A Healthy Garden

Signs of a Healthy Garden
The sign of a healthy garden is the visibility of the insects, beetles and living creatures that live in it.

'Plastic' gardens have nowhere for the insects to hide. Plastic gardens are so neat and clean, and look blow dried, as though they have just come out of the hairdresser. When you go to the hairdresser your hair gets washed, cleaned, brushed, combed, trimmed, conditioned, dried and sprayed. A hair would not be game to be out of place. 

So with a garden. A healthy garden needs somewhere for spiders to spin their webs, flowers that attract insects, birds to eat the insects, beetles to .... just what do they do? But I like beetles.

Beetles

When I went out the back door the other morning a very large beetle was scurrying along the mat towards the door, coming to visit. He had 6 strong, armour plated legs.

Frogs

A few days later I was digging a hole to plant a flax plant in my chicken's garden and a little brown from jumped out of the ground. 

den

How is your garden?

Chickens - With a Paintbrush in Hand

My paintbrush has been busy again lately. It feels good when the paint flows. From having a blank piece of paper, a blank canvas or a blank piece of wood (I do like painting on wood), you have the power to transform it into a cacophony or a kalidescope of colour. 

This can be pleasing to some and not to others, but so long as it is pleasing to you, then that is all that you need. 

This week I had some fun painting on some wood.

 

I'll probably hang these two paintings out in my chicken shed. I think the eggs sign will have to go above the nest just to remind the girls what to do and where to put them. 

My third project was a little different. More on that next time. 

Cheers

Water Play for Children

Children Love Water

Children always love playing with water, whether it is playing in the baths, playing while they wash their hands, splashing their drink on the floor and playing with the spills or playing in the swimming pool. 

You can turn this favourite activity of theirs into a benefit for you. Get them to water your outside plants.

Watering the plants and learning what plants need

It doesn't matter if the children spill some of the water when they are outside. It will all dry up. Even their clothing will dry if it is a warm day.

At the same time as having fun with water, children learn something about gardening. They learn that plants need water to survive, just like we need water to drink. It's a simple, subtle way to teach them things.

Free Apps for your Photos

Free App for Photos

Recently I found a great FREE app for your phone to manipulate your photos. It presents them very nicely with lots of variations. 

I started with this photo

Then I used the InstaFrame app to make 

and this

Warning

I just have to let you know that this app is addictive. I spent over an hour trying out many variations and decided that it was well worth sharing.

Real Aussie Food

GrumbleTumms

GrumbleTumms is a small business devoted to supplying REAL Australian food.

The good old pie is often thought of as being Aussie tucker. GrumbleTumms takes the humble pie one step further, no, two or three steps further. 

GrumbleTumms uses kangaroo, emu and crocodile meat in their pies. And not just a whiff of it. There are chunks of meat slow cooked in delicious sauces, enough to get the saliva dripping. 

They also have Flinder's Island Wallaby Kranskys, sausages made with wallaby meat and King Island cheese. Flinder's Island and King Island are out in the middle of Bass Strait. They are buffeted by the fresh Arctic winds and produce from there is known to be healthy and pure. 

Visit GrumbleTumms website to see all their produce and to find out where they will be next. 

The GrumbleTumms van is very popular at Aboriginal celebration days as these are some of the original meats eaten by the native people of our great land.  
 

Free Activity for Children

Keeping Children Amused

Little ones need something to do to keep them amused. It is always best if this is NOT in front of the television, tablet, games on phones or DS or X-box. 

Here is a simple, free, easy thing that they can do and can can keep them amused for an hour or so. 

A plastic bowl, an old paintbrush, flat concrete, some water

Expanding artistic ideas - Water painting all sorts of creations

Cecile Brunner - The Sweetheart Rose

Cécile Brunner

Here is a lovely rose growing in my garden.
It is flowering prolifically at the moment and I couldn't resist taking a video of it.

The Cécile Brunner rose is named after the lady who bred it 100 years ago.
It was so pretty and perfumed that it was also called The Sweetheart Rose.

It was a favourite in the gardens of our Grandmother's times.

More details below the video.

Enjoy

Height

The original rose grows about 1 metre (3ft) tall.
Mine is a tall variety growing 3-4 metres tall (9-12ft).

Flowering Time

The original rose flowers for a month in springtime.
The tall variety has many flushes of flowers throughout the year. 

Varieties

Bush rose growing 1 metre tall - 3ft
Climbing variety
Tall variety growing 3-4 metres tall - 9-12ft