Lovely Summer is here!

Christmas has come and gone. So many Christmas gatherings attended. So many gifts given. So many fruit mince pies made. They were quite a success. I neglected to photograph the process and only thought to take a quick pic of the last one (just before I ate it). They are certainly my most favourite fruit mince pies as they had none of the things I don’t like in there. I will make them again next year.

It has been quite hot over the last week or so. It did not get below 28 degrees C inside overnight, it did not get below that outside either! I am loving it. It makes me dream even harder about moving to the country and having more space and a dam to swim in and all the animals that come with all the space. Oh imagine all the food I could grow!!

I love the heat, the chickens do not. I freeze water and treats and give them to them but they still don’t like Summer!

I have not ever made a New Years resolution before. I am dangerously close to making one this year. I want to declutter. I want to have a tidier home. I am thinking of making a New Years resolution to get rid of half my stuff. It sounds a little daunting so I probably won’t make it. Maybe the desire to achieve it will be enough without the official resolution….

Happy Summer Solstice

For the Northern hemisphere folk, Happy Winter Solstice. I love love love Summer, it saddens me that from today each day gets shorter (hopefully hotter, but shorter), only 3 weeks into Summer. But it is, in my mind, less noticeable than the Winter solstice. I find great reassurance in the Winter Solstice and tell myself that I can feel the days lengthening and Spring coming. The Winter solstice is awesome, it helps keep me positive when it is cold and dark outside.

I am doing nothing today to celebrate except thinking about the longest day of the year and what it means to me. In my own personal Narnia I wouldn’t celebrate Christmas I would celebrate today. This day is special to me.

So Happy Summer/Winter Solstice!!!!!! Get out and enjoy nature 🙂

Due to her kinda creepy reddish eye colour she looks evil but I can assure you she isn’t. She is the best!

Daikon attempt 1:fail. Nice flowers though!

Queen Anne’s Lace thriving on neglect

 

First zucchini of the season 🙂

Hopefully the second zucchini, look at that little bee in there

Last brassica of the season

Never fails to thrill me! I love tomatoes!!

Too many apples on one little branch. I will probably have to thin them out.

Chaos. I love thee

 

 

A years worth?

I have decided, using no method or research, that the garlic is dry enough to be braided. Despite this being my 4th year of storing garlic in this fashion there has been no increase in my skills. They are not pretty!

I don’t know if this is enough garlic to last me a year plus seed for next year. I am sure I had more last year and it was just ok, I had to turn the last few bulbs into garlic powder as they were starting to sprout and this powder has got me through til now.

I seem to struggle with what is an indoor activity and what is an outdoor activity. This, in retrospect, is definitely an outdoor activity.

My helper, Franklin.

I decided to do 4 braids. No reason why, just did.

Too small or brittle to bother braiding, these will be eaten first.

Someone has been fighting, poorly. That is a scratch just under his nose. The ones on his nose have just healed. I don’t think he will ever be a good fighter…

Christmas

I don’t love Christmas. I like spending the meal on Christmas day with my family. I don’t like the gift buying, the commercial-ness, the waste.

If it were up to me I would ask everybody to make a little something edible that when all put together creates a meal and then everyone would eat drink and be merry. No presents. No money wasted on things people probably won’t use. Just enjoying each others company.

I kinda want to have a rant about all the things that irritate me about Christmas but I will hold back, you’re welcome.

I am not a religious person so there is little meaning to me behind the celebration. I just enjoy spending time with my family. So that is what I am focusing on this Christmas season. Family. Not all the silly parties I feel obliged to attend.

Next week my older sister and I are going to make fruit mince pies for the first time then my other siblings are going to join in for some eggnog and to help eat the fresh pies. I am looking forward to it. Focus on the fun!

Spoiler alert, this is what I am making people for Christmas. I will thread some string on them and they will be decorations. Possibly should give them to people before Christmas so that they can use them this year…

 

Some more glorious carrots. Because, why not!

Picked some flowers from the garden to take to my grandma, I love this time of year!

Food, Food, Food

I think about food a lot. I try to grow most of my fresh food requirements. I still frequently buy avocados, onions, and carrots. I do not have an avocado tree. I do not seem to have much luck growing onions or carrots. It is a shame as I eat lots of both. I am going to keep trying to grow enough of each.

Something miraculous has happened with this batch of carrots. I usually have the most trouble getting them to germinate. I don’t think I keep the soil damp enough. Once they germinate it is hit and miss as to whether they develop a good root. I have no idea what I did with these guys but I think I have just grown my best carrot ever!!!

A nasturtium flower as a size comparision

Obviously there are still the weird ones as well but they are mixed in with good size straight ones. I am thrilled!!

I am going to go plant more seeds now. I wish I knew what was done differently to achieve such success. Now to work out how to grow enough onions…

Egg laying

Chickens want a quiet dark safe place to lay their eggs, this is supposed to be a fact. I have 4 chickens that lay eggs, 2 of them refuse to conform to this “fact”. One lays in the wine barrel in full day light outside my bedroom window, she doesn’t care if I am mowing the lawns or watching her out the window. Weirdo.

Duchess, the other non conforming chicken, has no routine. I find her eggs anywhere and everywhere. Yesterday at the bottom of the stairs, the day before under the pear tree, day before that middle of the back yard. I have stood on them before. Quite funny but quite annoying. One day her egg was halfway down the ramp from their egg laying area, like she had gone in to lay in the appropriate area and then had a change of heart at the last minute. Today, the gate area to their house.

But when a chicken is as crazy as this one I don’t feel it is wise to try and change her ways.I just go on an egg hunt each day. In the past when I have tried to modify her character flaws she has just escalated her behaviour and ultimately the situation is worse and I have lost the battle to a chicken. Not good times. Would you take this crazy lady on?? I think not…

100 posts

100 posts later I am still unsure why I write here. I don’t link my posts to anything, I don’t categorise them, I don’t tag them. I don’t tell people I have a blog. I am unsure what I expect, hell I don’t even know how to work the features of this wordpress site. Looking at the weird buttons at the top I just realised I can write in different colours, now that is neat! Sometimes I feel like writing, sometimes I don’t . This can be seen in the frequency of posts. At the start I tried to be regimented in posting regularly and all it did was stress me out and then I abandoned the whole thing. Second go around I am much more relaxed about when I put things up. I know there are certain topics that garner more views but I don’t write about them very often because I don’t feel like it. This is a very self serving place for me…

I think I like taking photos of my garden and animals and this space gives me something to do with them.  I like reading other peoples blogs, I like getting my thoughts down “on paper”, I like photos, I have an atrocious memory and every now and then I reread some of my posts and think ‘oh that’s right, I remember that (now)’ all these things combined still don’t lead me to a reason. I guess there doesn’t have to be a reason.

Oh well, Happy 100 posts to me!!!

A bunch of photos….

It is finally tomato season 🙂

The beans are starting to flower

Probably time to prune, but I love overgrown!

I can only get photos of this glorious chicken running to me or

Trying to help and see what I am up to. So curious!

One handsome chicken

Future pears

Bee photo fail

So Close!

Tidied some of the sweet peas this morning, the chickens are grateful

 

 

Garlic time

Makes me think Stop, Hammer Time. But no. It is garlic time, garlic harvest time to be specific…

I always um and ah about when to harvest my garlic. This year more so because I knew it was going to be a bad year for me garlic-wise. The seasons are all out of whack! We had rain in the forecast, the soil was already wet from the last rain. I didn’t want rotted garlic so I thought, what the heck I’ll do it now. Quite a few had 4 dead leaves. I am unsure where I got this idea (probably google) that you wait til 4 of the leaves die but I have been counting garlic leaves for a few years now…

I pulled them all out. It was a bit better than I expected. I thought they would all be tiny bulbs as when I had stuck my finger down in the dirt on a random few I could not feel much more than a small bump.

Whole lot harvested. I usually leave them out in the sun for the day (again probably some notion from google, no facts) but we haven’t really had any sun to speak of. So straight inside to start the drying off process. Hopefully this lasts me a year. I will not eat the largest ones, I will save those for planting next season. I may buy some more seed garlic to bolster my stock. I want to be able to make lots of dehydrated garlic every year!

I just have to work out how to keep naughty cats away…