A Fresh New Start

Yesterday I put in 2 rows of potatoes. It feels like I'm starting a brand new vege patch. After the long dry everything had gone to seed or died. On top of that,  I haven't planted anything for ages, so things were in a really bad way.  But now we have had some decent rain, the soil is moist and it is time to clear all the debris away, add lots of organic matter and start afresh.  I am feeling really excited at the prospect.

My new, mulched potato bed.
You can see the white labels marking 2 rows.
And lots of lush green weeds in the
surrounding beds for the chooks to enjoy.

So the potatoes have gone in at long last. I have had them in a bucket for a while now, waiting for the right time to put them in, and I have only just made it in time - this week is listed as the last week of the season for potatoes, so hopefully we will get some sort of a crop from them:)
I think they have a chance - the soil looked and smelled wonderful as I heaped it over them. 

I pulled aside a bit of the soil and the mulch
so you can see the leaves atop the long shoot

                                     

Friday Photos

I love watching our chicks develop.  It's a fascinating process.  Plus they are just so cute.  I thought I'd share some of my favourite chook photos of the last couple of weeks with you and then have a quick look at a sample of my other favourite things - homegrown vegetables and native trees. I hope you have a wonderful week.

Come and visit again in a week for more Friday Photos
Lesley xx

2 week old  Barnevelder chicks exploring.  They are growing
much quicker than the 3rd chick (below) and have different
colouring, and longer tails.  I think these are males.

Cinders has very different markings to her siblings

Cinders is just starting to get her wing feathers. Compare hers
to the chick's wings in the top photo (taken the same day).
Here Cinders finds a tasty morsel in the mulch

2 weeks later and her wing feathers are developing
nicely.  But still no tail!

Whereas this one of the other Barnevelders
not only has tail feathers developing quickly,
but also has them pointed rather than
rounded, a strong indication of a male chick.

My capsicum bush is in its
2nd year and continues to produce
this small but very tasty fruit.

One of my favourite trees.
In our front garden I planted this
Eucalyptus grandis (Rose Gum)
about 15 years ago. Its bark is pale and smooth;
its trunk straight.  A rainforest tree,it is now
above the canopy of surrounding trees,
and still growing up rather than out.

 Backhousia citriodora (Lemon Myrtle).
I saw this Australian native today at
the Environment Centre.
The flowers are losing the gorgeous
fluffy stamens, revealing the calyx and
developing fruit .....

..... but it is not the fruit that is sought after,
but the leaves with their delicious lemony flavour.
Put 2-3 leaves in hot water and steep for a
few minutes and aah, what blissful tea!
Or process the leaves to almost powder and
use to flavour shortbread biscuits.
Oh so good!

Sunday 26/01/2014

G'day,
This is just a quick post to say that this blog is "UNDER CONSTRUCTION" at the moment.

It is undergoing some revisions today while we get our head around how we want it to work for us.  It is now obvious that we want 'daily diary' pages to document what we do each day, weather and harvesting information, and a separate blog page for the more interesting information, research, thoughts and ideas relevant to running a property that is becoming more and more self sufficient.

As we work though our ideas and develop templates on how to do this, we are changing bits and pieces on the run.

Expect some mess for a day or so!

Thursday 23/01/2014 - Wandering and wondering

Sorry; a really truncated post today - running very short of time.

Today I was out all day at The Community Environment Centre (CEC) where I volunteer once a week. There we found lots of weeding to do after Christmas break. It was surprising even with all the heat wave temperatures how many weeds were thriving. After catching up on everyone's news, we discussed ideas for the 2014 program. Lots of ideas were thrown around.  Some centred around innovative ways to build on last year's successes, some were inspired by recent visits to the "Coal Loader" Centre for Sustainability, a wonderful site owned by North Sydney Council and situated overlooking Sydney Harbour.  I will do a post devoted to the "Coal Loader" soon.

Chooks all in all day. The Colonel's voice is still crook. 

Thoughts about how to manage chooks if we don't free range them all day.  Complicated by requirements to keep them out of the veggie patch (VP) - they are eating too much but I don't want ugly barriers everywhere. The VP was unfortunately not designed with chooks in mind and it is not possible to use a chook tractor on most of it.

The 'upside' of free ranging.  Peaceful chickens foraging happily.
It warms the heart.

The 'downside' of free ranging.
A bed full of perpetual spinach was found by the chooks
 and decimated in no time.  The remaining plants have
tiny leaves that the chickens keep going back to,
ensuring that none grow.

Saturday 25/01/2014

Horse Manure

Off we go in the morning to load the trailer with 2 cubic metres of free horse manure from nearby.
This horse manure was advertised in Gumtree and described as "Suitable for organic planting as our horses are fed with natural horse feed no hormones added."
This is our second load of horse manure from this source.  It is fresh, so needs time to compost.  The first load (about 2 months ago) went into a 200 litre storage drum and onto the beds in the veggie patch that have nothing growing at the moment.  The chooks loved it and have done a lot of work turning those beds over and scratching in the manure.
Our previous source of free horse manure was mixed, and generally better composted.  It did have a lot more weed, mainly nettle and chickweed, both of which are ofcourse excellent food for chickens, so we didn't actually mind at all. The property, however has been sold, so was no longer an option for us.
We use today's horse manure as the first layer of mulch in the existing fruit tree area.  As it is fresh we keep it away from the trees and out of their drip line.  This trailer load does about 1/3 of the existing fruit tree area.
We collect a second trailer load of horse manure to finish the day off.

The Colonel

The Colonel doesn't look any worse today.  He is still attempting to crow, so presumably he feels well enough he things he can fend off any intruders.  His breathing is, however more noisy and laboured. We gave him another dose of antibiotics and leave him warm and sheltered as per last night.

Friday 24/01/2014

The Colonel, just a little less aggressive than usual.

Mick spent day working on wheelchairs while I pottered around with chooks, washing, clearing up. Put gardening books on display cabinet to see how they look. Think they may be more accessible there and make the unit more functional/useful.  Picked up huge (70kg/>140lb)) sheet of aluminium from Rob's for wheelchair mods.

The Colonel is still sick. His breathing now seems a little rasping.  He wouldn't go into the shed at night so got a little wet from the light showers we had at dusk. Once it was dark he was calm enough that we were able to pick him up and carry him into the shed.

We asked Dr Google what might be wrong with the Colonel:

• Gape worms are a popular first choice almost always followed by someone commenting that gape worms are actually quite rare.  Post mortem diagnosis is the most accurate, or a Q-tip down the throat.  We tried the second alternative.  Lesley was surprised just how far a 15cm cotton bud on a stick can be put down the Colonel's throat and swirled around.  No thread-like red worms, or anything other than mucus.  So that seems to eliminate gape worm.
• Infectious Laryngitis Virus or similar is a popular second choice.  Give antibiotics, the best of which you can't get without a vet's prescription..
• Fungal infection gets a mention, Whatever you do, do not give antibiotics.

We hedged our bets and decide to give him a dose of over-the-counter bird antibiotic that we have had on hand for a while and have used on a few occasions for injured birds.  He was a bit unsteady and would not stay on a perch, so put him outside the sleeping house so he wouldn't sit under the perched hens among the fresh manure.  We put a cardboard box over him to keep him draft free and crossed our fingers.

The Colonel Loses His Voice

I heard some strangulated sounds coming from the chook shed yesterday, and thought that maybe one of our young male chooks was finding his voice and having his first attempt at crowing.  It always sounds funny when they first start to practice.  But upon investigation I saw that it was actually our Coronation Sussex rooster, The Colonel, who was having a hard time getting the right pitch.  His eyes, ears, nostrils and vent all looked good and clear so I wasn't too concerned.

The Colonel, a couple of days ago.
Today he looks very much the same,
but has no voice.

Over the day today The Colonel's voice was reduced to a whisper - he definitely has something like laryngitis.   Unfortunately we can't easily isolate him because the isolation bay is being used by Princess and the 3 Barnevelder chicks.  At least he is still looking fine; his comb is still a brilliant red.  So all I could think of doing was to mix up a large brew of eggs, yoghurt, garlic, ginger, bananas and an assortment of greens and herbs from the veggie patch.  I put a few bowlsful out so that all the various ages of chooks would have good access to them.  Hopefully there will be enough goodness in there to help him recover and prevent the rest of the flock from catching whatever ails him.   I'll be getting more garlic tomorrow to make sure I have plenty.

All the chooks stayed in again today due to the showery weather, so no hidden nests to look for.  Still only 3 eggs, even though the heatwave has been gone for 3 days now.  From 6 laying hens, I thought we would have more laying by now.

Caspa, our friendly CS is now broody, spending all her days under the nesting boxes.  She has been there almost a week now.  Should we find some fertile eggs for her?