Farewell Lady

A sad day at Gryphon's Landing today. We lost one of our ladies. Not sure why she died but suspect it was just old age as none of the other chickens are sick at all. I held her while she took her last breath and John buried her in a nice place under the trees.

Thank you generous lady for all your eggs and may you rest in peace.

Expedition, second from the front, with Daemon and some ladies

Mulch, poo, sheds and ducklings

Ollie got a big present this weekend (thanks Mr Taxman!). He now has mulch all the way up his laneway. The laneway gets really boggy when it's wet and Ollie would end up with mud stilettos so, thanks to the brilliant idea of my good friend Karen, we put mulch all the way up to his stable.

Here's the problem:

This was when we first moved to the property and since then we've put drainage trenches all the way along but it is clay and gets very sticky when wet...

Here's the solution (I hope! The proof will be in the rain):

Newly christened by the Big O -  seal of approval :)

During the weeks the pig pen, come temporary lamb accomodation, had it's shed finished off. The lambs are very happy with it and sleep in it each night. Thanks very much to Zupan Snr (John's Dad, also conveniently called John - not...) who built it!

The lambs are going out grazing now and munching on the weeds in the orchard so they're great contributors to Gryphons Landing.

The garden bed on the roadside also got some poo. It will settle for a few days and then I'll put the dirt and mulch on it followed by the plants. It will be a grevillea hedge to match the other side.

Finally, here are some more duckling pictures just because they're very cute! Oh, a chicken hatched too but I don't have any pictures of it yet. Rosie is very protective....

Duckling visuals and some lambs for good measure

Here are this seasons ducklings. These ducklings were born in early December and now live in the new duck enclosure. I think we have 4 males and 2 females

if you look carefully you can see Henry in the background, he was the first duckling we bred. He really doesn't like me :( so I'm going to eat him!

and these ducklings were born this week and will move to the duck enclosure on the weekend. They're a bit cute

 

Here are John's lambs, he's very pleased with them. They are still being bottle fed.

And more ducklings!

7 more ducklings hatched today! That brings our total to 10 from this clutch and 19 ducks in total! I think that's enough for now... ha ha ha

Just waiting to see if any of the chickens eggs hatch too. Should know by this weekend.

Looks like roast duck for Australia Day - sorry Henry....

More Ducklings!

More ducklings have hatched today :) There are 9 eggs and 3 have hatched so far - very excited! That brings this years' duck total to 9 so far.

2011 - A year in review

Not many posts last year but lots happened! My New Year's Resolution is to update the blog more frequently....promise :)


So what happened in 2011?

We planted a vegie patch

(Humble beginnings)

 We planted a grevillea hedge down the side of the arena

We planted an orchard!

We made sausages with Deda and Marija

 Jodi came for a visit from Yanderra (she bought Karen and Lu with her)

We bought a grey tractor

and then we bought a green tractor

We installed lights on the road to the stables

A chicken hatched 6 ducklings and we built a duck pen

 

Too cute!

We enclosed the vegie patch and made a pig pen

(which currently has lambs in it!)

and Eli grew some more!