Spring has Sprung!

Another lovely day on the farm with lots of chores to complete. Very sad this morning when I had to cut up our old apple tree that has been here since before we came 20 years ago. It had been looking very tired after a large split in the trunk last year, but the recent stormy weather finished it off. It is amazing how barren the area looks now. We are going to visit our favourite garden centre and perhaps plant some nice vines to grow along the extisiting wire fence to brighten up this empty corner. Lots of activity on our dam today with more ducklings swimming about. This is the third family this year, totalling about 18 ducklings, however our resident hawk "Darth Vader" has been busy decimating the families including a large mallard drake. Our Paradise ducks have had one duckling (normally about 6)and we think that the eggs may have been damaged in the recent floods. I noticed one of our thrushes had rebuilt her damaged nest and is busy sitting on her eggs, all the while keeping an eye on what I am doing

heifers

A few of our cross bred heifers

Spring Equinox

The weather in Waipu has been extremely violent this week and each day has seen copious amounts of rain and very strong winds. This has made it almost impossible to maintain any semblance of normality on our lifestyle block and my preparations for Spring gardening have fallen by the wayside. I needed to get some copper spray on all our fruit trees, but the wind has stymied that idea. Although I have managed to weed and tie up most of our boysenberies they also need a spray and I will have to build some type of cover to keep the birds from enjoying the whole crop. I have planted many seeds in our glasshouse and most appear to be coming along very well and as the days warm up,we can start preparing the vege patch. I will write up my 2010 garden diary and keep a record of how well we get on. Should be fun.

1st Blog

I have recently deleted an old personal website that I used mainly for Genealogy. I don't particlularly like Face Book, but I enjoy writing and communicating with others. I hope to keep my blog updated often and look forward to writing and sharing the fun of communication. Please wirt if you would like to share ideas,thoughts, recipes,hints on gardening or just your own philosophy on the poor old world we live in!