Pesty Garden Business.......

In my garden post the other day, Foxymoron asked "How do you handle pests? I have a recipe for a garlic spray in my Yates book but I've never tried it."

 Well Foxy, I have to admit, for the most part I do nothing! I pretty much leave it up to nature to take care of things! Except for these little monsters! They drive me nuts.......

Every day I trot outside and peel them off my peach tree and feed them to the chickens or throw them over on the compost heap so they can munch to their little hearts content on foliage I don't plan to eat myself. Of course there are times when I don't get time and they eat everything in sight, but thats nature I guess, the little pests need to eat too.

A few years ago when I first decided to grow my own food, I had recently discovered the joy of all things herby. Not just for making food taste yummy but for healing as well. When I finally had that vegie patch dug and ready to plant I went along to the local nursery and took my time admiring all the lovely seedlings and trying to decide which ones I would buy. There were so many to choose from being mid spring at the time that it was a hard one.

I think that first year I went a bit overboard and planted all types of vegies along with a whole lot more herbs. As far as the herbs went, I ran my hand over them and listened to those little voices in my head, yes or no? Turns out most of the ones I thought would probably serve no purpose were the ones my lovely garden needed most.

Things like wormwood, tansy, catnip and feverfew. Then there was the lavender and the rosemary which I knew I would use but had no idea would help the garden pest situation at all.

Now as I think I have mentioned here, on numerous occasions...I am NOT the best gardener! In fact... I am rather lazy and tend to let things go quite often. I have learned over these past few years that when I do let things grow wild, other things thrive. I have learned the mint in particular needs to be picked as soon as its bright and green or the aphids come along and eat it before the ladybugs get a chance to move in. Speaking of lady bugs, they are also a great help as they eat the aphids so I try to keep lots of flowers around the vegies to entice them to visit.

Note: Even lady bugs can't stop some pests.....but what type of pest I wonder? hint...its rather BIG and black..

So what do they do?

Wormwood:  repels moths, intestinal worms and flies

Tansy grows in abundance and self seeds very easily (a very cheap repellent indeed!)

Pyrethrum, Tansy and Feverfew: Repels moths, flies, ants, mice, bedbugs, mosquitoes, cockroaches and mites. (Tansy is also a great flea deterrent as well).

Lavender and Mint: Repel flies and fleas and also smells and looksy lovely too!

Garlic under the peach tree.

You mentioned garlic spray, I have tried a garlic and chillie spray only once. It smelled so bad that I never used it again, like pyrethrum spray I found it only worked temporarily anyway. I prefer to plant the garlic around the plants and want to do the same with pyrethrum at some stage. (I have not seen any about lately so don't have any). Tansy however is in abundance at my place and I just move the seedlings around as they pop up or leave them if they are in a good spot.

Now I do believe I mentioned a big pest has been at my peaches......this pest I am afraid has tasted something nice and decided she will help herself. This morning I went out to de-snail the tree to find the garlic a bit flattened. A certain puppy named Miko was busy munching away on the peaches on the lower branches......MIKO..............

 Hopefully she will leave some for us to eat, between her and the snails... I'm not so sure!!!!

Can't say I blame her though, they do look so nice! Have a great day everyone! 

Hugs and smoochies xoxoxox 

Me? Shopping? NEVER.....

Well, maybe just this once.....Anyone who knows me well, knows that I have a bit of an aversion to shopping in general.  I don't mind the occasional jaunt to the bookstore, the library or even to thrift type stores just for a bit of a browse. But try and take me into a mall and drag me around for hours on end and you might just get a grown up version of that whingy little kid you all know too well.  (Especially if its a beautiful sunny day outside...just sayin').

So for the past couple of years I have been procrastinating about going clothes shopping, and as each item of my clothing started to fall apart or disintegrate into nothingness, I procrastinated a little more. I thought....no problem...I will just sew some new clothes...but I kinda never found the time for it...and then..as happens to the best of us...I put on a little more weight than I had bargained for and the clothes I had left would not stretch to the size of my ahem "fat ass" for want of a better word.

So anyway, TC decided last week that she would insist I take her out for lunch, which ended up with us browsing the stores a bit as well. Of course she knew better than to try and drag me into every clothing store but she did manage to buy a couple of dresses and then lo and behold as we were browsing in Tree of Life a bargain poked its head out and could not be passed up.

I have pretty much refused to buy clothes on the pretext that I need to lose that extra weight first, otherwise it would just be a waste of money. But these skirts are wrap around and as I was able to still get them in a small size that was adjustable, and at less than half the orginal price, I was sold. They are 100% cotton and made in India. And very very much to my liking.

Also to my liking, as I had not planned on buying anything and left my shopping bags at home... the fully recycled bag made from old Indian newspapers. This will of course be re-cycled once again as a gift bag! Ahhhh Sometimes shopping is not TOO bad...but only sometimes mind!

Have a great day everyone.........Hugs and smoocies xoxoxoxox

Beach Babies ( A day at the rockpool)

(This post has pushed in before about 5 others because SOMEONE was impatient for pictures! Dear Somone, I have posted all the pic's from the day for you to see! You can kiss me later!) 
Yesterday we went to the local rock pool to soak up some sunshine with some friends....we went for walks, sat and soaked up the sun and basically had a nice easy day........

Peanut......

 Little Miss Cool...

 Peanut again (she is a bit of a camera hog)

 That would be the big boys out there on the rocks.......

They pretty much spent all their time out there swimming, jumping and avoiding the rest of us....

Mr Yakka....the water was a wee bit cold...

Miss cutie patootie....

Someone had a haircut and seems to have lost most of his hair in the process...

The mamas....

Someone procrastinating about studying for her HSC exams hiding behind peanut

(Ummm TC! I think you have to open the books for it to be classed as study dear!)

Someone who had a haircut did not go in the water, (it might mess up his do you know?)

Rory playing frisbee in the front....

Mr Yakka took his aunty K on a long walk to check out the seaweed, rocks, crabs and what ever else we could find along the way.... (he then took her on another walk right along the beach on the other side of the rock pool as he figured we needed MORE exercise)

Lovely warm sunny day all round, today its looking a little bit windy! Hugs all round.......xoxoxo

Where the wild things grow.........

Avocado and parsley.

Yarrow and More Parsley, blackberries behind the garden!

Parsley and Oregano!

First flower on blackberry and oregano in the front.

Lemon tree gone crazy...no lemons though!

Peach tree surrounded by tansy, garlic and chamomile.

Finally got the vegie patch started (well the faeries did...loads of tansy, spinach, coriander, tomatoes)

Behind this garden, Mango tree, Elder Berries and passionfruite on the fence.

Coriander, wormwood sticking through the fence and tansy.

And the mystery tree has finally revealed its first fruit......

A tiny little peach! (just the one LOL)

Fancy lettuce, basil (quite small yet) and tomatoes.

Cucumbers, tansy and marigolds.

Zucchini and parsley.

Squash, chillie, strawberries and two varieties of eggplant (aubergine). Waiting to be planted.

Oh Spring! How I LOVE thee!  

Garden News....a friend gave me a huge packet of all sorts of lovely organic seeds yesterday! Can't wait to get them growing! Thus far most of the garden has self seeded and I am waiting for things to get a little bigger to decide whether to move them or not! I am going with the theory if they are happy where they are, I will leave them alone. After all there is plenty of useless grass left that I can rip out and replace with herbs and food! I think that little box of seedlings above is the cheapest trip to the nursery I have ever made! LOL! Just LOVE it when nature takes care of itself...don't you?

Have a great day everyone! Hugs and smoochies xoxoxoxxo

THE MORAL OF THE STORY......

 (Just to lighten the mood......found this in my in box the other day.....gave me a bit of a giggle...)

THE WOMAN MARINE PILOT

The teacher gave  her fifth grade class an assignment: Get their parents to tell  them a story with a moral at the end of it.  The next  day, the kids came back and, one by one, began to tell their  stories.
  
There were all  the regular types of stuff: spilled milk and pennies  saved.  But then the teacher realized, much to her  dismay, that only Janie was left.
  
 ‘Janie, do you  have a story to share?'
  
''Yes  ma'am.  My daddy told me a story about my Mommy. She was  a Marine pilot in Desert Storm, and her plane got hit.   She had to bail out over enemy territory, and all she had was  a flask of whiskey, a pistol, and a survival knife. 
  
She drank the  whiskey on the way down so the bottle wouldn't break, and then  her parachute landed her right in the middle of 20 Iraqi  troops.

She shot 15 of them with the pistol, until she ran out  of bullets, killed four more with the knife, till the blade  broke, and then she killed the last Iraqi with her bare hands. 
  
''Good Heavens,'  said the horrified teacher.  'What did your Daddy tell  you was the moral to this horrible story? 
  

“Don't f..ck  with Mommy when she's been  drinking."

The Shack - a book recommendation.......

Yesterday I read a book called "The Shack" by WM. Paul Young.  A rather interesting read and not what I was expecting it to be at all.  Now normally I would not recommend such a book to others as we all have our own journey to follow and we tend to happen upon things when we need them.

However, this week, just as the book was placed in my hands, there have been a couple of people out there in cyber space who I think this book would really help right now.  (And yes the little voices in my head told me I had to share this with you, and who am I to argue afterall!)

Depending on your faith, religion or lack of either, you may simply embrace the journey or you may instantly judge this book as being another Cristian attempt to bring us all back into the fold. If this offends you at all, then I simply say, don't read the book. However, if you have an open mind, I suggest you read it anyway. The book is purely fiction after all! Or is it? Hmmmm! You will have to be the judge of that!

I would so love to give you my opinion on this book, but you see, the learning is in the reading, and what you take from it will depend on what you need to learn right now. This book brings with it many messages in small forms and some rather big ones too.

In short, it is about a mans journey to find forgiveness towards others and but mostly in himself when he finds himself face to face with God. 

This book is obviously not going to be for everyone, but if you have been led here by some co-incidence then most likely it is meant for you! Enjoy!

The Shack website  (you can find out where to buy the book here)

Love to all!

What are we learning?

Well I am not even going to attempt to catch up with the whole learning report for the past six weeks or so. It would take far too long! I will however give a brief outline of what we have been up to in the past week.

I do believe I mentioned last week that we would be doing a little more on the formal side of learning at home and introducing a little routine and structure into our days. To get around this we have opted to continue with our theme work which at the moment is being taken from the book "Environment and the World". 

This unit is pretty much covering English, Geography, Science and Creative Art subjects.

Thus far we have completed the section on the Natural Environment, covering Enviro regions of the world, and did a bit of study on each of the regions being Polar, Tundra, Grassland, Desserts, Rainforests and Mediteranean. This unit covered a lot of literacy, geography, science, and art.

We are currently almost finished the Biology section which has covered different types of Biology and how they relate to each other (eg. Molecule/Cell/Organism and Population), We drew an ecosystem, and discussed the necessity for all living things to be there and how they work together. Then the boys drew up another one leaving out a key animal and wrote about what would happen if it ceased to exist.

Next we learned about Predators and how they hunt, catch and kill their prey, the boys brianstormed and wrote names of all the animals they could think of on the board and sorted them into categories and then chose one animal from each category (flying/swimming/running/hiding) and drew a picture of the animal catching its prey. They researched the animals first with books and spent a lot of time reading about all different types of predators! (They found this subject very interesting!)

Next we learned about Keeping the Balance (again with where everything fits in an eco-system) we drew a forest scene on the white board and learned about food chains. (Primary consumers, secondary consumers and decomposers)

After that we did a unit on Habitats, reading and comprehension, and again drawing two different animals in their own habitats and comparing the differences of each.

Today we learned about Adaptations, identifying animals and the adaptations they have to use to survive.  They picked 10 animals or insects and wrote why they thought each needed the particular adaptation it used and then they coloured a picture of a chameleon to blend in with the walls at home.

Tomorrow we will do our last Biology lesson which will be on the computer. They need to research and create documents regarding Poisonous plants.

The boys have been working from their English text books on and off covering various requirements as per age group. Along with spelling activities (a favourite that they tend to get out themselves) and handwriting.

For Maths, Zak has been working on Volume, cubic measurement and today was reading about days in the year, century, millennium etc (of course he decided to do this while I was busy and demand I join in! LOL) (looking at the diary he has actually covered far more over the past few weeks but I am not going to write it all down).

Adem is working with Maths Online, he loves it as he can log in when he feels like it and do a lesson. He generally does at least 4-5 per week. He has been working recently on fractions, decimals and percentages.

We have had 3 days out at parks and one at a playcentre. Lots of walks, scooter rides and riding ripsticks. 

Both boys have been reading quite a bit, they both read the whole Freak Street series and Adem has been reading some Goosebumps books this week too. Zak has been reading what ever he picks up as he goes. Lots of choice here.

Along with all the natural learning that goes on around here, I don't think they are doing too bad especially since we have had a hectic time recently.

Now I am going to leave it there for today and will try to be more efficient in future (ahem, famous last words! hehe) We are off for a nice long walk, we are trying to do it every day to get fit again before all that sports starts in a few weeks!

Have a great day everyone, hugs and smoochies xoxoxoxox

Beautiful Girls......

Just a couple of pictures Ashlee took last night of Gemma (TC) and Rachel (Barbie). It was their year 12 Formal and they went Lolita style.

Please TC, can we have some more?

If they sit real nice, and Miko sings a song and Bella pokes out her tongue, can they have some more?

How about if I look sad?

How about I just keep poking out my tongue? It worked last time......

Haha! Shes a push over....works every time......

Hey! Keep the noise down out there! Im trying to catch some Zzzzz's in mama's bed....

Seriously! I mean it!