Cicada

in the greenhouse!

It's been a good day, today

The sun has come out for a fair bit of the day - and going by summer so far, this is a huge deal!  We found a break in our electric fence that the cows were escaping through so we fixed it. Our friend Danny came round a couple of days ago to give us a lesson in the traditional way of fixing fences - the good old knots and twists etc. using a strainer tool. We truly thought we'd mastered it but today,  without Danny there to keep us right, we were rubbish! And after an age of trying we resorted to our pretendy farmer skills of joiners and metal twisty things to tighten the wires. We're a little disappointed - poor Danny will be begged to comeback and give us another lesson!

However, we shouldn't be too downhearted as the fence is at least fixed. We wouldn't have been able to even do this a wee while ago. We have to remember that! So yes, it's been a good day!

Feels like Summer

The weather has been lovely for a few weeks now, but it's only in the last few days the heat has really kicked in and it feels like summer. It's not...yet, but the lush spring green is fading fast as we've had no rain for over three weeks, and with the heat, a few breezy days and the blue skies it doesn't take long for the ground to dry out. We're luckier than most as we have an irrigation system for the veggie garden and the farm has lots of water.

Some of the animals are really relishing the heat, though. Here's Pango having a snooze.

 

 I chased this bee all around the chive flowers! It was having none of my nonsense and made absolutely no effort to stay still, at all. He was far too busy.

 Tonight is home made pizza night, we're firing up the pizza oven and we've got some lovely Mahoe mozzarella and basil to top them with. Bliss.

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!

A job well done.

We've extended the chicken run numerous times as I've added more chickens to my collection. We have gates so we can close off areas to let the grass grow again that way  they have something tasty to eat ( along with their proper diet that I feed them, of course!)

For a wee while we've been planning to section off another area, it's the smallest part of the run, perfect for sectioning off to plant some of the King's seeds "Chicken Greens" ~ this is a mix of seeds that will turn into nice tasty green things that chickens love. You can plant them in trays then take them out of the run to recover, but we went for the plant them in the run idea, with the plan that we'll close that part off to let the plants recover once they've been noshed a bit. 

Today we put in the new gate and built the little fence. It wasn't a huge job and we didn't have to buy a thing. We reused an old gate and an old post and we had left over chicken wire from the last run expansion!

You can see we flipped the gate so it was taller.

I dug up a wee bit so that the chickens would scratch around and break up the soil a bit before I plant the seeds in the next couple of days. The packet seems very full of seeds, but I don't know how much of this area it'll cover - we shall see!

 We screwed on recycled gudgeon thingies and hung it from an existing post that just happened to be in the right place. Then we cemented in a second post and made a new bit of fence. It didn't take that long and it's just what we wanted. The chickens tried to help but were pretty useless!

Heres a bit more of the run. You can see 2 gates - these close off the area in front of where I was standing so all the kikuyu grass can grow again. The green leafy plants in front are actually huge weeds, but the chickens love them to have dust baths under and lie around in the shade.

Oh and this has nothing to do with chickens, but the camillias are still flowering and I love this one.

I had a visitor this morning...

 Isn't he beautiful? It's a cricket isn't it?

It's getting a bit chilly for him to be out and about though, so I put him on the deck, sitting on a comfy cushion on a Cape Cod chair. I think he likes it.

We're off to Sydney tomorrow - Lloyd has to go to a conference and as I've never been there before I got to tag along for the ride. I am so excited! I can't wait to see the Opera House in real life. I've seen photographs of it for years and always thought it was so beautiful.

Now, should I take my fancy smanchy camera or not? I'm only allowed hand baggage, and it's big...suppose I only need one pair of shoes though...

The many faces of Fred

There are now many, many Freds.

Some Freds are simply HUGE!

A lot of Freds are now attaching themselves to start forming chrysalis. You can tell, because their heads are stuck to the leaves. It's amazing. One of them was waving his head around looking for a place to stick it to, it was so cute.

The plants are still doing really well with lots and lots of leaves left.

We're just hanging inside this afternoon. Waiting for the tail end of a tropical cyclone to come down. It's 100% humidity, drizzly, breezy and boiling! It's supposed to get really, really windy this afternoon. We shall see.

Just been checking on Fred.

And he's getting big. (If it is Fred ~ and let's pretend it is) 

There are loads of caterpillars now, but this is the largest. He's about 12mm long now and fatter. You can see him chomping away in these pics. I had to follow him round the leaf because he was eating so fast. The butterflies are still coming to lay eggs, so some must make it to chrysalis stage, I hope. The swan plants are still looking remarkably good considering. They were pretty big, though, so I hope they last. I got 2 for this year, next year I think I'll get 4.

Butterfly overload

But I had to say as I mentioned it in the previous post. 

We had a visitor this morning!

She came to the swan plant to lay her eggs. I couldn't get nearly as close to her because I was worried I'd scare her away! But she'd lay an egg, fly away, come back, lay another one, fly away, come back etc etc. she did this for quite a while, it was lovely. Unfortunately there was a wasp kicking around so I'm not too sure how many of the eggs will survive but hopefully some of them will. It was really cool to watch.

It was suggested I could bring a branch into the house so I can watch the stages as they happen without predators getting at it so I think I'd like to give that a try.

Anyway, just thought I'd share.

Happy New Year, everyone!!

Cabbage white ( I think!)

Usually I wouldn't like these so much as they lay eggs on my veggies but I was out taking pics of my swan plant ( does anyone know when monarch butterflies  lay their eggs on swan plants?) cos it looks really cool just now - it's got huge round balls hanging off it - the garden is full of monarch butterflies, but I can't see any eggs on the swan plants.

Anyway!

I saw this butterfly fluttering around and it landed on a flower and hung around for ages so I took some pics of it - manual focus and everything!

Look at it's eyes!

I think I might let this one lay a few eggs.

Spider!

Wandering around the garden at 7am I was checking on the wild flowers - most of them have gone to seed now so I was looking to see if I could collect any. Well, I saw this!

Cool or what! I got a huge sandfly bite on my arm for my troubles! Bad sandfly.

Right, better go, I have a list as long as that arm to get through over the next couple of days.

In the garden today

I'm very excited! My frangipani has leaves growing. 

Last year mum gave me a frangipani as a gift and I didn't plant it out as I was worried it may be too cold over winter for it so I kept it in a pot and wintered it on the deck. In the last week leaves have appeared. I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised as this winter was incredibly mild and just now we are having the hottest must humid weather ever. We're even having some much needed drizzle, with more rain forecast over the next few days.

 Frangipani leaves

 

 We have a whole bed of gardenias at the front of the house, they look a bit worse for wear but there is one huge flower. Some of the small dwarf ones are covered in buds so they are fine, it's the bigger ones that aren't looking great. But this one is stunning and the smell is absolutely amazing.

 I've also got quite a lot of lilies coming, I think I'll pick these and have them in the house.

And this is a red sunflower. I planted some of them round the side of the house and they are almost at the flowering stage now. I think I might plant more now that we have some rain forecast!

I've been very lazy for the last couple of days. Basically just sitting inside with the air conditioning on. It's been far too hot to do anything. Even just going out to feed the ducks and chickens turns me into a sweating blob. It's the humidity more than the heat.

Glass Baubles

Some of my wee glass tree ornaments. A few of them have lost little pieces of themselves over the years, but I think that just makes them more special. And notice that there is a chicken! Even all those years ago I must have known that chickens would come into my life :)

Lest We Forget

 I took some photos of the wild flowers

Amazing poppys, which are very apt today....

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: 

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them.

 

 

Asparagus - The Sunday Creative

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This week’s prompt:

Nostalgia 

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 We used to have a very prolific Asparagus crop, but for reasons beyond my understanding this is what we get now...


 *cue hysterical laughter*

I am nostalgic for the good old days!




Nostalgia: n. a wistful yearning for something past or irrecoverable

Busy bees

I had a plan to take it easy today and I have to admit that Lloyd and I did lie on the beanbags in the sun for about 20 minutes, I had Banana purring away on my lap and it was absolutely lovely. However, apart from that I've not taken it easy at all! I raked over the veggie beds that I've been feeding and liming and pruned a few trees. Had to tidy The Acorn, because a couple of our friends who are coming on Wednesday for Lloyd's birthday are staying there to save them rushing back for the last ferry home.

I had been mowing the grass, but the belt slipped off three times, we think it's now too stretched to stay on so will have to zoom into town tomorrow to get a new one then L will have to take the deck apart and fit it. Pesky!

Still no sign of the ducklings - she leaves her nest every morning for ages, I wonder if maybe she has no clue! Time will tell.

Anyway, when I was in the veggie garden I noticed that we have borrage out in force again ~ this always attracts the bees.

The Sunday Creative

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This week’s prompt:

Nothing 

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Nothing: 1. no thing {leaves to the imagination} 2. something that does not exist 3. zero

 Just as well I was up at the crack of dawn/6am for this one because this is a tricky one and what I had in mind will have gone soon and there will be nothing left. Well actually they will, most likely, still be there, but invisible without the dew and the low light. AND if you look at webs from a certain direction they disappear. So it's not really cheating!

 They are just so beautiful. I love thinking about the wee spider running around making them.

I love freesias

Everything about them.

I planted some last year and they did really well, but they didn't come up this year. The new bulbs I planted this year are great but I really hope they come up next year too. ( do I need to lift them and make them cold?)

I've loads of new stems coming. But this is the first, and therefor very special.

I'm glad they're surviving the wind. We're having the most sustained, windy weather I can remember. It's that storm I mentioned a couple of days ago, still think we're getting off lightly compared to the rest of the country, but I'm over the wind. We've lost a couple of trees at the back of the farm, they were old and did no damage so good firewood. Speaking of firewood... we were considering making a pizza oven for the summer. We love making pizzas. With the new deck area we thought it would be lovely. RandV have one down at the beach and we use it a lot. They made theirs. Well, I had a look at how to do it, and to be honest, we can't be bothered! How lazy is that! It would be so time consuming and we have none of the materials to hand so would have to buy them all. We worked out it could be about $2000 plus all the man hours. So then we changed plan and looked at pizza ovens to buy. We found some amazing ones - yes, $6000 amazing. NOPE!

Then we found one that fits the bill, is NOT $6000 and we can get it in Whangarei! Result. I saw them yesterday so today I am dragging Lloyd down.

Anyway, we shall see.

Weather is too nasty to do much else.