Slowly, slowly

That's how things have been getting done around here lately.  Little bit of work on this and then on that, but I'm hoping slowly somethings might get finished (or close enough!).  This lifestyle can be tough at times, SO much to do, you can't just focus entirely on building something or finishing something, or other areas get neglected.  Jobs like trimming animal hooves, cleaning gutters, cutting firewood don't really show up on the over all picture, yet some of these jobs can take up a whole day or more.  Each day that we are able to work here we just have to make a priority based on urgency and the weather (no point fencing in the rain, or doing indoors tasks on a nice day).

My method for getting work done is simply to do a little bit of lots of things each day, I find the slow and steady pace gets the work done and with children about I can't focus my attention on getting a job done start to finish without interruption anyway!  Autumn and winter is my time for the orchard (its about the only time I can really give it!).  I weed a nice circle around each one (about 1m circumference on the older trees), give them all a mineral fix (lime, blood and bone, seaweed meal and other trace elements) and a 10L bucket of compost.  So far I've done about 40 trees.  I can see that my fruit tree planting obsession will have to slow down as this autumn task will just be too much - I have about 60 trees so far, and about 12 in pots (from a grafting day we attended last year) and still so many interesting varieties to add!

We have made some progress on the polytunnel.  We have added the south side of the wall - just solid roofing iron as no sun will come in that way anyhow and we had it here.  We have moved the concrete trough into position - an interesting task when you don't own a tractor!  In this trough I plan to plant waterlilies and maybe lotus and I would like to put some fish in it - not for food, but for interest.  I would also like a seat in there (not that I have time to sit down!!!!)

moving a concrete stock trough the low-tech way - thanks Ivor!

getting the trough into position - note the south wall filled in

The autumn plantings are growing ok, although the peas have been nibbled by the rabbits and the wombat has been doing a bit of digging (I've put up an electric fence to stop it/them).  Little carrot seedling are up, and winter radishes also.  When the weather is ok we need to dig up our potatoe plot.

broad beans are up!  And my wombat fence!

This is the seedling bench, finally I have somewhere to raise seedlings properly!

We weren't getting many eggs for a while, but the last few days the girls have started to pick up their pace.  I always find that they start to lay once the shortest day (winter solstice) is past.  This year it seems to be happening earlier, and the last few days have had a distinctive spring feeling about them - I suspect spring will be early this year, so I must get my summer vegie seeds soon!