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Showing posts from August, 2014

Egg carton covering...!

I can tell Spring is around the corner.... I have lots of chickens laying at the moment (and a few broody ones!). That means I have lots of, you guessed it, eggs! I have lots of friends family and neighbours that like to eat fresh backyard eggs from happy chickens and so I have lots of people to give my eggs to. And to make them even more special - I have been "rebranding" the boxes. Its fun, easy and looks good... and makes people smile! Here's what I did... If you are careful, you can pull the sticker with the original label off and use if for a template to cut your new covering. If not, the width and length is easy enough to gauge by matching your paper and the sticker corner to corner on the box, gently folding over and marking the lines to cut.   Cut out the template and glue on using any paper glue.   The holes can be cut out after you glue it on so you know egg-sactly where to put them.     I used a computer generated label stuck to a pie

How I tell which gas bottle is off or on...

We have a couple of gas bottles that we use for hot water (ah - the bliss of the endless shower!) and for cooking. Back in the olden days, we had four and we used to turn one off and use the other three. When they ran out, we turned off the three used ones, turned on the full one and called the gas company for a refill. Then the Gas company decided that they knew our gas usage better then we did and came when ever they liked. After running out of gas a number of times (despite phone calls to let them know that we were running low and got the response that we wouldn't run out for another two months - and ran out the next week) we changed gas companies after 20+ years. Customer service wasn't a priority obviously! The new company has a two bottle policy - making it so much easier. One on and one off. My problem is that when the first bottle empties while I'm in the shower and I have to switch the new one on dressed in my towel dripping all over the place, Which one is on an

Slow Living Essentials at Green Haven Monthly 9 Link Up...

I have been following  Christine at Slow Living Essentials  for a couple of years now! In 2012 she started a monthly round up to record on our blog, how we have "slowed down" under nine categories - I have been doing this since she started it at the  beginning and really get a lot out of it. Now the link up has moved to Linda at Green Haven . I have been a bit slow off the mark this month - but better late than never! Here is what I have been up to this month! Click on the link to go to the link up and visit other linked up blogs! NOURISH:  Make and bake as much as possible from scratch. Ditch over packaged, over processed convenience foods and opt for 'real' food instead.      Our Pizza making is getting better - this one is a prawn, coriander and sweet chilli sauce version!   And how about an Apple Pie Birthday Dessert Pizza??    I have been Menu Planning for quite a few years now and find it saves a huge amount of stress. It ensure

Why aren't all my native bees going into the hive at night...?

We have four hives of native bees in our back yard. They make the greatest pets and ensure you always win that icebreaker question at workshops when they ask you to "share how many legs at your place" (you know, two for each person, two for the budgie, none for the goldfish and four each for the cat and dog). With four hives with 2000 bees in each with six legs each - I don't know the exact figure but no one ever comes close!! In the last couple of weeks we have noticed a small colony of bees forming beside the nest. They didn't go back in at night and didn't fly off. You can see them on the mirror and up in the corner. We made them a "bridge so they could walk back to the hive and they simply wouldn't. We took the mirror away as we thought that might be confusing them but it didn't change anything... In the end we contacted  bee guru, Russel Zabel and Here's what he told us... The hive has produced to many drones. Drones

How to force feed a sick chicken...!?

I noticed that one of our Arucana's was a bit quiet and didn't seem to be eating. I took her out of the pen and tried to tempt her with all sorts of goodies but she simply wasn't interested. Water was the only thing I was getting down her throat.  Hurt and in pain - nothing appealed including her favourite foods...   After a week of this, she had lost a kilo (and from a tiny 2kg chicken - that's a lot) and so off to the vet we went. It seems that she had jumped off something and hurt her "undercarriage" and was in too much pain to eat. At the vets - completely unamused...    The vet sent us home with a packet of "baby bird food" that we mixed up with warm water twice a day and had to force feed her with - along with some pain killers.  Force feeding anything is traumatic - for us as well as the chicken. If you have to do it, make it a two person activity. That way there is four hands to hold the chicken still, open her beak

Growing asparagus in Brisbane - Winter update!

Years ago I bought a couple of asparagus crowns from a guy at the markets. I'm sure he gave me detailed instructions at the time, but all I could remember was to plant them where you intend to keep them and then not to cut them for a few years to give them time to establish. Its been a few years and I have found the asparagus to be pretty happy in its spot in the vege garden. It gets watered regularly and gets a dollop of compost each time the pile matures and seems to be growing its famous ferny leaves very well.... But I was hoping to grow the eat-y bit! A bit of a google search later and the secateurs and I went into the vege garden... Here's what I did... January 2014 (Winter update below this post)   The asparagus is the big ferny thing in the black barrel in the centre of the picture. Its gotta be a metre and a half high. Last winter I got up the guts to cut it back when it died off and it did grow back in the Spring. I thought for a few months that
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