Orchard Girls...

here's an update on the ducklings...yep, they're now quite confirmed as DUCKS! they are named officially "Poppy, Pansy, Marigold and Asha (the little black Cayuga)". In the foreground is Phoebe's most beloved chook, Fluffybum, an almost purebred Black Orpington (her comb is not quite perfect, apparently! Perfect enough, we think!). And in the background, taking care of everyone and everything is Fluffybum's man, Frank (also a purebred Black Orpington) . These lucky birds have a fairly blissful existence in our Home Orchard, which is progressively becoming our Permaculture Food Forest - certainly with their addition to the mix we are another step along the path to the required result!

Our Latest addition...

what a tense 24 hours we've had...it was hatching day yesterday...and my hopes were for 6 lovely little Cayuga Ducklings to emerge and then 6 Silver Seabright Bantams. We have plans to have a flock of ducks for our developing Permaculture Food Forest (currently = small orchard) and I was hoping to surprise our wonderful neighbour, Pete, (who won't read this!) with some of the special bantams he loves for a Christmas present - he sort of knows I'm looking for fertile eggs, etc Given that ducklings need a longer incubation period, I had timed the placement of the bantams a week later, to coincide at hatching.
The result, I believe of our Cayuga hatch is just this one, very much loved little hatchling - named 'Asha' by Phoebe - because it's black. Rather disappointing as at the very end of sitting for a whole 4 weeks, our broody hen, Perky, decided to ditch the eggs - and I only just rescued this one in time - pipping and broken through it's egg a 3cm hole, but cold and very weak - so gambled and broke the egg for it and freed it - Perky pecked at it straight away - she didn't want to have anything to do with it or the other duck eggs, 3 of which have an embryo in them.
So, a sad learning experience here - and that is life, is it not? - sometimes it doesn't all go to plan - and really we are so grateful for all the beautiful creatures we are blessed with already.
My fingers are still crossed for Pete's bantams - Perky went back on and I managed to get a hot water bottle under/to the side of them - and she has stayed there all day today...we shall see...

beginnings of a Food Forest

We've been rather busy over the last few weeks with lots of planting in our orchard, filling in the gaps and hoping to create an edible forest - a Permaculture Food Forest is our aim. There is still far too much grass for our likeing and we will soon be fixing that. As well as another bunch of beautiful heirloom varieties, we have been adding in Kowhai, a native with a very attractive yellow flower and the very useful attribute of being a nitrogen-fixing, slender, lacy tree (will still let in lots of light) and are about to add small tagasaste(tree lucerne) plants, which also fix nitrogen from the air into the soil. Even more amazingly as we found out this effect is increased as we 'chop and drop' the trimmings/prunings where they fall as mulch, as the plants then release nitrogen from their root systems to compensate for being pruned! Cool! Clever Mother Nature - we love her! For our lower layer we've ordered loads of kumara plants, which will grow as a thick ground cover and we have an excess of tiny strawberry plants - they may like to ramble around under the trees?