Wednesday, February 16, 2011

What are we having for dinner?

The worst question of my day! I never know. I always plan to have a menu plan (like I did in Joburg) but never seem to get to it. So today, Granny came home with fish from Still Bay and we decided it was fish & chips for us. 1 problem- no potatoes. No problem! We knocked over some more tyre towers and found enough for 2 meals. Now I know 1 tower should definitely have more than enough for many meals but I did not have enough soil or compost when I started them and they grew so fast. Anyway, the new ones are doing well too and I already have all 4 tyres in place. Sorted. And dinner sorted too.

We found such lovely critters today. Under one of the potato towers, we found 2 tiny mice- their bodies as big as R2 coins with a black stripe down their backs. So sweet- and I love rodents! Sorry Linda! I thought for sure they would have had a potato feast but neither they nor the giant snails had done any damage. I didn't expect damage from the giant rain spider who came out to greet us.

And when we dismantled our very large compost heap today, we found a veritable menagerie- twakkie (house snake), LARGE lizard with black spots & stripes, frogs, rhino beetles and 100's of larvae, spiders, worms & centipedes. A very good day!
And we have a good pile of very nice compost. Straight to the veggie garden with that.

Some compost advice from my mistakes. Baby your compost heap! Our biggest was about the size of a king size bed and I have put them together and virtually ignored them. With the wind that howls around here, I really should have been watering them more and have covered them sooner. We mowed with our tractor yesterday and have made a thick blanket of the dry grass to protect this new pile from the beginning. Don't forget to add some worm wee, manure tea or something to make it really go.
And so you know, our staff put the left over bits from slaughtering one of their sheep for christmas into the middle of this big heap. All I found today was a jaw bone. Everything else was remade into something lovely and useful.

1 comment:

  1. When I wake up in the morning and I see Rae looking a bit to relaxed, I pop the million dollar question,"Honey what are wehaving for suupper tonight?", a watch her stress levels rise.LOL

    ReplyDelete

Plastering and more

Sorry for the lack of progress reports but here are a few pictures to show where we are now. The internal walls are drywall on timber frames...