Garden Game-plans

The summer looks like it will be a busy one for us. Loads of decorating to do in the house, and loads of gardening to do outside. The images below show what we are planning (with M's final approval of course). The garden is basically split into two by the chicken coop halfway down. So this year we are tackling the first half. What do you think?

This is looking back towards the house, with the chicken coop in the foreground. This is where we may grow veggies until the other half of the garden is sorted.

Looking away from the house. Our two new sheds in the foreground, then a lawned area for chilling and playing.



Helicopter view of the first half of the garden. We plan to plant a hedge rather than have a fence because old tree stumps prevent fence posts going in.

Ikea Meatballs... YUM!

Once you have tasted Ikea meatballs at their restaurant you will know that future visits to the Skandinavian wonder will forever have a new slant. For all subsequent trips to Ikea you will be going to have meatballs, and then maybe check out some furniture while you're there.

Now though you can skip the furniture all together and go straight for the food, because Ikea have published the recipe.

Check it out here >

Mad birds lay 23 eggs in 1 week!

The mad birds in question being our hens. We spent weeks wanting them to lay, wondering if they were all broken. Then we realised that they were in "sitting" mode, with 4 hens squeezing into 2 nesting boxes to hatch a bunch of totally unfertile eggs. "Psycho sitters we call them." No wonder they stopped laying.

However, experience had led us to build the coop in such a way that we can in fact partition off the nesting boxes (for when chicks do actually come along). So we ousted 3 hens, and partitioned them off leaving only 1 hen to sit on the eggs.

The rest spent a week getting over their irkedness at being ousted but now we get between 3 and 4 eggs a day. (They layed 7 between Saturday evening and today). at last they begin to prove their worth outside of the oven.

"Tiny tots tea-time toy time..."

It is a delightful development to discover ones child playing happily by himself, without any encouragement, and without needing your presence to keep him out of trouble. I caught Lije "engineering" no less with brio (or compatible) train track. "How very George Stephenson of him" I thought.

I decided to record the moment of blissful quiet with a few photos.


End result of photos was that I disturbed the child. A few moments later he followed me back and is now sitting under my computer desk chilling out like "his-nibbs" himself.