Summer begins

Winter has been a trial at best.

The chooks are well into their routine, and we have an over-supply egg issue rather than nothing. This is resolved with scrambled eggs and I like a hard boiled one or three occasionally, so that works out.

The shepherd has had a hard time of it though. Her ears have been soggy all winter, and only started drying up in the heat now.

The tax refund will get the car fixed, and then it's back to collecting stuff to finish all those little jobs around the place, like the slabbing and edging and making roofs for the little beds for summer.

Oh, and ripping up and re-installing all the retic. Yeas, now there's a job that should be fun........

Where is my pina-colada?!

The non-work agreement lasted about 4 days.

Then I had a day off, and it was decided that we would do lots of little niggling jobs around the place. Things like drilling in pallings, touch-up painting, re-potting the geranium, stuff that should have been easy.

Naturally, it all got veeeeeery complicated for some reason. Best moment of the day - re-attaching the roof side-wall, to discover a small colony of paper wasps. Wasps now dead, wall firmly fixed in place, and we need a new can of spray.

I thought I'd get out of things by having the next day to work. Oh no! Because I didn't start until midday, the PIC decided we'd duck out and grab a load of 40 slabs (those big heavy cement things). This plan should have worked. The salvage yard opens at 8am, we lead up, go home, dump first load, go back and load next 20, home and dump, then pack up and we're inside relaxing by 10am.

Except the usual counter girl is on holidays, and the yard didn't open until 9am, after we'd been waiting for an hour.

It was 1130 before the final slab was piled up, which left me about 45 minutes to relax, shower, scoff something to eat, get ready, and get to work.

Isn't life fun, kiddies?

Fence fall down calamity

So, with the coop finally finished, we were planning a bit of a rest before the next bit. Then karma landed a large gate on us when the side fence fell down.

Note: This is not you usual 2 poles in a ground latch metal gate. No, this is an escape-proof dog gate about 8ft high and heavy.

So, Pete goes into overdrive. No just driving stakes into the ground for us, oh no - we dig holes, pour cement, let it dry for 2 day, the re-hinge the gate, tie off strainers so it won't fall down again, drill and tie in place, and finally create a new locking system.

We started at 6:30 Friday morning. It was 2235 when the last tool was put away and the humans finally got to rest.

There is now a refusal to do any more hard work for at least 2 weeks. We're both dead.

The gate works like a charm

A herb garden at last!

So, the apricot bed has been divided up and lots of little herb beds made. I wasn't able to convince the PIC that the mint should go out as well, but as the strawberries were planted, I now have 2 nice long plant holders that will do for them.

However -- I do not suggest that people do all this work in 45 - 50 degree days. And yes, it was that hot. We had the thermometer outside with us. It actually got to 55 on Tuesday, and it just about killed us.

However, herbs all planted, bed looking nice, lots of growing soil in, and now it's on with the erecting of the chook yard tomorrow. Provided it doesn't rain again.

Tomatoes budding already!

The little buggers have only been in for a few weeks, and one has a fruit already! Enthusiastic little tykes, I'll say that for them. We dynamic - ed them a few days ago and it looks like all systems go for this years crops. We may have so much that storage becomes an issue.

Sugar cane mulch:

What can I say? It's fantastic! Watering has been cut down this year to 2 10-minute lots a day, morning and night. The plants are growing beyond all previous records and every single store-bought seedling survived. We're definately getting this stuff for the rest of the yard.

On another note, we planted out the last of our home-grown tomato and capsi seedlings, and they have been a dismal failure. A single survivor out of some 50 seeds, a failure in anyones language. Nothing was different, but every single plant failed to live or thrive. We'll try again next year and see what happens.

The chicken wire has been purchased at last, so it looks like full steam ahead for the chooks as well. That's going to be a "fun" day putting all that together.

Oh well, some pain and annoyance must be had I suppose. Can't all be cocktails and watching stuff grow.

Cutting the herb garden

Just taken the first real cuttings from the herbs around the side, and they're gently drying in the pantry.

The lack of cash has delayed things quite a bit, but as we've gained lots of suitable lengths of tin, we'll be able to finish the apricot bed soon. It involves using the tin as edging, and filling the large rectangle with good soil. We're also going to use some shorter lengths to edge it into about 5 smaller beds, where the herbs can finally go into the ground and grow to their little herbie hearts content.

And I think I've finally talked Pete into letting the mint actually be planted out, rather than just keep it in pots. it will look nicer and with the spearmint on one side and the choco-mint on the other, it'll smell wonderful.

So, that'll take care of the apricot bed at long last. Then we can get stuck into finishing the chook pen. Unfortunately, that also means we'll be back to slabbing again, but you can't have everything.

Apricots and fruit flies.....

So, the apricot trees who had only gone in a few months ago, had a grand total of 4 fruits on them.

However, some little black ants had made tiny little holes in them, about 4 or 5 per fruit and I noticed some syrup congealing on the skin. Didn't seem to be doing anything to the fruit though, so we left it. Then a cold snap came through, and within a day 2 of the fruit had rotted on the tree.

When we took them off, they were infested with little worms, all chomping away merrily and very disgusting. So either a) they were already infected and the cold allowed them to develop, or b) a stray fruit fly came through early one morning.

Either way, we'll have to get little mesh bags and cover them next year. Spraying the fly is time consuming and not a great success, so little bags it is.