Springtime Glory

We have  been really busy  since I last posted, getting lots of   done .
The  Rail heritage Barracks  Accommodation that we volunteer for was offered the opportunity to run the refreshment stall and bbq lunch  at the  spring open day at our local native plant nursery "Bilby Blooms" near Binnaway, NSW.
Our group is  badly  in need of   finances and this was a great  chance for us  to raise a bit of  money to help out.
The  owners and managers of Bilby Blooms, Annabelle and Anthony Greenup   are also great workers for our Railway Barracks .

They are a dedicated  pair who work tirelessly raising and selling their wonderful native seedlings and larger plants.
The nursery is  stunning  and they open it up twice a year ( Autumn and Spring) for a public open day.
We arrived early in the day and set up our  shelters  , tables and   barbeque .
My husband and brother in law ran the bbq for the day and did a wonderful job cooking numerous sausage and  rissole sandwhiches.

The girls ran the morning tea and cakes stall, all our scrumptious cakes were kindly donated by members of our group.

We had a small but constant stream of  people passing by and many people took advantage of the  glorious weather and sat around  chatting and enjoying the day.

We met many interesting people over  the course of the day.

I am unable to identify most of the  beautiful plants that I saw and photographed as I walked around their nursery, so I will just  post the pictures here for you to see.
I saw  stunning, Hakeas, grevilleas, acacias, and many, many more .

Annabelle and Anthony  also  have three young workers staying with them from France,  they were a great help to us on the day as well.

There were tables of plants set up for people to  buy if they found the plant they wanted and there were  several walks through their  property through the day with talks and lessons on caring for and pruning  certain  plants.

We had a most enjoyable day, as did many of the people I spoke too and I look forward to their nest open day in the Autumn.
Take care everyone until we  catch up again,
Cheers,
Jane.

Baby Chickens and an update on our garden.

Three weeks ago we set 42  chicken eggs into our incubator ,some from a neighbour and some of our own hens  and on Thursday when I went up into the shed I could hear cheeping.
I went over to check it out and look what I found........

Our first baby chicken and a few other eggs that had also started to hatch out.
The next morning we went up to the shed, removed the top of the incubator and found all these  sweet fluffy little bundles.

We then  moved them over to the brooder that we had started  warming up  a little earlier that morning.

We ended up with 15 chickens all up, we had a couple of rotten eggs, but the rest were just infertile.
The main  eggs that hatched   were mainly our neighbours eggs,  ours  were only off young hens and roosters, so we may just have to wait until they are a little older to try again.
Our little 2 year old granddaughter has been here for the week and this morning she came running in saying" Nanny, Baby Chick" and was pulling me towards the shed and when I  got there noticed immediately two small chickens had escaped. We caught them and we then spent some quality chicken petting time with her.

 We  went on a picnic lunch with Miss 2 to the park and she was fascinated by the resident geese that live in the park and wander the streets close by.

Our daughter also came to stay a few days,  with a baby granddaughter aged 12 weeks(Miss 2's little sister) and while here did a bit of  "shopping"  in my  preserving pantry, she has a love of all things pickled, and the Habanero gold pepper jelly.

When we brought our granddaughter home we also  brought home their kelpie dog  Doug, we also then babysat our neighbours sweet little dog Lulu for a night while they went away overnight.  I took this cute photo of them all curled up in their beds.

Our garden  is starting to come along well now, both the flowers and the vegetables.
We have started off a few  seedlings in our little plastic seed raising house.

The spinach, onions and broad beans are growing well, and the spring onions are flourishing,

And the rhubarb is also thriving in it's raised beds.

the crazy flowers at the top of the steps is a mad mass of colour,

and the Gazanias in the front garden  really starting to  bush up  and add a splash of orange at the front door.

The Cliveas we transplanted from my daughters garden are  all budding up and starting to flower, we were worried that they may not do well in the winter here but it doesn't seem to have worried them at all under the jacaranda tree, they must have enough protection there.

I  have finally got my first  Lilac  bloom, I am so happy. i grew up with lilacs blooming outside my bedroom window, and they always remind me of my sweet grandmother who has long since  passed away.

We had also transplanted a whole pile of Iris's that we had in pots on the coast, hopefully by next year they will begin to bloom, i doubt if we will get any flowers this season.

Our orange pig face is also madly blooming, the King parrots unfortunately  love them and are always chewing at them and we have lost a few plants recently.

We used to have a large amount of lavender plants but   some of them were aging  and have died off, I intend to add a few more new ones  to fill the empty spaces.  The agave that I brought up from the coast is also doing quite well, and the frosts didn't seem to worry it  either, luckily it seems to be in a fairly protected spot too.

Now that we are here full time, and have sorted a lot of the water issues, the garden is finally beginning to improve, but there is still a long road ahead of us in that area, still very much to do in that area.
I hope you all are well and happy and stay that way until we meet up again.
Take care Everyone,Cheers,
Jane.