Big boy!

Mannie is doing so well. The little man is now about a month old, and has such an appetite!

Of course it's hard to refuse this little face..... If you look closely you can even see his little horns starting to come through!
When he's not downing a stubbie full of milk, he's nibbling grass.
Mannie's having heaps of fun chasing the chooks and hanging out with the other sheep and goats. What a life!

I have competition, and new tenants.......

My darlin' and I went for a leisurely stroll down to our dam on the weekend. The kids were busy up at the house, DH had finished his chores (hence the grubby clothes and beer in hand) and we finally had some "us" time to have an uninterrupted chat. Or so we thought........... until a gorgeous blonde muscled in on my man!!!

She may be beautiful but she sure ain't too smart! Nothing a pair of wire clippers couldn't fix lol.....

Look who's moved in....... There must be a notice board in the animal world that has our address on it ..... These lovely geese have lived over the road from us for years, and have stayed on as various people moved in and out of the property. They seem to have decided that our dam looks pretty good after it's recent clean out and a good drop of rain. I think they're gorgeous.....

A new addition to my flock.....

On Tuesday I was sitting outside in the lovely sunshine, sorting a fleece ready for washing, when around the side of the house came my DH. In his arms was this beautiful boy! I must have smelt nice and sheepie because he snuggled in to me quite happily. DH found him abandoned after a fox had killed his twin. He was less than 24 hours old.Here he is watching DH prepare his bottle. At 4 days old he is drinking 6 bottles a day, 200 mls each. More than his own body weight almost!

Nutmeg made him welcome, washing his face for him. I have called this little guy Mannie. He is my only boy sheep ( hard to call anything this small a ram lol), and will be a nice friend for Pearl and Louie. They have been mothering him all day, but he sleeps in the bathroom at night.

Of course he sleeps a lot as babies do. What a sweetie......

Me 30 years ago.....

Finally found these pics taken around 1978-79, I've been meaning to blog these for ages. As you can see I had the same pets then as now! Check out the funky mini dress.... The first pic features Frankie the goat, the second one of many poddy lambs we cared for...

Look how grubby my jeans are lol......

Busy, busy, busy......

It's been a busy couple of weeks since my last post. Of course the spinning has kept me busy as has a few weekend jaunts to my parent's place. Since then I have acquired yet another pet, this time from Geoff who we met through a great site - Aussies Living Simply. He was giving away a gorgeous Angora goat called Billie Jean, how could I resist?

Her fleece is mohair and should be a delight to spin. I have also been making candles and soap, I will show you pics of the soap when I cut it into bars. I made the candles from recycled old ones, they look pretty but don't burn terribly well. After a while they "drown" in the wax. Got a lot to learn there....

Off to peek at my soap, shouldn't really I know, but I can't resist!!!! Only made it today, from my parent's homegrown olive oil and lavender oil.... smells divine.

The land of milk and honey.......

Ahhhh.....bliss.... I love this life.

First the exciting news - we are the proud "parents" of a baby girl. Ian found her in the middle of the road with no sheep anywhere in sight, and no houses either! We can only assume that she fell off the back of a truck. Amazingly she is uninjured and feeding well, with proud step-mum Pearl babysitting her between feeds. Her name is Louise as she was found near Louis Ponds.

I have been indulging myself in homemade skincare products. I hit the op-shops, eBay and the library and have amassed a few great books on herbal/natural skincare. I have made Quince cleansing gel, rosewater toner and lavender moisturiser, and lots more. Just waiting on a delivery from this site which has great stuff dirt cheap! I have sourced beeswax from a local apiarist at the unbelievable price of $6 a kilo, it's $56 a kilo at my local health food shop. Great for adding to moisturisers and lip balm and at that price I can see some candles being made. I made rosewater yesterday, I nicked some open blooms from the council gardens lol..... they smell so good but would have been dead the next day so I didn't think anyone would mind. Besides I pay rates! I have also been making soy melts for the oil burner, so easy and much nicer than burning parrafin wax. I got the wax from here. I have experimented with loads of essential oils, I have about 15 different oils that I have collected. Got heaps of books on aromatherapy too. I would love to do a course on all this but they are so expensive to do..... one day.......

Worms, worms, worms.........

A wonderful way to compost organic matter is to make a worm farm. Of course you could buy one ready made but as usual we decided to make our own lol... luckily we had an old laundry twin-tub sink that we could use. We covered the drainage holes with mesh to prevent escapees.

Cut a hole for a PVC "tunnel" between the two sinks and used silicone to seal it.
Added lots of bedding, we used straw and horse dung, other alternatives are shredded paper etc....Bought some composting worms, these are not the same as garden worms, and are great little workers.

Added some food and the worms to the sinks and covered with damp hessian. I have spared you the pics of the food as we are using our worm farm to dispose of dog poo! This means we won't be able to use the castings or worm wee on our vegies, but it will be fine to use on the flower garden. A great way to fertilise the garden, clean up the yard and reduce flies.
A lick of paint so it is less visible in the yard and a piece of tin for a lid and it's all done! The cupboard below provides great storage for the bucket to collect the worm wee. Shame I forgot that dog wormer kills all worms, so I will have to wait for a while before feeding the worms their special food.... until then it's kitchen scraps!

It's raining, it's pouring.........

As you would know Australia is in the middle of one of it's worst ever droughts. We are lucky to have a good bore we can pump from, but there is nothing like rain. The past week has been gorgeous, lots of overcast days and over 2 inches (50mm) of rain! And it's still coming..... Nutmeg is only 12 months old and is very curious about all this strange stuff outside. She's an inside cat so she hasn't been out in it, but as she's a water lover I'm watching her whenever the door opens!

Boy, he's getting game now!

My apologies for the lighting in this shot..... This is one of our gorgeous king parrots that visit us most days. This young man is a chick from last year, he has decided to really get friendly with us. Toddy (Ian) and I were sitting outside late in the afternoon and he actually landed on his hat! Since then he loves to swoop us when we go outside, just saying hello, and will eat out of our hands. We feel so honoured that a wild thing like him has much trust in us......

Dream on........

Last Sunday on a very wild and windy spring day Ian and I took Merran to her school fete. For a change we were boy-less, which made for a quite relaxing time and gave me an opportunity to have a bit of fun too.... Here's what I got up too.....
I loooove snakes (non-venomous of course).... This guy is a Black-headed Python from the Northern Territory. He still has another metre to grow so he is only a young one, but still a decent size. Thank goodness the handler let me hold him, or I may have just jumped into the snake pit!


A shame that the snake and my puddy tats probably wouldn't get along, otherwise I may have snuck him home..... I s'pose the fact I'd need a licence to keep him (and $2500) put a stop to that idea too!

Chicks.....

Woooohooo you should see my chookies now..... actually you can lol.... hard to tell the battery hens from the original girls....... their combs are bright and perky and we got 10 eggs from 11 birds today!

Apologies for the quality of the next pic, a bit tricky trying to photograph the baby budgies in their nesting box while fending off their protective parents...... This is the bird's first clutch and the first prospective money-spinners for Braeden (12) who breeds them.

Nutmeg the vegetarian......

We really do have the strangest animals here...... Braeden (12) didn't finish his dinner the other night, so up hopped Nutmeg to finish it for him. However all that was left was the broccolli which she polished off very quickly! Truely though, our critters are just nutty, we had a bonfire last weekend and it was all we could do to keep Caramel the Jersey cow from jumping in the fire! She loved it, jumping about like a crazy thing whenever the sparks flew up........ Nearly put us off our marshmallows - NOT!

Bye-bye Midge....sob........

My darlin' had to say goodbye to our feathered friend Midge the magpie last week. We have hand reared him for the past year after he was blown out of the nest as a fledgeling. Whilst he was a joy to have around we decided that it was inhumane to keep him in a cage so he has gone to stay with a WIRES carer until he can be released. She will look after him until she thinks it is time to leave the avairy door open. Hopefully the local magpies will adopt him.... meantime if you hear a magpie wolf-whistle at you just say "Hi Midge!"

Pictures, yay!

I'm still on my darlin's computer, but I've worked out how to load my pics. So here's Pearl at the beauty salon lol. For those that are wondering why we trim her wool like this, it stops her from getting grass etc caught in her wool near her eyes, and keeps her rear end clean to stop the flies harassing her.

The "before" shot, cute but oh so woolly!

Pa, my Dad doing the hairdressing. He breeds stud sheep so he has the gear and know-how. Thanks Pa!

After - my baby looks so grown up now!

Today I planted the first of my heirloom potatoes - in tyres. I have never grown potatoes before so it should be a bit of fun. I have Sapphires, King Edwards, Desirees, Brownells, Red Stars, Royal Blue and Nicolas. The Sapphires are purple all the way through, should make for interesting mash lol. I laid the tyres on top of newspapers, half filled them with hay, added some compost and threw in 2 potatoes per tyre. Then I covered them with a thick layer of hay - now to wait for them to emerge so I can add another layer until each stack is about 4 tyres high. Should have heaps of yummy potatoes for Christmas........ For any Aussies looking for heirloom vegies go to http://www.diggers.com.au/

My seed potatoes are busting to get into the ground, look at those shoots!

The first layer, all done.

After dragging carts of hay up the paddock and chucking tyres over the fence I'm pooped, who's for a home brew?

M.I.A.

I have been absent from blogging this week as my new laptop shorted out! I am now using hubby's work computer which I can only get onto in the evenings. I am suffering withdrawals, but I'm getting loads done lol..... Hopefully my computer will be back in action in a few days as I can't add new pics on this computer.

I have been busy planting seeds in punnets in my temporary glasshouse. This gorgeous structure consists of 2 glass doors leaning against the Northern side of the house. I have onion, and spring onion seeedlings growing nicely. Today I planted the following in punnets:-

Mixed cherry tomatoes

5 colours of tomatoes

Ornamental gourds

Mixed chillis

Jalapeno chillis

Capsicums

Coriander

5 colour silverbeet

I also planted some more radishes direct in the tank garden. I can't resist them so I am eating as many as I plant! Victor the goat and Rabbit (the paint horse) love them too lol...

And the exciting news for the week is that my broad beans are flowering and my sweetpeas have buds - YAY! Oh, and my chookies are laying 2 eggs a day, that's 100% increase lol, so they may be coming back on the lay.

Pearl the lamb had a haircut on the weekend, my Dad cut the wool around her face and crutched her. I will post a pic ASAP, she looks hilarious..... Dad also vaccinated and drenched Pearl and Victor, I think they were glad to see him leave lol.....

We are currently nursing Vixen the drafthorse, she went through a barb wire fence and grazed her inside leg really badly - more vet bills, but she'll be ok. Thank goodness drafties are so placid, she just stood there and waited for us to get her out.

Have a great week everyone!

King parrots

We are fortunate to have these gorgeous creatures visit us most days. I made a simple bird feeder from baling twine and a plastic pot plant tray. I drilled holes for drainage and added a horse shoe for weight. The parrots love it, getting up to all sorts of antics hanging upside down on the string etc. They provide us with hours of entertainment.

Female on the left, male on the right.

I love their gorgeous feathers, if you look on her back you can see the blue under her wings.

What a pretty boy! He has such a lovely red beak.

We often have up to 5 of these birds visit at any one time, depending on the season. They bring their offspring home to show them off to us........

My girls

My chookies are looking soooooo much better..... the new girls from the battery hen farm are getting new feathers and are so much more confident and happy. They have learnt to come when I call and rush to get their scraps. The older girls are still hen-pecking them a bit but are gradually accepting them. The newbies - all six of them - all sleep together in one little nesting box (made from recycled eskies). I go out there each evening and rearrange them, I'm worried that they will suffocate each other! With any luck the girls will start laying again soon, I have only been getting one a day lately...Ian has been threatening them with "the pot" but I have it in our pre-nups that my chookies will retire to our old-folks home lol.....

Their new feathers are starting to come through....

The older girls stick together!

A tad chilly!

It's been a little chilly here of late with many days below freezing....the kids thought it was hilarious watching our outside cat Rascal trying to get a drink from the horse's trough this morning, poor boy was ice-skating lol........

Blossom and Vixen proving the theory that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence - or should that be whiter?

Poor Victor shivering... he does have a little house to go in I promise!

My vegie garden, thank goodness I planted frost hardy vegies lol.......

All these pics were taken through my windows, I wasn't going out, too cold for me!