Our lifestyle block

George sometimes comments that the drive home from work is a bit long at times, but once we get home we love being out here so much. We can't see or hear any neighbours from where we sit and have coffee on the patio. Dante loves all the birds teasing him, and bunny rabbits!!

George has started painting my round pen and it looks fantastic.

On a nice summers evening like tonight you can hear the skylarks, see the Tuis in the flames, hear the sparrows, and other birds. And that's all!!

The shot below shows some late summer evening convergence clouds. Cooling us down a little after a scorcher.

 

Vegetarian Christmas Day

With my Hashimotos Disease the doctors suggested I go gluten free. I'm already dairy free as I'm allergic to that so it was a challenge but Mum sent me some great recipes, I only needed to change one a little to make it work.

First I made cashew, carrot and pumpkin dip. It had fennel, coriander and cumin and rice milk in - all blended up. Then I toasted gluten free bread which I'd got from the Ponsonby Market the day before.

Then I made salmon on Moroccan salad...the salad had finely chopped beans, red onion, mint and coriander. Plus - roasted vegetable pie...no pastry though. The base had roasted kumara, tofu, brown rice, eggplant, zucchini and onion mixed with two eggs. Then roasted to,atones on top! Yum. George cooked the salmon on the BBQ.

Yesterday I baked mini chocolate cakes to take to Shawns.

That night we had the pie again plus avocado and rocket salad with walnuts. That was so yummy!!

Dante really enjoyed having us around for the whole day.

Pus sleeping on all the presents!!

Both chickens been sleeping most of the day. L'Oreal seems to really react positively to my voice now. Lancôme still has her eye closed and it looks swollen. I have find a chicken forum which has a vet on it - she said to try flax seed oil in it.

 

Christmas Eve ended badly after a lovely day

We drove down to Tauranga to see Shawn and Tracy and the boys for Christmas. I was going to keep the girls in their coop since the one with the long comb (which I've now called Lancôme) - who I think was the one who fell in the trough, has been lethargic and sitting around under the feijoa trees, not eating or drinking much plus she much less brave. She was the bravest of the two. Anyway - they looked like they were dying to get up so I let them out and off we went.

It was an easy drive thank goodness, no traffic, and we stopped at Matamata for coffee. We goth to their place about 12. Archie had grown up so much - he's very cute. And Carlos was eager to show us how clever he was on his tractor and balance bike. I got him a little suitcase and he really loved it, phew!

Carlos fell asleep after lunch - all the action!!

We had a nice lunch and headed home around 4pm. Home in time to do the horse poo picking. The hens had started following me into the paddock lately which was nice. The sick one - Lancôme had gone into the coop early, and L'Oreal (lol) was happy pecking just outside the wash bay. I was only about 50m away thank goodness when I heard the commotion - I looked up and saw L'Oreal being attacked by the neighbours dog. I started yelling and ran towards him. He looked up at me then ran off thank goodness. As I got to L'Oreal all I could see was her lying with one wing in the air in a pool of feathers. I thought she was dead. I picked her up and yelled out to George to go and tell the neighbours to keep their friggin dog on their own property. I held her for ages until I felt her breathing a little more deeply, then popped her down. She was limping and had lost a lot of feathers but I couldn't see any blood thank goodness. All I could do was put her in the coop and hope.

The next morning she was still alive, and she's been very quiet, sleeping a lot but eating a little. Now I am wondering if the other one was chased or scared or grabbed by the dog earlier in the week also. Boy oh boy!!!!

The girls earlier the previous day enjoying their new chookateria. I've reported the attack to animal control. Hopefully they'll get them to realise they can't let their dogs run loose.

 

More garden photos

The garden and the trees look so great at the moment. The mandarin trees are looking great, the magnolias finally look like they're not going to blow over and the lavenders are still flowering - this variety flowers all year round.

The magnolias really love the seaweed that Tim sprays on them once a year in Spring, and I give them a dose of Epsom salts too.

I took the photo above on my iPhone - pretty amazing for an iPhone camera.

Hard to believe these were fairly small trees when we planted them.

The flowers above are in the little garden that Mum did for us with clivia and ferns.

The tamarillo tree still has fruit ripening on it! Check out the size of this one.

You can see the tamarillo tree here...the chooks love foraging around under it.

 

Chicken in trough

Chickens can't swim apparently. Didn't know that! I was inside and saw the horses run from one side of the paddock to the other and looking back towards the trough. Then I saw a chicken in the truth flapping her wings furiously (and scaring the horses) ...I ran out and rescued her out. She hasn't really been the same since. I'm not sure why. She has one eye closed now too and it seems swollen. Oh dear!

 

 

New Zealand Christmas Trees

The NZ Pohutakawa trees are known as the kiwi Christmas tree because they flower at Christmas. Somebody told me the other day that if they flower from the top first it will be a long hot summer, and that's what they've done this year.

Here's a few snaps.

 

Beautiful aren't they.

Photos by Vicki Kenny.

 

Hens - fresh brown eggs

So finally after having our finished chicken coop for what seemed like months, I got the pullets from opposite Rimmer Road. Just two - they were $28 each and the guy just launched at two they had in their run and popped them in Dante's cat cage! Off I went home with them in my boot.

I got them into the coop easily enough and they stayed inside most of the day. Coming out every now and again. I could see them through the side windows. The person I bought them off said they were about 18 weeks old and would be laying soon, and to block off the nesting boxes so they didn't sleep in there and poop in there. Well I went out the next day to do exactly that and there were two eggs!!! Plus poop! So I guess we will have poop in the nesting boxes. Oh well.

They've been coming outside a little more. We will keep them in for a few days before we let them free range in the day.

 

Our first eggs!!

The very fancy coop we got on trade me. It was kit set. I can't tell the girls apart yet, and I keep calling them him. But they are very likeable.

 

Summer 2012 and all it's rain

The boys - green grass all summer and healthy garden and trees.

The neighbors moved out and left two geese behind - and they decided our place was a cool place to live.

We couldn't find anyone to help us get rid of them or save them. Some so called Animal Sanctuary people came and this is their idea of catching the goose.

The horses were very amused watching the whole thing!

Lots of spring onions, tamarillos, potatoes, sliver beet

So ok - we did get some lovely days on the odd occasion. I actually think it's done the trees the world of good.

Bit of an update

We've actually done quite a bit of flying despite the weather, go figure!! We are so lucky to be able to fly when it's fine.

 



Raglan of course is our favourite place but we may have to start going to Tauranga soon because Shawn and Tracy have just bought a house down there.

Carlos loves Garbo now, or should I say Barbo. :-)

 

Not much of a summer

Well it's been a very wet raining summer, but this week we've had sun all week - shock horror!

The paddocks are looking amazing though, as are the mandarins and the other trees. They've all grown so much.