Catch-up and a Question

Wow! It's been quite some time since I last posted here!

The Woodman and I have been having fun pottering around our little patch.

We have had some successes and a few failures with our fruit and vegies.

It's all still a big learning curve for us :-)

 But we are really enjoying getting our hands dirty and seeing what grows well in our small back garden.

The peach and nectrine trees were attacked by leaf-curl, which meant we ended up having to spray them.

The dutch carrots grew beautiful lush leaves and looked so promising - but were badly  deformed and wrapped around each other.

(Hubby now realises that he planted them much too close together!)

We are now in Summer here in Australia..

 but you'd never know it with all the rain we've had recently.

This has caused the silverbeet to suddenly shoot up like it was on steriods!

 But that's ok - the chooks are loving the bits we don't use.

Speaking of chooks..

I read recently that you shouldn't wash the eggs if you can avoid it.

Is that true?

I just automatically washed our eggs and dried them before storing them away.

The debate I read was something about them not lasting as long, and spoiling because of some film being removed by washing them.

Any advice out there for a confused "wanna-be backyard chook farmer", lol! ?

These silly chickens are obviously getting to me.. big-time !!

If you knew me well, you would know that I love country-style decorating magazines.
I used to buy them regularly and have a huge collection which I still enjoy re-reading and relaxing with.

Well, last Saturday I found myself in a quandry as I stood in the newsagent looking at the magazines on offer.

I simply couldn't decide if I wanted to buy the 3-for-1 country decorating pack..

 or the lovely glossy poultry magazine that had articles on how to build the most splendiferous chook houses!!

My hubby stood in disbelief and laughed at me incredulously...
so I bought the 3-for 1.

It wasn't nearly as interesting as the chicken mag :-(

Guess I'm in love with my chooks, lol!!