More shade structures

My dearest husband kindly put some more shade structures up over my recently made vegie beds. I just need to purchase the shadecloth, sew up some seams and slip them onto the pipe. They really are quite quick and easy to make.

These are the three beds I would like to alternate the chicken's home in, perhaps alternating every 3 months or so (with some time in between those months on the lawn area if need be). The grass keeps growing up into the beds (blessed cooch grass) so I'm hoping the chickens will make short work of that! Everything is looking very sick and bare due to the horribly hot weather - the shade structures should have been put up long ago. Oh well, Rome wasn't built in a day.

Chicken Update

Okay, so I've been doing some research and asking around. Apparently having a silkie bantam together with an Isa Brown is not a good idea. Isa's supposedly don't accept other chickens from other breeds very well and would probably pick on the silkie.

Now I am a little uncertain which way to go. I really like the Pekins but they don't appear to be much better egg-layers than the silkies. It's a matter of finding a good layer that will happily live with a silkie.

I was visiting someones home today - she keeps her home and garden immaculate - although it's nothing fancy, everything is neat and tidy and clean. She even had cushions on her outdoor chair! We get the easterly winds quite strong where we are located and everything outside gets covered in a fine layer of dust (cushions would not last long in our patio area!) so it's hard to keep it clean looking. Spiders also seem to love our house and we have webs everywhere even though I get rid of them on a regular basis. I couldn't help but think wouldn't it be lovely to have a nice, neat, organised yard like that - what the heck am I doing thinking about getting chickens??!!

It really comes down to the matter of lifestyle choice doesn't it?

I suppose I could look at it like this: Well, my yard/patio never looks tidy anyway because of the constant blowing in of dust and leaves, so I might as well go the whole hog and get the chickens too! LOL Can that be classed as 'positive thinking'?

To chicken or not to chicken....

That is indeed the question. I am considering purchasing a couple of chickens - the main reason being my DD9 is really keen to get a silky bantam as a pet (her friend has one) and I thought I could get another chicken that was a good layer for a companion and to get some eggs. Plus I could end up with some lovely free fertiliser.

It feels like a big step though. I mean, what do we do with them when we want to go away? We can't take them with us so then you have to start asking people to come and mind them for you and it all gets quite difficult.

Then I was worried about the smell, the flies, lice and worms and diseases (I've been reading - can you tell?) I have been speaking to other chicken owners on the Simple Savings site and they have calmed my fears about these issues a little.

Oh, to chicken or not to chicken......it's my little quandry at the moment.

Vegie update and decluttering the home...

Nothing much is happening in the vegie patch - with this horribly hot weather we are having everything is taking a bit of a beating. One of my patches has shade but the other ones don't. Although my bush cucumbers in the sun seem to be surviving better than the ones in the shade fortunately so I will need to remember that for next year. I picked a cucumber today and it promptly got eaten by my DD9 and her friend! I wonder what it tasted like?! The capsicums do not handle the sun at all - even the ones in the shade house cop some of the late afternoon sun and have scorch marks on that side!

I just cut all my spring onions down and chopped them all up and froze them. They are already starting to re-shoot for my 'free' second batch. The beans have pretty much had it - I'm not sure when I should chop the bushes down. I think I remember reading somewhere they should be dug back into the soil? so I will do that when it cools down (ha! we are heading for 40 deg C in 2 days time - ugh, I hate the heat!)

So I have been spending time inside decluttering. For some strange reason I find it very freeing to do this. I threw out all my DVD cases and put the DVD's into DVD holders so instead of having a drawer full of them, I have managed to put them into 2 small DVD holder cases and freed up practically a whole drawer - so much more neater and manageable!

I have been very good this week, as far as not being wasteful goes anyway. I waste too much food - I forget things I have put in the fridge, I don't use them up before the expiry date and, the one I do a lot, throw out vegies because they have turned bad before I got to use them. Well, this week I dug them all out of the fridge before they got to the point where they needed ditching and made two pots of soup - a chicken and vegetable soup and a Cream of broccoli soup. My DH has been taking these for lunches. Now I just got to remember to do it again next time!

Happy New Year

I cannot believe how fast 2008 passed by and that we are now in 2009!

New Year Resolutions - do you make them? What are they? One of mine is like everybody else's - more exercise! I spent some time away after Christmas on a beach and went for some lovely walks and even broke out into a jog every now and then and I must admit I felt a lot better for it. Now walking down a suburban street isn't quite as nice as on a beach but nevertheless, if I take my MP3 it shouldn't be that bad and if it is too hot I don't have the excuse not to walk as I have a treadmill!

Another area I want to work on is our finances - in particular, sticking to a budget. Why oh why do we find this sooooo hard?? I have worked out a budget which unfortunately doesn't leave us anything for 'sanity' money, that is pocket money, for ourselves. I can't see where we can cut our budget to allow for this at the moment though either. I think we will just have to see if we can live on the budget we have set first and then try and determine where we may be able to cut back.

My DD's are in private schools which takes a rather large chunk of our money each year but we feel it is well worth it as they are lovely schools so education is a very big expense for us at the moment.

I try and not buy any meat costing more than $10 per kilo. We try and have a meatless meal each week (though this will normally include a little bacon) such as a quiche. I no longer buy much in the way of cleaning stuff and sanitary products. I only use half strength detergent in the dishwasher and washing machine and always wash in cold water. I grow my own vegies (well, I'm trying too!!) and have a couple of fruit trees, all of which by the way is struggling in this terribly hot weather we are having. I always menu plan around the specials and I stockpile the specials too.

DH has just started to brew his own beer which is a big, big saving and well worth the effort. He thinks it tastes just as good, if not better, than bought beer. After all, as I understand it, it's the same as what you can buy except doesn't have the preservatives - win, win situation all round I reckon!

And now this is all down in writing it will act as a reminder throughout out the year of my resolutions.......unless of course I choose not to read it!!