The Duck Herder

Snippets

2009-06-27T15:03:00.004+10:00

Hello there folks. Sbinawhile.

I wish the camera was working so I could show off my newly cleaned out tidied up glasshouse. Technically, I think the problem is that the rechargeable batteries have decided they don't do that anymore.

I have lots of onion seedling coming up.

I have set up a heated propagation shelf in the bike room / cat room / my office which is a bit exciting. I am in the market for a couple of old fashioned second hand long fluorescent light fittings to suspend over the seed trays with adjustable chains. I have taken LOTS of inspiration from Gardendesk with the extra added benefit of a heat mat with a thermostat. Initially designed for heating lizard and snake enclosures, it was less than HALF the price of the purpose built heated seed propagation trays. So this is making me very happy.

The baby avocado tree SURVIVED the minus 6 frost the other week albeit with a fair bit of damage to about half of his leaves. Nice work Mr Bacon.

I am enjoying this seed saving book heaps atm. It even has ideal germination temperatures for each veggie. This is most helpful when one has a thermostatically controlled seed germination setup.

Eileen lent me her food dehydrator, which is humming along dehydrating kiwi fruit, oranges and lemons. Imagine this..........dried sliced oranges..........ground up into power...........and put into cake mixes, muffins and deserts.

Thats what I thought.

In other news, the big garden is going well. We are harvesting leeks, beetroot, lettuces, English Spinach, silver beet and kale. The garlic is going gangbusters. The cabbages are getting there.

I have planted lots of dun peas for green mulch and peas. Have also included lupins and woolly pod vetch. BTW, if you plan to put in field or dun peas, make sure you buy them from a produce store for $1.60 per kg rather than certain online or mail order seed shops which sell them for $10 a KG. I kid you not! I had a giggle after I noticed the mail order price.

Sorry there is no photographic evidence.

Breakfast in Bed

2009-06-04T20:21:00.006+10:00

Mostly the weather has been mild, and the bees are still foraging with some earnestness and enthusiasm. To help get their stores up for when it gets really cold, I have started feeding my little girls. They now have a choice - breakfast out or breakfast in bed.

I make them up a sugar syrup with a tiny pinch of sea salt and some dried chamomile flowers. The chamomile is to help stop them from getting a tummy ache from all that nasty sugar. I learnt about this little trick at a Natural Beekeeping Course I did last year. Apparently it is also good to put in a little dried thyme. They don't make real honey from the syrup, but more of a low grade emergency honey.

Anyway they seem to like it quite a bit, and have gone through about 750gms of sugar over the past three days. Apparently 2.5kg of sugar equals a full frame of honey. The last time we checked, they had perhaps one or two frames of real honey, and they will probably need three or four to make it through the winter, so the syrup should help their chances.

It has been drizzling the last few days, which has slowed the girls down a little, but they are still tucking into the syrup. The feeder allows them to access the syrup without getting wet.

In other news, the onions are starting to come up, and the beetroot is just wonderful this season. We are making lots of bright purple soups.

Esmond and Amelia are now BFF. He has settled in really well.

that is all. Enjoy the rain.

Tea Cosys #5 and #6

2009-05-24T09:16:00.003+10:00

Behold the new season duck herder tea cosies. These are for medium sized teapots - and can you believe with all the teapots in abundance here, there are no medium ones for photo purposes?

Tea cosy number 5 (above) - for one of my teapots at work.

Tea cosy number 6 (below) - for my friend Robin. I surreptitiously measured up her naked teapot during lunch the other day. (do you think she will like it?)

Ok, so I got a little carried away with the flowers.

onions for all seasons

2009-05-23T17:35:00.006+10:00

We have run out of onions. Well, there are some smallish gladalans left - but only a few. The leeks are almost ready to start eating, but well, I liked having bunches of onions hanging from the roof in the shed for the last 6 months.

Late last winter I purchased hunter river brown, sweet red and red shine seedlings from a local farmer at the farmers markets. (Mr Duck Herder and I love red onions the best) This year I have decided to try and grow my own "sets" from seed. But to make them last the whole year, I think I am going to have to get cleverer about variety selection and try and grow two successive plantings.

Things I have learned about onions over the past week:

There are short, medium and long day length onions. The day length lets you know how many hours of daylight the onions need to trigger the big bum response. So, all things being equal, if you planted short, medium and long varieties in autumn/winter, the short ones would mature first, then the mediums then the long.

Short, medium and long day length mostly, but not necessarily corresponds to early, mid and late season. These relate more to planting time than day length (I think). ie autumn, early winter, late winter respectively.

The bestest keeping onion is the Pukekohe Long Keeper. In ideal conditions they can keep for up to 9 months. There is a commercially available Australian version of the Pukekohe Long Keeper called Vecon Regular Creamgold.

If I grow short, medium and long day length onions early in the season, we can start munching out on the shorts by perhaps November, while the others mature. Then, in late spring or early summer I could plant another short day length variety, ready to be transplanted into the garden by January or February to mature before the day length gets too short.

If the long day length varieties are super good keepers (like PLKs) I could store them under the house while we work our way through the shortest keepers through to the longest. The other idea floating around my head is to get an old fridge or freezer and put it in the shed set on around 5 or 6 degrees to keep all the other veggies in.

So far (before I worked out this fiendish plan) I have sown Gladalans (short), Red Brunswicks (long, good keeper), Ailsa Craigs (brown, huge, long day length, good keeper) and Red Wethersfields (long day length, eat first, poor keeper).

Today, I discovered Cornucopia seeds - and I have ordered more Ailsa Craigs and some Pukekohe Long Keepers. I am going to have way too many onion seedlings. Perhaps I can sell the extras at "sets" wrapped in newspaper and ready for folks to plant in spring. All up I have spent $15 on onion seeds. I will need to decide which "short" season variety to plant in December so add another $3. If the plan works, I reckon that's OK for a year supply.

Today I cleaned up where the tomatoes were, added some gypsum, chook poo and mulch. All ready for onions in early spring.

new skills

2009-05-15T21:22:00.004+10:00

I am learning new things. This autumn is going to be about learning how to graft. I have splurged on new books.

The other day, while having lunch with my friend Robin, (you know, with the amazing old apple tree) we had the most luscious quinces for desert. Serendipitously the tree from which said quinces came from, is on her "to prune" list, so I have organised to get the prunings and will try and strike them, because well, because I can! It is a smyrna quince. yay.

Today Lesley and I were walking around my backyard looking at the fruit trees and well, Lesley is a REAL horticulturalist and she showed me the different between leaf buds and fruiting buds on the nectarine and peach trees. Even now in May, she pointed out how the little triple buds are flower buds, and the single or double ones are for leaves. And well, obviously for me to learn this, there much have been some triple buds on my new little trees. HEAPS of them. How clever. How MARVELOUS!

Also, I have three new holes waiting waiting for some new fruit trees. I have three pear trees coming, which will be planted all together in the one hole, and an angelina plum, and a santa rosa plum, and another apricot coming. Yes, I know, I am missing a hole. Not sure where the apriot is going to go. But I will worry about that later.

well, thats all for now.

Everything is NEW

2009-05-03T18:27:00.011+10:00

Technically the first of our autumn veggies ready to start eating. That OK, I was sick of eggplants, capsicums, zucs and tomatos anyway!

So beautiful! I really only put these seedlings in a few weeks ago and already the beetroots are big enough to start picking.

Newly planted English Spinach seedlings. Note the toilet roll seed raising tubes. They work so well.

Newly separated and planted leek seedlings - bit droopy. I grow my leeks by sowing very densely in one small place. Then, when they are between 2 - 15mm wide, I dig them up with a fork, separate them and plant them deeply. Leeks are so forgiving and generous and with a little bit of planning, easy to have available all year round.

More newly planted English Spinach and lettuce sheltering this side of the corn.

NEW DRAKE.

Meet Esmond. "handsome protector". He is AGGRESSIVE! He hisses at me if I get too close. Shows character I think. (hope) I have him separated atm. Amelia isn't much interested in him just yet. Mind you, she yelled a LOT less today knowing he was in the yard.

And just one more new experience - I had my first bee sting yesterday. RIGHT ON THE CHEEK! Am happy to report I am not allergic to bees. Poor little thing - we were having one last look in the hive and for some reason she came up out of the hive and flew up SPLAT into my face. I don't think she was attacking me - and no one else got upset. I think I was just too close and standing too far over the hive.

Anyhoo, I scraped the stinger out and when we had finished, wandered across the road and picked some plantain leaves to squish and put in it. Have done this a few times again today, and am happy to report my little sting just looks like a little pimple (phew!). Really, I swell up more from mosquito bites which is happy news indeed if I am to continue being a herder of the bees.

And the GREAT news is that Queen Atalia and her daughters fill SIX FRAMES which is officially enough to get her colony through the winter. I will have to feed them though - they don't have a great deal of capped honey - some but not heaps. It is not my preference - hopefully if they survive then next year I will make sure they have a full super of honey going into winter. I feel very happy they she has done so well and that there are so many now.

ALL HAIL QUEEN ATALIA

can we start that one again

2009-04-30T19:38:00.005+10:00

Its been one of those weeks. I was up in Condobolin for work this week. While I was away a series of unfortunate events occurred - enough to make me wonder where exactly I put a foot wrong, went through the wrong door, turned left instead of right.......

Finally after 5 years a foxy loxy found its way into the backyard BEFORE the ducks were safely locked up for the night. Poor old Miriam and Tabitha Jemima have been spirited away leaving only their very upset daughter, a small sprinkling of feathers and 5 chickens who refused to come downstairs all the following morning.

I guess we should be grateful a foxy chainsaw massacre hadn't occurred and there were only a few feathers here and there.

So I am in the market for a new Khaki Campbell drake, and think I have one lined up from Ron Davis for Sunday at the Hall Markets. Poor little duckies - I have had those two for almost 5 years.

In other news, one of our naughty little cats seems to have eaten a yet to be determined length of fishing line - she is sad and miserable and has a sore tummy. (I think it is more likely to be the nylon twine that holds the carpet pile together - seems that's what she has been playing with and pulling up just for fun) The vet removed a small length from between her teeth - but she is still unwell so obviously there is more in there somewhere! No doubt that will cost us lots more money and will get worse before it gets better. Lucky she is cute and a marvelous vet lives just down the road.

So thats it - praise god and pass the ammunition its the end of the week (well for me anyway). I really don't think there is another workday left in me atm. Bring on the Lacuna Sabbath I say.

Oh and thank you so much for all your birthday wishes - i am so lucky to have so many beautiful bloggy friends - thank you muchly.

And Mr Bredbo Valley View - a post hole digger and chainsaw are special gifts that can go on the list for that one day when we move to a farm, and actually, I have both of Pa Duck Herder's chainsaws in the shed just waiting for that day!

see, I want for NOTHING!

Birthday Wishes

2009-04-25T19:47:00.003+10:00

So what should you buy your pro-elegant frugality, anti-consumerism soil biology obsessed friend/wife/sister for her birthday? If you are unable to organise a round bale of lucerne hay, or a truck load of straw and cow manure, or some fertile indian game eggs, here are a few ideas.......

Well, Mountain Man aka Pa Kettle aka The Cougar is on the right track. While filling in the gaping holes in the driveway (and I use that term VERY loosely) up to the windy ridge, he dug up a very old, hand forged crow bar. (Luckily there wasn't a tired old farmer skeleton still attached to the handle.) Well, bit of a grind and a brush, bit of pink paint, and voila! Could there be a more perfect present? And I was just musing where I might find me an old crow bar since Pa Duck Herder took his back...... YAY. Thank you Mr Cougar.

And look - Lesley gave me a whole box of vacola jars. THANK YOU. And she didn't even know it was my birthday.

So I gave her these little mittens I just finished.

I have had a lovely birthday week. My beloved bought me the most beautiful necklace in the WHOLE WORLD. I feel like a QUEEN when I wear it. And a cool book which I devoured in bed yesterday and today, and a cool metal stand for my earings which is VERY practical.

Most of all I have cherished having endless cups of tea with sisters, dear friends and reconnecting with beautiful folks I haven't been in contract with enough of late.

And just to top it off, the week as ended with RAIN. Now that is a nice present.

So what did I do on my birthday? Well, I was in bed by 7:00pm with a cup of tea! I am not sure if that is sad or not, but honestly, it was EXACTLY where I wanted to be.

Happy Birthday to ME.

Sunday

2009-04-19T15:44:00.006+10:00

The girls have been very busy these last two days. I have been very impressed with how MANY foragers there are now. I think they need to invest in some air traffic controllers - things were getting a little congested in the airspace there yesterday. Fingers crossed they have the numbers and the stores to make it through this first winter. If it is nice next weekend, Eric and I will open them just once more to see how they are going, and if necessary, perhaps I can cadge a couple more frames of honey from Eric's bees to see them through. I would be very sad if they died over winter.

We had a plot holders meeting at the Community Garden today. There are lots of housing and road developments happening around us, and we are loosing one end of the garden but are gaining more land and a new entrance at the other end to make way for a bike path and road realignment. In the end it will be good I think - more opportunity for communal meeting spaces and picnic areas, and another couple of rows of fruit trees. I made Cheryl's Banana Cake to take down - yum yum.

We had our first KIWI fruit this week. So now I guess we can start picking them in little batches. Kiwis don't ripen on the tree - but they store there OK. Apparently they are even better once the frost has got to them, so we will just start working our was through them slowly.

There is one more batch of apples and tomatoes in the Vacola. I am about to make a batch of Ratatouille. Lesley from the garden gave me some lovely eggplants to supplement the last of mine. The colours look lovely with the little pumpkins and zucs.

And then I reckon that's it for today. If I was good I would do some re-potting, but I am not so I wont.

lacuna sabbath

2009-04-17T15:09:00.007+10:00

'sbin a while between posts.

It was lovely to have four days off over Easter, and even better to have a three day week and MOST EXCELLENT to celebrate the lacuna sabbath again today.

s'wats bin 'apning?

Well, I have been TIRED and GRUMPY. But this morning Mr Duck Herder made me get in the car and drive to Black Mountain for a run. Because my beloved is VERY FAST, we usually go our separate ways and meet up at the end for a coffee in the botanic gardens. As we parted, my beloved said "make sure you turn that frown up side down by the time I see you again" which made me laugh at my silliness right away and in no time I was in love with life again.

The marvelous hunt for wild food autumn harvest continues. I have been keeping an eye on some apple trees on the back road between Tarago and Goulburn. Wednesday afternoon in all that crazy wind and dust netted these little beauties.

All perfect. No coddling moths no blemishes no nothin. I love that I get to travel for work. Ten years of working in a 300km radius around ONC has resulted in a mental mud map marking the locations of roadside apple, plum, nectarine and peach trees as well as the best roadside stalls, farms selling local produce and functional coffee machines.

How cool is this. The two apples on the left are from two different roadside trees. The one on the right is from Robin's beautiful ancient old apple tree near Bungendore. This old giant is higher than her house, is a definite biennial fruiter but even this year which should be an off year, there is still about 30kg of fruit. Last year, well, it produced an embarrassment of riches - more than could ever be imagined.

After looking at the Woodbridge website, the one of the left looks a bit like a Pomme de Neige (also known as snow apple, lady in the snow, fameuse or chimney apple). The fruit is very red, flat and smallish. The flavour is lovely. The texture is a bit thick.

The middle one looks a little like a Lord Lambourne or a Blenheim Orange. Of course, they are almost definitely seedlings, so who knows.

I have just bottled what I am calling the "Pookie Hill Apples". I have decided that number 31 vacola jars are the new black. Why did I ever bother with little 3" openings?

And in other news, we have opened our home to two little teenage mothers who were dumped outside the RSPCA with 9 kittens between them. A few months ago we lost our most spoilt beloved little poppet and while I still miss her dreadfully, we also missed having that lovely pussy cat energy in the house. So here we are - Chu-Chu and Ziva. It is hard to get good photos of them - they are still a bit scatty and timid, but very sweet. They are best friends, probably sisters and little Ziva who is the naughtiest is also very very shy and seems to need Chu-Chu for confidence.

Chu-Chu

Ziva

Beanies #5 and #6

2009-04-17T15:07:00.002+10:00

Duck Herding Sunday

2009-03-29T20:31:00.011+11:00

Ma Duck Herder had a birthday this week (twenty two again....) So these photos are for Bellie the missing sister! We went to our FAVOURITE cafe - the Outsider Cafe at Captains Flat.

Who is this good lookin' rooster? He looks like he could run VERY FAST. Fast enough to win me a wollomi pine me thinks!

And could this be a duck herder with her dad?

And could this be Ma Duck Herder with her dear friend Cathy?

And what ever happened to that nice bottle of bolli we were saving for a special occasion?

And was this the Duck Herder's community garden plot this morning in great need of weeding and tending and digging up of the taties?

And is this more of her neglected but still generously productive garden?

And is this proof that the raising of seeds in toilet rolls works most excellently?

Well, thats all for Sunday.

And hello new people! Hello Cheryl and Em. Welcome to my little blog. I love your blogs! I look forward to reading about your lives.

Duckie.

look what I got

2009-03-27T20:51:00.005+11:00

Some of you know Mr Duck Herder is very fast. He spends lots of time running and cycling and swimming and even more time roaming around aimlessly in the mountains.

WELL, Mr Duck Herder ran so fast at the Arboretum Open Day Fun Run he won me this:

A wollomi pine. My very own. I am glad he is so fast.

Hooray. I have always coveted one of these, but always thought them outrageously priced and way too trendy.

In other news, I harvested my first pumpkin today. It isnt a great crop this year.

Tomorrow I REALLY need to dig up the rest of the potatoes, and prepare some garden space for some more autumn plantings.

I bought some ginger today, and realised I haven't bought veggies or fruit for months and months. We are starting to run low on onions - perhaps enough for another couple of months or so. Next spring I will need to remember to plant at least twice as many. We are still harvesting lettuce, beans, eggplant, tomatoes, herbs, silver beet, zucs and cucumbers.

I still have plenty of garlic - should be enough to last until November. (hopefully) We also have heaps of potatoes. I don't really have a good place to store them here. One day I will have a root cellar. That would be very cool. (no pun intended)

I still suck at getting carrots or parsnips to grow. I just don't understand. I have tried EVERY trick in the book.

The new silver beet and beetroot plantings are looking great. Will try and get a photo tomorrow. I have proper English spinach coming up, as well as some Italian broccoli and some late peas, snap peas and sweetpeas. These are all in the glass house doing the toilet roll thing.

And here is my pride and joy - my 4 year old kiwi vines. Hayward are the latest flowering and latest ripening variety. I think it will be at least 4 or 5 weeks until these babies are going to be ready. They just look fantastic.

gap in the fruit supply

2009-03-22T17:47:00.007+11:00

So like, the whole wild apple thing was especially special because we are in our first fruit gap of the season.

I like to supplement our home grown fruit with wild fruit (like wild weed blackberries and roadside peaches) so that there is always something fresh. I love the whole seasonal merry go round ride that happens - eat 1 million strawberries then move onto mulberries and then once they have finished, move onto the early cherries from out the front and then the mulberries are having their second flush right about when the raspberries get started just before Christmas and then wow, look here comes the white fleshed nectarines closely followed by the yellow ones and hey thanks for the plums and yummo here come the peaches and yay look at all the blackberries this year and well, kerthump! Here I am in March with no fruit. The kiwis are still perhaps a month off. I have a very early apple (vista bella ripens before Christmas) and a very late apple (sturmer ripens in June) which even when they are old enough to fruit will be no help to me now.

Looking at the young orchard, well, the nectarines, peaches, peachcot and apricots are all going to be finished fruiting by now as well. (once they grow up that is)

So, it must have been FATE when Woodbridge Fruit Trees announced they are taking orders again for this winter.

SEND IN THE PEARS!!!!!

I have ordered three pears:

Burre Bosc (my all time favorite)

Burre D'Anjou

Burre Hardy (also known as Gellerts Butterbirne)

They all ripen in March.

Little fruit gap - consider yourself filled. Well, eventually anyway.

wild apples

2009-03-22T17:22:00.007+11:00

Mr Duck herder and I headed up to the mountains this weekend for a party in Jindi and a sleep over with Ma and Pa Kettle (aka Mr and Mrs Cougar or Mountain Man and Mrs Mountain Man) at the Windy Ridge. On the way back we stopped to pick apples. Between the ACT/NSW border and Michaelago there are some old apple trees growing alongside a dry creek bed and the old railway.

Apples - free and wild - my favourite kind!

Any guesses as to the varieties? The larger ones are from a HUGE old tree with the thickest trunk I have ever seen.

Lets hope they taste as good as they look. Thank you wild apple trees.

lacuna sabbath

2009-03-13T19:58:00.006+11:00

Reprinted with kind permission from: emsnews.wordpress.com

Bee Club last night. I didn't stay for a cuppa, but I learnt HEAPS about preparing for winter which will become increasingly relevant in the next few weeks. Bee folks are lovely folks, that's for sure. And apparently, Mr Bredbo Valley View Farm was there also. I wonder who you are???!!! Wow - we were almost outed from blogworld.

I am pleased to report the lacuna Sabbath has been reinstated. This morning Mr Duck Herder and I headed up to Black Mountain for a run which was just lovely. If I ever had a spiritual home, it would be Black Mountain. I love it up there. I miss not being able to run up there every day.

I wanted so much to open the hive today, but it was cloudy and threatening to storm. Instead I spent some time wiring up some new frames for Queen Atalia. Eric's cool trick which I have stolen is to melt the foundation wax onto the frames with a 12 volt battery charger. Quick, cheap and BRILLIANT. Now the charger has a dual role. How permaculture.

Serendipitously at about 5.00pm just as the sun came out, Eric turned up to check on the bees. We opened the hive and well, one thing led to another and we put all the new full frames into the brooder, took out the short frames and put them up in the Manley super along with my newly constructed Manley Frames. No gear, just a smoker. At one stage I was holding a frame full of bees and brood and honey with bees crawling all over my hands and arms. They were so sweet and nice and soft and calm. AMAZING. Sometimes I had to remind myself to breath and be CALM.

They have been busy. Most of the capped honey is gone, but there is new nectar being put down, and new comb being made (below the short frames) and some drawn out from the foundation frames. Lots of eggs, lots of brood, lots of pollen. Lots more bees. They have made great progress.

I am most impressed with the comb that has been built below the short frames. One day I would like to experiment with the Warre Hive system and top bar frames or foundationless frames. I think some of the ideas could be adapted to standard langstroth hive components. So much to learn. I think with all the terrible problems folks in the US have been having with Colony Collapse Syndrome and Varroa, there has been a renaissance of more natural beekeeping. It is all so interesting. There are heaps of interesting blogs out there on more natural beekeeping.

Anyhoo, I had better get back to defrosting the freezer.

Goodnight my queen.

Saturday in Pictures

2009-03-07T20:53:00.010+11:00

Eric and I moved Queen Atalia and her girls to the new (old) hive. What do you think of the colours? The girls got a bit of a shock as they returned to the hive with their saddle bags full of pollen. We left the old landing board out the front to help them work out where the new entrance is, and I have just taken it away now that it is dark.

We also gave her another two frames of honey and about 4 half frames of brood in various stages of hatching. The honey frames are in the bottom brood box, along with everything that Atalia and her girls have been doing. There are two half frames of hatching brood from Eric's bees in the super. I will remove these and the super in about 5 days, once all the new bees have hatched and wandered down into the brood box with the others.

By this afternoon the ants had rediscovered the hive with a vengeance - so back with the moat idea. I am thinking I will replace the water for vegetable oil, as the girls are attracted to the water and end up drowning.

I didn't' see Atalia today, however I could see her new brood, and those little white grubby things seemed to be developing nicely. The girls are making lots of bee bread (pollen) and everyone is still calm and relaxed - even with the quite significant mucking abouts in their hive. I mean, some of those girls left a little one bedroom apartment this morning and came back to a 5 bedroom McMansion!

In between bee relocations, behold this delicious batch of cinnamon walnut scrolls. They taste as good as they look believe me.

The rest of the day was spent visiting Allsun Organic Farm at Gundaroo as part of the Canberra Open Garden Scheme. It was interesting to see a commercial size organic farm in operation. The Allsun folks supply a number of shops and restaurants and for 7 months of the year, provide fruit and veggie boxes to families locally and in Canberra. Everything looked pretty healthy if not just a little bit Italian with all those straight rows and no mulch. The whole farm is solar powered too. Looking at their movable meat and egg chook paddocks, it made me realise how spoilt my chookies are! All that shade and undergrowth and green stuff to eat.

Tomatoes in a tunnel plus mobile insect control.

Spinach and another tunnel

Potatoes and pumpkin

groovy Passive Solar glass house

Eggplants and Caps in another tunnel

Cool huh?

Queen Atalia & the Ants

2009-03-01T20:50:00.007+11:00

My love affair with bees continues. I met the queen! And she looks just like this:

Queen Atalia was busy laying eggs. HOORAY. We could see them - tiny little white eggs (this will be important for later) . She is very pretty. Orange. No stripes.

Today I noticed tiny little brown ants on the outside of the hive and on the decking. I opened the hive (any excuse!) to see if they were on the frames stealing the honey but couldn't see any.

By the afternoon, there were more ants. I noticed the ones coming out of the hive were carrying little white parcels. I couldn't work out what they were taking from the hive, until I remembered THE EGGS! Those ants were stealing Queen Atalia's freshly laid eggs. This was going to require some assertive action.

So I did two things. Firstly, I filled a small container with a good squeeze of ant rid and made a small ant sized hole in the lid. This I covered with a toilet roll (because the instructions say don't use outside and don't expose to direct sunlight and I was doing both) and placed it against the hive with a small twig leading up to the hole in the lid. In no time the ants had found it and tonight there are 1 million dead ants floating in an ant rid soup inside.

Then, with the help of Mr Duck Herder's cunning smarts, we devised an ant moat. This lid of a plastic storage tub has a groovy little gutter all around the edge. So I moved the bees onto some pavers sitting in the lid, and filled the gutter with water.

Fingers crossed this will stop the ants from getting into the hive. It might even be nice for the bees to drink out of.

Ants really give bees a hard time in this area. Yet another hive belonging to someone else has been lost to ants down at the community garden. I always thought they wanted the honey but after today I think they are after the newly laid eggs which are small enough to carry away.

In other bee related news, I spent some happy time building some new frames and repairing and painting some old falling apart hive components from Eric. I now have a very brightly painted base, super and lid. Yay. I think Queen Atalia is into colours you know.

Good night my Queen. Good night my clever darling girls.

relish the relish

2009-02-27T20:37:00.007+11:00

Well, not EVERY post can be about Queen Atalia.

Thought some of the southern hemisphere folks might like a peak at Jay's Nanna's Relish recipe. Now us folks at the princess castle LOVE our relish - and I can honestly say, this is THE relish recipe - you can throw away all the others.

Tomato Relish

12 large ripe tomatoes ( the riper the better) raw, unpeeled

4 medium onions

570gms (20 oz) sugar

2 tablespoons Keen's Curry Powder

1 teaspoon Keen's Dry Mustard Powder

6 dried chillies - chopped - with seeds

Brown (malt) vinegar - almost enough to cover

Cut tomatoes in smallish chunks (ie less than quarters) and throw into colander, salting as you go

Slice and chop onions, throw into a second colander salting as you go

Stand colanders in bowls, cover with plastic or tea towels and let the tomatoes and onions sweat overnight. (Quite a lot of water comes off the tomatoes especially - so use a large bowl)

Place sweated tomatoes and onions into large saucepan. Just cover with malt vinegar. Bring to boil. Boil for 5 minutes.

Mix curry powder and dried mustard in a little liquid from the saucepan, add this mixture and thee sugar and chillies to the pan.

Boil, stirring fairy constantly for somewhere between 45 minutes and 1 hour.

The time depends on the size of the tomato chunks, the ripeness of the tomatoes, the amount of vinegar used, how hard you boil.

To tell when it is ready:

1) it has to reduce

2) the bits of onion should no longer be white

3) non of the tomatoes should look fresh or uncooked

4) the colour should be reddish brown - more brown than red

5) the consistency should not be as sticky as jam, but it should have reduced enough to feel "dense" when you stir with the wooden spoon. Like jam, the tomato and onion should stay on the spoon when lifted.

6) The surface should have a slight sheen.

Pour into clean warm jars. Sterilise as per your favourite method.

Serve with: Anything.

Oh, and here is my latest dishcloth.

Oh, and I almost trod on a brown snake today at the community garden. oops.
Oh, and some $#@#*& #^@&* cut the fence of the community garden to break in overnight. Sucko kiddo - we don't keep the mower there anymore. Hope you get tetanus from the fence buddy.

Oh, and here is my Zuc Bread. We are living on this stuff atm. Yum yum. I want some RIGHT NOW.

Settling In

2009-02-25T21:00:00.003+11:00

The bees are settling in well. I didn't get to see Queen Atalia today, but Eric did. Apparently she is unusually (and delightfully) orange. By the time I got home, Eric had put in two extra frames of brood in various stages of hatching. This will give her colony a little kick along in the population stakes. She will also be able to start laying in the empty drawn out cells. It is a very little swarm and she has a big challenge ahead to produce enough daughters to get enough honey to last the winter.

The bees are very quiet. We opened up the hive again so I could see what was going on - Imagine, all that safety gear in the cupboard inside with me fishing about in her hive in my civvies. It was amazing and I am so grateful to Eric for taking me under his wing. The girls buzzed around a little but were very accommodating and indulgent of us. Eric pointed out the newly hatched "fuzzy bear" workers with their flat unpacked wings. Queen Atalia was apparently on the inside of the box before - so I didn't get to see her. At this early stage, the bees are very very quiet and friendly. They are all Queen Atalia's sisters rather than daughters at this early stage. It will be interesting to see if there is any change once Queen Atalia's daughters start dominating the hive.

This weekend Eric the bee herder will come back with some drawn out comb and a full size box so we can transfer everyone out of the nucleus box into their permanent brooder box, and so that Queen Atalia has lots of drawn out comb ready for eggs.

The photo shows some worker bees returning to the hive.

Yay! ALL HAIL THE QUEEN!

All Hail the Queen!

2009-02-23T20:18:00.007+11:00

omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg omg

They have arrived! ALL HAIL THE QUEEN, ALL HAIL THE QUEEN.

I am not sure what her name is - is it Queen Atalia?

So like, I was at Yoga/Meditation class tonight, and suddenly at about 6:30pm, all I could think about was BEES BEES BEES. After the class, I pottered along to the garden, picked some tomatoes and landed home about 7:30pm (still thinking of bees) Mr Duck Herder took me strait out onto the front deck to show me the bees that had swarmed at my friend Eric's house today which he caught and promptly bought over to live on the front deck - AT 6:30!!!

I am SWOONING with joy. Do you think she will like me? I forgot to mention that over the weekend I finally got it together to go out to Murrumbateman to buy a bee suit / space suit / fencing suit. And a smoker and a hive tool and some gloves. You see, I LOVE bees, I am just highly respectful of them, and I know that they will like me more, and be more accommodating of my clumsy tendings if I feel safe and calm and secure and totally UN BEAR LIKE.

Thus the suit.

Welcome Queen Atalia.

I will try my very very best to look after you and serve you well as your humble servant.

I love you already.

PS, Your Royal Highness, Eric informs me that if you could perhaps just persevere until Wednesday, he will bring you some more combs full of honey and nectar and stuff. My Queen, if that is to your liking.

PPS, I love you.

relishing the garden

2009-02-22T15:24:00.004+11:00

First things first. Tomato Relish made - tick.

Zucchini Bread in oven - tick

So like, I was at the checkout buying some malt vinegar and keens mustard and curry powder and the woman in front of me said "Looks like you are going to be busy - what are you making?" "Tomato Relish" I said. We god talking and she got so excited when I said i boil everything up in the vacola to preserve it - no mucking about with sterilizing bottles n all. It seems her grandmother used a vacola and we talked about preserving fruit and jams and relished and the like. Well, she is off to search the internets for a vacola RIGHT NOW. Very cool. She said THANK YOU for INSPIRING ME.

Another friend said to me the other day "You know, food is getting so expensive - I think we will have to be like you and grow our own food" "HOORAY" I replied. But it got me thinking.

On the one hand, I am not sure we SAVE money by growing our own food. But on the other, there is no way we could AFFORD or even BUY the beautiful luscious food that we eat. What price for nutrient dense, pesticide, fungicide and herbicide free food? Mr Duck Herder and I EAT LIKE KINGS

You can't even BUY an organic, freshly picked, loved and sung over Black Krim or Brandy Wine tomato - no matter how rich you are. Our tomatoes are so fresh and delicate and huge they have to be picked so carefully and not even BREATHED on unless they split.

I have probably picked and processed 5kg of blackberries, and snacked on another 2kg while out running or walking each morning. Our raspberries are so sweet and luscious. Last night, at my MILs house for dinner, I tried some commercially grown frozen raspberries - they were inedible - sour and tough. Who wants to eat those?

And what about the dirty dozen? They are a good reminder that pretty much ALL commercially grown veggies and fruit contain chemical residues. They are also grown in sick soil. They can not be in any better health that the poor soil they are grown in. Who wants to pay to eat those?

For an interesting list of foods in descending order of chemical residues, see here. It is certainly a good place to start in terms of thinking about which foods to grow or source organically.

And if you think this doesn't apply to Australia - remember the choice magazine study that found banned fungicides and residues far in excess of allowable levels in strawberries? This one in particular upsets me - I never eat strawberries from the shop, how can you once you have tasted home grown ones, but so many folks feed them to their children, understandably thinking they are healthy.

Can't afford to grow our own food? Well, I don't think I can afford not to.

Saturday Morning Tour

2009-02-21T21:37:00.008+11:00

This is the path up to the chooks/ducks/glass house/veggies.

That huge box alder shades the duck yard - which they enjoy very much. This tree got very badly burnt in the 2003 fires, so it is still a weird shape, but I love it.

The garden looks so lush, but really all you can see are drought tolerant natives - lamandras, kangaroo apples, wattles up the back and those other palmy looking things whose names I have forgotten.

And here are the stars of the garden. Miriam, Tabatha Jemima and Amelia. Miriam and TJ are quite old now - perhaps 4 or 5. They are moulting atm, so are looking a bit drab.

And here is the salad garden. We pick a huge salad out of here every day. The bird netting is to keep most of the birds off the lettuce, and to try and keep the brown snake out of the garden. His favourite place is under the mulch near the rosemary bush in the top right hand corner. So far so good.

And here is a peak in the glass house. Organised chaos. Notice the toilet roll seedling containers.

There is asparagus there ready for planting out this winter, some golden kiwi fruit seedlings and some banana passion fruit seedlings. Oh and of course, my pine nut seedlings waiting for a new home.

A closer look at a gold kiwi fruit seedling. I saved the seeds from some store bought gold kiwis, put them in the fridge for a few weeks and then voila! They take a while to germinate though - you have to be patient. And then even more patience is required to find out if they are girls or boys. I wish there was an easy way to tell at this stage. It feels good through, propagating something that is probably patented.

Here's one I prepared earlier! Perhaps 2 years old? It has really struggled in the heat and wind this year.

And how are those other kiwis going?

Look OK to me.

I started making tomato relish this evening. The tomatoes and onions are sweating atm. I think it will look nice with all those black krims in the mix.

that's all.

Good night.

Tuesday Stuff

2009-02-17T20:36:00.006+11:00

free embroidery design from http://www.needlecrafter.com/

Well the duck herder is officially famous. yup. I have made it into "Inside Waste" magazine. Actually the project is famous. But still, it is the little things. There is nothing like finding folks who get the whole organics back into agriculture closing the loop thing. I think the editor liked the fact that I confessed to loving compost windrows perhaps more than anything. Luckily he didn't print that bit.

In other news, finally finally the tomatoes cometh in more than dribs and drabs. A WHOLE buckets worth yesterday. Now that's more like it. Enough of blackberry jam - bring on the relish! Last year was the year of the Brandywine. This year it's all about the Ukraine and surrounds. Today we give thanks for Black Krims and Black Russians and all the other gorgeous purple, green, black and dark burgundy tomatoes. Naturally we also give thanks for vodka - the other special thing from the Ukraine. Oh, we also give thanks to the Ukraine for half my beloved's genetic material.

The garden is loving us atm. We havnt bought veggies or fruit for weeks and week. I have the most AMAZING salads each day. There are two chooks laying now so we have eggs.

The young chooks are maturing nicely. The Big Fella is definitely a girl faverolle - probably too darkly marked for the standard, plus wrong number of toes, but she is lovely and sweet and quiet. I declare her an excellent introduction to the breed and I look forward to trying again next year to get a few more faverolle eggs to hatch at great expense and extravagance.

Poor old Charlotte the oldest crankiest red chook is feeling a bit down atm. She goes through stages where she gets all droopy, her perky comb goes all blue at the ends and she just sits on the back door mat all day in a bit of a daze. In the past this has lasted a week or so, and just when I think she is at deaths door (as well as the back door) she perks up, colours up and gets on with it. She is old. She has had a good life and I am OK with her drifting along a bit in her dotage. I wish she wouldn't crash tackle the silkie and pull out her pom pom feathers though - it is so MEAN.

The last of the baby ducks have gone their new home. Well, the last two drakes have gone to live with Mario untill they are fat enough for the pot anyway. So finally Miriam is back with his girls and a certain calm as returned to the backyard.

I have a secret project happening - I am crocheting a jumper. There is no pattern, except for a conceptual idea of how a one piece top down raglan jumper can be constructed from one piece of string and a crochet hook. The colours are a bit crazy, but as a prototype it has been a good experience. It has been hard to stay focused on one big project - my mind and hands want to grab different colours and make small projects such as tea cosys and beanies. But I am gently persevering.

And in the continuing vein of doing things that don't involve my brain unless I am being paid, I found this cute free embroidery design from www.needlecrafter.com which I am planning on trying to sew onto a plain food cover keep the flies off thingy forgotten what they are called. I wish my Nanna was still alive - she would be so proud of all my fruit growing, the veggies, preserving and crocheting and feeble attempts at embroidery. I miss you Nanna. The older I get the more I become like you and that is only a good thing.

home again

2009-02-14T17:23:00.005+11:00

Big week last week. Three days in Condobolin. Weather weirdly cool - which was nice - I was dreading working out on the landfill in 45 plus heat! Came back exhausted. Those 5 hour road trips after 4 hour meetings really take it out of me. But it was a good trip and I am so lucky to work with such wonderful folks.

On the way home the biggest hippy and I stopped to pick roadside peaches near Grenfell. These I bottled yesterday. Today I bottled blackberries! And made some blackberry and peach jam out of the leftovers.

Anyhoo, the garden was still there when I got back. Above is my little harvest from this morning. And below, how lovely are all these heirloom tomatoes. I love the black krims - mostly because they are Ukrainian - same as Mr Duck Herder.

I think I need a new label to capture the whole free wild food thing in homage to the blackberries and wild peaches.