H2O From The Deep

This may look like a fairly uninteresting photo, but let me tell you it is beholden with delight.  Can you see that shiny new tap on the fence post, Steve connected that up this morning, it's a tap going into the back garden, but the bestest part of all is that it is coming from the bore tank!  Yahoo, the first piped water from the bore, coming from 50 metres underground!  In the photo I've got a clicker sprinkler going in the background, and the native plants are getting a drink.  This summer will be revolutionary for us, to be able to water without panicking about running ourselves out of rainwater.

And here are some of the plants that will benefit.  I am really proud of this one, it's a Dryandra formosa, a relative of banksia, and it has flowered for the first time.  Lovely golden acorn flowers amid florets of serrated leaves, beautiful.

These are the divine, fluffy flowers of Melaleuca incana, or Grey Honey Myrtle.  It's a fairly unassuming tall shrub, but what I love about it is that it has a weeping habit, something I am very partial to in plants.  The foliage is grey and it has these lovely flowers that the bees and nectar birds go mental over.

This scraggy, sad looking specimen that I've only recently planted is a finger lime!  I am very excited about this, I've wanted to grow one for ages and finally found one.  And look, it has quite a few pink flower buds on it with a couple opening up into white flowers.  Hopefully with the summer watering, this shrub will thrive and give us some finger limes.

I love the elders when they flower, great big florets of puffy white, so pretty.

The globe artichokes have a growth spurt the last few weeks, and we were thrilled to find about six artichokes forming. Yum!

The white mulberry tree has started to put on spring growth, with the beginnings of mulberries starting to show. 

This was the tiny shrub I planted in the corner of the chook yard two and half years ago, with the intent of it growing and providing some shade and shelter for the hens.  Well!  It has outdone itself!  This is a Tagasaste or Tree Lucerne, and it is now twice the height of the chook yard and absolutely laden with blossom, to the delight of the hundreds of bees buzzing around busily in the flowers. 

The chooks thoroughly enjoy spending time underneath it, and will take refuge underneath if anything frightens them.  We are hoping to get some more hens soon, we went to a poultry pencil auction yesterday, but as we didn't know how it worked we got a bit scared of the whole thing and came home empty handed.  I will have to chase up the people that breed Hylines for some more, the people we got our original girls from.  Only one original is left, Angie, on the left.  The other one is Bridget who we got a year later.  I want them to be nice, welcoming girls to the new hens.... going on previous experience I think not and I suspect I will be wiring off part of the yard to keep them apart while they get used to the others.

 The big job this week is to get the orchard netted.  We want to avoid the mistake we made last year of presuming that small, hard, green fruit on a tree would be of no interest to a parrot, we were shocked with the vandalising behaviour of the green parrots last year when they broke fruit off just for the fun of it!  So, we are getting in early this year - ha, take that pesky parrots!

 Here is Steve, Under The Dome.  It's rather nice under the net, we've done it differently this year, encompassing two rows of trees under one net, which made the net higher and thus easier to walk under.  Plus we've made the net nice and tight rather than floppy and droopy, and we are both revelling in the satisfaction of it all. :-)

Did you know that we have a resident in our shed?  Can you see the black skink sitting atop some planks of wood?  He is quite big, about 40cm long, and boy can he climb!  We don't see  him at floor level, he will scare the crap out of us surprise us by rustling and poking his head out well above our heads, he likes to climb up amongst the planks and paint tins and other stuff stored in the racking in the shed.  I shall have to think of a name for him.  PS, it is decided, his name is Voldemort

And here is my little darling.  He is still a little traumatised today.  Because the football was on tellie last night.  I am a loud couch potato spectator, particularly when the Eagles are in a close game.  Neo doesn't quite know what to do when I get noisy watching the football, he runs around the house, watching me, repeatedly coming up and rubbing my foot as if to pacify me, then darting off and leaving me to it.  He gets quite concerned about the whole affair poor love.  He had his vengeance though, he decapitated his toy koala during the night....