spring with lily

Yesterday the weather was gorgeous - sunshine, blue skies, flowers blooming, birds chirping type weather. I took a moment to smell the roses crabapple blossom, a tree which my sister and brother-in-law gave us for our engagement almost 12 months ago. After a rough winter of possum attack I'm surprised to see it going so well...

Our giant horse chestnut tree has broken out into leaf from it's bare hibernation. Have I mentioned how much I love this tree? Love it. 

And my little friend beside me whilst I admire our Spring garden? None other than my lovely, lovely Lily - such a gentle soul is my Lily-pad. She really is the pin-up girl around here. Tessa has her fair share of mischief making and barking at night, Pippa generally just creates utter chaos wherever she goes, but Lily...well dare I say it, she's just perfect.

Lily is most likely going to live with friends/family whilst we live out our travel dreams next year. She is not a trouble at all, we have quite a few people putting their hands up for her! She may even go to the city to live with Mr M's brother, the thought of Lily trotting down Lygon Street makes me chuckle. Lily who is used to galavanting about the hills of Ythanbrae, jumping in stock troughs and riding on the back of the motorbike. She might need a bath before she goes to the big smoke!

She doesn't work much anymore and it breaks my heart to see her getting so old. I watched her out the study window the other evening making her way from the back gate down the driveway to the bonfire, she stopped three times for a rest and I nearly cried. Mr M mentioned to me the other day that Lily might not be around when (if?) we come home. But we won't think about that for now.

Love you long time Lil, you're up pretty high on my list of the things I'll miss terribly xxx

Images by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella

wordless wednesday: site supervisor

Playing along with Faith Hope and a whole lotta Love.

Image by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella

chateau le chookie: part deux

Our humble chook pen state of the art poultry facility is finally completed! After 10 months living here at Brindabella and the chook pen being (apparently) high on the priority list we thought it about time our poor hens have somewhere to call home of an evening. (We only got the chooks back recently, they were staying at Mr M's parents prior to that).

Last time you saw Chateau le Chookie it may have resembled something like this, minus the aviary wire which Mr M started doing before I got my camera out!

We'd rammed the posts in, strained the assemblies, put guide wires up for the netting and put a sloping tin roof on half of the pen. Next step was to dig the wire into the ground all the way around the pen to fox proof it. Even though you may think this wire looks fancy and new (and we had taken an oath of using only found materials on the farm to build Chateau le Chookie) this 10mm aviary wire which is usually used for, you guessed it, aviary's, was used to fence off my Dad's new pool area on the garden side to make it kid friendly. So there - we didn't purchase anything!

After the wire was dug into the ground to stop the sneaky Mr Foxsy Loxsy's Mr M screwed tin sheeting we already had lying about to the back wall, enclosing the chookies little house. He also built their raised platform where their perch and nesting boxes would be.

The nesting boxes we put on the outside of the overall structure, with a tilted tin roof to weatherproof and a lift top to easily collect the eggs. Mr M was busying himself making the nesting box extension and then in a panic called me over. "Can you reach in there and get eggs?! Have I made it too high?!" Ah the joys of being 6'5" and thinking the rest of the world is too. It was fine though, I can easily reach in and get the eggs.

After putting the nesting box extension together, fiddling with the lift top, dividers and finding an appropriate stick to be their perch we turned our attention to the door. We put down a little pad of old red bricks to fox proof the doorway as well and hung our old door.

Then the other weekend Mr M and his brother completed Chateau le Chookie with a hinged door into the nesting area and added a little ladder for the little ladies, as well as hooked up their watering system to easily get a drink by themselves.

We used hay straw in their nesting boxes and sawdust on the raised platform. The mesh wire under their perch is so their dropping fall underneath the platform and can be easily collected for my garden! We've noticed a marked improvement on egg production, but the silly chookies don't seem to be able to perch at night and we've been literally putting them to bed of an evening! Any ideas how to make them perch or are they a lost cause? Perhaps the perch is too high or not smooth enough?

Chateau le Chookie I think could just be our greatest construction to date!

Images by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella

chateau le chookie: part une

Since our little chookies have come back to live with us they have been residing in *ahem* somewhat confined and substandard conditions. A simple stock crate construction with random tin sheeting sides to keep the weather out and an old rabbit hutch as their nesting box. Please don't report me to the RSPCA - I promise they have clean water, fresh food, warm nesting boxes, a roof and walls to keep the rain off and I let them free range around my garden destroying everything in their paths because I feel bad enough about their temporary housing. Bad chookie mama. Like we said, it was only a temporary solution, a chook pen was coming, we promised. Well this weekend seemed as good a time as any to get started.

With visions like this beauty in my mind I was quickly brought back to earth by my friendly farmer who basically snorted loudly at any notions of gables or archways or white painted eaves and pretty grey shingles on a mere chook pen. No, we would use only materials we had already or could scavenge from around the farm. Fair enough. But only the best for my chookies, so this little chook pen would be known as 'Chateau le Chookie'. Why yes I have been watching too much Tour de France and yes I seem to have developed a French accent whilst passing screws and tape measures to Mr M as he builds Chateau le Chookie.

First things first, we marked out where we wanted to put Chateau le Chookie - in the general area next to the shed on the eastern side of the backyard. The area next to the shed used to have a gate into the yard, but with the construction of the new fence we decided this is actually where we would like to put the dog pens (which we had at Ythanbrae but are yet to construct here at Brindabella, yes we have lived here for nine months and our dogs are still homeless!) So dog pens at the back against the fence, right next to the shed and chook pen in front of that with a little walkway up to the dog pen. We knocked together some rough old plans (yes the measurements are in feet, pine posts are measured this way so we worked this way) and got a few trusty friends on the case: can of pink spray paint and the fence post rammer on the tractor. Thankfully we are old friends after the great new fence construction earlier this year.

The pen will have a yard area for them to run about in as well as a raised nesting box house and an egg collection flap. We rammed in ten ex-vineyard posts we actually brought with us all the way from Ythanbrae (the other farm in Yea had a vineyard). Lots of me jumping about again telling Mr M the post was 'as crooked as an Indian spin bowler!' Eventually we got them in though. Lily and Pippa were site managers today as Tessa was off exploring in the paddock making friends with the lambs. Too busy and important for mundane Chateau building.

Next came the strainers along the top. The front section of Chateau le Chookie will just have wire on the roof (i.e. no need to be sloped). The rear section however will have a tin roof so we needed to put a slight angle on that to allow rain to run off. Pine posts acted as the top stays on the front section, with wooden boards on the rear section. String lines helped.

I will admit a bit of cursing and head scratching with a few crooked angles and bent posts. Then to top it all off Mr M went and put a strainer wire on his assembly too tight and threw the whole project a kilter. Let's just say trying to fix the issues with a hand winch for a good few hours was a waste of time and we should've just cut the wire and started again. Sigh.

What I think is most exciting me about Chateau le Chookie is the door. Yup, the door. This door used to be the doorway through to the new western wing of the garden we made (it used to be paddock), we were going to remove it anyway to open up to the new part of the garden and I suggested using it as the chook pen's door. 'You can't buy a door like that!' I believe was my plea. Here it is in its former home, and ready to be installed in Chateau le Chookie.

At this point Mr M's Dad arrived as reinforcements and I was stood down as right hand man woman. The rest of the afternoon they managed to get the tin roof on the rear section as well as dig a trench for the wire to go into (to keep those pesky digging foxes away from my chookies!) Most of this however was done in the half light then absolute pitch black, no time for great photography, so I will have more photos of the Chateau le Chookie soon. Promise.

Have you got chooks? Where do they live? Please don't tell me they live in a Taj Mahal of the poultry world, I just might cry.

Images by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella

Pssst....check in over at Lou's to see some other lovely people's weekends

they all come home to roost

When we moved from Ythanbrae to Brindabella we took our four chooks with us - Chick, Chick, Boom and Timmy (named after a certain politician who went missing in the bush after this little chicken spent a night in the bush at Ythanbrae and came home unscathed from certain fox attack).

Problem was...we had no chook pen at Brindabella. And a mountain load of other work to do before we even considered something as extravagant as poultry housing. We just had a million other priorities, like tame the jungle, demolish a mini-forest, build a fence. You know, stuff. So the four chickens went to live at Mr M's parents, which was handy because their old chickens had recently gone to the big chicken in the sky (except one). Eggs for the in-laws, a temporary home for our chookies. Everyone's a winner.

Then the in-laws decide to up and sell and move. Hmm. Still nowhere to put chookies here at Brindabella, now have five homeless chickens. So on the moving weekend we brought the five chookies home to Brindabella, found an old stock-crate-cage-type-thing in the shed, plonked it on the lawn about where we think we'll eventually build a chook pen, put a nesting box in it (Mr M's childhood rabbit hutch, also a remnant from Dumerilli) and bob's-your-uncle, instant chook house. 

They haven't laid many eggs since being here, could have something to do with the trauma of coming in a cardboard box on the back of Mr M's ute from their previous residence. Or it could be the dogs constantly stalking them. No matter, the little eggs I have been getting have kept me busy in the kitchen and this weekend I have been letting the chooks free range all around the yard. Tessa generally is petrified of them after they flap and peck at her, a chicken attack is never far away if Tessa tries to eat their food. The working dogs generally don't bother them, if anything they have a natural instinct to herd them not eat them, although I wouldn't leave Pippa or Lily alone with the chickens for too long or it might be chicken feed of a different variety. This photo of Tessa and the chickens cracks. me. up! It pretty much sums up their relationship...

Not too sure...!

I am totally smitten though to have my little chookies back again. I never had chooks growing up as a kid (I did have a pet goose called Gertrude though, another story) but now I couldn't imagine not having them. Ever. Call me the crazy chook lady. Love my chookies, good chookies, now just stay off my garden and get laying!

Photos by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella

P.S. Apologies for the funny colour cast in these photos, didn't white balance! Tsk tsk.

the workers

These guys probably get a bad wrap from me. I whine and complain about Pip's crazy antics, about Lily's serious lack of personal space, about having to give them runs and controlling them from chasing everything in sight, but deep down they are part of our little family just as much as Tess-Tess is. (Probably more so seeing as though they actually have a purpose - ha!)

These days Mr M is working fairly late, until well after dark, as produce season is in full swing. This generally means I give the dogs a run when I get home from work. With Pippa this can mean constant supervision, although of late she has been a good girl for me. Last night I was most proud of her as she stayed by my side whilst the neighbours steers were loaded onto a cattle truck and she fought every instinct in her body not to race over the fence to 'help'. Good girl Pip.

One things for sure - when I let them off their chains of an evening they go nuts. Like really nuts. They generally calm down after five minutes, but for those fleeting moments it's all flying dust and grass and flashes of tan and black and Lily's swishy tail. Crazy hounds.

I love them, honestly I do, even if I did find Pippa in the middle of the kitchen the other day when I left the door open. 

Pippa.

The working dog.

In the farmhouse kitchen.

Oh dear.

Don't worry Pip, I won't tell Boss. It's just our little secret.

Images by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella

simple pleasures

Last night Mr M was working late, he called me from the tractor to ask if I could give the dogs a bit of a run around as this is usually his job and he wouldn't be home before dark to do it. I usually potter about with him doing outside jobs whilst the hounds bound about the garden and the surrounding paddock, Pippa generally making a nuisance of herself. Problem is that if Pippa gets a scent or hears a far away barking dog, bleating lamb or mooing steer she takes of like a bat out of hell after it, over the horizon and never to be seen again. Well, a lot of yelling, whistling and stock whip cracking by Mr M usually does the trick, but she rarely listens to me, so I had a little discussion with her about this and told her that there was to be no funny business. Her attention span is, lets just say...lacking.

To keep her entertained I stayed outside to 'supervise' at all times. I had washed some sheets that morning so needed to get them in off the line, it was just on sunset and the light was absolutely streaming in from the west across the dam, through the gum trees and onto our washing line next to the shed. Sometimes the simplest of ogjects and tasks can make the most beautiful images.

The light was absolutely begging me to walk the extra few hundred metres down to the gum trees and edge of the dam, another excuse to keep the dogs entertained whilst I was 'babysitting' them. Sometimes I really miss our outlook from the cottage, but last night was magic of a Thorpdale variety with the smell of 'spud dust' in the air and hum of nearby potato harvesters.

Thorpy.

Home.

 

Hounds entertained, Emma's shutter finger satisfied for the night, sheets dry, dogs fed and dinner in the oven. Come on Pip, let's go home.

ava hearts ponies

My youngest niece Ava has a new love of pony riding. Over Christmas Ava and big sister Scarlett got to do a lot of equine activities whilst they stayed in Thorpdale, Ava was particularly taken with all the horsing around though and actually downright refused to get off!

Danny is going on 28 years old, just check out the grey faced old boy! My sister Louise (pictured) and I got him for Christmas when I was five and Lou was eight, he was my first and only horse (Louise and I graduated to my older sister's horse Midnight when we outgrew a pony). Little did we know on that Christmas day in 1991 that Danny would become a family member for the better part of twenty years, taking us on many adventures to the local waterfalls, patiently teaching me to learn how to showjump, races under irrigators and through spud paddocks, trail rides with other local kids and being the bestest best buddy to our big gentle Midnight.

Most of all we could never have imagined another generation of girls getting to ride our stubborn little Danny. I remember at times being terrified of Danny, after being bucked off or stood on, and kicking and screaming at him trying to get his girth done up. But he really has been the best kids pony, even now if Louise or I jump on him he will give a bit of spunk, test the waters, but plonk a child on his back and he is the ultimate professional. Cool, calm, collected, just plods along. Bless.