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.