'Tis The Season...

For snakes.  I saw my first tiger snake a few weeks ago, dead on the road just up from our place.
This morning I went into the Mixed Breed chooks yard and saw a massive great big ??  I thought it was a Dugite but Hubby says it could have been a Tiger.  It was big and dark and moved fast.  I have no idea if it is still in that pen somewhere or if it managed to get out into the paddock.

This afternoon Hubby saw a biggish one over the other side of the yard and it went into the orchard when it saw him.  I saw it and it wasn't nearly as big as the one that I saw and not as thick or dark in coulour.  He tried to tell me it was the same one but I know it wasn't.  His was a Dugite, around 5foot long. pale in colour.
This one ended up over the road in the bush there but *my* one is still unaccounted for.

I am keeping the grass around the house mowed and tidy and most messy areas are being cleared so we will be able to see any snakes that are in the yard but I don't know if this is good or not.  I worry more when I see them.  I know that they are probably out there anyway but seeing them makes it *real* and I tend to not do things for a few days afterward because its out there waiting for me.

I have chickens due to hatch in the MB pen this weekend.  I hope that snake is gone and not waiting around for a special lunch. 

Strawberries and Pepinos.

I was wandering around the yard this morning and couldn't help noticing all the Strawberries that needed picking. So I picked them.

Went round the front and saw that there were Pepino that were ripe as well.  So I picked them too.
I ended up with just over 400gm of Strawberries and 3 Pepino.  There will be heaps more Strawberries ready in a couple of days time.  All the bushes have really started producing since I fertilised and mulched them all a few weeks back.



Back inside I added some manky apples, a couple of old bananas, a few passionfruit and what do ya know...Enough yummy fruitsalad to last the week.

                                                                     I love my garden.

Gee Whizz, My Present Came Today.

The present that I bought myself because I was
feeling so sick came today.  Isn't the colour the best.

I will wait until Hubby is away before I *have a play*

Was Sick, Now Better.

After 4 days of some horribly *bug*  I woke up this morning feeling halfway human.
No idea what was wrong but I was so sick.  I think the blood issues make me get sicker more often and much more severely than I used to.  I have the symptoms of a cold still but the nausea, aching, dizziness, pounding head and everything else is gone. 
I know I picked it up from the kids that I look after, that's where all my *bugs* come from.

At one stage there I was even wanting to shift into a nice little unit with no garden and no chooks.

And I went 3, yes 3!! days without a coffee.

However, three days in bed doesn't get a lot done and the gardens are a mess.  They have had no watering, no bug control and it is showing.  The seedlings that were planted last weekend have died.  Seeds dried up so they are probably dead too.  The gardens are looking very sparse and the *No Buy Veg* challenge is looking pretty grim. 

Seedlings and lettuce, most plants really, need looking after and mine haven't had much of that this week. A lot of the lettuce have gone to seed and the new little ones aren't looking too good.  The peas are finished, the cabbages are all moth eaten,  They need to be pulled out but I haven't had the strength to even do that.  Watermelon seedling are *missing*  Bugs or slaters probably.

I am home today and between resting I need to get out there and get more stuff in the ground.  The grass could do with a mow and Hubby says he might be able to get to it in a couple of weeks time.  But for now, I will take it easy and only do what needs doing and come next weekend I will be up and out there in full force.

Female Urinary Device. A Present For Me.

I have a bonus day off today as the kids I look after are quite sick.
Unfortunately I am quite sick too.  Feeling quite lousy in fact so:
I BOUGHT MYSELF A PRESENT!!
I rarely spend money, it just doesn't come naturally to me but this is something that I have been wanting but umming and ahhing about for months. 

So what is it that I am all excited about?  I have bough tmyself a FUD.  A Female Urinary Device.  I talked about them over on my Wanna Wander blog  a while ago and wasn't sure then if I would get myself one but I fiqure  "why not?"

The lady selling them has just started up, this is a link to her website. 
http://www.ezypeezyproducts.com.au/

There have been a few times when one of these would have come in handy, when we have been camping or out and the loos are a tad *icky*


I have ordered the Whiz.  It is purple.  Need I say more?
She is in Perth, Western Australia, and I reckon it is much better buying from her than from overseas.  I think we should suport a small, local business over the big companies whenever we can.


If I was a few years younger I would have also ordered the Lunette.  I think they are also one of the better inventions for women.

Daughter T. is probably glad that we don't do Christmas because this is what I would be giving out if we did.  She does have a birthday coming up soon though...

I am looking forward to recieving it and having a *play*  Why should the men have all the fun.

Can't Breath Again.

This is a bit of a whinge as I had to go to the doctor again this morning so feel free to skip. (wish I could skip. lol)
A bit of background...I was (am) *fat and unfit* and tried for nearly 2 years to rectify the problem but didn't seem to get any fitter no matter what I tried.  Toward the end of last year I started getting chest pains and not being able to breath whenever I exerted myself.  It got to the stage that I was huffing and puffing just getting into bed and a quick walk across the yard had me clutching my chest and gasping for air.
Went to the doctor at the end of 2009 to find out why.  Had heaps of tests and they showed that my heart and lungs were good and healthy but I was iron deficient anaemic, I had an ulcer.  A few more things wrong but nothing serious.
Fast forward 10 months of taking tablets and more tests and I am right back where I was last December.

The doctor this morning was a different one from the one I have been seeing since last year and after reading my information and results from all the tests he says that my problem is "very complex" and if this lot of extra tablets don't make a difference than he would recommend my seeing a hematologist.   I asked about an iron injection in the butt but he says that wouldn't work as it looks like the iron is there now but not being used.  More blood tests need to be taken but I am really over it.  I just want to be able to function in the way I used to a few years ago.  This bloke says that it will be hard to improve on the fitness until the problem is sorted.

I feel like crawling into bed and sleeping the day away.  But I need lunch first.

So, whinge over.  Now, what to do.  I will continue to eat properly.  I will still do the walking that I do now.  I will try the bike again.  I will continue to take the bleedin' tablets.  I won't give in and eat crap and do nothing even though I want to a lot more than I used to.

The thing is though...I don't want to have to always take medicine to work on the symptoms.  I would like the cause found and fixed.  This doctor says that it's not that easy.    I will take this lot of tablets and if they work I will keep taking them but I also want more answers so will asked more questions at the next doctor visit.

Really Really Free Markets. Waroona.

                                  We went down to the park yesterday for a look at these markets.
                        I took a blanket and a couple of boxes of stuff to add to the array that was there.

This is the first of it's kind in our small town but I read that they plan on having one most months.  The next one is on the third Saturday of November so if you are not doing anything, bring some stuff and a picnic to munch on and see how it goes. One lady made some choc chip bickies and some muffins and had them on offer to everyone there.  So yummy, you couldn't tell that they were vegan at all!!  It was a nice day out and it got me off the computer for a couple of hours as it was too hot for me to be out working in the gardens.

It wasn't overly busy, maybe 7 or 8 rugs with stuff on them in the area.  Someone had set up an area with playdoh, colouring and beading for the kids to do.  That was cool.

There were a lot of books and magazines.  I took some of these.  One couple took down some furniture and it was fun watching someone try and put a small computer desk into their sedan.  There was baby stuff, clothes, *knick knacks*  Anything you'd find at a garage sale but it was all free.
One couple brought along some fruit and eggs.  The apples were really yum.  Plants.  Just remembered I was going to grab an Oregano plant, hope they are there next time.

                                            I hope to be at the next one so might see you there.

Passionfruit.

I had the 3year old grandaughter out here for a bit this morning so I roped her into helping me with some Passionfruit.

They are falling from the vines and like everything else there is only
so much you can eat so preserving them somehow is important. 
We have 2 vines growing great and producing well and 2
others that are not doing too good at all.  This vine gives
us the most but is the oldest and will probably cark it
within the next year or so so we do need to keep them all.


 I have made cordial but as we don't drink a lot of that stuff I am freezing this lot for when I figure out what to do with them.  I could make passionfruit spread but again, we don't eat it so no point.




We ended up with 5 cups of pulp to freeze but then GD went out and picked up the ones from this morning and we have another 18.  Some of these will be eaten over the next few days, I am going to make up a fruitsalad this afternoon so a few will be added to that...But by the end of the week after collecting the ones that have fallen from the vine between now and then I will need to freeze some more.



Not sure why I want to plant another vine...

BEEing Busy. 2.

Hubby left the water trailer here this morning so he wouldn't have to tow it all the way up to Lancelin and back.  He has just left after picking it up, on his way down to Nannup.

There is a spotlight on the back of the truck that comes on when reversing.  I was standing alongside of the truck as Hubby was out and connecting the trailer.  I see him swat at himself a couple of times, hear him swear, he tells me to move back, he swats some more...
Apparently the bees come out when the light comes on, he was wearing trackies and a flannelette shirt but must have been stung at least 10 times.
He now has a 3 hour drive ahead of him...and I am off to bed.  He has been stung, I haven't.
Did I say how glad I am that it is him out there working and not me?  Poor bugger. 

Chicken Preparations.

I spent today making small pens around the nests that some of the clucky Mixed Breed chooks were sitting in.  I had no idea how many eggs they were on and the other chooks kept getting in and laying so something had to be done.
All up there were 4 cluckies.
**One was sitting in the big cage on old eggs,  I had left these here hoping someone would claim them and go clucky and it worked.  She is now sitting on 8 AussieRock eggs and the gate shut so no-one can get in with her.
** One chook was on a nest that was popular with the other chooks so I put up some wire around her nest.  She was on quite a few eggs but is now on 6 AussieRocks.  I was a bit worried about this one as she was getting upset as I was putting up the wire and left the area.  That made it easy to swap the eggs over but I was a bit worried that she wouldn't come back.  I have been out and checked though and she was back on the nest so she is now fenced in and will be left alone by the others.
**I had 1 chook sitting on some eggs in the shed and she had been there for more than a week so I was going to just let her go.  Over the last 3 days I have noticed another chook sitting with her so I set up one of the other small pens and put some AussieRock eggs in there and then got the son to lift her and put her on the new nest.  I blocked her in with a board but she settled down really well and seems happy to have her own eggs.
** The chook that was in the shed has been penned off but left on the eggs that she had.   I think that those eggs would be a bit too far along for me to take them away from her.  Unfortunately they are Mixed Breed eggs but that's OK.

All up I have 3 chooks on 20 AussieRock eggs so it looks like I could soon have my new flock up and going.

I need to wait 3 weeks to see what hatches but fingers crossed the success rate will be high.  I will post about the hatchings in 3 weeks time.

BEEing Busy.

The husband is shifting bees this week which basically means a lot of driving and not much sleep.  I was thinking Friday night as I was going to bed how lucky I was as he still had 3 hours driving ahead of him.

Hives on the truck .

He left here at just before 9.30am Friday, drove to Perth, did work stuff there, drove the truck up to some bush area near Lancelin and did work related stuff up there until it cooled down enough to load the hives onto the truck.  Waited quite a while until the bees settled, drove back to their camp to pick up the water trailer.  That took 3/4 hour to drive 6km.  Drove back this way and stopped here at 10.30pm to fill the water trailer and then continued on down to the Nannup area.
Arrived there at 1.30am, where he slept for a couple of hours in the truck.  Then at daybreak, before the bees start flying he needed to unload the hives and get them set up.  Set up the water tanks and other stuff, home here just after 1pm.
So it's non-stop from 9am, until 1.30am...sleep...then working again from daylight until 2pm.
There is no way that I could do anything for a fraction of that time and I appreciate the hard work he does so that I can stay home and not have to work.  Thanks Babe.

This is him taking off at 8am this morning for more of the same.  He'll be home tomorrow afternoon and then off again for another load on Tuesday.

According to "whereis" Lancilin to Nannup is around 4 hours drive in a car but travelling in a truck loaded with bees it takes nearly twice that long.    We are somewhere in the middle.




  

Chooks Galore Plus More.

                                  I have chickens. Cute little black and white AussieRock* babies.

Not sure what they will look like when they are bigger as they are not pure. 
The parents are either Australorp dad or a Plymouth Rock dad and the mothers are the same breed.  There are 3 Australorp hens and 1 PR hen.  These chooks are all in together so the babies will be a mix.  But they are so cute.  I put 8 eggs under this one when she went clucky a few weeks back.

I have given some of the eggs from these chooks to the daughter L to hatch for me too.

Well... not so much her but one of her chooks...They might be ready next weekend.

Of this lot of eggs 4 were pushed out of the nest duing the last week but I haven't cracked them to see if they were fertile or not yet.  Not sure if I will yet..  I think it's good to know if they were not fertile as it gives me an idea on how good the roosters are but it's not nice if they were and you find that the chicken died for some reason.

* AussieRocks are what I call my chooks that I raised from "pure" Australorp eggs.  It turned out that the lady had a PR rooster running with her hens just before she sold me the eggs...

I have a few more clucky chooks in the Mixed Breed pen and I will put AussieRock eggs under them this weekend.  I am in the process of rearranging their pen so they can be blocked off from the other chooks that keep laying in their nests

More cute little AussieRock babies   Yay!!

Then I can get start getting rid of the HyLines...Yay!!.

Garden Cleanout.

After being sore and tired all week and arms being next to useless yesterday I woke up this morning feeling OK  so I have been out pulling up plants that I no longer want.

All the red cabbages are gone, I have 3 nice ones inside to do something with.  I don't think I'll plant these again as we prefer the green ones.  The red ones did seem to survive the slaters and cows better though...There are still 3 out there growing so will think on it.

Some of the *nearly past it* Caulies. and a few cabbages.

 

I pulled up all the peas that I couldn't eat *skin and all*. Some were just too tough so they are gone but there are still a few plants left that have nice peas growing on them.  I still need to pick and freeze the peas.
I pulled out most of the Caulies. They were starting to open too much, not getting a decent size, so there are 6 of them waiting to be cooked or pickled.  Still have 4 OK looking ones out there.
There are 2 big green cabbages.  One of those will become coleslaw, not sure about the other.  Probably sliced and frozen for later.

So I now have heaps of garden space that needs to be worked on.  Later when it is cooler I will add more dirt from the chookpens, add manures and top with mulch.  It will then be ready for whatever I need to put in.

The Brocolli that the cow ate the tops from a few weeks back regrew but  because I wasn't quick enough in picking the smaller heads it  all went to seed so out it came.  I have kept one to collect seeds from.




I have used the excuse of being sore all week for not getting out there before now and unfortunately I haven't planted anything at all this month so I will need to step that up over the next week or so.

None of the watermelon or rockmelon seeds that were planted during September survived so once again I will not get those growing as early as I wanted to.   We have 8 tomato plants flowering but I want to get more going.   The cucumbers aren't doing much. 

I think most of the seeds that went in the ground were eaten by the slaters.  There seems to be millions of the little buggers and after this years challenge of growing all our vegetable is up I will get the chooks out there to try and clean them up. In the meantime I used the *boiling water* method again.




In the meantime they, the chooks,
have an overflowing barrow load
of leaves and stuff to get through.

        

Really Really Free Markets. Waroona.

I wrote about going up to Perth to the Really Really Free Markets and guess what?  Look what someone sent me.  And it's in my town.  How cool is that?

<<<
Basic info:
1pm-4pm Saturday 16th October
Centennial Park, Southwestern Highway (at the south end of town)
Waroona

Their website is:
www.rrfmwaroona.wordpress.com
<<<
<<<


I plan on going down for a bit and will take some stuff down with me.
If you are within driving distance why not come down as well.  Bring some stuff you want to get rid of and maybe pick something up.
Waroona is 20 minutes drive south of Pinjarra.
Bring a picnic, this park has toilets and a playground, shady areas to sit and meet up with friends. 
You could get to meet me!!  Now come on...you know that would be the coolest thing since sliced bread...
Or not. lol.

People To Lunch.

I had some lovely people come visit me yesterday.  They are both members of the Simple Savings website which is where I *met* them and it was really nice to have them come down from Perth and to meet them in real life.

Thankyou B and T and children for coming all that way.  B, your children were really well mannered, A great credit to you.  I hope I get to meet up with you both again some day but if you are ever in the area, call in.

Daughter T came out with her little girl and we have decided to asked a couple of her friends over for a visit soon.  I might even invite some people that I used to be friends with...

It was nice to have the yard looking better than it has in years and as it will be kept that way from now on, YES, it will be!!, it will be easier to ask people to visit. 

P.S.E.D. Challenge. 26th to 30th Sept.

Day 26.****  Hmmm. I was home and outside but nothing...Mustn't let that happen again.
       27. Beetroot, seeds. Driveway drums.
             Giant Garlic?  From L.
             Pumpkin seeds, Kent.
       28. ****  Home again, not sure what I was doing.   Not planting though!
       29. ****
       30. ****
September is finished and I managed to get 39 things planted.  More than if I hadn't of set myself the challenge to plant something every day and even though I didn't plant something *every* day I planted more things than the amount of days.  So challenge accepted and accomplished.  Go me!!
Didn't get to the 50 but you get that.

Did you all get stuff planted too?  Leave a comment and let me know what you have planted.
Why not join me in the same challenge for October?