When your chickens don't want to lay eggs!

So about 6 months ago I moved to my beautiful home that rests on almost an acre. Plenty of room for children, animals, fruit trees and whatever my imagination brings in the years to come. When we moved in my third baby girl was born a short month later so the idea of looking after farm animals and a veggie patch were possibly not going happen this year.....

However, my kind brother bought me two hens just before I moved in! So shortly after my baby was born my hubby created a bit of an enclosure for them...

We were never sure of their age or history and unfortunately never got an egg from them. They also didn't last too long.....thanks to the fox that took it away to the foxes cave ( as my 3 yr old would say!) I was a bit sad when the second one got taken as she became quite tame, allowing all of us to pat her 😀

Now although I didn't want any chickens I kind of got used to looking after them so I decided to get 5 white leghorn pullets. I decided with that breed as I heard they were great layers and apparently these 5 were due to lay in about 4 weeks....4 weeks went by and still no eggs...

I was about to send these chickens back! They were eating a tonne of food, both pellets and all our kitchen scraps, drinking fresh water every day and occasionally escaping from their enclosure! Not fun trying to capture 5 flighty leghorns!!

Now in the past I had chickens and used the deep litter method of keeping their house clean...laying fresh straw on top of dirty straw and as the others broke down I would remove and use it in the garden...

My 6 year old daughter has recently been put onto 'chicken duty' at school and she told me that they take out all the old dirty straw and replace it so I decided to give it ago....to much relief I got 4 eggs that day!!, and have consistently got 4 or 5 every single day since.

So my theory is that some chickens ( such as my old isa Browns) may be happy to live and lay by using the deep litter method but white leghorns are fussy!! They need fresh, sweet smelling straw and then you'll get your eggs.

Since they have started laying they have also become really tame, crouching down waiting for a pat, stopped escaping and following me around like mother hen! So happy chickens, happy mama😊

The question now is what to do with all those eggs.....

When siblings share a room

My brother and I grew up with the luxury of always having our own room, our own space. The luxury grew to be an entire story of the house for us, our own bathroom and living area. Was that really a luxury?

When I thought about what I would want for my children one day, sleeping arrangements never crossed my mind. It was just a given that they would have their own room and when my two girls were here, that's what they had for a year and a half.

When my second daughter was about 18 months old we started to have some major sleeping problems. What was once a great sleeper, was no longer. My husband and I thought, what if we put them together?

So we moved her cot into our eldests room and soon enough our toddler was sleeping soundly. It wasn't without a battle. She would still cry and keep our eldest up, they took longer to settle but eventually they learned to depend on each other to settle to sleep. Not only did making them share a room solve sleep problems, it made their relationship stronger.

We never anticipated how close they would be. Over time when we put them to bed, the crying would stop and be replaced with them singing songs, chatting and giggling together until eventually they would just fall asleep. 

We decided that they would be sharing for a long time to come. We went out and bought them bunk beds, eldest on top and youngest down the bottom. They thought these beds were such a treat! They would pass things to each other, up and down the bunks and when they missed each other we would find them sleeping on the same bed, how cute!

Having bunks has had its challenges..falling down the ladder, changing the linen on the top is a nightmare and not to mention the incident during a bout of gastro when my eldest threw up on her sleeping sister as she climbed down the ladder! Yuck! 

Look it did get to the point where they were having too much fun and being silly with the bunks that we had to separate them into two separate beds but they are still sharing. They still fight from time to time and I still fear for their life when they jump across each other's bed but I know we made the right decision in getting them to share. They love each other more than they ever would, they have learned to compromise, share a space and when I see them share a bed I know that they care deeply for each other. They depend and support each other just as sisters should.

Another baby sister has joined the family and she currently has her own room but I have no doubt in the not too distant future, she will join the gang and we will have all 3 sharing!

It's a bit old fashioned and definitely not the norm to have all our children sharing, especially when we have enough bedrooms for them all to have their own room. However, I like to challenge the norm and believe that it will strengthen our children's relationships for many years to come.

Dreams do come true

 

 

 

 

My husband and I always had a dream of ending up in a semi rural part of our country. We wanted a nice cozy, homely house surrounded by beautiful trees with some furry and feathery friends to keep us company.

To do this would mean big changes. It would mean a bigger mortgage, a change of lifestyle and little bit further out from our families. We discussed these changes time and time again. We ummed and ahhed for quite a while. We couldn’t decide when would be the right time. We always thought that the dream was in the distant future, where we would end up one day, once the kids had grown up.

We’d been renting for a couple of years, sussing out a couple of different suburbs closer to the city, closer to family to decide where our next purchase was. We looked at house prices in the area and looked at what we could realistically afford and simply couldn’t justify the prices. We would be buying a dump, a small place for a small fortune. People would say to just buy anything to get in the good area and then you can renovate. Renovate! With what money? We would be spending our hard earned money just to buy the place. We’d be lucky to have anything left over. The idea just wasn’t right for our family of almost 5!

So we went back to our idea of the dream home amongst the trees and thought, why don’t we just buy there now? The houses were cheaper and we would get a house big enough for our family. Sure, it wouldn’t be exactly what we wanted but we had a lifetime to make it our home. We took the plunge and decided it was now or never. We were going to raise our kids amongst the trees.

After a hot summer of searching, getting our hopes up on many properties and only to have our offers rejected, the right house came along for our family. So we broke our lease and moved in about month before baby number 3 arrived! It was hard but we did it.

Renting has its advantages of not having to maintain your property, possibly cheaper than a mortgage but there’s nothing like the security of your own home. I lived in my parents place for about 15 years and even when I go back to visit there is a sense of warmth, comfort and security because it was my home for so long. My husband and I needed that for our family, for us and our children. We finally found our place to truly call home where we look forward to creating many happy family memories.

Sometimes in life you need to take risks, dive in, take the plunge…dreams don’t have to be dreams, they can be reality.

xxxx

So many zucchinis!

The middle of Summer has well and truly hit here in Melbourne with temperatures scoring into the 40s. Although I struggle in the heat, my garden thrives on it. This is when my veggies are in full bloom. As long as I keep them happy with water, they will keep me happy with a continual harvest of fresh veggies for my family.

Every single year I plant zucchini. If I plant nothing at all, I plant zucchini. I'm a novice gardener but have never failed at growing zucchini, no matter where I've lived. This year I'm growing the traditional green type and have 3 plants taking over the garden bed. In this warm weather they have literally been growing over night and we get to the point where I struggle to find ideas of what to do with all my zucchini!

One tried and tested recipe is my zucchini slice. It's very easy! All you need is:

1 chopped onion

375g of grated zucchini

1 or 2 grated carrots

1 cup of self raising flour

1/4 cup of olive oil

5 eggs

4 rashes of bacon 

2 cups of grated tasty cheese

All you need to do is:

Preheat your oven to 170 degrees.

Fry off your onion and diced bacon.

Whisk your eggs and flour together in a bowl.

 Add all your other ingredients. Mix well.

Season with salt and pepper and place in a greased lamington sized tin.

Bake for 30-45 mins. Just keep an eye on it.

One huge tip that I suggest is once you grate your zucchini pop it into a clean tea towel and wring out all the excess water.

Until I figure out what to do with all my zucchinis, I've begun freezing batches of grated zucchini. You simply grate your zucchini, wring out the excess water and pop into zip lock bags so whenever you want to make something that requires grated zucchini, you'll have it at your finger tips!

A great day, Australia Day

Australia Day is not a day that I normally celebrate and not for any particular reason. The only one I can think of is that my husband normally works, other than that I can't think why. Today was a great day because:

• I slept in
• Everyone was home
• I had no where to be
• I watched my girls ride their bikes
• We walked to the playground
• I made lamingtons with my girls
• We made a huge mess and I didn't care
• I didn't worry about what had to be done
• Time got away from me
• I made homemade mayonnaise 
• I made potato salad
• We had a delicious BBQ for lunch
• There were so many left overs that I didn't have to think about dinner
• The sun was shining
• The girls were splashing in their little pool

A cheats lamingtons

Making  a mess

Homemade mayonnaise

Potato salad

It's days like this that I wish came along more often. It was a day that kind of felt like Christmas Day but probably better. We had nowhere to be, no one to please. The kids were so excited about making lamingtons instead of what presents they would receive. Unlike Christmas, I didn't feel exhausted at the end of it; it was a slow day. I felt relaxed and refreshed to begin another school year. I hope you had a great day too :-) xx

A good quiche recipe

For the past probably 10 years I have been cooking this quiche recipe time and time again with much success. A version of it began from my mum but this is my adjusted version that I wish to share with you.

You will need.
1 sheet of short crust pastry
Butter or oil for greasing
1 brown onion finely chopped
8 rashes of shortcut bacon finely sliced
1 packet of frozen pastry thawed and excess water drained
6 eggs
250ml of thickened cream
Good handful of cheese of your choice. I normally just use tasty
Salt and pepper

How to make it.
Preheat your oven to 180 degrees while you thaw out the pastry.

Fry off your onion and bacon until it's golden and set aside to cool. Meanwhile, pop you thawed pastry in your dish and put it in the oven to blind bake.

Mix together your eggs and milk in a bowl.

Once your pastry case is baked  and cool it's time to assemble.

Start by a layer of the onion and bacon.

Next step is the add your layer of spinach, then cheese. Today I used feta only because I had some left over. If I was using my usual grated tasty cheese then I would add this last. It really doesn't matter!

Finally add your cream and egg mixture and even it out as best as possible. Mine clearly isn't perfect. Who really cares!

Pop it in the oven for at least 45 minutes. Today mine took and hour. Just keep checking until it's golden brown on top, has risen and a knife comes out clean when put in the centre.

This was my finished product today. Enjoy!

Ps. If you would like your mixture to be firmer you can whisk in about a tablespoon of plain flour with the egg and cream mix and that will firm it up. Sometimes I do it and sometimes I don't. I just forgot today but I'm sure it still tastes good!

Sunday harvest

This afternoon I was able to harvest some of my first summer veg:-) I filled a bowl with some parsley, green beans and 3 tiny zucchini. Some nice organic veg to accompany our dinner!

Parsley Pesto Recipe

Beautiful zucchini flowers in the morning

I'm happy to say that my veggie patch survived a week of scorching temperatures. I watered morning and night and all was good....we'll except for a little capsicum plant. We aren't huge capsicum fans in this household anyway so no big loss.

Corn seedling heading towards to scorching sun

young zucchinis

an almost ripe grape tomato

tomatoes loving the heat

lebanese cucumbers

Although the heat did stress me and my veggies out a bit, the heat definitely sped things up a bit. So for today I harvested a nice big bunch of flat parsley, a zucchini and a tiny cucumber which I ate straight away!

today's harvest

A large bunch of parsley this good called for another pesto recipe, this time parsley pesto.

You will need:

A bunch of continental flat parsley

3 garlic cloves

1/3 cup of extra virgin olive oil

Handful of walnuts

Handful of grated Parmesan

Teaspoon of salt

2 medium sized zucchini diced

Packet of pasta of your choice 

Method: 

Bring a large pot of water to the boil.

While that is happening, add your parsley, garlic, oil, walnuts, Parmesan and salt to a food processor.

Whizz it altogether until it resembles a pesto consistency.

By now your water should be boiling so add your pasta.

When there is a few minutes to go until your pasta is cooked, add your diced zucchini. You could also add diced green beans or potato as well.

Once your pasta is cooked so too should your veg so drain it all and return back it the pot.

Stir your pesto through the pasta and veg and enjoy!

Home again

I've been away with my family for just under a week for some much needed rest and relaxation. As the holiday started to come to a close I started to think about my garden. The weather had been quite hot back home and it wasn't receiving the regular watering that it would had id been home to look after it. I was wondering....

Is everything still alive?

Is anything ready for harvesting?

How much weeding will need to be done?

Did my seeds germinate?

What will I plant next?

Much to my delight I found some things to harvest tomorrow, 2 young zucchinis and some beans.

Lots of flowers on my tomato, cucumber and zucchini plants so many more to harvest later.

Lettuce and corn seeds have germinated.

Some wilted leaves...many many weeds! But no dead plants:-)

I'm happy to be home, my kids are happy to be home back to their creature comforts, hubby's happy to have another week to wind down at home before going back to work.

Yes there are mountains of laundry to be washed, then folded and put away...meals to be planned, groceries to be bought, meals to be cooked...hems to be taken up, name labels to be ironed onto uniforms and the lists goes on and on with no end. The truth is, it isn't all that bad, it's part of my home, my family, my life that I wouldn't trade for any other.

2014 brings a new baby into our family....more washing, more nappies, more crying, more sleepless nights but most of all more love and joy into our home

:-)