I had a tough time deciding what to make for mother's day presents, I'm finding it harder to not just make the same thing year after year. Lukily I saw a DIY video for making kokedama gifts for mother's day.
It was actually quite a fun little project, a little awkward, but worth it in the end. I did a practice run at home with a spider plant and cotton twine before I decided to go out and buy all the materials. It is still going strong, which is surprising since I don't give it a soak every week like I'm supposed to (and when I do, I tend to forget to take it out until the next day).
I chose to use the lovely zygo cactus, which flowered not long after mother's day. Being a cactus they seem to do well as a kokedama.
I love my hanging baskets, especially when I've remembered to keep them well watered!
I have some pretty old ones where the coir fibre is falling apart - the birds love stealing it for their nests. While I like the metal part of hanging baskets, I don't like the coir fibre so I decided to try out paperbark since I have a tree in our garden. It is a little fiddly getting it to sit nicely but I think it looks great!
With all the movement restrictions due to covid I've been trying to make do with what we have rather than my usual "quick trip" to Bunnings to buy everything I need for my brilliant ideas. But hey, all this creative thinking also means that I'm saving money!
This basket has a cherry tomato plant called "Blue Berries" in it. Normally I grow them in the ground but with all the rain we were having I decided I'd put some under the patio to stop them all being cracked from overwatering - although the chickens do love them! So far they're doing well and they taste great, I just make sure I water and fertilise them regularly.
After losing Trixie, our house felt so empty without her, we didn't want to be there and we didn't want to come home. We went to an adoption day to look for a puppy and it might have been too soon, but then again it might always be too soon. It was so busy, there were heaps of people and we were overwhelmed so we left. Then looking online at all the rescues and still being unsure, we decided to foster some puppies. So we got 3 little puppies and they all found homes a few weeks later. Then we got two more puppies and ended up adopting Archie, a wolfhound cross.
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| Archie @ 6 weeks |
Archie loves hugs, people, other dogs, water, digging, chewing, biting, eating anything and everything, he is a chatterbox and a clown, chases brooms and mowers, he is a shoe thief, a scaredy cat of anything new and has trained the neighbour to give him pats and treats. He is very different to Trixie in looks and personailty... oh and size! I can't trust him with my chickens, he caught one of my quails (I need to tell you about those) and he chases the cats and barks at them non stop.
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| Archie @ 3 months |
Our house and backyard now have puppy gates and fences - luckily he doesn't realise he could easily climb over them. It is amazing that I forgot just how much work there is in raising a puppy, I can't wait for the day he calms down, unfortunately we're in for a long wait!
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| Archie @ 5 months |
Things have changed a lot in the last 4 years with our pets.
After babysitting chooks for my parents for over a month I managed to convince Ray that we needed our very own chickens! It wasn't because he likes chooks, after all he is allergic to birds, but he did notice how much better backyard eggs taste.
I started off by getting sexed week old chicks, one welsummer, one plymouth rock and two barnevelders. The welsummer wasn't a welsummer, the plymouth rock was a boy and the barnevelders died at 1 week and 9 weeks old.
Since we can't have roosters here I needed to get some more chicks so I found some four week old chicks and ended up with two wyandottes and a sussex. And then to better my chances at getting girls I got two super cute araucana cross chicks that were 2.5 weeks old. They all ended up being girls!
I rehomed the rooster and three of the girls which left me with Petal the silver laced wyandotte and the araucana crosses Calla and Blossom.
Blossom is totally my favourite, so much so that I let her hatch some hamburg and marans eggs so we could add to our flock. Last year on New Years Day 7 out of the 8 eggs hatched and we kept Violet the french wheaten maran, and still have two of the gold spangled hamburgs. I haven't settled on names for the hamburgs as I'm still undecided on whether I want to keep them.
Blossom with the hamburg chicks, she is such a good mum and even fought with her sisters if they got too close!
