wayne came in with a tiny duckling in his hands. This little baby has an injured leg and was apparently being trodden on and pushed around by the others. He didn’t stand a chance out there. I’ve put him in a cardboard box lined with a dog heating pad, some warm blankets and water and food. If he makes it through the night he may have a chance in here.
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