Nothing much stays the same around here, just when you think its all the same old same old, you have different kind of days than before!!! For instance, I said bye to Jack the horse, he literally went to greener pastures, just up the road for awhile. He was looking very handsome and had put on some weight. Here is a picture of him the day before he left.

He made a couple of 'dips' in the wire fence around my vegetable patch trying to get to the old corn stalks, and I had to wrap the pear tree up in shade cloth but other than that he caused no damage and saved me mowing the area.

The way I look at it I put the raw materials in one end and get the finished product out the other!!!

The vegetable patch is looking great, and the very thick layer of 'old' manure is keeping the moisture in and improving the plants.

They say you should dig it in immediately to prevent the nitrogen being released as a gas but my way of thinking is that it was long gone before I picked it up in the barrow!!!

Eight Black Cockatoos just flew past the window, this means rain and lots of it. It's an old wives tale but always works here, and a thunderstorm is just about to break overhead.

CHOOK REPORT;

I don't know why, all but Bindi have lost their tail feathers?!! Seems strange. They have just started to lay again, I get two to three eggs a day, and Easter Sunday I got two plain and two foil covered chocolate ones in the one nest!!!! :)

My resolve to stop feeding the girls from the back verandah has not lasted long. Visitors are just as hard to train. I will have to put a big 'DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS' sign up (to remind me too)! I have just scrubbed the back verandah and when the hot water hits the 'deposits' it is not a very pleasant smell :( !!!

My new herb garden is doing very well and I use it every couple of days. The little black net guards are working wonderfully. I am going to have to do something like that in the vegetable patch because a 'critter' has been in to eat a couple of tomatoes, carrot tops, celery, spring onions, lettuce and beet roots. My dad gave me a large spool of twine (like string) and said if I criss crossed it around some sticks all through the vegetable beds the birds and most animals won't get through it, but I should be able to pull weeds. It is worth a try.

My landscaping in the backyard near my new creek is comming along slowly but surely, every pay day I buy more edging and change my mind on exactly what I am going to do around the big pond area. I am tossing up whether to lay pavers or just gravel the area to level it for some table and chairs, it's a great little sun trap in the cooler months and a shade sail or pergola will be a great addition in the summer.

The days are getting very short now but it is still lovely and warm, they say 24 today but I think it's more, and humid, that thunderstorm has arrived.

I am off to Melbourne for the big flower show, Floriana, I will come back with some brilliant ideas for landscaping and lots of hints and tips for vegie growing maybe,

till then...bye for now.

Ending on an UP, after the ups and downs lately!

Can't believe its been 3 weeks since I last wrote, I seem to be very busy but not really doing anything that you can see for it?!

CHOOK REPORT:

Chickadee 'the diva' has finally come off the 'throne', she appears to have fallen to the bottom of the pecking order because she gets a peck or two from all the others now and she is very skittish round the group. But looks very glamourous still!

Rough Red has improved so much (apart from one area), I may take another picture of her next time to brag about the improvement, that is unless Chickadee takes to her in the meantime!

Her legs are still a worry, the vaseline treatment didn't seem to work or maybe its because it was so messy I didn't use it often enough. So I have changed to vegetable oil in a squeeze bottle because her legs are getting worse.

Black Betty is plodding along very nicely, she is almost as friendly as Red. Betty and Red look for some interaction from me during the day, the others just want food!!

Bindi is the only one producing eggs. Ever since 'The Diva' took up residence on the 'throne' I have only had 1 egg a day! But a friend said her chooks have gone off the lay too.

It was getting ridiculous when I walked out the back door, they would swamp me for food, and wheat would not do! They used to push the back door open if it was ajar and tiptoe inside! Yes I am telling the truth, I used to hear soft little tap, tap, taps from their toenails on my vinyl flooring! It took awhile but I got them used to the idea that all they got through the day was a bit of wheat thrown on some bare patches either in their chook run or on some grass up near the house. Every couple of days I boil up some vegetable scrapes and have a good fridge clean out I put some mash in it while it is still warm and pop it in a bowl for them, they go crazy for about 5 minutes and eat about half of it. The will eat beans now if they are cooked and potato peels, pumpkin is a favourite with most but Red still goes 'off' on feta cheese and olives, (you can tell she is my chook!) I don't feed them anything that is ' green' and 'furry', I worry about salmonela poisioning so I toss doubtful food in the rubbish or compost pile. They seem content with this diet now, they get excited over me scattering some wheat around and don't care much for bulk amounts on the feed tray. They really are true scratchers hey!

There are no more barley and molassas feeds for Jack the horse now he is back to a good weight, so they miss out on their little treat of left overs. Jack is looking really good now, the extra hay and dry lucerne (from a massive bag) have helped but I think he is getting spoilt too. Every time I go down the back he whinneys and snorts and stands near the feed bag waiting for another portion. I have been giving him 3 or 4 bowls of it a day and a biscuit of hay with it but he always wants more. I remind you that it is only a supplement, the owners come every day (?!) to give him some hay, they don't mind the extra feeds I give him. Now he has been kicking his feed bowl...a baby bath...and deliberately knocking over his water bucket! I caught him the other day when he didn't know I was watching, he was impatient for his lunch treat.

I will have to wean him off some feeds as soon as the grass is a bit longer in the blocked off section. or get the owners to drop off more hay so I know he is not hungry and he is just needing some interaction with me.

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I was away for most of the week working or holidaying? !!

My poor unnamed fish has turned 3 years old this week! and apart from a regular feed now, he requires no more care till I get him into his new home. I am too scared to name him as I don't have much luck with fish.

My girlfriend asked me to babysit her 3 Zebra fish while her and hubby went for a weeks holiday, sounds pretty simple, she gave me a bottle of red wine to thank me and brought their pebbles and some plants down so they felt at home. She helped me set up the salad bowl I was using for a tank and settled them in before she headed off. I went down to the vegie patch and after an hour I came up and to my horror, I found one had died!!! He was floating on the top and another one was head up tail down, looking ill!! I ran outside and grabbed some water out of the creek to put the others in. If you have tank water the two different metals between the roof and the metal tank cause a chemical reaction and it is toxic to the fish unless left for 3 days to 'air out', it had rained the night before so I thought the water would be fresh enough and it would be ok to use. My friend thought the same, because she never has to worry about it at all, I don't think she really believed it could be a problem. Anyway despite my best efforts within 2 hours they were all dead!!! :(

I could have cried. I had a week to stew over what to do. Three new Zebra fish were bought because I couldn't stand the thought of her comming in to get them and there was an empty bowl. And these ones were prettier and were faster than 'racing fish' with blue stripes down the sides and all. But she declined them when I told her over the phone, they go away a lot and she was worried about having fish to care for anyway. Guess it was meant to happen but wish it wasn't at my house!!

I love the new fish but it hasn't been plain sailing either. I was given a friends whole shell collection and decided they would look good in the salad bowl instead of pebbles. I soaked and washed and made sure they were not salty and were clean. I stored some tap water for 3 or 4 days and then made the switch.... next morning I looked in and they looked green and appeared to have some internal bleeding under their chins!!!! I rushed them to the creek water again, to cut a long story short, they survived and now they are back in their bowl, shells and all and are thriving...I have no idea what it was but they are ok.