Ducks, Humans & Comfrey

From my desk where I am busily procrastinating, I can hear the ducks munching away on the comfrey. They love it. I love it too. I know some folks are a bit thing about eating it but I must admit I do whack whole leaves of the stuff into my green smoothies. The hysteria about comfrey being poisonous seems a little (lot) over blown to me. From what I have read, the leaves are PROFOUNDLY good for you, quite safe and no bad things have happened to anyone from eating them......

Anyway, I trust the ducks.


In other news, even though they are moulting, these girls are STILL laying their beautiful big fat orange yolked eggs.Thats 9 months straight - for 2 and 3 year old duckies. HAZZAH for ducks.

Must be the comfrey.

Inane Cute Stuff

Well, after that last ranty post I did promise some inane cute stuff and well lookie here. Julia emerged from her secret nest today with four widdle babies.

now this is seriously cute.

Wouldn't you agree?
told you.

nice weather for ducks

I have been so SICK. Some sort of flu. Sound like I am coughing up a lung. eewwwwk.
I have taken the WHOLE week off work.

Its been a bit of an emotional roller coaster. I went to the damaged vehicle auction with the idea of buying the honey truck back and repairing her. She went for $100 above the limit I set myself and now I have the opposite of buyers remorse. On the one hand she is just a truck but on the other hand, I LOVED that truck. It seemed so weird that she would be stolen from the front yard when I was just about to buy her - especially when she is one of about 30 cars parked in the street. What is the message in this....was it just not meant to be? Was it a sign to let her go or to demand her back from the universe? In the end I chose to let her go.......... I want to TRUST that I am beloved child of the universe but I am finding it hard to identify the learning in this one - the story of the honey truck.

I am struggling to understand this whole human being thing. There is good reason to prefer the company of ducks and chickens.

As well as the honey truck being stolen and written off, some nice person/people decided to put a rock though the back window of my work car. They didn't steal anything - the rock was still sitting on the cargo cover in the morning and all my work gear was intact. mindless.

And then, someone broke into the community garden and vandalised everything (again)

What does it all mean. I am wondering why the universe is being a bit mean, if Bruce has taken his eye off me for a moment......or if these are just random things in a random universe (which I don't believe), or if I am missing something.

sigh.

At least the ducks are happy with this rain thing. If you click on the photo you can see the rain drops on their feathers. lovely.

Lacuna Sabbath

Hey folks. Not a lot to report. Widdle Ducks are pretty big now. Esmond has been reintroduced into the fold without incident.



Chu Chu has a new favourite cat spot.

The couch is threatening to take over the whole garden.

That is all.

Lacuna Sabbath

where we stayed in Freemantle

Dear Mr Weekend Farmer was wondering what this whole Lacuna Sabbath thing is and it is this. "Lacuna" is like a gap, a missing bit, an extended silence, and Sabbath is of course, a special day of rest and prayer generally celebrated once a week. So my Lacuna Sabbath is my gift to me - to try ever so hard to dedicate Fridays as a day of rest, contemplation, tending the garden and conversing with ducks. A special space in the life of a busy duck indulged in with wanton love and joy, and fiercely protected and defended. It kinda comes from a Leunig character - Mr Curly who lives on the shores of Lake Lacuna. Originally it was my way of saying NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! STOP! to crazy work hours and too much overtime but now it is part of my life and it is just delicious and wonderful.

So anyway, what did I do on this Lacuna Sabbath? Well Mr Duck Herder and I have been in Perth since last weekend so after lots of travel and a wedding and eating and drinking and general conviviality, today was pretty calm. We stayed in Freemantle which is a City I just love.

This morning was spent reconnecting with the garden after a crazy hot week. This afternoon I "racked" the honey and plum saba. And now I am completely sozzled in a delicious way. I think I am not the best at using the syphon yet, and have had to consume FAR too much wine in proportion to what ended up in the demijohns. It is delicious. *hick*



One batch has the most luminous ruby colour. The other is cloudier and more orange. But they are both delicious.

And they both turned very dark once I had racked them. I have kept the sediment to use in muffins etc. It is deliciously sweet and buzzy.


In other news, the widdle ducklings are HUMONGOUS. One is very little. Some have naughty white bits on their throats which is cute but not really proper for a Kahki Campbell.


that is all!

Lacuna Sabbath

Hooray for the Lacuna Sabbath. Ducklings still equals seven. We have removed Esmond from the equation (I warned you!) I think it was only a matter of time until he started killing them off.

Still more trouble in paradise Winkie has returned from my sister's place after deciding she hated her adolescent children. She has gone from being top chook to bottom chook. So we are running two shifts in the old fluffy cage - Esmond in there at night for the ducklings protection and Winkie in there during the day for her protection from the other mean chooks. Hopefully she will be accepted back into the flock soon.

In other news, 2 meters of gravel dust just arrived out the front so I can organise a nice flat surface for the new shed. My weekend just got booked solid.

That is all.

widdle babies

OK folks, here's what ya want. ready? One, Two Three......aaawwwww.



Stupid cute huh?




Yup. Stupid Cute has arrived at the princess castle. They haven't left the nest yet (that's mum just to the right) but why would you bother when you have a wading pool beside your bed?



Proud father hasn't shown infanticidal tendencies yet, just a little nibble/nudge.


Hot bees. Her Majesty Queen Malina's girls are very yellow huh?

that is all.



eeeyyyaaawww eeyyyaaaaw
I think the beer ambulance is here.

Keep cool everyone!

hot hot hot

Hi folks - HELLO NEW FOLKS! Thank you for visiting this little blog. This is just a quicky post before I scoot off to work. It is HOT in case you southerners hadn't noticed. It was hot yesterday and this morning it is STILL HOT. This is my 4 weeks of the year when I seriously consider air conditioning! Don't worry , I will get over it as soon as the weather changes.

Amelia has so far hatched 5 ducklings. She has been on the nest non stop for two whole days now. I put some water in there for her and the hatchlings. Sorry folks no photos. She is being very protective. It's going to be even hotter today which probably isn't ideal for the whole hatching thing.

Yesterday was my first day back at work after a two week break. I had a lot of meetings. Drove out to chat with the farmer we are working with to set up our last composting facility and our first on farm composting facility. Quotes for the sheds have come back FOUR TIMES what we budgeted....so there is a bit of work to do there!

Apart from a little wobbly in the morning when I couldn't find the work car keys, which ended up being the the glove box of Mr Duck herder's car which was parked in town where he is working, I am proud to say I stayed pretty centered and calm and present. I got to drive the honey truck out to Bungendore and up into the mountains instead so that was nice. It was a bit of a change to the blissfull langour of recent times.

I am OK with a bit of heat, but once the temperature gets above 40 degrees for too long my pitta gets all out of whack and I can easily blow a gasket (just add ice cream - I love ayur veda)

Its going to be a BIG YEAR. Just keep breathing girl, just keep breathing. This is the last year of my project.

Well, stay cool, unless you are covered in 6 inches of snow in the north......in which case, stay shnuggly.

6.42 am - too early for the beer ambulance? perhaps. But are there any rules against ice cream for breakfast.......

call the beer ambulance!

Well its a bit of a stinker today and its forecast to be a bit stinky hot for the rest of the week. It was all hoses are go down at the community garden this morning with everyone watering in anticipation of a very hot dry windy day. I thought I would post while I am waiting for the ice cream to melt enough to scoop some out of the tub - its too early for the beer ambulance, and really, the first line of defence once the temperature gets above 35 degrees should be ice cream don't you think? You don't want to go out too hard too early....


I have run out of string, so have started plaiting up onions ready to hang in the carport once I do manage to locate some. Sure, not as romantic as garlic plaits, but lovely non the less. I can't tell you how lovely they smell.



A close up of Camilla the secret chicken.


And in anticipation of widdle ducklings this week, I cleaned out the duck pond and filled it with fresh water. This is always cause for much celebration in duck world, and Amelia left her nest to jump in and have a bath.

This was an opportunity to check how the eggs were going - there was one rotten one that was broken and sticky which I removed. The rest look lovely. Esmond has been keeping her company - hanging out beside her in the nest - its pretty cute. This is his first opportunity to be a father - it can go either way with drakes - they can be indifferent, great or murderous dads. Fingers crossed he is the indulgent kind. I don't really have another fox proof pen to keep him in if he does hassle the duckings, so he will have to take his chances with the wolves if he tries to kill the littlies. Just tellin' ya Esmond, just tellin' ya.

Pickles & Chooks n' Stuff

First up - greetings from Annie Claire and The Big Fella.




My favorite sandwich in the whole wide world is Pate, Dill Cucumber and Mayonnaise. This is because my BFF at primary school (Sutton Primary if you ask) was Amelia Salmon and this is the extravagant concoction her Mum put on my school sandwiches on morning after a sleep over.

Well. It was a taste sensation and I get all drooly just thinking about it. You can imagine the reaction from my cheese and tomato, devon and tomato sauce, left over sausages and tomato sauce or Vegemite and lettuce (this was my suggestion, not my Mums) sandwich filling parents when next asked what I wanted on my sandwiches.

Anyway, this early experience led to an off again on again life long search for the perfect dill cucumber. Like most things, the mass produced version is inevitably disappointing, and really, you have to make your own. It wasn't until yesterday I realised that the perfect dill cucumber is actually a weird zucchini and it is pickled in a brine not a vinegar. It is also embarrassingly easy to make. Just sliced veggies and salt and dill seeds and a weight to hold it all down. This one is cabbage, turnip (or is it a swede - I really should put more tags on my seedlings) zucchini and the unidentified zucchini thing that is growing on a vine. And it is YUM. And it is apparently also very good for your digestion being full of lactic acid bacteria thingies. (Well according to the Wild Fermentation book it is)

Amelia Salmon's mum - I salute you!


In other news, here we have some lovely summer/Autumn lettuce seedlings coming up. From memory they are red ice, little gem and crisp mint. See, LABELS.



And greetings from Chu Chu the coolest, hottest, fattest cat in town.


And "hssssssssss - get away from my nest" from Amelia who if all goes well, and one shouldn't count one's ducklings before they hatch and all, should hatch next week.

no vampires here

Behold the gargantuan garlic harvest. These are mostly the Australian variety called "glenlarge" and they are HUGE - all 97 of them. I am especially proud because they are third generation duck herder. I bought the parent bunches from Garlic Farm Sales three seasons ago - always keeping the largest best keeping cloves for planting the next autumn and each year they just get bigger and bigger (and purpler and purpler). Even though they are a hard neck variety they keep very well. If you eat the smallest first, and then all the ones that threaten to sprout first, then you continually improve your stock. love it.

In other news, Mrs Thatcher has had a reprieve - her behaviour has improved considerably when the weather changed. Eric the Bee Yoda and EVERYONE at bee club thinks she should get the CHOP but I must admit I don't feel good about it one little bit. I kinda like having a stoppy queen around - she fits right in with all the other stoppy queens around here. I really don't know what to do.

I know that as a complete newby I lack confidence and experience and only have my gut and my very learned friends to go by - and frankly at the moment they are telling me completely different things.

I played bees yesterday and had a bit of a poke around in her hive. I think that soon there will be some honey to harvest - there are some frames that are almost fully filled and capped. The hive seems VERY FULL OF BEES - most of them gentle but some of the stroppy. Some of them got squished - I am so clumsy and sorry! As I sit here I can smell the sweet lovely aroma of ripening honey wafting in the window. They are HARD at it. They tolerate my stupid clumsiness (mostly). They work ALL NIGHT ventilating the hive.

We also opened up Queen Aprilia's hive - they are going great too.

And I found a new and amazing blog: Top Bar Bees

Most of my bee boxes are kinda quasi topbar frames - with only little starter strips of wax. mostly the bees have been GREAT at drawing out the comb perfectly however sometimes not so much. There is one box that is going to be the biggest mess to harvest. Anyhoo - because the honey and the comb is harvested in these frames - it makes harvesting simpler and much more low tech and cheaper - crush and drain. The Top Bar Bee fellow shows this perfectly.

AND, my neighbour is going to help me make a topbar hive all of my own. (In exchange for honey that is!) So that is VERY exciting.

Anyway - enough about bees.

Bad news, poor Amelia lost her nest of eggs before they hatched. I think while she was off the nest having a break a naughty chook dug up her nest. Poor darling - she has reassembled some sort of nest but most of the eggs got crushed. I will give her another couple of days and then clean the nest out. Sorry EM!!!

Its all about the bees......oh and ducks too.

Queen Atalia



Its hard to get good photos, but if you look closely you can see the newly drawn out comb on these frames. Rather than full sheets of foundation, I give the girls thin little strips of "starter" wax along the tops of the frames, and hope/coax them to build out the whole frame themselves.
This probably definitely impacts on productivity, but I don't care. It means that the comb is all fresh and edible and doesn't contain chemicals or bad things that might be found in commercial wax foundation. And it is so beautiful and white. So far, despite the many warnings I have received, they seem to be building the comb out exactly in line with the frames. Good girls!

I checked them the other day and they were BURSTING at the seams. They had filled a WHOLE BOX of EMPTY FRAMES with comb AND HONEY in just a couple of weeks. Here they are starting to build comb in the roof - until I kicked them out and gave them another box of empty frames to play with.


As for the NEW HIVE - she has been named Queen Aprilia. They are going GOOD. I will try and get some photos of the new girls tomorrow if it isn't cloudy.

And in other news, Amelia and Esmond are in the family way. Amelia has been sitting for almost a week now. Here is her nest. 11 eggs.



And here is Amelia today having a well earned break from sitting and a quick porridge snack.





that is all.

Breakfast in Bed

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.

Everything is NEW

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

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!

Saturday Morning Tour

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.