A few random photos of our recent days:

Our Italian helper cooked us pizza!  YUM.  We have never made or had ‘pizza blanca’ but that zucchini and yellow cherry tomatoes was absolutely delish.

I wasn’t entirely impressed at our youngest leaving her teddies outside – but she stacked them cutely in the wash basket – so that kinda made up for it ;-)

Trick question now – what don’t you see in this photo?

Answer – this huge pile of leaves!  And since it is raining today (yes summer rain, water our plants and fill our tank some, summer rain J), this will be on its way to composting down J.  But major bonus of course is that it is a major step in bushfire fuel reduction under our Marris.

The other major progress, with helpers, has been the chook run extension with cemented poles and buried scrap tiles and tin for foxy prevention.  The girls will be loving this when it is finished very soon J.  Michael is hoping to get the strainer wires on today, then it will be time to get the meshing on.

And our best fun was yesterday’s Sausage Dogs South West Bushfire Fundraiser.  There is no doubting the hilarity of 16 snaggy dogs running loose (in a fenced park of course).   Pepper was in doggy play heaven with friends to run with, and run with and run with!  She was a bit of a natural leader in the cheekiness stakes - and she won the ‘Running of the Weiners’ race too J.

 

Tired…just the usual ya know…

But time to update:

Our beautiful Pepper :-).  She is so much fun and we love her to BITS!!

The Chookens are very entertaining :-) - especially me trying to work out if they are gals or guys!  I am now thinking Rosie Posie is our only girl and not a Roger Poger at all!!  Here they are today – the Wyandottes are still in the ‘ugly duckling’ phase, but the Brahmas are looking very pretty.

If you can enlarge the photo you will see:  Twilight at the front left, then (clockwise) Peggy (who is the boss – and probably a boy seeing as wattles are definitely developing red!); then Midnight (blacker Wyandotte); Fred the other black Wyandotte, then Sunset and finally Rosie Posie who has the most developed comb but it is certainly still very yellow, so it looks like she is a girl.   As I said, she might be the only one, I think…gotta check their legs, that is apparently another way to tell before they crow…

Sunflowers are still pretty in all their stages :-)

I just love this one (it is not the one above, but a different one):

Look at all that shaggy gorgeousness!

Most everything in our garden has gone to seed, so that is good for having lots of chook food :-).  I am very, very behind on getting in a summer crop – still hoping I will get some seeds started this coming week – and in anticipation, we got this potting bench sorted today :-) – yay!!

And it has had a coat of Sikkens, so is looking slick now and will be ready tomorrow to be put into service.  We plan to put it next to Cluckingham Palace and build a lean-to roof over it and have outdoor blinds around it to be a year-round hot house :-).  Very excitement!!

And of course, it is spring – so cleaning is happening.  It might be a big one because I am reading some of the minimalist, major de-clutter blogs!!  The family has been warned.

First up – the kitchen benches :-):

Pray it lasts!!!