Still Springing!

Yesterday for the first day of Spring the trees were really popping out.

The Big English Oak was really showing off.

Even though it is a bit chilly, the process has started.

sending out it's leaves and flowers all at once. 

Celtis Sinensis is doing the same.

I am keen to see these mulberries fruit right up.

Last year this tree gave me so many 2 inch long fat mulberries!

This Lime sitting in the chookyard is throwing out heaps of flowers and leaves.

I think the chookies may have stripped it a bit bare!

The rosemary all up the driveway is constantly in flower.

I think I need to cut it back.

I am absolutely thrilled to see this Meyer lemon producing babies!

I just can't wait to make something with it. They say Meyers are the sweetest of them all.

I wonder how they rate with Lemonade ones. I have one of them too.

Reminder to self to spray for scale.

This little ground cover can be a bit hit and miss.

I have 8 of them up the driveway and about half of them look to be so dreadful and the other half are fantastic.

I don't know what I've done wrong there!

The doggies are really enjoying all the time we are spending outside!

She was so hard to get to sit still and be photographed!

She's only young and very 'bouncy'.

This little Cairn Terrier fella will sit and pose until the cows come home!

He is quite the show pony!

All I have to do is whisper 'mouse' and I get their attention!

Dont you just love my husband and son's humour.

They found this at the nursery last week and snuck it into position at the back door!

Here is the gold crown I lost on Friday night, while chewing away on a hard cough lolly (sugar free!)

See the hole? They drilled through the crown to do root canal (12 months ago!) and I was meant to go back 6 months ago to get the job finished.

But there hasn't been a good time!

Well I will have to make time now!!!!

It is a teeny bit tender or weird feeling.

Hhhmn a bit gross!

Still, it matches my ring really nicely.

Even though it should never be seen near it!

Have a great week and keep your crowns on your head!



Bloody Cockies

I am really cranky!

Bloody Cockatoos have devoured most of my mandarins and tangelos.

And they have chomped off so many branches and even whole leader stems.

I saw some of these half eaten ones by the road and thought that some kids must have thrown them out of the windows.

Then I started to see them out the back.

That's birds!

Crows or cockatoos

But the chomping is definitely the cockies!

Half eaten, and of course right next to the dog chewed safety glasses!

And I found so many chomped off stems.

Just left laying on the ground.

Check out the chompy rough raggedy trunk.

I will have to trim that up.

I should have known after last years chompfest.

Even though those trees are going OK.

So I've hatched a devious plan.

We've had a fake plastic hawk hanging in the carport for many many years.

It was originally put up in the rafters to stop a peacock from roosting on the Volvo.

The peacock is long gone.

But the plastic hawk was still hanging.

So I took it down and got some of that plastic cardboard from the shop.

We sell dog biscuits and they had one of those big plastic signs laying around.

You can just see the back of it in this hopeless photo- it is in the upper right hand side.

They were BOSS biscuits.

I had my daughter trace around the old hawk/eagle and then I cut it out.

She coloured one side in with a black sharpie and drew a big eye on it.

Then I climbed onto the roof of the Ute and flung an old dish brush with rope attached over a high branch.

Then tied the cut out bird onto the rope.

It flaps and swings in the breeze.

So I put another one (the original plastic one) out the front of the house.

Where some evil varmint is chomping off my agapanthus bulbs.

We made 3 of these big birds!

One will probably go back into the carport as some little willy wagtails are perching in there and pooping on the car.

You can only just see this one hanging in the tree.

(ignore my dead looking winter lawn)

It is warming up and will be all bright and green in a few weeks!

I think I may have worked out how to bully those crows and cockies and other destructive birds.

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When I came home at lunch time today

(to put some washing on so that I can get a bit ahead- nice way to spend a lunch break eh?)

There were 2 turtles on the road- only about 20 metres apart.

I had to manoeuvre like a rally car driver to avoid running over them, and I thought that any trucks coming by wouldn't be able to do that.

so I pulled up and moved them off the road.

That was my good deed for the day. 

Except when I came home after work, just 2 hours later, one was squished on the road.

And I thought I had it all worked out which direction he was going in.

I love these long necked turtles/tortoises.

I used to have one as a kid. My father drilled a hole in the back of his shell and he had a chain attached through the hole.

Nowadays I think that is a bit cruel. But back then I loved it.

One day he just got loose, the chain had been wearing through the shell. I never saw him again.

As a family, we have saved a couple and put them in our aviary to recover, but we always take them down to the river and release them.

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The pruning hasn't begun yet.

But I have been to the nursery!!!!

Have a great end of the week.

And then the ears pricked!

Sweet baby Gsd

has pricky ears.

I don't have to get her to look up at me to see them up.

They cross over,

and look big like bunny ears.

She is sleeping in her crate.

3 nights now.

Each night is less and less whinging
only 2 mins last night.
and only gentle whimpering.

No more screaming,

thank god.

She sleeps very quietly.

Her crate is right outside our bedroom window.

So she had better keep up the good work!

The second flush of Mary Roses are coming!

And there are baby lemons on the Eurekas.

How many mandarins can a little tree carry?

The Agapanthus are just starting to burst, it seems too early!


The star jasmine is pretty special.
I thought it would die last year when it was pruned with a chainsaw.
A snake got away from me in that liriope on Sunday.
How I will never know, I cannot work it out.
Bad season coming, we had 3 snakes in 2 days.
Still it doesn't beat one night last year when I went out at night and there were 2 at different places on the lawn!

Looks like hard work

I had a big box arrive from Treloars roses.

I asked Mr MDK to bring it home from work, it had been delivered to his office.
We don't get courier service to our house.

He laughed at me on the phone,

then said there was no way it would fit in the Landcruiser.
To town I went in the ute.

It was a big box! about 9 foot long!

 I also got a couple of bales of lucerne hay, one for the chooks and one for the poddy calf.

It was really heavy up one end.

I think it might have been tipped up the wrong way during transit.

The very top of the tallest tree was a bit bigger than the bamboo in the box and got a little bit damaged.

Inside were 3 fruit trees and many many roses.

 I have them sitting in my copper boilers that I put my wood in, next to the fire, during winter.
I think it might be too much hard work. I hope they don't die before I get to plant them!

They come with nice little pictured tags as well as the ones attached to their stems, plus an instruction booklet on what to do with the bare rooted plants when you get them.

I didn't read it.

Maybe I should, it's sitting right next to me.

I don't think they'd have changed since last year.

On another note, Mr MDK bought a new gadget.

We needed a petrol hedge trimmer.

 We have a lot of Murraya hedging around our house.

It jammed before he finished.

I asked if he'd read his instructions, he hadn't either, hahahaha.

Talk about peas in a pod!

When all else fails, read the instructions!

My wisteria is about to flower, or leaf up, I think these will be flowers.

The Engish Oak only lost its last leaves 4 weeks ago! The new leaves are now bursting out.

The Eureka lemon has not been put off by those lunatic cockatoos attacking it.

I'm glad it has the spirit of a survivor.

Has Spring Sprung??

Things are coming alive here lately, a few days of rain, sprinklers and warm weather have it all going on.
It’s not spectacular, but it is welcome.

 Miss MDK took these photos in the rain the other day.

She wanted to get the raindrops dripping off the tree but got soaked herself.

 

And today I shot them looking like this.

The flowering plum really is a one hit wonder, blink and its all over!

These guys have flowered all through winter.

 I should strike a billion cuttings and then plant them all around.

The Aloe vera is about to flower.

This is a lovely ground cover that I have put in a hanging basket, It's called Aptenia. I have a few more in punnets that should have been planted last spring, they have survived on an old BBQ on the veranda, still in their punnets so they must be really tough!!

They'll probably die as soon as I finally plant them!!

I'm loooving all the new growth and flowers coming through on the Geraniums too.

Only a couple of snowdrops that have loyally flowered for 15 years.

My new silverbeet has taken OFF.

The roses are leafing up too.

The Celtis Sinensis is in flower.

Mulberry tree is leafing up AND........

Yum

Yum!! Fruiting up too.

New growth on my Eureka lemon trees which have kind of struggled.

So is this a sign they are going OK? I hope so as I love lemons.

My girls are happy and in super laying mode. EXCEPT..... 

Someone laid one on the floor. Either all the boxes were occupied,

 or she got lazy! And then tried to cover up the mistake!

On another note, these niceties arrived this week from absolutelybeautifulthings, check out the beautiful wrapping!

And Inside......

Some more lovely boxes to hold .....

these nice necklaces from redphoenixemporium 

Do you think I might be excited about spring??

I'm off to make a cherry yoghurt cake, and maybe plant some seeds and seedlings.

 Maybe?