Holy Cow!

Today on the way home from picking up my son I thought there was a fire in the mountains... and then we looked a little closer and realised that it was actually the cedar trees letting off a bit of steam... or pollen in huge quantities.  I have been sneezing a bit lately and thought that the pollen season must be almost upon us... today's spectacle confirmed it.  The tissue companies must love this season!!!!

The chickens are back!

After far too long without chickens they are now back!  We picked up 20 80-day old chickens this morning and they are quickly settling into their new abode.  The punk rocker at the bottom has already established herself as the Queen of the brood and enjoys taking pride of place on the warm concrete steps up to the chicken house.  Hopefully they will grow fast and we will be collecting eggs for breakfast in the very near future!

Back garden day 1

Before

The thing I am looking forward to most about my son starting junior high school in April is not having to go and get him from school at 3:30 every day.  Because we chose to take the kids to a school that is not within walking distance of our house I have spent the last 8 years getting frustrated every afternoon when I start to do something in the garden, but realise I have to stop soon to go and get the kids from school.  Half the time I figure I only have an hour or so and therefore there is no point in actually starting.  Lately I have been trying to change that attitude though and looking at it from the point of view that I have a whole hour to spend in the garden so what can I get done?

Today I started working on the back garden area that has always been a bit of a mess.  I find this area hard as it has never really been a "garden", but is probably supposed to be a Japanese style garden as it is outside our tatami room.  Although I spent a bit more than an hour,  I ended up  pulling out all the weeds, making an edge for the area, piling up all the remaining big rocks that I couldn't smash for the front garden and then smashing up some roof tiles to make another layer of rocks in front of them.  Hopefully I will get around to getting some shitake log mulch in the next week or so for the front area and maybe plant a few grasses or something there.  Anything has to be better than weeds!

Front garden update

As the 5 o'clock siren went off tonight the last of the rocks for the front garden were smashed and a little birdie moved in to look after the area in case some moles decide to come tunneling in.  Not perfect, but an improvement on what was there before.  

Hopefully the carpet and the rocks will keep the weeds away long enough for me to start concentrating on the next problem area on the other side of this room.  There are no more rocks left to smash so I'm thinking I may have to move on to rotting shitake logs to keep the weeds away.... but that would involve a trip to the mountains to collect them.... maybe next week... maybe not...