School Hoildays......

Hello All

Found a few of these cheeky selfies by the nearly 3 year old grace

and had to share this one with you.

I am home from my visit with the girls, William and I had 

a lovely time out there. Below is skater girl Grace.

Abby is  a little doll she will repeat everything you say to her as she is 

really starting to talk. 

We are on school holidays here for the next two weeks so it is a good time for visits.

Next week we are meeting up with David and his little family and going camping.

For the rest of this week though, I am going to enjoy all the display gardens in our wonderful city of Toowoomba.

Lots of garden posts will be coming up, hahaha

Enjoy your week 

Blessings 

Mandy

Hello........

Hi all

What has been happening in your part of the world?

On the week end I had my best friends daughters wedding, it was on there farm 

over looking the dam. A perfect spot for a wedding, and the day was perfect also.

We have been keeping quiet around here mostly doing odd jobs.

Lots of plants getting planted out and pruning getting done.

Bruce, Robbie and William have been busy getting the last of the fencing done.

It is good to get all of the jobs done before summer and the heat set in.

I am heading out to Jessica for a few days to spend with her and the girls

which will be good....

Enjoy your day

Blessings 

Mandy

A Garden Walk.

Come for walk through the back garden with me.

As you can it has greened up with the little bit of rain we had,but if these westerlies keep up it will soon be all dried up again.

Down through the rain forest we go past the wagon 

and pond

down towards the chook pen

This is where I have pruned back a lot of shrubs here, they

will all fill out in the next few months. I have saliva's, grasses and coffee 

planted down here at the very back garden.

I have cleaned up the dry creek bed from all the weeds, you

couldn't even see the rocks it was so over grown.

 The mulberry tree is full of fruit and starting to get leaves, soon 

this will be a lovely shady tunnel. I'm thinking I might put a hammock down here to

hide in Summer.

There is plenty of monstera deliciosa  for the picking and eating.

If you have never tried this fruit I suggest you do, I have never been a lover of it but this year I tried it

again and find that I really like the fruit salad taste it has.

And here we are back to the house.

Below is a close up of our wisteria covered arch, this plant is only 2 years old 

and looks like we will be getting flowers this year.....

I hope you enjoyed the walk with me, soon there will be flowers and

the colours of Spring.

Enjoy your week

Mandy

Growing Our Own Meat..................

What a wonderful sunny week end we have been having here.

I have been doing lots of pruning and planting in the garden, but

today I thought I would show you some of the animals we have here and give you

a break from gardening posts.

These animals are for food, yes we still name them and treat them as pets but we know that

they will end up on the table. This is all new to us,  we have had our first lamb

this winter and have been enjoying it. Yes it does taste better and we know exactly what we are eating.

We have our two pigs that are growing well but get shy when ever I go to

take there photos....Bruce wants to make a smoke house and experiment with smoking

when we slaughter them. This is exciting to us and we are reading all we can about smoking, we don't know any one that has done this before so if any one out there has any tips that would be good.

It won't be long and we will be able to slaughter our first cow from those heard, meanwhile they are

doing a good job eating all the grass before summer gets here and the threat of fires.

We have our chickens that we are getting lots of eggs from each day.

Our new addition is meat chickens 21 of them....We love chicken and it is so expensive to buy free range organic chicken. We got our organic grain from Heritage seeds out at Pittsworth.

Costing will work out at $6 per chook now that is half what I pay and the chook will be twice the size.

We don't need to worry about fish as my friend

runs a fish farm 7 mins away so fresh fish is close. I do enjoy 

ocean fish and will still buy Salmon when I can.

Next on the list is turkey for Christmas, and I would like some geese to keep in the 

food forest to keep the insects down. I don't like the taste of duck so I don't think we will be getting any of them even though if I could buy some Indian Runners I would

because they are a beautiful animal.

What do you have in the way of home grown meat???

It's taken me a long time to get this far and I am enjoying our farm so much and 

all that we can grow here, knowing every thing is free of ALL chemicals and sprays and 

all feed that we supplement is organic.

Enjoy your week end

Mandy

A little rain......

Hi All how did you spend your week end?

We had rain not big rain but enough to fill the tanks which is what we needed.

All the new plants I transplanted around the pond now look good after the rain, and some 

have new shoots on them.

I thought the pond could do with a fountain so I found this old light shade in the shed and gave it

to the master plumber to see what he could do.

Not to bad..

I still need to get more rocks and cover up the black plastic, that's the next job on the list.

The grass is looking green and the house clean after the rain

I love how every thing looks so fresh after.

 The citrus are doing well still and these mandies are sweet.

These fruit trees have been in 5 years now.

Today's job is getting rid of this hedge along the fence line, it is night jasmine and looks

out of place now we have enlarged the yard yet again. 

We planted more fruit trees in this area as well on Sunday, I have planted

a Cherry tree and a native berry called Jaboticaba it has berries on the trunk of the tree, something interesting I thought. We also planted another olive tree. Out the front of the dairy we also planted 3 kiwi fruits, 2 coffee bushes 1 apple tree and a new plum. 

Photos of those later.

The mangos and avocado are still covered to keep the frost out,so far nothing has been frosted except the poor banana trees, as you can see below. Hopefully come spring they will come back and we will get some fruit.

Enjoy your week 

 and all that it brings.

Mandy

"Bellis" and Brisbane

If there was a bad blogger award I think I would win that!!!!

You know when life gets so busy in the garden there is not time for not much else, except going to Brisbane to see the open garden of ABC Gardening presenter Jerry Coleby Williams, Bellis.

It was a wonderful example of a sustainable inner city garden.

 I realized that I should put a lot more in my vege beds as I waste a lot of room.

There were so many people that there were areas of the Garden I didn't get to as it was gridlock

on the narrow paths

He had Guinea pigs to keep William and Harry busy and native bees, which is on my list

of things to get.

There was this wild spinach growing all through the garden that looks like a weed 

I am always pulling out, I will have to look into it and check.

Then it was of to South bank for a look around.

Some lunch

 I had Chili mussells yummo...O and a glass or 2 of wine Hey by this time with these 3 I needed it.

After lunch we looked through Queen Street Mall, and on the way home stopped at the Woolloongabba Antique Centre, it was a hit with the boys, I didn't get any thing but Bruce found a few bits he wanted.

Spring doesn't feel far away now what with open gardens and day trips with great weather.

I have got a lot done this winter though and will share later on.

Have a great day All.

Mandy

Sofa Love..

Hi all 

I couldn't wait to show you my new find, Thursday as I was

doing the op shops I found the perfect sofa.

She is pink, beautiful and all mine.

I am not ashamed to admit that yes I did a little jig, clapping my hands

with glee and jumping up and down when I laid eyes on her.

Those buttons and those perfect legs, and let me say she is in 

great condition.

I have been on the look out for a pink 2 seater sofa for this wall,

even green would have been good. It also had to have the velvet look about it.

What do you think?????...

O and I did get other goodies from my day out doing the thrift shops

but they pale in caparison to my 

Sofa.

Mandy