Chips and apple blossom

Amy was hoping that the next foal born would be named Pistachio...... but no, this is Chips, with his very attentive Mum, Gimella ( ??? ).
Chips was born on Monday so he is just 4 days old.

That's Peanut in the background.
Peanut spends a lot of time lying down sleeping just like most babies except that he accidentally rolled out of the paddock yesterday and couldn't get back in!!!!
They are adorable.

The roof of our new room still looks like this.....

The roof arrived today and looks like this....

The roof men are going to work here at the weekend.
The roof will be the same as the house roof but over 27 years the colour has faded. 
You can see in the photo how much dis-colouration has taken place over that time.
The colour at the bottom is the original.
They match the new roof to the faded colour or as close as possible.

It was so beautiful out there tonight.
There is a mass of apple blossom on our tree that smells divine.
Not sure how the apple tree came to be there. I think it may have planted itself! 

The forsythia also looks beautiful.
 I would normally pick those branches of yellow and bring them inside but I'm not game to mess with it any more than we already have.
 We moved it from the middle garden bed a few months ago.
The burnt trees behind it are on our neighbour's  property. They are pines which will not recover. We hope they will eventually cut them down.
 Our borrowed landscape looks very ugly in that corner.

We bought four more young plants a few months ago when they were just sticks. They too, are looking great and are waiting to be planted.

The tag reads....Shrub which covers all its branches with canary yellow flowers in late Winter. A hardy shrub for full sun which needs hardly any watering. 
250cm by 250cm.
Perfect!


This pretty grey leafed plant is called snow- in- summer or at least that's what I call it. I really like it and it grows easily from bits. It's just coming into flower here now.

I bought these over-sized cups from the op shop for $3 each. I couldn't wait to get them home! They look perfect with the Summer quilts.

I've just finished putting away the Winter quilts and bringing out the Summer ones. The Summer ones usually have some white in them ( in case you're asking!!! ). Mmmmm, I know, but I can't help myself. That's just how it is!


Little rascally boy.....  

Horse buddies and potatoes

 And then there was Jack.....

Jack and his Mum, Nigella (???!!!) have become buddies with Peanut and Donna.

Gorgeous little things.

It's been terrible weather here today. I'm surprised the roof is still intact.
 The wind has been gale force and our poor builders have frozen to death out there.

However, after days of measuring, sawing, nailing, measuring again, lifting, climbing, crouching in confined spaces and using all manner of electrical appliances, the frame is now complete.

( Bill is still eyeing off that pile of scraps....)

 We are hoping the roof will arrive tomorrow.

I noticed the potatoes that we bought ages ago, still sitting in their bags in the laundry and remarked to Bill that we really should plant them somewhere.

 In fact I think my words were....."Let's just poke them in that pile of dirt up the back there!"
Then on my afternoon walk I saw this.....

Bill could never just poke something in the ground!
He even taped the bags together in the order in which they were planted.
Dutch Cream, Ruby Lou and Kippler.
 Bless him!

I am looking forward to reading this article about strawberries that appeared in last week's Weekly Times.

Mum's friend Olwyn gave us these and they are starting to show lots of new, fresh growth.
I didn't know you could have so many different varieties.

We still have freesias to pick....

....and I started another cushion cover this afternoon. 

Flynn sent Amy (Ahmee) a birthday video message.
This is how he looked in the video.

This little boy makes our hearts sing.

Helpers and decorators

 It's so quiet here tonight.
We said goodbye to our Warrnambool family on Saturday morning. ( that's why!!!)
Bill loved having his little helpers around.

They helped us decorate with streamers and balloons to celebrate Amy's birthday. ( not that you can see any decorations in this photo! )

So now it's just us again......

I wandered around the garden after tea to see what I could photograph.  I can never work out what time it is on the first day of daylight saving!

The apple blossom looked so fresh and gorgeous....

The first flower on the red carpet rose was already being attacked by something but still looked lovely.

And the spears on the irises are looking ready to burst. ( Are they early this year?)

Our precious little willy wagtail family are much happier in their new location......

.....and this beautiful girl is another year older.

We love her more than words can say.

More building work tomorrow.

Introducing Peanut

Introducing Peanut......born just one week ago and having a wonderful romp in our paddocks.

We have had our little Warrnambool family staying with us this week, so there's been some fun and games.

Can you guess who the winner might have been.....??????

.....and then a visit to the bonfire tonight to check that it was safe.

Our workers have been coming and going all week and doing a great job.

The brickies came this morning to patch up the side bits......

Another burnt tree was removed to allow us to get  maximum sunlight on our solar panels that will be positioned on the new shed ( when it is built).

Some bits of loveliness in the garden at the moment.......

.....and another bit of human loveliness!

Dad had a cataract removed from his eye today. The surgery went well. Thank you Raylene. We appreciate everything you do for Mum and Dad.

Strawberry love

Lots happening here today but I couldn't resist beginning with this........

 .......Flynn sent this to Bill to put on his shed!
Precious boy.

The glorious rain we had last Wednesday night resulted in some water coming through the temporary wall.

This part was under the library shelving, ( not sure why we did that now ) so some  shoving and lifting and yanking was required. Gosh carpet is heavy! The books were lifted down....

.....and the shelves were jacked up to allow some air through.
Nothing good to be said about the whole process except that it all got dusted for the first time since goodness knows when!!!!  
The sun and wind from yesterday dried the carpet beautifully.

Amy and Bill spent some time on Saturday putting up some temporary and not- so- temporary fencing so that the dogs could come out for a play.

They did such a great job.
Trip was puffed after 2 laps of the garden.....

..... and Toby didn't lift his nose from the ground for 4 hours!! We didn't get a photo of him....he was too busy hunting!

One of Amy's customers from the bank arrived with two polystyrene boxes filled with tubestock from a nursery where she works.
My eyes nearly popped out of my head when I saw them all.
One lot is called gold dust wattle, a low growing shrub often used for screening and colour in Winter. Perfect!
The others are a mixture of ruby saltbush and nodding saltbush. They grow to a metre and have red berries in Autumn. Perfect again!
Thank you Anne. They are most appreciated.


This morning the boys arrived at 7 and set about constructing the scaffolding.....

......so that they could get into the roof space.
Mind you I have no idea what they're doing up there, but I might even go up and have a look myself tomorrow......or not.

And the tank arrived this morning too. It will receive rain from the shed which is still not up so we needed to put some water in the bottom of it to stop it blowing away.

And finally some pretty flower photos, taken while trying to avoid being swooped......still!!!

The last flower is a leucadendron.....I really like that one. Can't wait until it grows bigger so that I can pick some stems to put inside.