Sunday Stroll

We spotted a tractor parked up by the gate today and went out to have a look. The local contractor left it so that he can mow the paddock this week. The sheep will be pleased. 

Going to seed

Cow parsley, swan plant and chives. 

Spot the skink!

I found a skink in my watering can today. It wouldn't come out even when I tipped the can over. But it let me scoop it out before it scurried for cover. 

I was less pleased to find this nest of paper wasps on the rabbit hutch but it was still interesting to watch them laying their eggs. 

On the bright side

The hens might not be laying but this monarch butterfly was busy on the swan plant. 

The grass is growing and so are the cicadas. 

The raised beds have dried up but there was a crop of potatoes still in the ground from before it stopped raining. 

It's still a bit warm but Henry had found a cool spot. 

The weeds are head high but I found this cape gooseberry bush in amongst them. 

And the possum has taken every last apple but the lemon tree is still producing. 

Blackberrying

We really need to get a contractor in to mow the paddock and spray the brambles. 

We might as well make the most of this year's crop first though... 

A plant to call home

I've been waiting for months to find caterpillars on the swan plants that we bought at Ag Day. 

I had been consoling myself that at least we'd have seeds for new swan plants next year. 

And then today we found three caterpillars, one skinny, one moderately sized and one big fat one. Yippee! 

The next generation

The white hen has been laying and sitting on eggs in the long grass alongside the drive. Today we found her in the coop and when I nudged her to one side to look for fresh eggs, there were two chicks beneath her. 

We have no roosters so this white hen must have been visiting next door. The chicks are only a day or so old and when I went to check on the hen's nest, I found more than a dozen abandoned eggs and two recently deceased chicks. 

We decided to leave the chicks with their mother rather than hand-rearing them as we can manage another two birds in the flock. 

But we picked out one of them so that we could have a closer look. The children were really gentle with the tiny chick and we're looking forward to visiting them again tomorrow.