Bodging

Gratuitous cat photo- he is in the Chicken yard!

Today I decided to finally remove a knackered old chest of drawers from the boys room. The poor thing had been in situ when we moved into our previous house and had been repaired several times by us. It was a pretty cheap bit of pine furniture to start with.

Not being one to throw things away I started to imagine a chicken shelter and with the able assistance of my lovely husband and a couple of other spare drawers we turned it on it's side, popped a perch at the top, a platform to catch droppings and a drawer at the bottom as a nesting box. Oh don't forget the *ahem* beautifully rustic ramp we have made.

mmm Scrappy, but useable!

 It goes well with the nest made from a TV cabinet the boys were too rough with. An egg has already been laid! The shelter is made from some pieces of cut down water tank we found behind a shed at our place. It's perhaps not the most elegant of chicken houses but we bodged it for free and it will keep them warm and dry. It remains to be seen if the perch will ever get used though!

Don't they look lovely now they have feathers!

Purple! Sprouting! Broccoli!

Gardening has come to nearly a standstill at Apple Isle Cottages as we prepare for our big move three doors up the road. 

After raking the frost affected pumpkin vines and harvesting the last of the volunteers (they might actually be some kind of squash, I should ask the hens as they seem to have been the ones who planted them- I certainly didn't) one of the only things left standing in the garden was a lone purple sprouting broccoli plant. 

Spindly is the word I would use. This poor plant has been attacked but thousands (maybe) of caterpillars, pecked by chickens and swamped by pumpkin vines and yet it remains standing (if rather rangier than I expected) I am giving it a monthly derris dusting but that is all the "good"attention it has been getting. Poor thing. I couldn't just leave it. I have soaked it with seasol and bundled it into an old Styrofoam box with it's soil and soaked it with more seasol (evidently it should help prevent transplant shock) and will trundle it up the road with us to see if it will ever do anything edible for me.

It is seriously cold and frosty here and I am eating a lot of cheese which I am kidding myself is some kind of keep warm tactic.. that's why I bought a whole wheel of brie (that would be a kilo of it).

Thankful for the Sanctuary of my Home!

It seems an eternity since I blogged but I suppose it hasn't been really.

 It has been a frantic and not very enjoyable two weeks but rather than relive the stressful minutiae of very jolly thing going horrendously wrong (oh and throw in a week long bout of dreadful gastro which made me miss a paid dancing gig:() I will focus on the enjoyable parts of life.

The garden is growing well, the hazels and apples are well in leaf so I am really sure they are proper trees now, one apple is even blossoming, rather unwisely I feel, as it is really nowt more than a stick. The second lot of peas are growing well but I did give them some compost today as they look a bit pale and acerbic to me... so far we have silver beet, spinach, broad beans, carrots mixed with radishes, beetroot, red ribbed dandelion, chamomile, calendula, little gem lettuce, sunflowers, violas, chives and probably something else but I can't think what all growing away in the garden. 

 The compost heap is a great steaming pile which for once is a good thing! It is full of worms and I am bandicooting spadefuls out of the side of the pallet bin for my plants....as long as I keep turning it I have every faith it will all be good soon. Out there front I am winning a battle against the evils of "lords and ladies" which have spread everywhere and I am reclaiming my land, I have rescued some root bound boronia shrubs with gorgeous hot pink flowers from  the discount table at the local hardware shop and bought a spanky grevillia which has a very ordinary person name (Robyn something...). Using some recycled bricks I made a little platform in between and have bought a birdbath from the auctions as well as a real treat for us, a deco kitchen table and chairs and a kitchen dresser pantry with lead lighting. We are delighted as they really add character to our kitchen as well as helping me with storage (the dresser has a pantry and a built in bread box) and the Formica table is easier to clean than the cheap stained pine table we had before so with shrubs and new (old really actually quite old) furniture and a birdbath I am feeling that the place is less of a squalid hole than before...next I am working on the bathroom which is really dismal but really the whole thing needs to be rebuilt and I am just not going to do that. Maybe a new loo seat, a shower curtain and paint the dodgy bath surround.

 I have discovered the joy of making my own fruit buns which (with a little bread maker help) and they are better than but nearly indistinguishable from bakery buns. My little man insisted I make them but he didn't like the sugar glaze I made and so the next lot has none. The bread maker gets such a good workout, today I have made fruit buns and multi grain rolls, the bread is much nicer than the cheap stuff at the supermarket. I have made naan, pizza, savoury scrolls- I am yet to master pita or focaccia but I hope to soon. I gave up entirely on sourdough, it was way too much work and I really prefer a plain yeasted "rustic" style bread like a ciabatta rather than a sourdough anyway.

Speaking of giving up we sent the ducklings to a wildlife carer as two suddenly died for no discernible reason (which apparently they do frequently) so we wanted to give the remaining two a fighting chance by sending them away.

The chickens however are earning their keep and although they are still a bit pecky they look much better than they did when they arrived. They are keeping us in huge golden yoked eggs and I am ever so grateful!

I really enjoy reading everyone else's blogs as they help keep me grounded and inspired even when everything in "real " (i.e. the world outside my house) is going wrong. Keep on keeping on everyone!

Frugal Fun!

I know some of you out there will appreciate the odd sentence that follows.

I am enjoying being flat broke. 

It really it is a wake up call as it is easy to slip into complacency and not appreciate money for what it is. We have found that once our needs are met the only  desire we have for the stuff is to try to help others (unfortunately our pie in the sky dreams for this are very large scale so we will need much money for them!).

 We have sold our little car which was excess to our needs and have managed to scrape together some big ticket items which have sold on eBay (a convertible roof hardtop, a Mazda engine and gear box) as well as my old maternity gear which are doing quite well. We collected scrap metal and we got a princely $47 for it, which paid for $20 of chicken wire and $15 for three hens rescued from the poultry farm nearby.(more on hens later) The remainder has gone on chocolate, cream and strawberries for the Little Man's second birthday today. I found everything he needed at charity shops, a toy wombat, a solid tonka digger, a hard hat and a Thomas the Tank engine doona cover all in excellent condition, this combined with a $2 bottle of bubble mix has given him a lovely stash of toys he is very impressed with and totalled $11.20. I always make my own cards and I had the whole lot set on the coffee table for him to find in the morning I didn't use any wrapping, he is too tiny to find excitement in the removal of wrapping and the mess and waste have turned me against it!

Last weekend we went to Hobart to have a look at some properties again but I made sure we didn't spend any unnecessary money. I packed a thermos of coffee (real stove top stuff, not instant) as I find that tea just isn't very good from a thermos, some popcorn, left over latkes cakes from the night before, carrot sticks, coffee and walnut muffins, boiled eggs, stawberries and blueberries,  water for the boys to drink. This went into our giant picnic basket and after our tour of real estate we went to the Royal Tasmanian Botanical gardens and had a lovely picnic. There was a curious duck who made the mistake of coming to see the Littlest man and was promptly and joyfully chased and we had a great explore of the organic Veggie patch as seen on Gardening Australia and Sir Talks  A Lot asked what every single plant in the veggie patch was... every single one!

Yesterday was the Littlest man's 2nd birthday so we went to Cataract gorge for yet another picnic (they are big in our house.. or rather out of our house) which was quite flooded due to the wild heavy rains of Saturday. We had popcorn and cream puffs and chocolate cake and went for a trek which in retrospect was a bad idea with two sleepy toddlers who made our lives difficult but hey! all a learning experience. Cataract Gorge is just amazing and we are blown away every time we visit which is why we were so determined to have a walk around despite the foolishness in hindsight (muddy tantrumming toddlers anyone?).

Over the last week we have finished our chicken coop from recycled and salvaged pallets and roof iron and we are very delighted to have our rather moth eaten looking chickens in situ. unfortunately it has been raining so the coop is in the shed but we hope to move it into the sunshine today- once those dastardly sheep have left (they have eaten all our grass and keep knocking over the gate so it is back to the farm for them.. today!) Our hens are brown hi lines and they have already given us four eggs!the eggs are much much bigger than the tiny free range ones we normally buy- I think one of our eggs is worth two shop bought ones!

All said and done we are having more fun than ever since our economy drive started in earnest!