And so it goes…

Hi All,

Another Sunday came and went and I didn’t do a blog post but this time it was deliberate as I wanted to film a short video of our property to show you and we were too busy yesterday because we were in the garden rehousing Steve’s disabled chicken “Limpy”. Limpy is an exception to the rule. When she was born she had something wrong with her feet. She has been unable to walk properly since she was a chick but has a fierce determination to survive. All of the other chickens would set on her and peck her but she would hide and would make her way out to the food each morning from where she had been hiding and eventually we decided that we would put her in a safe enclosure because she has the most ferocious will to survive.

Earl and I have been doing a lot of walking lately. Aside from Earl needing to walk or he eats the furniture, “I” am walking more since the weather warmed up. This yacht is moored just opposite our front gate.

This body of water is called Devil’s Elbow and contains two small islands, Redwood Island and a smaller Islet called Drumstick Island. Earl and I were walking from our house (where I was standing at the front gate taking the photo) around the water to the other side to go to Bonnie Beach where Steve and Bezial meet us driving in the car.

Earl and I met up with Steve and Bezial at Bonnie Beach and we all walk around a little pathway past Drumstick Island and back to the beach where Bezial can splash to his hearts content.

This is the car park at Bonnie Beach, one of Bezial’s very favourite places to cool down when the weather heats up. He is getting on now so doesn’t have to do the full walk but gets to drive in style with Steve to our destination and splash to his hearts content before Earl arrives to spoil everything.

She has been living in an enclosure in Steve’s shed all winter long and we decided that after we shuffled the two chickens that had snuck in to the rear of Sanctuary when we had a brief malfunction in the netting (that also let ducky out but we have since recaptured her and put her back in) that Sanctuary would be the perfect safe spot for Limpy and yesterday she was moved in with great ceremony. She was incredibly happy to move and set off to explore her new enclosure complete with lots of lovely greenery and places to hide.

Isn’t this garden pretty? It’s on route on Earl and My walk to Bonny Beach. I thought I would take a photo to share with you all but most of the gardens along the way look lovely. We are very lucky to have so many lovely walks to choose from 🙂

This is Bezial blow fish hunting on Paper Beach. Paper Beach is his absolute favourite place to go blow fish hunting. He never catches any (thank goodness!) but it doesn’t stop him trying.

Just before this photo, Bezial got a bit too adventurous hunting blow fish and ended up having to swim. He stepped off the edge of an embankment and Bezial only likes to go up to his belly in the water but this time he had to swim for it. He is back in “safe” water in this shot.

We are at the furthest extent of Sidmouth Tasmania as our property borders this road that separates our front gate from the Tamar River. This is the view that Earl and I get on a lovely spring day as we launch out onto our morning walk. How lucky are we?

I headed in to check on her this morning thinking that as she can’t use her feet and has to walk on her (chicken alternative to) wrists that she might be upside down in the tenacious raspberry plants but she was sitting next to her enclosure and after being fed some wholegrain bread she was very happy. It makes me happy to know that this little chicken who had such a difficult start to her life but who had such a ferocious will to survive can live out her days in Sanctuary along with our old one eyed duck.

Here in Australia, bottle brush flowers are passe but for the rest of the world they are something special. Here’s some passe bottlebrush flowers in Kayena Tasmania 😉

This house belongs to Albert. Albert is an elderly German man who I often meet whilst walking Earl in Kayena. His wife passed away earlier this year and he walks with a dog who appears to have adopted him and who is known as the community dog. The dog likes to walk with anyone who walks around Kayena and Earl and I have met up with him a few times. Luckily he is friendly and walks with us as far as his front gate. Albert used to make grappa and sell it but he removed his grape vines as it was all getting a bit too hard. He is a most interesting man and Earl and I like to meet up with him whenever we see him and have a chat.

I often show you the view from our side of the river over to the other side but this is the view from next to Albert’s house looking back over the river. Earl and I walk all around the river to this spot which is just around the corner from Bonnie Beach. It’s lovely the whole way 🙂

I have been walking Earl a lot lately. Aside from him needing the exercise, so do I, so we have been walking further than usual in our mutual pursuit of fitness. I have discovered that Earl doesn’t like walking in the heat of the day and so we walk early in the morning to take advantage of the cool and shade. Yesterday we went to Paper Beach, Earl and Bezial’s very favourite walk, where Bezial can indulge his desire to trawl for blow fish (puffer fish) and Earl can walk the well trodden and dog sniffed bush tracks. Steve drops Earl and I off on the highway and we make our way to the beach where Bezial is wading in the water happily.

There aren’t many stands of old conifers left in Tasmania. They keep getting cut down for people to get a view but this lot don’t interfere with anyone’s view so hopefully they might get to remain for the foreseeable future.

Looking down the hill that Earl and I have just hauled ourselves up. We are most up and we stop for Earl to have a treat. Our car is right behind that school bus in the distance as he brings Bezial up to Bonnie Beach for his splash pre-Earl arriving.

This is Glad’s property. It’s called “4 Oaks” but has decidedly more than 4 oaks. I am guessing the 4 oaks is because there are 4 oaks along the front of the property and the one on the left in this image borders on our property. Notice how lovely and dark its foliage is. The reason for the difference is that Glad insists on raking up all of the fallen oak leaves each year and burning them. I leave all of the oak leaves on the ground on our side so the tree has a lot of nutrients and mulch underneath it and the end result is a happier, healthier tree (and we don’t have to pay anyone to rake and burn them like Glad does)

Just so you can see them, here’s the other 2 oaks and Glad’s house. She has often had people drive up and ask her if she wants to sell her house. She doesn’t. Just so you know 😉

This morning we decided to walk to Bonny Beach and phone Steve and Bezial up when we were halfway to our destination which gives Bezial enough time to splosh around in the estuary before Earl arrives to spoil his fun and Earl enough of a walk to prevent him eating our furniture while we are AWOL at TAFE. Steve is acting in a fellow students film tomorrow and I am filming it. After seeing what the fellow student wants me to actually film I am not so sure that I am the best person for the job but as everyone else is unavailable she is going to have to take what she can get which is “moi” so I practiced filming today and made you all this short film shot inside the house fence on Serendipity Farm. I might even get Steve to mic us up and do a bit of a voice over with the sound gear that we brought home from filming Steve’s film shoot last Wednesday. Filming is fun but hard work!

This lighthouse is right in front of Glad’s house. It is a marker point for boats navigating the Tamar River at night time. It’s apparently pretty old and has historical significance so they can’t just knock it down and replace it like they did with the one on the point.

Grass, glorious grass! Steve spotted this on his way home from taking his friend to Exeter the other day. It seems the council has started their regular mowing cycle for the year! Bliss to narf7 who gets to harvest the end results for mulching her garden 🙂

This oval belongs to Earl. He just wants everyone to know that. He allowed me to drive up and rake up several bags of (free) mulch for my garden recently but ONLY on the proviso that I let everyone know that it’s “his park”.

On our way home from walking the boys yesterday we saw a flock of magpies on the road and slowed down to take a closer look. On closer inspection we saw a crow attacking a magpie on the road. I got Steve to stop and jumped out of the passenger seat to check and the crow flew off when I approached. It turned out to be a baby magpie on the road which the crow obviously thought was road kill and the magpies flapping around on the road were it’s parents. I picked it up to warning squawks from the parents and carefully carried it over to the shade on the side of the road. The parents were readying to swoop down at me when I walked away and back to the car and as I got into the car the parents both started singing to me in relief. It’s the most magical feeling to know that the magpies were expressing their relief and appreciation to me for saving their baby 🙂

This is an Australian native bush tomato. It’s been growing here for a few years now and one day I am going to get to harvest some fruit and try growing it myself. It’s too high up the bank for the annual roadside thresher to chop off and I am keeping my beady little eyes on it for any signs of fruit ripening.

Courtesy of Wikipedia, this is what the flower, fruit and leaves look like up close.

Also courtesy of Wikipedia, this is what the dried fruit looks like and this is how it’s predominately used.

The weather is starting to warm up nicely here in Northern Tasmania. The nights are still nice and cold but the days are officially heating up to spring weather. We lag behind the rest of Australia temperature wise as a rule and I couldn’t be happier to be honest. I am not a fan of hot weather and despite my love of tropical fruit, I am most happy sitting next to a fire rather than sweltering in a humid rain forest. I have been most impressed by the way that Sanctuary is coming along since I have been heavily mulching it and have decided that I am going to create a series of keyhole gardens inside the house fence using the following inspiration

https://permies.com/t/68883/permaculture-projects/keyhole-garden-summer-drought

Anyone who has prior experience with keyhole gardens, I would be most glad to hear from you. We are going to make them out of tea tree poles cut down and filed off to points on the end and hammered into the ground with green thin branches woven in and out of them exactly like the images in this excellent article that I found on permies.com. I find a lot of interesting and inspiring articles on this forum and enjoy reading about other people’s solutions to people’s problems. I also found a combo keyhole garden combined with a hugelkultur garden that piqued my interest on the same site and thought that this would be the best way to go outside the house fence but inside the house fence I want a more traditional keyhole garden and will be making several of these gardens to populate with herbs and dye plants for future fleece dying and spinning experiments.

My first haul of free mulch. They say that mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. I know that the Englishmen wasn’t stupid enough to go out as I was the only one collecting this mulch so that doesn’t leave me much choice as to who I represent in the song now does it! 😉 I don’t care. I have started my free collection of mulch for this year and that’s all that matters. Soon they will do the same to the big park over the Batman and Stevie-boy will have to venture out with me to bag and haul 🙂

When we say our eggs are “free range” we mean it! The chooks range wherever the heck they want to and usually don’t go back to the roost at night to nest. I found most of these in the fresh hay that I put in the roost so am counting my lucky stars and both Earl and Bezial get eggs for dinner tonight. The broad beans came from the wicking beds and there are still lots more to harvest 🙂

I love a good experiment folks and am currently thinking about growing apples from seed as Jane, one of my lovely faithful blog followers shared an excellent tutorial about growing apple trees from seed with me recently in a comment. There is an old abandoned apple orchard in Exeter, a town 18km away from us, that we sometimes walk the dogs in. I am going to collect some apples from these ancient trees and see if I can’t grow some apples from the seed. I am also going to get some scion wood from these trees in winter and am going to graft it onto our little apple sapling that grew from the ancient, long dead, apple tree that was on the property when we moved here back in 2010. I have left a ring of tenacious blackberries around the perimeter of this apple to discourage our furry possum nocturnal visitors from predating it’s tasty leaves and you can be assured that these are the ONLY blackberries that I will be allowing to survive and flourish inside the house fence!

I sometimes think that EVERYTHING on Serendipity Farm is rusty but I have it on very good authority that it’s “Industrial chic” thanks to Jo of “All the Blue Day” blog. Consider Herman Industrially chic and the pile of spent chook hay at his feet is going to be wheelbarrow-ed up to the back of Sanctuary in the near future.

Lambs ears and blueberries in wicking fridges. I think the lambs ears might be about to be transplanted though as they appear to be taking over. Note this is Bezial’s shady bit of the back yard. He moves between the shade and the sun on a regular basis till he gets bored of it and comes inside.

This is the oca bed that the possums decimate every year as they adore the sour leaves. They are starting to grow back but note the black bamboo stakes that I “found” on one of my recent walks. They had been thrown onto a burning pile and I figured that they would be better off preventing possum damage than burnt so here they are!

This is a small grape vine dug out of a ditch on one of Earl and my walks recently. It was growing tenaciously opposite the Tamar Ridge winery and we figured it wanted to come home with us. It appears to be very happy now and will be planted out in Sanctuary soon to join the other feral grape vines.

Free Queensland blue pumpkin plants! A lady up the road from us regularly puts out free plants from her garden. She is incredibly generous and I am going to gift her all of our old pots so that she can keep being generous with what she doesn’t want. I picked these up this morning on Earl and my walk and had to hide them in the bush as free plants go fast!  till Steve and Bezial came and picked us up halfway to Beaconsfield. I retrieved them on the way home.

Another free pumpkin planted in one of the empty wicking beds. It can go mental here to it’s heart’s content 🙂

Earl and I are getting more adventurous on our morning walks. This morning we veered off on the road to Beaconsfield (an 8km walk) but it was TOO HOT so we had to phone Steve and Bezial to come and pick us up in the rescue wagon (our car). We waited in the shade not too far from Goaty Hill winery, a lovely spot for a decent drop of wine.

After Bezial and Steve picked us up we headed over to Beaconsfield to pick up some more chook wheat for our guzzling hoards and then on to Beauty Point for Bezial to have a bit of a splash at this beach.

I am typing this blog post while I am waiting for the film clips that we filmed earlier to download so that we can piece them together, add some music to it to share with you all here. Hopefully you will like our little montage of Serendipity Farm filmed from inside the house perimeter in spring in Northern Tasmania 2017. I hope that you are all enjoying your lives wherever you are in the world and that life is treating you well. Catch you next week 🙂

Well here’s the video. I have decided to rename what most people currently call “weeds” to “Beneficial insect habitat” for the duration. I am sticking with it so no pointing out all of the “Beneficial insect habitat”  in Sanctuary OK? 😉