See our apricots

Not to be out done, I ventured out with the camera in search of fruit forming on our trees and.........WALLAH !!.......there they were, some tiny apricots. Now we have to try and out smart the birds, and pray that the summer is milder than the last one, when all the fruit was cooked while still half grown.
One thing for sure, the Veggie Gnome can take better photos than me, mine are always out of focus.

yellow by accident

Some more flowers from my garden. I wouldn't normally plant yellow flowers, its not a favourite colour here. All of these dutch irises were supposed to be blue and as you can see, I was lucky to get one that was.


















This is another clump of iris, unfortunately the colour is rather washed out because of the bright sunshine when this picture was taken

Today the isa brown chicks are 5 weeks old and its their BIG DAY ! This is the day they move out of the nursery and into the "big kid's bed" They will spend 2 weeks in here before the door is opened and they have their first experience of the big wide world. Note how the Gnome's chicks are still being bad and are made to stand in the corner?



Here they are in Big kids bed.

A beautiful spring day today, my friend Dina's birthday and to celebrate we went to Angaston for lunch. Set in picturesque grounds on Valley Rd. is "The Community Store and Kitchen" The first picture is of Manchurian Pear blossom, absolutely gorgeous !














2nd. is what I think is called may flower, I like white flowers.











A picture of the main building






A view from our table.

Garden bits and pieces

First here are some lovely lilliums, given to me by some guests that came to lunch on Saturday. Lovely day, and lovely company.














A snow gum tree about to burst into flower


















Pussy willow


















Daffodils growing amongst the blackberry, must try to do something about that this summer!!

Blossom

A beautiful weeping cherry tree, such a pity the flowers last only a couple of days. Usually what happens is, a strong wind comes along and blows the blooms off, right at the time when it looks its best.


For some of these pictures I had to lay on my back, under the tree, and those who know me will realise just how hard that was. (not the down, but the getting up bit!)

4 weeks old

Here they are, now 4 weeks old. The little blighters wont stay still enough to have a clear picture taken! Or ...... maybe its this old chook, cant hold the camera still enough. Notice though, there is still one bad, mad one standing in the corner.

Bloomin' beautiful

A lovely warm sunny day today but............where are the bees ? While taking these pictures I saw a total of 2 bees, or maybe it was the same bee I saw twice !!
The top 3 pictures are plum blossoms, hopefully we will have some fruit from the tree this year.
Next we have a very bedraggled looking avocado, damage caused by the hail stones and frost, but showing the buds forming for (fingers crossed) next years fruit.
Pretty daffodils white with apricot ruffled trumpets.
A pretty Penstemon, I carried back as a struck cutting from Melbourne Flower Show a couple of years ago. When I bought it they told me it was blue. How disappointing it is when this happens, all too frequently. I have made a promise to myself, not to buy anything in future unless it has at least 1 flower showing the colour. Never the less this is a very pretty Penstemon.
Next is a couple of Camelias, would you believe, from the same bush.
Then, last but not least, a pretty little native bush that will grow to about 2 metres high, of which I do not know the name. A friend very kindly struck it from her plant.

I DID have a cold frame !

I went out this morning to open the cold frame because it is going to be a lovely sunny day and I didn't want to cook my newly emerging seedlings, only to find that "some thing" had jumped on the glass overnight. I suspect that it may have been a kangaroo, there are lots of them around at the moment. They come out of the forest looking for water, since Woods and Forests have breached the dams that were in the forest, they jump over, or through, our fences to drink from our dams.
GRRRRRRRRRrrrr!!!!

3 week birthday

Here are the latest pictures. Chicks 3 weeks old today, notice the brown feathers. The one in the corner is BAD not MAD !!

BUT......she may be mad because she's been bad and made to stand in the corner !!

2 weeks and 1 day old

Here are the chicks 2 weeks old, living in chicken heaven. Nice warm house, plenty of food and water, some chopped green feed each day. What more could they want ?
The feathers are growing nicely and the dark brown is starting to show in the new feathers around the neck.
This breed is Isa Brown, bred for the large dark brown eggs they lay.

to change the time

Now, lets see if I've selected the correct time zone (this is not easy for an old geriatric!) Nope, that didn't do it. HELP !! Maybe I can ask the Veggie Gnome (she knows lots about computers, and Blogging)

avocados !

This is the first year we've had avocados on our tree, the 3rd.year since it was planted. It was such a lovely morning I decided to take some pictures of them still on the tree. They are Hass avocados, and I have read that they can stay on the tree for 8 months before picking. (they dont ripen until they're picked, and even then they take almost 2 weeks to soften.

wrong time

I need to work out how to change the posting time showing on my Blogs. The day shows correctly but somehow, this computer doesn't know what time it is ! I thought it knew everything and I was the "dumb-cluck"

A lovely sunny morning

It looks as if its going to be a good day to work in the garden today. There is lots to plant out, and heaps of weeds to deal with.
I'm not a very good photographer, but In this picture I have attempted to show the buds on the plum tree about to burst into flower. Maybe with the sunshine today ?

 The great wall of Lenswood (still in progress)and
 Inside the cold frame that Popeye built for me