Spring is most definitely here.

Which is lovely, as I always find winter long. It's not like we even had a particularly bad one or anything. There was a terribly wet, soggy spell for a few weeks. but that was it. However, I always feel much happier when spring is here.
The best thing about this spring is something I spied yesterday when I was in the garden.
Can you guess what it is?

It's avocado blossom!! Our three avocado trees that we panted as little sticks, 2 years ago actually have lots of blossom on them this year! I so hope some turn into wee avocados!

The peach tree in the chicken run is bursting into flower as well - because the chickens roost up this tree it gets the most amazing amount of fertilizer. To thank the chooks for this is grows about 10 feet every year ( not kidding - I have to prune it in half each autumn) and is absolutely laden with fruit. It has the most beautiful, delicate pink blossom.

The plum trees are absolutely covered as well - so it looks like we're going to have a bumper fruit crop. Yippee.

and here's another 'guess what'?

It's a spring onion seed head! If you let a couple go to seed you'll end up with lots of wee spring onions self seeding!
It's a beautiful evening, which is just as well as our helpxers had the day off today and headed way up north in our trusty old jeep, however it turns out she's not so trusty today and has broken down/overheated way,way north of Kaitaia. Oh dear. They are in the process of limping down to Kaitaia so they can meet Lloyd at work and he can take them home. They're not having much luck as yesterday Sillje fell and cut her hand quite badly on a ceramic jar - I zoomed her to the medical centre and she got it all bandaged up so I really hoped that they would have a nice day today as they are the loveliest of people.
Bum!

   Hydrangeas

 First of the year

                                             It's scorching, we're eating out on the deck today.

The days are getting longer...
The chooks are going to roost at 5.45 now, so this is how I can tell. Well that and it's actually lighter!
Mathilda ( one of the minorcas) started laying again yesterday. They started to moult at the end of March. I hadn't realised how much I'd missed the white eggs until I saw one again. It's very beautiful. She decided not to lay it in the nesting boxes, but in the mud in the broody house, so I got a nice box and filled it with sawdust and put it in there so hopefully she'll lay in it today. (eta well they ate bits of the box and chucked the sawdust all over the place so that was a success!)

Weather the last couple of days has been lovely so we got a lot done in the garden. Some pruning, total removal of huge gnarly roses that I've been moaning about for years but just couldn't face the hours of pruning and digging. Well they're gone as of yesterday!Lloyd taking a low branch off the magnolia.


A lot of tidying up after last weekends storm, a huge amount of gum branches and a few trees had blown down and unfortunately some of them had landed on fences. Down at the Acorn half the pine ishy tree has been flattened and one of the big heavy wooden chairs was blown right off the deck, but apart from that it's fine.

Blossom has appeared on the cherry trees over the last few days, the magnolia flowers are opening and the daffodils are starting to bloom.



So we may not be over the worst of winter but at least I feel like we're on the home straight. It has been wet for the last couple of weeks but we've had lots of nice weather in amongst it all.Camillias are absolutely covered in flowers. Probably cos we fed the gardenias so much and they've got the benefit!

Spring has sprung!
Leaves are coming out, blossoms are blooming, grass is growing, sun is shining It's wonderful!




the wisteria along the gate is amazing

Apologies for terrible photos, but they looked so cute roosting in the blossom!