Pigs Arrive at Silver Spear

This evening two 5 week old piglets were delivered to the property. They have come as temporary guests and will be fattened for slaughter over the coming months. I have to say I was a little unsettled by their arrival. I'm not exactly sure about their stay with us and to be honest they did not seem so pleased about their new digs - huddling into a corner and staring at us in a completely petrified state. Rearing pigs has been a long held desire of my husband - going back to his days growing up on a farm. Personally, I'm not so sure we are to properly equipped to deal with the needs of these animals.   I'm also not so sure I like my husband leaving the pig feed dish (complete with left over half chewed food and smelling of swine) on my kichen bench either.   I may need to be further sold on this venture because at this stage the little piggies have not won me over :-(

Plants and more plants

For the past couple of weeks I have been clearing the bargain bin of our local garden centres, trying to fill some gaps in our garden beds. Anything around the two or three dollar mark or less that is not too far gone has found its way into my garden. I've also gone for smaller plants in punnets, in the hope that they will eventually fill out and give me good value for money.  So far the plants are surviving the dry conditions and I am trying to choose plants that suit the situation they being planted in. I'm looking forward to them growing bigger and flowering in the months to come.

The new plants that have been most successful have been leucodenron, gazania, oestiospermum (cape daisy), genista (broom), canna lilly, kangaroo paw, boronia, hydrangea, zinnia and coleus. I have also planted Swan Plants (milk weed) which I got for free from my father-in-law to attract Monarch butterflies. The plants are still very small but doing nicely. There are quite a few plants that I am especially proud of that are doing well, that I only managed to purchase one of and will probably try to source more of at a later stage.

The existing fern varieties have also been doing well considering the conditions. I have had to water them regularly along with the other new plants and a dose of liquid fertiliser has also helped to reduce heat stress. The garden is due for another fertilsing soon, but I will probably opt for the slow release pellet variety as I already have some at home.

It is one of life's small pleasures to watch your garden grow and take shape. I will post more pictures as the garden continues to develop.

Path Progress

The puzzle is almost complete! The pieces fit together, but there is still leveling and pebble infill to go.

I decided to move our Jack and Jill seat out off hiding, right next to the front door. It should give us a nice cool spot to sit in the afternoon and an awesome view of the path :-)

It has been a lot of hard work, heavy lifting, problem solving and there is still quite a bit to do, but the materials have come cheap and I'm confident the end result is going to look the part.

Piecing The Puzzle Together

We are underway constructing a new path from our driveway / parking space to the front entrance. Construction materials are broken concrete slabs and pebble. It's definitely a rustic effect that suits the farmhouse style and it makes use of materials we currently have on the property,  so it's cost effective too.

I have planted a few gazania in some of the larger gaps between the slabs, to add some colour to the path and to help set the slabs in place. I expect some of the gazania will get a little walked over, but hopefully a few will survive!

Progress piecing the puzzle of broken slabs is slow and leveling them is challenging, but we are coming ahead and aiming to complete the project by next weekend - with some effort from our little helpers too of course!