Hen update

Egg production has slowed to a snail's pace in my backyard. I've had to buy eggs (free-range, of course) the last couple of months, which is ridiculous being that I have 6 hens. Why the low production?

The original two girls, Roxy and Suki, are in their second season of laying so, they won't lay as often.

Then there are Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum (aka Snowballs and ChaCha) who have gone broody again. When a hen is clucky, they don't produce eggs, and with these two "besties", they do everything together. As you can see from the video below, they cluck...cluck..cluck trying to get in to the nest.



Next, as of yesterday, I have a new egg layer. It's a very tiny first egg from a very big hen but, this was just a practice run. Now that she has figured out what her purpose in life is, she should be a lean mean laying machine.... I hope!

This is Lulu. The only white egg layer of my flock.

And finally, we are still trying to figure out if Chica is a Chico. For one, she is 6 months old and hasn't started to lay and two, she tried to crow over the weekend.... not good!

Season First’s

As you know, we are in the early stages of Spring here in NZ. The garden has been planted, the pathway has been built and now the weather is getting warmer. We decided to start our weekend off with our first BBQ of the season!!!



We had a seafood BBQ which included squid, lemon fish (and to my friends and family at home, no it doesn’t taste like lemon), and green-lipped mussels. Veggies were corn, asparagus, zucchini and tomatoes (not home grown yet…), and a cute chef to stare at. Teeheehee

With most of our big home projects done and out of the way, we have a bit more time to enjoy our hobbies and our home. Since the weather was predicted to be calm and warm, we went for our first kayak of the season!!!!


It was such a calm morning, the water looked like a mirror.


I loaded my boys (dog and hubby) in their kayak and off we went.



Once hubby let my dog fall in the water, I took over. Thank goodness for the handle on the lifejacket.




All in all, it was a great weekend! Had a great BBQ at home, also had a great night out with friends, then ended our weekend with a relaxing and scenic kayak.


Lots more of this to come....

Orange Juice

Just a small moan... I mean update!

One day last Summer, when my Mom and Nephew were visiting, I decided to stop off at the store to buy some freshly squeezed orange juice to accompany breakfast. I knew at the time that it was expensive but, I bought it anyway because all we had to offer was water or coffee and well, my nephew deserved some nutritious juice.

In hindsight, after becoming addicted to making our own juice, I went back to remind myself how much fresh orange juice costs.



As you can see by the photo, the cost is not cheap for a little jug of juice. Normal price is $7.76 per 1 1/2 liter!!!






We make ours for only $1.99. That's how much a bag of oranges costs. And we don't add anything else. It's true orange juice.

Next project

It's been awhile since I've boasted about my amazing husband. He had a week off from work and was going to tackle the ghetto pathway from a couple of blog posts ago. Here's the photo.



Well, he decided to do it all in a showery weekend. The rain helped soften the clay soil into mud. So he slipped and sloshed his way through this project.



And as if we've not carried our fair share of sand and gravel down to the backyard, we had to bring even more. Sad to say that I only helped with one load of sand for this project. This one is all on Holming.

Here's the finished project!

Isn't it amazing!?!? Now I won't slip while going down to the garden. Thanks Honey!!

I leave you with this photo of Sunny observing my honey while he's working... what a good life!

Roasted Buttercup Pumpkin

Seeing as the cold nights are almost gone, I decided to make one last Winter dish. Started off with a whole buttercup pumpkin. (I love the different varieties we have here.)


Cut the top off and scooped out the yummy bits (that the chooks love to snack on), then roast for 30 minutes.

Filled it with the following:
-knob of butter
-3/4c sweet corn
-1 clove garlic, crushed
-1 tsp chopped rosemary
-1 tsp cumin
1 egg, whisked
1/4c cream
1/8c milk
1 tbsp polenta
1/4c parmesan cheese
2 tbsp chopped parsley
sea salt and ground pepper

Baked for another 45 minutes, and voila!

Of course this wasn't all we ate. We had a small eye fillet steak to accompany this side dish. Yummy!

Start of Spring....

Winter

Spring

Spring has sprung!!!

The relaxing weekend that wasn’t

We were looking forward to our upcoming weekend because we had no plans, nothing scheduled, and no one to see. All we wanted to do was RELAX. Well, last week my neighbour and I had booked a tree arborist to come trim a couple of trees that are on the border of our properties. He was scheduled to come on Monday the 19th. So, while on my usual Friday breakfast date with my friend (who is also my neighbour two doors down the road), I get a text at 8:20 that says “doing your trees this morning at 9”. Now, this is very typical ‘kiwi fashion’- always unscheduled and never on time. Never mind all the things I had planned for the day, I needed to get to the bank for some cash and home to get the chickens out of the area.

The girls loved their new set up because I put them in my other neighbour’s yard, which happens to have a lawn.



Since we are just coming out of Winter and the leaves haven’t grown back on our Liquidambar trees, we thought it would be a good (and hopefully cheap) time to have them trimmed. Here is a before and after picture.




Last time we had one of these trees cut, we had him leave the branches because 1) it knocked $150 off the price, and 2) We had planned to chop them up to use as firewood. So here is the damage.

Our side



Neighbour’s side



Our neighbours only wanted 3 big branches cut off but the arborist put the majority of the branches on their side. So once they left, I got to work until Holming got home. Cut, snap, and stack…

It took 10 hours over Friday and Saturday but we got through it. We now have enough firewood to last next Winter. And, we won’t have to rake up all those leaves this Autumn.

I was very surprised to see that Holming still had enough energy to complete the extension of my raised garden bed.



I stained it the wrong colour as you can see, so I’ll be painting it in the next couple of weeks. Oh joy… all I want to do is play IN the garden but all these other projects keep getting in the way.

Very happy for the stormy Sunday so we can get back to our relaxing weekend.

Dedicated Gardener

I decided that I need more space to garden. For the last 3 Summers, I have used tomato bags to grow tomatoes because the soil here is mostly clay. And every year, I have a hard time keeping them staked up with bamboo sticks and trellises because they get so top heavy; and every year, they get blown over by a windy Summer storm. I don’t just plant 2 or 3 tomato plants, like most normal people do. I have what you call…. tomato greed. I want as many as I can have!!! Of course, it’s so that I can jar them and use them all Winter long.

So, being that gardening season is just around the corner, I put my handy-dandy hubby to work. He designed a raised garden bed just for my tomatoes, with stakes already drilled in to the sides. Its measurements are 3ft x 8ft. Heaps of room!

Now I can grow up to 12 tomato plants! He left the stakes off the two ends because I want to attempt growing cantaloupe (rockmelon) this year, so I will put them there at each end. This means I will only have 10 tomato plants this year. I’m already having issues with this…

Another view from my other raised garden.


Sunny helped too… He supervised!

Now the next mini project is to extend my main raised garden bed. I gave the mix n’ match bits on the right of the photo to a friend that can use them. This new extended garden will measure 10ft x 3ft. Wow..wow..wow! I can hardly wait!!


After this minor wee project, my handy hubby will start his next big project (below).



He’s gonna make proper stairs to replace this wobbly stone path. Big project but at least he’ll be outside with me while I’m playing in the garden.

Updates to follow.....

Double Trouble!!

Well, well, well... What do we have here? Yes it's a second "clucky" hen..... What can I say?

It's a sitting stand-off... who's gonna hatch the egg first......

We won't tell them that 2 chickens sitting on an (unfertilized) egg won't make it hatch any faster...This now means that I only have 2 chickens earning their keep. With Spring around the corner (high season for egg laying), this isn't good.

She’s gone clucky!

What is clucky (broody)?

It’s when a hen decides to sit on her eggs for days, sometimes weeks on end in hopes of hatching her (or another hen’s) eggs. The eggs won’t hatch because they have not been fertilized by a rooster (because I don’t have one). The chicken becomes anxious and bad-tempered with a tendency to peck at anyone or any other hen coming close to the nest. One other thing to note is that she also stops laying…. Not good!

This is a pic of my clucky hen



I try to keep her out of the coop to discourage her from sitting in the nest. Since she sits all day long she has already lost a bit of weight which isn’t healthy for an already small hen.

She can’t get in, so she paces the ramp





Since the others need to lay (earn their keep!), I have to put her in the “dunce box” for a couple of hours while the others go to work- with food and water provided of course…

Classy, huh?

Fortunately, out of my 6 chickens, 4 are laying so, one nest will do. The other two will come in to season next month. At which point I hope my clucker has come right…

Juicing it

Winter is winding down with Spring just weeks away, and I’m getting antsy. I long for the days that I can play in my garden… yay! So this weekend I decided to dust off the old juicer that we received from Catherine and Jen for our wedding. It’s one of the only electric appliances that came with us from America. (Reason being is the plugs and voltage are different here. We have a voltage converter to use when we use the electrical items from the States…. too long of a story and I’m getting off track…)

Back to juicing....

Since I’m getting antsy and still can’t plant my garden, I decided to start planning which veggies I’d like to plant this year. I thought I’d get motivated by making juice. What better way to decide your veggie garden than create your own favourite vegetable juice recipes.

Saturday’s juice was made with celery, tomatoes, carrots and a lime. This is the before and after.




Sunday’s juice had more veggies (since I have a veggie garden and not a fruit garden). We made it with carrots, beetroot and oranges.



I couldn’t believe how much juice came out of the beets! This juice was my favorite out of the two but, I’d make them both again.

Now, nothing goes wasted in this house. I kept the peels from the carrots, beetroot and oranges for my compost bin, and the pulp from the juicer (which is like a fine breadcrumb consistency) for the chooks.


The girls devoured it (no photo of the devouring!)! Later my decomposed food scraps will become soil which goes back into my garden. I love it!!!

New Discovery

While at my local produce store, I saw a lady gathering loose scraps of lettuce and other types of greens from a bin under the shelf. I asked what she was going to do with that bag of greens and how much do the owners charge her (while thinking I could grab some for my chickens). She informed me that she keeps guinea pigs and rabbits and that the bag of greens were free!!!! OMG! I couldn’t believe it!! All this time I’ve been buying whole cabbages and different types of greens to feed my chooks while I could have been getting it for free….

This is the bin under the lettuce.


And, here are the chookies enjoying their free greens.


Like they say, one person’s trash is another one’s treasure.

Long weekend

All I wanted for my nice long weekend was some R & R. I wanted to read and relax. The only strenuous thing I had planned was going to the gym and cooking a few new dinner dishes.

So Friday night was Japanese Night. Holming made my favorite tuna tartare dish served in wonton cups with a bit of sashimi. And, I made his favorite dish Katsudon. Which is a bowl of rice topped with breaded pork cutlet and egg. I’ve never made it before but am now adding it to my favorite list too.



The next night we made pizza (of course from scratch!!). Now, we never eat pizza in the Lee house. I can count on one hand how many times we’ve had pizza in the 7 years we’ve been together. I decided it was time to start enjoying our own pizza. And yes, we made our own pizza dough….



….and pulled out our home-jarred tomatoes from last summer for the sauce….



Topped it with cheese, artichokes, red onions, black olives (on my half only) and sausage (handmade but, not by us….that’s our next project)



And voila! It was pizza.



The next day I made a ham, ricotta and tomato calzone with the leftover dough. No photo to show but take my word, it was very good too. It was a weekend of firsts.

And finnaly, to end my nice relaxing weekend, I dropped a 20 pound weight on my foot while at the gym!!! Oouchy! So, I’ve spent the last day and a half with my foot elevated. Not sure if all 3 of my left toes are broken but will soon find out when I can actually put a shoe on and see a doctor. On the positive side, I was able to finish my book and start a new one which is what I really wanted to do this weekend. Guess Holming is on dinner duty for the next few days.