"Balmoral Park" farm garden

Peter grew up on a Turkey farm so we always intended to breed turkeys when we had the space. what we didn't know was how rare they had become and how hard it is to get any turkeys other than white ones. We started off with what was supposed to be a breeding trio but poor old Bruce was well past his use by date. We later found some turkey chicks, white and slate grey, they have formed out breeding stock so far.We hope to find some blue and bourbon reds as well when we have a bit more time to put to this task. Our first lot of turkey chicks were a bit tragic as we had not realized that they can be very careless mothers and actually just knock the chickens over. Turkey chicks are not as robust as our backyard , crossbreed chickens. Our last lot of turkeys hatched out just after Christmas and the mother threw the first one out of the nest. Zoe and I rescued it and brought it into the house. As each egg hatched we also rescued them and ended up raising them in a box, with a light fo...

What a day of variable weather it was yesterday. Started off really very hot and humid and it looked like the predicted rain was not going to happen. Then about four in the afternoon it became very black, with lots of thunder and lightning. Ten minutes of very heavy rain and a little light hail followed. I just started to think that if this kept up we would finally get some water in the big dam! Must have jinxed myself because then it stopped as quickly as it had started. 14.5 mls all up so not too bad. This morning we woke up to find that instead of everything being refreshed by the rain it was covered in thick red dust. The pictures tell the story. How sad for the farmers further west who have lost all the topsoil that forms the dust. The dust storm has now extended all the way to Brisbane. Apparently a once in a life time event. We have two silkie hens sitting on four ordinary hen eggs each. Our cross breed chooks never seem to go broody so we use the silkies as incubators and the...

The second day of spring and a perfect spring day. Started off a little cool and warmed up to about 21 degrees. We had 10 mls of rain on the weekend so the garden is going quite well despite a few hot and windy days already. This week I have been doing lots of clearing away and weeding so we can see and appreciate all the lovely plants that are growing. As I was doing this I was really amazed to notice how much of our garden is now comprised of things that we have propagated, Lavender, Rosemary, Pomegranate and things that are self seeded (volunteers). The garden is also full of hardworking insects, birds and bees and my favorite volunteer, a blue tongue lizard that I credit with getting rid of the snails and slugs! On the poultry front we now have a turkey hen sitting on twelve eggs and another silkie sitting on four hen eggs. We had a bit of a calamity though with something (Peter suspects a feral cat getting into the turkey pen and killing one of the hens) When i looked at my photos...