Feather your Nest Friday, 13th May, 2022.

Every week has something,  this week it was Lucy had some surgery.  I pray and have faith but I still worry and get anxious.  So I had a couple of anxious days.  She is doing well though! 

When stressed the absolute last thing I can do is sit and worry.  I am much better doing useful things that might somehow help.  Keeping busy in general.   So I had a week of cooking! 

I made Mum her Gluten Free Scones for Mothers Day.

The spotty ones have Sultanas.  Mum freezes them so she has them on hand. 

I made my son in law a Lasagne to help him out.

And three more, individual sized Lasagnes for my niece Allie.   I made her some cup cakes too.

She came over to clean our chimney before I light the first fire of the season.  She also cleaned our gutters.  This was our trade.  We also have a nice dinner together and I made a chocolate cake for desert.  

Then I made 24 Sausage Rolls.   Chloe and Luke got some.  It is Harper's birthday and sausage rolls are my contribution to the lunch.  

Each thing I made I tried to get as many meals as possible.  

Chloe asked me to cover a cushion for Thomas' new room.  The theme is farmer with a lot of tractors...

There is a heat pack in this photo.   That was also for Allie... she wanted a long one to go across her shoulders.  I know the feeling so I tried it out on myself. 

In the garden I am harvesting broccoli and it is good! 

These have grown well in my container gardens.   However these first ones battled moths until I made my cloches to cover them.  Still they grew ok and produced.   The cloches works perfectly on the smaller plants.   I needed to cook up something for when the plants reach a larger size.

Ebay to the rescue.  I found nylon bags...  they are huge and cover a plant easily.   For demonstration purposes I popped one over my Basil.

For reference this one is 1metre high x 80cm wide.  It is so simple I don't know why I didn't think of this.  Nothing can get through.   Now I will begin making them,  old nylon or net curtains would be perfect for these!   And a great gift for any gardener!   I don't want spays on my food.  I also don't want to lose my crop to bugs.  What an easy solution!!  

We filled the main hen house with shredded paper and hay so that when the rain comes it won't turn into a soggy mess.   We were about half way here but I took the photo because Zackie waited patiently at the door so sweetly. 

I decided that the chooks need at least two hours a day free ranging.  This is sort of a compromise that balances the cost of feed, health of the hens and danger of foxes. 

The hen house is about 100 metres from ourhouse.  Usually I walk up and down a couple of times a day.  I must have driven and fed them enough times that they associate the car with food as well as me... like today I was going to Chloe's so on the way I stopped the car and fed the hens.   The result of this is that they chase cars!   I am going to have to try and get a video of this but they run absolutely flat out and the ducks fly along keeping up.   This might be some new security measure as I am pretty sure some people will find this a bit intimidating!  

We are having front gates made.   There are timber shortages and so we have used our own fallen timber to make the posts. 

These were cut today.  So exciting!  

I used a bright torch (flashlight) to "candle" the eggs in the incubator.  This was new for me!  It looks like I have chicks in about half the eggs.  It reminded me of a scan.  The eggs with no chick... the light just went through the egg uninterrupted.  The others looked to be about half full of something.  Hopefully chickens!   I admit to wanting to do this again and again but think I had better leave them alone! 😊

We had some rain and things are looking better and better!  

How was your week?  How did you build up your home, pantry, garden or supplies?    

Have a lovely weekend! xxx

For those that know Laine.... She was unwell with a bacterial infection after her surgery. This set her back and she lost more weight.   Her cancer is stage 3 which means she has treatment ahead.  This was a blow.  She needs prayer to gain weight and strength so she can begin this treatment in the next few weeks.  She is so appreciative of prayers.xxx