Spring!

Well, spring has definately sprung here.  We have flowers everywhere and chicks starting to make an appearance.  The raptors that nest in the niches of our house have fledged and the swallows are back to dive bombing and chittering like crazy.  My black elder is looking magnificent with its raspberry pink blooms.  May have to put in a second one as they are so beautiful.

The irises are magnificent this year, but each time I get a flush of flowers it rains.... so they turn slimey and wilt.  Bit annoying.  Keep checking each morning and taking heaps of photos as they bloom.

Clovis is nearly two and is starting to calm a little.... a very little.  Getting better at obeying and even though he bounces a lot, he will sit when asked.  He is just too full of energy.  I still think he is the most beautiful poodle boy on earth and we have lots of cuddles.  When Wayne is away he sneaks onto the lounge at night to snuggle with Guy and I while we watch tv.  So cute.

All the veg are in and this year the potager is fenced so hopefully the fruits of my labours will get to be eaten by us not the deer!  Unfortunately we had very hard frosts mid May, so we have lost most of the fruit that had set on the trees.  Still a bit there, but not a lot.  Might be another lean year for the jams and jellies.

Apricot hatched one chick, and then abandoned her nest to rear the one baby.  I put the eggs under another hen, who hatched one chick, but then didn't look after it.  So unfortunately the second chick died at 3 days old.  She is still sitting on eggs, so hopefully this week we will have more chicks.  I will take them from her at 2 days old and give them to Apricot to raise.  Apricot is a fabulous mother and teaches her chicks well.

Two talks coming up in next few weeks.  One on medicinal plants that have deadly side effects, and the  other on Roman era medicinal herbs.  Will be working on the Roman herb garden this week and making sure it is fully stocked before the talk.  My own herb garden has expanded rapidly and is doing well.  The chickens benefit from fresh herbs in their diet and in their nesting boxes, and from less insects in their coop.  We benefit from tasty additions to meals.

My borders along the boundary fence are coming along.  I increase them gradually as I have the plants to fill the space.  Metre by metre it is creeping along the wall and framing the terrain.  Last week I put in over 60 plants that I had grown from cuttings or divided from other plants.  I have a few trays of seedlings which will go in over the next few days to fill in the gaps.  Lots of lupins, poppies, zinnias and other pretties.

The beautiful rose that Wayne gave me for our wedding anniversary this year is flowering and looking lovely.  It is a Pierre de Ronsard, so big lush dense flowers, but unfortunately no perfume.  Not a huge deal for me as they just look so gorgeous.

Magnolias, Hellebores and other Pretties

Yes, yes, yes.... a long time between posts.  Sort of lost the will to post for a while as life was too busy and stressful.  Am not promising regular posts now, but hopefully a few a month.

My garden has come along in leaps and bounds.  Have planted trees and shrubs along the boudary wall, as well as more bulbs in the orchard.  My vision for the terrain is coming together slowly but surely.

One of the things I loved when in the south of the USA was the magnolia trees.  They also grow well in parts of Australia.  Finally found two types that will grow well here and managed to buy one of each last autumn.  We had a hard winter with temperatures well below zero and freezing winds for weeks on end.  I was worried that I would lose most of the newly planted trees, but thankfully most of them came through ok.  The magnolias seem to have really established themselves well and were covered in buds as soon as the weather started to warm up.  Both of them have been flowering the past few weeks and looking gorgeous.

My eucalyptus is doing well also and is now twice my height.  Not bad for a tree that was less than a metre tall 18 months ago!

The bulbs of tulip, daffodil, jonquil and crocus that I planted over the past few years are flourishing and make the orchard and garden beds look magnificent.  My niece was pleased to see a photo of the "Claudia" tulips in flower - her namesake.

Chickens are doing well and am collecting a few eggs a day.  There has been a change of President in the chicken coop too.... Nougat was ousted in favour of Garlic being the new head of state.  I am going to have to seperate out Garlic for a few weeks so that Nougat can become the boss again.  I don't want my pedigree hens mating with an unknown heritage mixed breed rooster.  My fault for keeping Garlic as a pet instead of eating him (as is the case with all the other excess roosters that hatch).

We finally have new neighbours behind us.  They are a lovely couple who moved from the Paris suburbs and are learning about having a stone house in the country and a big garden.  Their cat is a gorgeous black longhair, very delicate and elegant, and they have a shitszu who is a real character.  Clovis loves to play with him as they are the same age.

This years plantings have commenced, and I now have an area dedicated to my herbs and medicinal plants which is nice.  It is closer to the water butts and the chicken coop, so easier to maintain and to use the herbs for the chooks and for us.  Have added a few new herbs and am hoping to enlarge it further as I source other ones to add.

No other news for the moment.  Will promise to get the camera out a bit more often and take some more photos to post.

Officially Spring

What a long, wet miserable winter this has turned out to be.  Not particularly cold, but really, really wet.

We have had flooding around the village and at times wondered if we would be cut off by the water.  A few times it rained so heavily and with such strong winds, that the water was forced around the windows and doors and into the house.  Miserable.

It would have been better to have had a good snow for a few days or a heavy frost for a few days.  This kills off the bacteria in the soil and the pests that overwinter in the soil, and leaves it clean and ready for the next years plantings.  I am hoping we do not get over run by doryphors and other nasty veg eating bugs as a result.

One good thing with all the rain is that it has refilled all the lakes and rivers and our well has more than enough water.  Last summer was so dry and hot that the river dried up, and the lake was down to almost no water.  Everyone's wells also dried up (except ours, which I think is the deepest in the village) and irrigation of crops was difficult due to lack of water.

I had taken some incredible photographs of the flooding, as well as all the spring bulbs flowering in the orchard..... unfortunately, becuase I now run windows 10, all my photos are unable to be downloaded from my camera, and so are unusable.  I also cannot save documents or change anything in my documents.  A message telling me that I do not have the authority to save/change etc comes up any time I try and do anything.

This problem has been happening since I "upgraded" to windows 10.  

I really regret ever deciding to download it and wish I had my old windows back.

Wayne has been trying to fix the problem, but every "fix" that someone suggests on the message boards does not work.

So I now have a very expensive piece of equipment sitting on my desk that is useless to me.  Cannot do my work on it and can only use it for emailing and browsing internet.

Thank you windows 10 for ruining my computer.

Moving on to nicer things.... I have redesigned the potager and am in the process of grassing over half of it.  Will be planting more closely and using other techniques picked up over last year to see if it makes a difference. 

Planting the rows of veg more closely means they can be mulched more efficiantly and there is less water loss through evaporation.  Also less space for weeds to sprout, and hence less labour in keeping "clean".  Labour = time, and time saved in potager is time available to do other work.

So far I have planted another few dozen strawberry plants, 29 asparagus plants and nearly a dozen red cabbage.  It is too cold to start anything else yet, so will hold off on other veg for another month.  I do have heaps of flowering/ornamental plants to put in though, so will be working on them over next week or so.

Over winter I purchased two Daphne plants.  One the classic odura and the other a pink variety that I had never seen before.  They really should have been put into the ground by now, but have kept them in pots near back door so I can smell them as I go in and out of the house.  The pink one has just about finished flowering and has a sweeter perfume, whereas the odura is still flowering strongly and has the lovely lemony tang to its perfume.

For my birthday and our wedding anniversary I received iris rhizomes.  I love irises and peonies, so it was a perfect gift.  They are planted up, and have started sprouting now.  Cannot wait to see the blooms.  They are germanica and siberica irises, so are showy and lush.  I have blacks, white with blue edging and a purple/pink in one spot, and have planted some blues and creams and pinks in another spot.

My project in early winter was planting out some saplings along the stone wall which borders our land.  They are well established now and looking good.  I put in a mulberry, cherry, eucalyptus, buddleia, eglantine and a few other ornamental shrubs.  In between I places bulbs, Japanese anenomes, hostas, and a whole heap of different coloured rudebekkias.  Over the next few weeks I will put in some dahlias and other tubers to fill in the gaps and give a show of colour and flowers all year round.

The chickens are laying well due to the mild weather.  I have more than enough eggs for us and all our friends.  At some times I have had up to 3 dozen eggs in the fridge!  Am hoping that my dwarf hen Apricot waits till we have reconfigured the inside of the hen house before going broody.  I have designed a brood box that will be in place permanantly, and can be used to isolate chickens at other times if need be.  Apricot tends to brood two or three clutches each season, so it will see a lot of use each year.

This years crop of kittens has already started.  A litter has been born nearby, so we are waiting to see how many wind up here when they are weaned.  They will be going  straight to the cat shelter as we cannot have any more cats, and it is better if they find homes early before they go wild and untouchable.

Sorry, no photos.  As soon as I can find a solution I will post more frequently and have plenty of images to share.

Working hard

I know.  I am terrible at updating my blog.  It is just that life keeps getting in the way and so I have no time to sit at the computer.

A short time after my last post I received an urgent request from someone I know to take over from her at her job.  After a lot of discussion and deliberation, I have taken it on and am now even more busy than before.  But you can't really knock back paid work when on offer can you.

So I spend my weekday mornings working in garden, looking after the poultry and cats and doing all the usual household tasks.  Then the afternoons are spent teaching english at a local school and tutoring kidlets in english.  We have had a good giggle thinking about the fact that there is going to be a whole generation of French children who grow up speaking english with an Australian accent.....

As it is more academic than what I was doing before, I need to prepare lesson plans and do a lot more prep work.  A lot of fun though and the kidlets are mostly really good.  A few challenges, but nothing I can't handle.

Guy is not coping well with my working afternoons.  He is such a stress boy and spends all the time I am away from home ripping his fur out.  He looks very moth eaten and scruffy.  Have tried everything to calm him down, but he is so attached to me that he can't cope with me being gone for any amount of time.  At least when working in the garden he can see me, but when I drive off he falls apart.

Eric.  Well he is his usual self and really doesn't care much so long as food bowl is full and he has a warm spot to sleep.

Poor Sophie is getting very old and starting to show her age.  I have a feeling she will not last the winter.  It will be sad, but at least the last few years of her life have been very comfortable and she has had a good quality of life with us. 

McKinnell is growing up and turning into a very handsome young cat.  He is starting to fill out and keep some weight on now, which is a good thing.  Still an absolute sook and cries for cuddles and attention, but with a lovely nature and personality.  A real talker too.  He loves to follow me around "helping" outside and meowling the whole time.

The hens are doing really well and all my chicks from this year are at the layer stage, so we have plenty of eggs.  Nougat still hates Garlic, some things never change.  Garlic is still my sooky boy and loves his cuddles, but is getting way too big to pick up for very long.  He is magnificent and much bigger than Nougat.  I keep telling Nougat to stop picking on Garlic.  Someday soon Garlic is going to realise he is the bigger rooster and put Nougat in his place.

My duckling is growing well.  Not big enough for Christmas dinner, so it will live a while longer.  It is best friends with the dwarf/legbar hen and they spend all their time together.  Really cute to watch them.

In september I visited a Chateau that is famous for its gardens with the garden club.  The Chateau de la Bourdaisière.  Absolutely fabulous!  Incredible gardens with all sorts of flowers, but specialising in tomatoes and dahlias.  We had the special lunch menu where everything was tomato based which was really good and very interesting.  You normally don't think of tomatoes as a dessert fruit, but the tomato sorbet we had was lovely.

I am loving the glossy black tomatoes, and am going to try and grow them next year.  Will also be trialling a new way of staking the plants.  They had them attached to tripods, which were much more sturdy than the single stake that most people use.  Shall see what happens next year.

The school I am working at is only 15minutes away, but most of the kids did not know me beforehand.  Now I am known by all of them, to the point of not being able to go anywhere without one of them coming up to me and trying to talk in english.  Cute, but some days you really want to remain anonymous...lol  The stories I could tell after such a short time.... there are NO secrets when children are involved.  I should be writing them down so I can write a book afterwards.  The secret life of French families, or somesuch title.

All the staff are really nice and have been very welcoming and helpful.  I think I am very lucky to have such a lovely group of people to work with.  It really does make a huge difference.  We always have a nice chat and quite often a good laugh over something.  Helping my french enormously as well.

We are spending Christmas here this year.  Our roof is being replaced and work is due to start at any time after 25th december, so we need to be onsite ready.  It will be good to not have to worry when we get storms.  Normally we are frozen in place each time the wind gusts, waiting to hear the insidious drip drip of leaks, or the crack and clatter of another tile breaking/turning to dust - or mud during heavy rain.

Personally, I am fine with staying home and curling up in front of the fire with the cats and a good book.  I also have 2 really nice teas to enjoy, so I am quite content.

Speaking of books, my kindle has died.  I was devastated!  Mind you, as Wayne said, it has seen A LOT of use over the years that I have owned it.  It has also travelled all over and is probably more well travelled than most people.  Luckily all my books are archived so I can access them still on my new kindle.  After a month, I received a new one for my birthday which was wonderful.  It is already bulging with titles and getting a good workout.  Still trying to get used to the new way of using it though.  No buttons like the old one, just touch screen controls.  Sometimes I am wondering why it won't go to next page, only to realise that no matter how many times I press the side it won't work... you need to touch the screen. Sigh.

Summer

 
 Wow! Time flies when you're having fun........

A long silence due to being too busy to spend time at my desk.

For end of May and June we had family visiting.  Did the usual sightseeing and touristy things, as well as lots of relaxing in the garden.  The flowers in my borders were magnificent this year.  A real pleasure to just sit and admire them all and watch the bees and hummingbird moths feast themselves.  I won a prize at garden club in May for this lovely rose.

Spent a lot of time cuddling the chicks too..... to the point where one of them is super tame and just wants to be picked up and cuddled all the time.  A little rooster with a HUGE personality.  We have named him Garlic (he loves raw chopped up garlic above any other treat) and will hang on to him for a year or so to fertilise his clutch mates.  Luckily he is from our nieghbours hens, so unrelated to mine.

Another little rooster from that clutch will go back to our neighbour.  His nasty rooster was killed by a dog in early july, so his girls have been wandering around a little lost and almost stoppped laying.

I have two lovely hens - a legbar, and a legbar/araucana cross from the same clutch.  They will stay with me and be Garlic's girls.

The day they turned 12 weeks, Apricot chicken hatched a second clutch.  Six in this one - but she was sitting on 15 eggs!!!  I had given her 7 eggs to sit, but the naughty girl was stealing the eggs from the other hens and rolling them in to her nest to sit on.  By the time I realised what was happening it was too late.  No one else had a broody that I could put the eggs under, so they had to be thrown.  At least they fertilised my nectarine and peach trees and didn't go in the bin.

So now I have 6 little puffballs running around.  Looks like 2 legbars, 1 dwarf/legbar, 1 araucana/legbar and 2 marans.  The legbars are hens (thank goodness for autosexing!!!), but not sure on the rest.  Am hoping the dwarf is a hen as they make excellent broodies.  Any roosters from this clutch will go to the freezer at 12 weeks or so.

We have had horrendous heatwaves here for all of July and most of June.  Really difficult to keep water up to the veg, and the crops are suffering everywhere.  The river is almost dry, and even the wells are drying up, and that never happens here!  We did get a few millimetres of rain last week, but that was only because Wayne had fitted new guttering to the arrier cuisine and cellier...lol.  It actually rained before he could get the pieces glued together which is typical contrary weather.  I am hoping it will rain on us again in next few days as he is fitting downpipes to the back of the atelier and garage..... would be nice to get some water in the water butts.

My veg are suffering, but hanging in there.  Have been picking heaps of tomatoes, but nothing like my neighbour who has irrigation up to his.  Photos from his tomato patch used here as much better looking than mine.  The deer have been into my potager stealing all the fruit and veg for the moisture.  Then they rub their antlers against the tomato plants and the plants wind up broken. Grrrr.  Have no strawberries as they have stripped the plants of leaves and fruit.  No matter what I use as detterant, they are so desperate for liquid that they are willing to risk anything.

Aside from visitors, chickens and gardening, I have been completely inundated with preserving the fruits and veg from the potager and verger.  Everyday is spent cooking or prepping in one form or another.  Not the most enjoyable task in teh extreme heat, but it must be done, and we will enjoy the benefits all through winter when eating our own produce.

I have developed a new jam for this year.  Rhubarb and vanilla.  I love rhubarb and could eat it every day, but it doesn't preserve very well as compote and freezer space is precious.  So I now have a few litres of this jam sitting on the shelves.  Some of the rhubarb did go into the freezer to make compote and fruit tarts over winter, but I did not have room for the (nearly) 10kilos that I picked. 

McKinnell has settled in well, and has a new nickname "The Apprentice".  He follows Sophie around and helps guard the property.  So funny to watch.  Still a really sooky boy who just wants cuddles and attention all the time.  Only real problem is that he dribbles when happy.... so you have to be prepared to get a little damp when having cuddles.

Well, enough time sitting at computer.... back to the potager and kitchen for me.

Chicks!

What a difference a month makes!

No sooner had I written that none of my hens was showing any inclination of going broody, than the dwarf hen decided it was time to hatch some babies.

I tested her out for a few days first to ensure she really was broody, and not just sitting in the brood box for the sake of it.  When I was sure, I replaced her eggs with some Maran, Legbar, and Araucana eggs.  Eight in total, which I thought was a lot for such a tiny hen not yet a year old.

I marked my calander for 21 days and began the anxious wait.......

Sure enough, day 21 the first two chicks hatched.  Followed during the next 24hours by three more.  I waited another two days, but no more hatched, so removed the eggs and shells and cleaned up her brood box.  When I broke open two of the remaining eggs they had poorly developed chicks that had not gone past about week one.

So now I have three Maran, one Legbar and one Araucana chicks.  Super cute and all I want to do is spend time watching them.

The broody hen is doing a fabulous job and is extremely ferocious towards anyone (or thing!) that comes near.  She is resigned to the fact that my hands keep appearing and replacing food and water, but is not happy about it.  Equally resigned to the fact that I keep stealing her babies to cuddle and check over each day.  I want them to be reasonably tame, so daily handling and talking to is essential.

One of the Maran chicks was attacked by the rooster in its first day of life.  It is now short an eye, and part of its top beak has broken off.  So far, after nearly a week, it is still going strong and growing.  If it shows any signs of suffering or of not thriving it will have to go to chicken heaven, but till then it can grow and enjoy life.

I will have to share these chicks with my neighbour.  He was the owner of the Marans whose eggs my hen clutched.  That is fine.  For a first attempt we have done well in getting five chicks.  He would like a new rooster, so we are crossing fingers that we have one rooster and the rest hens.  Only time will tell.

The chicks above are (from left) a Legbar, Araucana X Legbar, and Maran.

Here is another photo just so you can squeee!

Flowers.... finally

Spring is such a beautiful season here.  The sun shines - even if it is not really warm - and the birds start to return from their winter migration.  Bulbs poke green spikes through the still cold soil, and finally flowers start to appear.

The tulips are magnificent this year.  All the (hundreds) of bulbs that I have transplanted are starting to flower and the borders are a blaze of red and yellow.  There are still hundreds of tulip bulbes to be dug up and transplanted to a better position, but that will have to wait till after they finish flowering now.

This year I have hyacinths and anenomes in the borders also.  The hyacinths are so pretty and smell lovely.  I think the anenomes will be better next year.  A bit sparse and spindly this year.  I have a few different types of daffodils and jonquils now in the borders.  These ones are especially pretty with their apricot centres.

In the orchard the fruit trees are flowering and the air is filled with the intoxicating aroma of blossoms.  I love walking through the orchard and seeing all the blooms and knowing that we will have fruit again this year.  Although, in the case of the cherries, it is never a sure thing.  I have masses of blossom on the tree, but we need good weather and conditions to have fruit in may/june.  So far we have not had any fruit from this tree in teh three years we have lived here.  I am hoping we don't get storms, high winds or any other disasterous conditions in the next month or so.

My rhubarb has come back to life and is growing very fast.  Will need to start picking soon!  Yum!!!

We have a little visitor at present.  A young male cat came in very battered and unwell.  He is absolutely adorable and just wants to be loved.  I am looking for a home for him, as I simply can't keep him.  Three cats is enough! (Four and I am officially a crazy cat lady....) He follows me around begging to be picked up and cuddled.  I was trying to take photos in the garden, and he kept putting himself between me and the flowers.  So I took a few snaps of him too.

This is the "I am so cute you must stop what you are doing and cuddle me" pose.....

My girls are laying well and we have plenty of eggs to eat at present.  None of them seem to be interested in sitting on the eggs though, which is a nuisance.  Will have to get a Chinese silky hen to hatch my chicks I think.