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.
