My Mum & Dad live on eight acres...it used to be a 25 acre block of land, but they sold 17 of it to my sister a few years ago. When young we had horses and it was great for keeping those and lots of country rides to go on. Over the years my Dad has gradually established a wonderful garden in the land surrounding the house and all the trees and shrubs are well established. Between the house and the paddock is a 'grove' which is where Henry was walking the other day...(two blog posts ago) It is wonderful to see how this has really thickened and become an oasis for wildlife and birds.
Dad also has a small orchard where the ducks live and they provide lovely big fresh eggs on a regular basis...nothing quite like duck eggs. They first got ducks just over 20 years ago when my eldest son was a baby as he was allergic to hens eggs, but not duck eggs, so these made a good alternative for cooking with.
There are many fruit trees in the rest of the garden as well and Henry and I enjoyed daily oranges, some grapefruit for breakfast (although only the last few of the season), apples, pears and the first fejoias.
A wonderful Chestnut tree was dropping its fruit and in the mornings sometimes you could see the prickly cases popping open.
Going for a walk around the garden skinks can be seen running along the banks and the garden wall.
As it is coming towards the end of the summer the flowers aren't quite in their full glory, however there was still plenty of colour to be seen around the garden.
Through the kitchen window we often saw fantails swooping in and out of the laundry room and perching on the ladder outside
Such beautiful little birds that always manage to bring a smile to your face as they seem such happy birds, always busy.
They remind me a little of the Long tailed tits we get in our garden.
I still have some more photos to edit of our trip to Tiri Tiri Matangi Island and Fairy Falls in the Waitakeres which I hope to do this week. I am in the process of changing over the computer so have a new system to learn as I am moving onto a Macbook from a Dell Computer. Along with this change I am going to have a big change of my blog as well I think as I am bored with it and I think that is why I have been so slack in keeping up with posts of late.
I want to use my Canon camera more and learn about its settings as it is all to easy to just point and shoot and I have been quite disappointed with the quality of some of my photography lately so I think I will dedicate one post a week to learning about using it.
As it is spring it is also time to start working on the garden which I have been ignoring so I am also hoping to do a gardening post a week.
I will still do my weekly quilting posts.
Not sure what else I have planned but I just know I am bored so need to get out of the rut and start doing something about it. Yes I know this has all been said before but surely Spring is as good a time as any to start that 'Spring Cleaning' of both the home and the mind.
So for now enjoy your Sunday! It is lovely and sunny here today so I am off out in the garden shortly as soon as I have finished my cup of tea.
