My birthday by the creek

I had a wonderful birthday surprise a couple of weekends ago.  Matt finished making and filling one of three beautiful raised garden beds for me complete with drip irrigation and a trip to get many vegie seedlings to plant.

 AND...
 Mum and Dad bought me a native bee hive complete with native bees!

I have been coveting a native bee hive for many years but they have been too expensive for me/us to justify. I am such a spoilt girl!!!

I am so excited to be playing my tiny little part in the pollination of the worlds agriculture and food production. Sounds dramatic I know but Australian stingless bees seem to be immune to the much feared and talked about colony collapse faced by the European honey bee world wide. Our teeny tiny native bees may be the answer and potentially will need to be imported around the world to feed (through pollinating crops)  a growing population.  The problem is that Australia's native bees themselves are up against it with many habitats and tree hollows being destroyed through development.  

I have included some pictures of a native bee hive being split into two at a workshop we went to a few months ago.  You can see how cool the spiral structure of the brood inside the hive is - very different to the European honey bee.  The little black specs are the bees.

Owl inspirations

One of my friends is due to have her baby boy in a couple of weeks and I needed an idea for a baby shower present.  I just happened to be reading Jacqui's amazing blog "Jack and Georgie"  (http://jackandgeorgie.blogspot.com/) and saw the beautiful owl that she made for one of her friends.

I used her owl idea to make an owl mobile.  I forgot to take photos of how I made the owls but you can refer to "Jack and Georgie" for the original instructions for this anyway. There were only two things that I added to my owls from Jacqui's idea.  I sewed the ribbon into the owl head as I sewed the owl together and I made some embroidery feet.  I decided that the baby would be looking up so the owls had to be anatomically correctish - ie. they should have feet of some description! I just used embroidery wool to make two or three "claws?" on each foot.  It is a stitch that my Grandma taught me when I was a wee thing but I have no idea of the name sorry.  

I bought some 5mm dowel from the hardware shop and asked Matt to saw them into 30cm (ish) pieces for me. I also asked him to drill some holes for the owl ribbons to thread through.  He was reluctant to do this for me and I found out why when I threaded the owls on - they did not balance!  So before you drill the holes for your owls make sure you balance them on the dowel first!  I sanded and stained my dowel pieces as well.  I used the clear stain that Matt uses to paint our deck.

 The last job to do was to thread the owls onto the dowel and to connect the two pieces of dowel together with another long piece of ribbon.  I then sewed a loop into the top of the hanging ribbon and the mobile is complete.   

                    

My next task is to make a pink owl pencil case for my 6yr old niece.  She has been obsessed with owls for many years after reading the story "Owl Babies".

Thanks for the inspiration Jacqui!

Chickens like yoghurt!!!

In case you don't know our chickens and I are great friends.  Betty, Doris, Iris, Myrtle and Ivy live in our front yard in a house Matt made out of his old bed, two recycled doors from an old school and some corrugated iron offcuts from one of the houses that was built in the village.  Some in the village refer to it as the chook hilton or the Taj Mahal of chicken houses.

 Our chickens are very spoilt they get at least three meals a day from me and our neighbour thinks they get lonely while we are at work during the day so visits them with an afternoon tea of specially made porridge so they don't feel neglected!!!  They LOVE their porridge. They are going to be most upset when our neighbour leaves for the UK for a month in a week.  No porridge....

Anyway the point of my story is that I found out today that they also LOVE strawberry yoghurt.  Someone told me that chickens love fermented fruit and veg that has been left in yoghurt under a cloth for a few days -yuk.  I did try that once but our princesses turned their beaks up at that but I had some yoghurt that I didn't eat for lunch and couldn't put back in the fridge.  I tried and the result was 5 chickens covered from comb to toes in yoghurt and me looking much the same as a result of the chaos that ensued when I tried to put the yoghurt in their container....  I guess we won't have any wasted yoghurt in house any more!

First trip to our organic farm

A couple o f weeks ago Matt and I went on an expedition to see our farm.  By our farm i mean that we have bought a share in a farm through a scheme called Organic Farm Share.  Our share in the farm will ensure us access to affordable organic food that is produced locally. 

 The farm has three dams - the top being spring fed and which consequently feeds the other two dams.  In time one dam will be stocked with fish for us and our co-owners to eat.  The dams also ensure that all produce can be irrigated without the need for artficial systems to be introduced.

AS well as receiving beautiful food once a week. As shareholders we can choose to stay in the safari tents on the farm once they are established.  While on the farm we can learn about the permaculture farming practices and how we might use these ideas in our own home gardens.

The farm is situated on the Richmond river.  We can't wait till our first harvest party in a couple of months time!