Chooks move up in the world and watering system fail!

All the normal folk have finally finished with their Christmas hijinks and are moving on to New Years celebrations.  As for us, we're doing it all at once, kinda.  As the kids have all been away for a week, we're doing Christmas on the 1st of January, so we've still got 2 sleeps to go.  Consequently, we've been a little quiet of late...

So, what have we been up to?

Well, first of all, our brown shavers have had their coop put up on stilts...  The rats were upsetting our girls laying, and after getting one chalky egg and another with no shell (not to mention that our girls won't sleep in their coop) we made some modifications.  The jury is still out as to whether they are happy with it.

I potted out a bunch of the strawflowers and statice that the girls raised from seed, along with some varieties of scabiosa and some shoo-fly.  It's the start of the potted garden our girls are wanting, and hopefully we'll have some pretty colours on the front porch over summer.  There's still some seedlings waiting to come out of the greenhouse, but they're a while off.



We had some pretty intense wind gusts the other day, so the greenhouse is now lashed to the porch rails by a couple of ropes...  Unfortunately, we may have lost both zippers in the wind, so I'm looking out for some rip-stop nylon and perhaps some velcro.  Yet another sewing project looms.  (Oh yeah, on that subject - I finished what I was making, but I can't post it up until Saturday, as the kids haven't opened those presents yet)


I also took a wee stroll around the garden this evening with the camera, to show some of my favourite little surprises of the week.  The first "Southland Sno" pea has formed and is growing larger, my evening primrose has started blooming tonight (although, I didn't realise that the blooms would open while my back was turned - there were 2 blooms only 10 minutes later), and our rhubarb is flowering again.

Baby Southland Sno peas

Sneaky evening primrose

Rhubarb flowers

pineapple sage (left) rosemary (right)

Some months back, I read that planting sage and rosemary together would help the two plants to flourish... So, trying to do my best for my babies, I put Sam's pineapple sage next to my wilting little upright rosemary.  As it turns out, the sage definitely flourished...  Here's hoping my rosemary can grow fast enough to keep it's head above the leaves

My mother gave us some echeveria rosettes, which we planted under our letterbox.  Frequent division and replanting of the new rosettes means we've nearly got full coverage in the tyre we planted them out in

So THAT'S where he went

I spent a while in the greenhouse, trying to find the monarch caterpillars I'd moved into the shelter.  Sure enough, he was under one of the aubergine leaves on the plants I've been babysitting for a friend while she's away.  Tricky little beggars!





Of course, if you'd seen the amount of plants on the floor in our greenhouse at the moment, you'd understand why it was hard to find where the caterpillars went.  I potted out all our tomato plants (Sam has an evil plan to post pics of me potting plants too - awesome alliteration!) and the aubergines I'm babysitting take up a little space too.  There's one other plant there, but I can't tell you what it is until after Saturday (wink wink)

My second lot of Cape Gooseberry plants are well on their way to being planted out.  I potted seeds from a plant belonging to a friend and they've flourished.

 

Sam's zucchini plants are producing us at least three or four zucchini every day now, so along with our native spinach, we're eating plenty of greens every day

Oh yeah, the "watering system fail" bit...  Well, I figured I'd better post it up BEFORE Sam does...  That way, he can't twist it into something worse than it was...  See, I had this GREAT idea, that perhaps, I could use some kind of siphon/displacement system for watering the plants in the greenhouse...  And at the moment, our old fridge (which is a lot taller than me) is next to the greenhouse.  So, by my reasoning, I figured that a bucket on top of the fridge, with an old hose in it, would be perfect for my watering needs.  So, the first bucket worked okay, but the hose kept falling out.  Determined as always, I put a large rock in the bucket, holding down the hose.

Now, I'm about 5'5" and the fridge is about 5'10" or so (guessing here)...  And a full bucket of water, with a rock in, is probably about 11kg...  And to the top of the bucket, from the ground, sitting on top of the fridge, I'm guessing again, is around 6'8"...  So, just a little higher than I can safely reach up...  And my beloved 6 foot tall husband was only 20 or so metres away, talking to me...  But I can be fiercely and stupidly independent...

So now, I have a bruise on the bridge of my nose which is only slightly in evidence, a small faint bruise on my forehead,  and a 2" round bruise on my left forearm...  An extremely painful form of wet t-shirt contest...  The bruise on my ego is a little bigger

So, I survived my watering experiment, but only barely!  (By the way, it works perfectly when you don't injure yourself in the process).  And I'm sure there was a lesson in it for me...

Anyway, take care and have a wonderful New Year!

Bring on 2011!

Take care,

Mama Fern

P.S.  Although I support NZ, it's a damn shame to see the poms do the sprinkler...  My condolences, Australia, and remember - it's ALL PONTING'S FAULT!