Country gardens and eye pillows

St Ambrose Farm......so much to admire about this stunning country property, purchased by Paul Bangay in 1997. It started life as a coach house before being taken over in 1911 by the Sisters of Mercy and commissioned as a parish primary school.

It has been transformed into this.....

.......and we visited there last weekend.

Glad to have Colleen and Mel along to stroll around with us and share the joy so early in the morning.

On the way home there was more.....

Autumn in Mount Macedon.....a feast for the eyes.

Amy and I have been doing yoga for a few weeks now ( or yoga a go go as Amy calls it)! 

Last week we did a bit of acro yoga.

L

Our teacher hands out eye pillows at the end of each session for the relaxation part.

 I decided to make one for each of us in the group and personalise them.

This is Jacqui. She manages the shop with her gorgeous sister Kim.

They suggested that I make some eye pillows for their shop.

So I did.

All the little rice packs standing in a row.

You can imagine the auditioning processes that went on here!

Even for the tag......!

The covers can be removed to be washed.

I decided to do collections. 

Typical. Couldn't just do normal random one of this and one of that could I!

Library stack this week.

And adored reading this......

Our baby boys.....

Bill has shovelled and dug and axed and sweated his way through the entire mulch pile now. And somehow even managed to dig out/ chainsaw his way through the final obstacle.

And now we have this beautiful area ready to be grassed.

It rained here last night.

14mm of glorious rain. 

Hope you all got some too.

I bought a feijoa

Six of them in fact.

A single baby one.....

And five bigger ones.

We have planted them behind the orchard to provide protection from the cold blasts of icy air that blow up from the south in Winter ( and at many other times to be perfectly honest ). I will keep a lookout for more so that we can create a hedge of sorts. We decided that if it's going to be a hedge for the orchard, it may as well be an edible one.

Joanne has one growing at her place and the fruit are delicious.

I really love the flowers too. Not sure about the well drained site bit but we'll see what happens.

We have Bill has crowbarred the dirt out of the holes before each planting.

 It's been like digging in concrete.

 Seriously, concrete.

 Which begs the question, "Will these plantings even survive?"

 Course they will!!!

We have also planted ten Acacia melanoxolyn in the horse laneways so far and Bill and Ross dug holes for the next ten. 

I dug up another big clump of daffodils/jonquils in the roundabout garden.

There were over two hundred bulbs all scrunched up together.

One of my original five bulb plantings from years ago.

I replanted them in an empty bed in the potager.

We had a visit from beautiful Bella from up the road.

Twice in fact.

She is such a sweet,friendly, quiet little girl.....

There's been rain.....11mms...

.....so horse feeding took on a whole new look!

Bill constructed a ramp made from pallets to clean the ride-on mower more easily.  ( Is there no end to the uses of pallets?)

Ruth and Ross came to stay for a few days.

Ross helped Bill with all sorts of farm jobs and Ruth and I shopped!

Thank you both. Just when we needed some height and four wheel drive power.

Our little boys are going great guns.

Oh, except for a fall on the rocks at Nana's when their dog Lizzie took off to chase a kangaroo!

Bill has methodically de-mulched this bed so that we can grass it.

There's just one more obstacle. 

The huge tree stump that wants to grow there again.

Time to bring in that crow bar.

I planted a fig tree in the potager. Sadly the fruit trees in the orchard often get overlooked when it comes to care and watering. We expect them to just tough it out. If you live inside the fence you're more likely to be looked after!

Peace rose.....you gorgeous thing.

We are going to visit one of Paul Bangay's gardens on Sunday.

It is called St Ambrose Farm.

I can't wait.

Hope you have something special to look forward to at the weekend too.

Glory days

I love Autumn.

Our golden ash and pin oaks always look so pretty.

The weeks have been full of things to do and see.

A trip back home to celebrate what would have been Dad's 91st birthday.

With selfies.....

......and shenanigans.

Glorious sunrises....

........and sunsets.

And perfect cooler days for farm jobs.

Bill has started moving the eucalyptus mulch from this area.

We are going to sow lawn ( well, grass really ) under the trees to make this a shady place to sit in Summer.

Progress so far...

We  I decided to add some old fence palings (thanks Jamesy) to the potager fence. Bill got out his tradie tools and did some sawing and measuring. This  is how it looks so far. The palings will eventually go all around the fence line.

The tomato bushes are gone and I have planted a lime tree, some turmeric and asparagus. All new to us so a bit exciting really. The large bushy thing is lemon verbena. Funnily enough I don't use it for anything but I love the fragrance of the crushed leaves and will always keep it on my must have list.

 Autumn bulbs are flowering.

I lifted this clump of nerines that has been in the same place for as long as I can remember and replanted the bulbs in the rose garden. 

 Digging up and relocating is one of my favourite garden jobs.

I spent some time researching a fast growing, drought tolerant, frost hardy tree to plant in the alleyways of the horse paddocks.

Paul Bangay wrote about the Acacia Melanoxolyn in his Guide to Plants and they sounded perfect. 

I bought ten of them but I'm thinking of getting more.

We'll  Bill will need to use the crowbar to dig the holes but they are in tiny tubes so the holes won't need to be huge. 

Lots of FaceTime chatter with these two cheeky rascals.

We have booked our flights to go and see them in June when Amy has holidays too. Cannot wait!!

Archer is six months old now and Flynn is three and a half.

Recent arrivals at Frog pond farm.

We have five rescue horses with us at the moment.

 Nareeda, Charity, Bonnie, Missy and Malta. 

They are all doing well and we are keeping up with their feeding and watering twice a day.

They will need rugging up for Winter soon.

Farmer Bill is ready for Winter too!

Amy has been studying children's literature at uni. 

This library selection has been her bedtime reading.

And she has begun to acquire her own collection.

My library pile this week .....

I went to buy potting mix and came home with this.

Fancy that.

As if I'd be able to come home with just potting mix!!

Hope you are all having some glory days at your place right now.