Haiku for Alexis

                                                         Green Goddess Lilly

                                                           Regally Flowering Once

                                                          Frogs Trumpet Their Joy 

Wild Game or Christmas dinner

Here is a total surprise from late this afternoon.

While I was sitting here at the dining room table with my laptop,late this afternoon, this amazing Guinea Fowl appeared in front of the window....it may have come from the Peacock farm but that however is about a kilometer and a half from here. Still they do have long legs I guess and can fly but only up to a roof top or in a tree where they are safe from foxes. A friend of mine from years ago used to artificially hatch their eggs as they are very poor parents. Then when they were a certain size he would sell them as pheasants....hence the idea of a Game Christmas dinner coming up.....

It was rather curious that the resident Magpies didn't put up a fuss at all, as usually they do and at anything strange, they protest very loudly. I do hope it stays around and befriends my chooks...

The irises have started to flower now and I quite like the white one with the yellow falls. the other ones are a lovely rich yellow and there is also a yellow one with white falls....

The garden has gone ballistic with all the rain we have had. Not that the rain has been heavy as the soil underneath is quite dry and I noticed today with the warmth the vegie patch looks like it will need a drink tomorrow

It is Bird week this week apparently and I have no bad bird stories other than that my chooks ,when I let them out for an extended scratch around , will come over to me and peck my shoes and legs of all things .....it keeps me moving I can tell you......

Best Twenty Eight Dollars I ever spent....

Earlier this year I had the good fortune to buy four Brown Chooks from a free- range farm in the hills of Willunga. They were 18 months old and apparently not good enough to be commercially viable in the egg laying department. I payed $28 for them and that is the best $28 I ever spent...

I picked them up in wine boxes and settled them into my chook run on fresh hay with a bowl of water and some pellets which are meant to give them all the nutrients they need.

The following morning , as a "thank you" they presented me with four eggs and wandered into the spacious yard where I had dropped a wheel barrow load of hay from a round bale that was still in the paddock close by.

They loved scratching around in it and it was a huge success with them and still is. The bale is nearly finished now but there is another one in the paddock which will be brought over with the tractor. They have laid a constant four eggs a day with occasionally only three.....right through the winter months. My friends love buying these happy eggs and so their feed bill is taken care of as well..

This photo on the left, shows the Tawny Frogmouth parents on the top limb with the two chicks below them. Again he was a long time sitting on the eggs, they seem to take four weeks to hatch. They stay on the nest for a week or so more and then suddenly the chicks fledge and  they are off into the wide world beyond the Ash tree where they were born.

You may have to click on the photo to see them more clearly...another successful spring..