Living the Dream!

Hello,
here I am sitting at my computer and occasionally looking out the window at the view that takes my breath away.
I feel like I am on holiday in a beautiful bush retreat, only I'm not, I am at home!
We have at last moved in completely to our new home, its only been 4 days since we said good bye to our old house in the suburbs and moved to the country. I think it is called a Tree Change!

Beautiful Mt Riddell overlooks our block.

The garden is coming to life as Spring will soon be here, amazing rhododendrons are flowering.

 

 

This is such a pretty Rhododendron, the whole bush is in the picture above, this is the close up of its flowers. It started flowering almost the day we moved in.

 

 

 

 

The  gardens are just lovely here, they are old, some of the Rhodies must be 50 years old. The Eucalypts that surround the property and march into the back yard are like the Ents in Lord of the Rings. They just stop and the land opens up, so we are on the edge of the forest and it is beautiful!

This pair of King Parrots has been visiting us since we arrived along with several Crimson Rosellas. So tame, I told my man to put some seed in his hand and extend his arm and they landed on him and ate the seed from his hand, he was so surprised.

The Wattles started flowering when we moved in too, lots of small ones and trees amongst the Eucs, the air smells of honey.
But we have been busy, yesterday I painted the inside of a dark old cupboard a bright yellow, it looks clean and I can see to the back now. I will be putting my preserves in there, I have lots of tomato sauce still from last season. I want to put more shelves in too, this will double my storage area.
I also put my raincoat on and did some more to my new wall garden, pictures soon when I am done.
It rained all day yesterday, a heavy drizzle, it didn't stop me getting out and working, I was moving my pot plants into permanent positions rather than where they have been dumped from our moving house. Rabbits are common here and Deer too so I must protect them from getting eaten.
Don't know how I will go with my fruit trees, I dug most of my small ones up from the previous garden and they are in pots awaiting new ground. But I will have to fence them, lots of work involved. Some can stay in their pots for a season and I can put them into the veggie garden enclosure which is rabbit proof.

In this photo the veg garden is on the left, not much in it yet just wire around it. To the right are some chicken breeding pens/sheds and up behind it under the Eucs is the chook house proper.

I bought some hens from the previous people before they left and so they were here when we arrived, a little thirsty and hungry though!
Still they are nice birds, 8 in all, some are huge with lovely fluffy white petticoats and frilly knickers, the smaller they go in size the lower in the pecking order. Some have very thick ankles so they may be quite old. The boss chook, the biggest is such a nice girl, she doesn't do much pecking, she just gives the look or stands up tall over any who are squabbling and they soon stop.
We brought our 3 girls from our previous house and set their A-frame house up in the yard of the others and they stayed there for 5 days, The old girls walked around it and looked at ours, some tried to fight through the fence but after 5 days they got used to each other and when we let our out they assimilated pretty well. Ours were laying and the other 8 not, but as soon as ours left eggs in the nesting boxes the others all came on line too, so now out of 11 hens we get 7 or 8 eggs per day. So now I can supply some of friends with fresh eggs.
I have decided I have too much stuff! I felt rather ashamed of myself whilst moving, so much stuff, trailer load after trailer load and we both got the flu whilst moving. We had a mountain of stuff on the nature strip/verge for Council rubbish collection and more could have gone on it. We put it out in plenty of time for people to have a scrounge through it and they did take away a fair bit but some people dumped more stuff of their own on our pile. A brand new waffle maker, never used in its packet with packaging and instructions. I grabbed that for myself. A lump of brass which gave me a few dollars at the scrap metal merchant that I visited with my other scrap, it pays to collect it. Cut the cords off dead electrical items, pick up any copper pipe you find, brass as well, small electrical motors have lots of copper wire in them, things like drills,etc. and when you have a couple of box fulls go down and get yourself $30 or $40.
So I said to martin the other morning when I came back from giving the chooks their breakfast and letting them out into the paddock. "Martin, I feel like I am living the Dream!" And he a greed!