Sunday, February 26, 2017

Interesting chooky facts

I picked up a copy of the current pip, Australian Permaculture (issue #7), magazine and it's chock full of chooky goodness, but, what I found interesting was the Editoral by Robyn Rosenfeldt, full of interesting chooky facts.

facts like
  • The earliest evidence of domestication is believed to date back to 5400BCE in China.
  • Evidence of domestication has also been found dating back thousands of years in Iran, Pakistan, India, Africa, and North and South America.
  • All chickens have descended from the red jungle fowl of South-East Asia.
  • Around 800 BCE ancient Egyptians were artificially incubating eggs and at the same time, Romans were experimenting with dishes such as omelettes and stuffed chickens ans using farming practices to fatten birds for eating.
Chickens were oftenheld in religious esteem where they were worshipped and often they were used as oracles and omens in times of war.

There you go, I'm going to grab a nice cuppa and sit down and read all about chooks plus a myriad of other useful and interesting articles.

Cheers.

Yours in chookyness.


Friday, February 24, 2017

Clucky as ....

I just had to post this after I saw it on facebook.

I have some Golden Wyandottes and while they are a pretty bird to look at, they are poor layers.

They will go 'clucky' at the drop of a hat and I have, at times, found all four in a box sitting on eggs.

I hope you enjoy the video.

Cheers

Stewart


Wednesday, February 22, 2017

The Gardener's Companion to Medicinal Plants

This landed in my mail box yesterday.

First and quick impressions are impressive. To start with it's a hard cover, always a winner for me, A5 and beautifully illustrated.

I'll read through it oven the next few weeks and get back with a review.

What follows is copied from Quarto Knows web site.

Description
The Gardener's Companion to Medicinal Plants is a beautifully illustrated giftable gardening reference book, which combines exquisite botanical illustrations with practical self-help projects. Every day sees a discovery in the press about the new uses of plants, and it's certain that most of our most important drugs are derived from plants. From willow (used to procure aspirin) to periwinkle (used in chemotherapy to treat lymphoma) many common garden plants have provided cures in modern medicine. In this book readers can discover more than 200 life-saving plants and 25 home-grown remedies to make themselves. Each home cure is described and illustrated with step-by-step photographs to show how you can be a gardener and heal yourself.

Cheers and later,

Stewart.


Sunday, February 19, 2017

Daughter

Recently my enthusiasm for the veggie garden and growing veggies has been waning, hopefully that's about to change.

There's been various reasons for this but at the top of the list I've been finding it difficult to grow veggies just for myself.

It seems like a lot of effort to grow just one bean bush or three carrots at a time. Also the weather, aka, the rain gods, have fallen asleep at the wheel and apart from one 75 mm fall on the 3rd of January we've had nothing worth counting since the first week of September last year. And on top of all that we've also had an endless run of above 30° plus temperatures including a record 40° day in February. And on my porous red soil that makes it almost impossible to grow much without a lot of extra work mulching and shading plants from the hot sun and not to mention a water bill that makes buying veggies a more common sense idea.

Over the last two or so weeks that has changed. The temperatures are starting to drop, hopefully, and after a recent conversation with my daughter where she expressed her desire to eat more fresh veggies I'm feeling inspired to grow again.

The plan is to see if I can grow a basket of fresh veggies a week that I can take to my daughter that she can then use in her cooking.

I'll keep it simple at first with beans, beetroot, carrots, a few radish some lettuce and a turnip or two.

I’m also looking forward to taking a basket full of bounty over and discussing possible uses and recipes for the veggies with her.

My long term goal is to sneakily get her enthused about fresh veggies to the point where she will want to learn how to grow her own.

Coming into the cooler months there will also be an opportunity to get some herbs and leafy greens in as well, things like silverbeet, spinach, coriander, and parsley.

Very keen to see how all this works out. I'll keep you informed of my progress.

There's also something else that's been inspiring me too but I'll leave that for another day.

Cheers

Stewart