I love Saturdays, my Mother-in-law takes the boys for the day out to do secret Grandma stuff.   So once I catch up on a little bit of housework the day is mine to do as I please.  How spoilt am I!

I get to spend my time doing things like this

Baby jacket, booties, vintage patterns and making doily cushions.  But that is not all.  I have been busy in the garden to popping seeds in everywhere in anticipation of the rain due again tonight.  Finally green grass and new growth on plants.  Tinges of green are popping up all over the place and the chooks are sending themselves silly with the sudden arrival of green pickings. 

I really love Slow Saturdays

Gosh the days are ticking by a bit to quickly.  It is November already!  Yikes nearly time for the tree and gifts….  I don’t think I am ready just yet for that.  First we have to get through the Chickpox epidemic at Prep, 6 kids today and 3 last week.  I am on spot alert, thank goodness Hubby and I have already had them. 

Meanwhile I’m finally getting eggs only one or two a day but still eggs!  The other GLW has gone clucky - the silly thing and the two babies are growing quickly.  One is looking to be a boy and the other one is making chooky noises, but more on them later.

The vegetable garden in popping out goodness everyday, not a great deal but enough for now.  The garlic this year was a bumper crop and the onions are big and sweet.  I will have to pop back later with the pictures, I left the camera in the car and am too lazy to go and get it at this time of night.

But the big news I have been meaning to share 

‘IT’S’ A BOY

We just had to find out, incase I had to buy all new pink baby clothes.  But alas its not the case, thank goodness I kept everything.  He is due roughly around the 8th of March.  Everything looks good and I feeling slightly human this week.  22weeks and counting.

So that is it for now, I have heaps of pictures to share and some new things I am trialing in the garden.  I hope to be back tomorrow….  with spot free kids!

Something is falling from the sky!  I hope you are all getting some too!  I all off to plant some seedlings in between downpours…

I am starting to become concerned about our clucky chook Goldie, she is still sitting on her ‘nest’.  It has been weeks now, longer than the 21days it takes to hatch an egg.  She shows no interest in getting off her nest, she will not leave it for longer than 20 minutes at the most, more often no longer than 5 minutes and this is only when I remove her from the nest.

Any advice on what to do with her, as I think she is just about to pass the point of obsessed!

I know many others in our local area are possibly feeling the same as me.  Defeated. 

I want to childishly whine about the drying winds, the lack of rain and wacky seasons.  The seedling eating slug and the just bad luck I am having with the garden this year.  But I refuse too.  No this will be post showing the goodness that is growing and hopefully eaten in the future!

Bed 5 has finally got some plants in it.  4 capsicums, 2 tomatoes and 2 eggplants so far.  The plants are growing so well the tomatoes have tripled in size in the last two weeks!  Today I noticed the first flower buds.

Meanwhile in bed 4 the pea plants are dying off and I am harvesting the dried peas.  While the peas are winding down the beans are just starting.  The first planting is growing fine and the second crop is just emerging from the soil.

Meanwhile the shalots that I planted are up and growing well too.  Also a handful of sunflower seedlings have been planted out, they are looking abit sad but hopefully they will perk up soon enough.

My lettuces are looking good, I think I planted them  too thickly, but I will prick them out in a few days when they are a bit bigger and share them with mums at school who also grow a few vegetables.

And finally the best piece of the garden - the herb garden.  It is busting with goodness chives, parsley, mint, lemon balm, silverbeets, pepino, lemons and borage.  I truly love this garden, I have only planted out some flowers the rest is all self seeded or perennials.  Occasionally I pull out some borage as it is just taking over the garden, its popping up everywhere. 

So despite the tough conditions summer is starting in my garden and soon I will be harvesting onions and garlic.  Lovely!

With school holidays coming to a close I can get back to regular blogging.  YAY!   Keeping my very active 6yr old busy has been a challenge in itself.  Thank goodness we live next door to one of the most loveliest neighbours in the world whom children are always up for a play.  It has kept our combined brood of 7 busy and out of trouble. 

An idea I have had rattling around in my head for the last 2 weeks is to feature your Chook Houses here on littlefarm.

With the arrival of Spring many of us are buying or even hatching chickens.  And some of us have been very busy remodeling or building accomodation for these arrivals.   So to celebrate all things chicken I am asking you to email me a picture and a bit of a blurb about your chooks home such as where you brought it, who made it or what you made it from.  From brilliant mansions to humble Diggs I want to see them all!

Email me at:  littlefarminthecity@hotmail.com

So to start the ball rolling I will show you our evolving chook accommodations over the last 3 years.

This was our very first chook house, tractor style.  It consists of parts of my Nanas old fence and an old dog kennel.  The door was never finished properly and the wheels never attached it was also heavy and awkward to move it, but it worked a treat and housed our 2 hens for over 18mths.  With the dry weather (no grass) and the arrival of another hen it soon became apparent I need better accommodation to house my brood.

The old kennel was eventually removed from the tractor and placed inside of a pen.  Eventually the kennel started to fall to pieces and also I need a bigger house to accommodate my 6 hens. 

So the pallet palace was built.  Yes it is constructed from an old pallet ands some free corrugated iron.  After a horrible visit from a fox, a new fully enclosed penwas built.  And it is now housing our 4 new chooks happily.

So if you have a Chook house you would like featured on littlefarm, drop me an email.

With a name like this how could you not want to own one? 

 Biddy Bags is a brilliant idea of combining the skills of  ’specially picked ladies’ and the art of crocheting to produce funky yet highly functional bags and other products.  Each bag has a personal touch with a short bio on the inside about the lady who produced it.

*”Biddy Bags is a non-profit public company limited by guarantee.   Women are contracted on a product-to-product basis and benefit through profit-share and increased social interaction.  For each product sold the woman who crafted it receives over half of the profit with the remainder being used to cover operational costs and to expand the enterprise’s reach.”

Check out their website for more details to purchase one of these brillant bags or other products

BIDDY BAGS

*Information and Images from www.biddybags.com.au

What is summer without Mulberries?  Our tree is in its third year and wowie what a bumper harvest I am getting!

Maybe it is the ‘growing’ mothering instinct I seem to have or maybe the fact I cannot bring myself to eat eggs brought from a grocery store or maybe the fact my clucky girls seem to think eggs only come out once a week – That I brought two new hens. 

More you think didn’t I just giveaway the last 4 I brought?  This time I talked to my husband (who is gravely missing his bacon and eggs on a Sunday)  and we decided either a hybrid like the first girls we ever owned or a similar breed would suit our small scale flock .  So off the boys and I went and found 2 Rhode Island Reds POL.  Only $16.50 each. 

But wait there is more.  Oh yes my boys had pocket money with them and the damn erm lovely man working at the store let my boys cuddle the baby chicks.  Oh such sweet sweet little peeps.  How on earth could I resist sweet babies and the looks on my boys faces cuddling those babies?   I brought two.  One is a bit older than the other (guaranteed a hen)  and the other is a bit smaller, theres a chance it could be a rooster, but it looks very ‘henish’ to me.  

Now with my baby brain (oh yes I am using this excuse to its full extent – oh the big pile of washing up, toast for dinner, new chooks – its all because of the baby!) I cannot remember what either of these two are.  The buff one is a bantam and the other has the lace collar like a sussex?  Really I am not too worried.  Their current home is in the guinea pig house as the piggies are free ranging in the backyard.  (They escaped and only come home for good food like apples and carrots)

Meanwhile the GLW is still clucky on her ‘nest.’

As some of you might know our neighbours were approached by the federal government to redevelop their property for the affordable housing scheme.  After months of waiting……

The unit development by the Federal Government is not going through, they ran out of funds.  However now a private developer has approached our neighbours and us.  Due to restrictions our property can not be used however our neighbours are still waiting to hear if they have approval.  Oh yes the waiting game…..   Due to our new circumstances we won’t be staying here for a much longer than 12mths (unless I go mad at the serious lack of space first   ).  In this time we are hoping to get some more money saved. 

So either way we are not to worried about what happens.