Here are a few of my favourite things

A  quick walk around my garden and I realise that the plants are flowering a little earlier this year. I expect the experts would say that its a sign of global warming. However, these are a few of  my favourite things ...... why do I hear Julie Andrews singing? lol.
The first picture (above) is Stellatta Magnolia. There is a beautiful example of this shrub in a garden in the next street to us. Sadly mine only ever bears a few flowers and I would be grateful if any of my readers could tell me what to do to encourage it to perform better....without showing it the axe !! Ha-ha

  

This one is a Leucadendron "Harvest" a new comer  (just bought it last Wednesday) I couldn't leave it in the garden centre, don't you love it

The pic below is a close-up.

Its great that colour can be introduced to the garden display without there being flowers

Now this Pacific blue doesn't usually flower here until late October/early November. I'm surprised to see it so early. I know it is in bloom in other parts of the hills but our place is quite high and 2 or 3 degrees colder.

Last, but not least this bright blue ground cover (name long forgotten) has more flowers on it than I've ever seen.

Cherry Blossom time

   



As pretty as a picture this weeping cherry tree is in full bloom.
 It's a pity though that the fruit it sets is inedible even to the scavenging birds. The cherries are dark and VERY bitter, not suitable for anything.
      
         It wont be long before the wind comes and blows all the petals to the ground, it happens each and every year, then we have to wait until autumn for the leaves to colour up and put on another beautiful show.

Very aptly named it is called Snowfall

          I've never been sorry that I planted this little beauty just outside our dining room window.

A glorious day of warm sunshine

 The first two days of spring have been lovely and warm, and although I have been working in my vegetable patch I couldn't help myself....the flowers are looking good and now they are established, almost take care of themselves, all I have to do is pull a few weeds that always seem to find their way to my garden.

The Jonquils are still happily bobbing their heads in the breeze,
they are the first to bloom, letting us know that spring will soon be here.

Although I'm not a lover of yellow flowers, these daffodils are so bright and cheerful, they brighten up the whole garden.
The reason I don't like yellow flowers is....the colour  is a WEED  colour!! I can think of only one  common weed that is not yellow and that is Salvation Jane, better known in the eastern states as Patterson's Curse.(and what a curse it is)

The Rannunculi  have gone a tad feral, not a bad thing, I think. They come up from seed drop and form a
flowering corm in their second year. The good thing about that is they work as a weed suppresant.
I will have to move my Iris  from the raised bed, they don't appreciate too much water. They are rather badly affected by all of the rain that has made this bed too soggy, it collects the rainfall that runs down from the rock-face on the far side.

A sure sign

 Its a sure sign that spring is just around the corner when the young pullets begin to lay their first eggs.  This tinsy-winsey egg could be from a starling sized bird but NO its from one of our chooks. We try to time our laying seasons so that we can keep up our supply for our "farm gate" customers and this time we seem to have got it right. No shortage of eggs this summer.

Just for comparison I took a shot of the small egg along side of a small to medium sized egg, one that has been sorted out for our personal use, we keep all of the large eggs for our regular buyers (they love the huge eggs) The small one weighs 6 grams and the larger one 42 grams'

Besties

Best friends forever......so cute when they are young.

Spring is just around the corner

 Say hello to this little cutie, one of the three calves born here this last week. It is a cross breed, mother is a Hereford type (?) Father is a Murray grey crossed with a Simmental. Strange to see that the Murray grey is always the strongest, it doesn't matter where the MG comes into the breeding, it is always the most dominant.
Its lovely to see these three playing catch me if you can, running around in the paddocks berfore they settle down for their night time sleep.
Its been so cold at night, I feel rather sorry that they are outside in the  freezing weather.





These little fluffy little bundles are some of our new Marans chicks. The first time we have incubated any of these, they are quieter than any of the other chicks we have bred, content to eat and sleep, hardly hear a peep out of them. They will stay in their warm enclosure for about 6 weeks then we will transfer them to a shed with  a heating pad where they will have more room to move around in until they are fully feathered. They will then be allowed to wander outside. The only draw back to these chooks is.....they fly!!

We will probably have to net in the yard or cut one of their wings feathers to over come this problem, the first option is the most favoured (by me)  I love little chicks, they are so pretty at this age with their feathery legs. Its the 3rd. to 4th. week that they begin to look ugly as they develop the fully feathered stage.

Maran Poultry....our first eggs

These lovely dark shelled eggs are the first from our Wheaten Maran chooks, I have placed an Isa brown egg  in for comparison
There are several different varieties of Maran birds some of them are Black Copper Maran, Cuckoo Maran and Copper Blue Maran. The darker the hen the darker the egg shell. They are known as the black egg layers. (Google Maran poultry, have a look)
Maran are named for the town where they were first bred, Marans in Southern France.They are a good heavy bird, lay well and are said to be good eating as well but I very much doubt if we will be eating any of these, they were NOT CHEAP !! Fertile eggs are sold at $100 per dozen and that  is the cheapest I could find. A game of chance when you buy eggs because almost always, not all of them will hatch out. I prefer to pay a bit more and get week old chickens. That way you know if they are healthy, they have survived the first week and from there on its up to you.

This is a picture of some of our hens, aren't they pretty? They have feathered legs and feet.
For the time being we have them running with
our Australorps but now they have started laying they will need to be separated so that they  don't cross breed.

In the middle of this shot you can see the rooster, a very handsome fellow and to the right hand side, one of the Australorps.