"Balmoral Park" farm garden

We purchased four ducks at the Canowindra poultry auction a few months ago. We had some bantam ducks before and their job was to keep the garden free of snails and slugs.They were good at this and very cute as well. Unfortunately when we moved here they discovered they could fly a long way and took off. Peter found them dead on the road quite a long way from home. We thought we would get some more for this garden but hadn't been able to find any of the bantam ones. At the auction their were a lot of Muscovy ducks and we bought four. They have settled in quite well but we have had to banish them from the garden as they were intent on eating all the cabbages and broccoli instead of the snails. The snails are not a problem at the moment as the blue tongue lizard eats them! Neither of us know how to tell a duck from a drake so we waited for them to exhibit some points of difference in their behavior or appearance. About a month ago the white duck started laying and then went broody, ...

We have an abundance of a few things at the moment: eggs, turkey, chicken and duck Silver beet Broad beans Lemons I was trying to think about what to make for dinner. I hadn't prepared anything and wanted to use up things that we had. All these ingredients are good together but what can I do to make something a bit delicious. I don't really know why I don't regularly make mayonnaise! When I was growing up mayonnaise was a mixture of condensed milk, mustard and vinegar! I did not like this and would have preferred just vinegar, so have never really got the joy of real mayonnaise. Although I do remember making it once many years ago. My sister was coming to our house and it was her birthday. We had just returned from our holidays and had absolutely no money. What we did have was an abundance of eggs and some silver beet in the garden. I made pancakes with a silver beet filling and mayonnaise of pepper and lemon and a sponge and custard cake . Quite a good experience really b...

My main gardening activity is growing vegetables, I love doing this and they feed our bodies as well as a sense of being part of nature. However part of our venture into country life is about growing a beautiful garden and for me that includes roses. As well as being beautiful, roses are the most drought tolerant and hardy plants. Their delicate beauty belies their resilience. My garden vision it to have a thousand roses. We are up to over one hundred now I think. The first things I planted here were a couple of roses, when I was feeling homesick for my old garden. They grew well and so I decided that the garden in front of our veranda would be a yellow and pink rose garden. So it is and only two years after planting and with no significant rain it is amazing. We had roses for eleven months last year. This year we decided to plant a white rose garden in front of this and also another garden to welcome our first grandchild. When Katie was pregnant they called their baby Joey, Katie is ...

Raising turkeys is part of what we want to do here so I am always excited when we get a broody turkey hen and can set her on some eggs. One of the black hens went broody and we set her on twelv eggs. Last time she was broody she started kicking out the chickens so we hand raised them and they all survived. This time we thought we would let her raise them. Not sure why, maybe a misplaced belief that nature knows best!She hatched out nine and now two weeks later there are only five! We dont know what happens, she squashed a few and some jsut dissapeared. Contrast this with the silkies who we set on four hen eggs each, they both still have four chicks a month down the track. they look after them and out for them, even though the chicks are now nearly as big as them they still find a way to snuggle them all in. Next time we get a broody silkie I will give her three turkey eggs to hatch!