Electric chicken fence

 Excuse my absence, life got in the way and I've been too sick to do much other than sit on the couch!

I have an electric netting fence for the chickens, well to be fair it started it's life as a fence for the cat cage, dog and chickens as our property wasn't fenced (Ray has nearly finished that project).

Now that it is solely for the chickens I needed a solution for holding the ends together, but wanted something easier than tying it with rope every time. I was hooking it on a star picket until I noticed was damaging the wire in that spot.

I was almost going to just use one of those spring clamps when I noticed these in the electrical section at Bunnings.

Now that I've been using it for a few months, I've decided it's time to share with the internet. I would prefer something a little easier to do with one hand, but most of the time I can manage. I like that it's all plastic on the outside - now I don't get shocked when I forget to unplug the fence first! Plus even though it's plastic, in full sun, it hasn't faded or deteriorated as far as I can tell.

I think I might even try the large size for the temporary gates - we're currently using bungee cords and carabiners!

New Veggie Garden

Well I finally have one veggie garden bed complete, and now it's so hot that the plants aren't coping in the full sun. Which means my next project is building a shade structure to go over the top.

I've planted a couple of tomatoes, basil, beetroot and zucchini. There's also hollyhock and marigolds in there for the bees.

I'm considering trying a dwarf fruit tree in the middle of one these beds just to create some natural shade for the plants. Honestly I need to get trees planted everywhere as it's just so hot being all grass around the house!

Pillowcases

 Last month Lily had conjunctivitis for the first time, luckily she got over it quickly and actually asked for her eye drops! But the hardest part was the pillowcases, she got upset that I was taking her bunny pillowcase away to give her a clean one. I thought I'd make my life easier and just buy some cute pillowcases, but turns out they're hard to find. Besides, I have so much fabric and a sewing machine so now she's got three new cute pillowcases - and no more tears whenever she needs a clean one!

I even found my notes from when I made all the kids in our family pillowcases for their birthdays. Although I still needed a pillowcase example since I couldn't understand my own instructions!

I found a native bee hive!

 I was so excited to find a native bee hive in a tree on our property. It was purely by chance as I was looking at a branch at the base of a dead gum tree and there was the beehive at my eyeline!

It's a very busy hive, and I assume they are the bees that were frequenting my flowers before I brought my hives here. The tree it's in is long dead, the neighbour told me it was hit by lightning. The old termite nest above it looks like it is being used as a nest by rosellas. I've popped an arrow on the photo pointing to where the bee hive is.

Petal wrap dress elephants and stars

 Well last week I shared the Petal Wrap Dress from Twig & Tale, and after I finished I decided I needed to make another one. Straight away...

As much as I love gathers and ruffles, this is much more enjoyable to sew. These are fabrics that I've had in my stash for awhile, technically the star fabric is a Christmas line from Spotlight, but I think it works any time of the year.

So that's two new dresses - with pockets - for my happy little toddler. Well I guess since it's reversible it's more like four new dresses!