Of Snakes and Strawberries

Jeanne wrote a post the other day about how “Fresh is Best“, and this started me thinking about how we actually live on the farm. With three asthmatics, we have to be very conscious of what we eat, and pre-packaged foods contain some real nasties, such as MSG, sulphur as a preservative and loads of other additives that we really don’t need. Consequently we don’t eat  much that is prepackaged, the exceptions being yoghurt, cheese, fritz, pitta bread, tinned pineapple and mettwurst.

Kalleskes of Tanunda make a really delicious mettwurst, and we use this for home-made pizzas, using pitta bread, tomato sauce, grated cheese, pineapple, fritz and mettwurst which is our Sunday night meal. The majority of the foods that we eat are fresh, as we live on salads, fresh fruit and vegetables and our own farm-fresh produce.

In our home, we :

• Make our own bread.
• Make our own ice-cream.
• Milk our goats.
• Grow our own sheep, chicken and turkeys for meat.
• Keep chickens for eggs.

Last night we picked up our meat from the butcher’s, maybe in a slightly different form to when we dropped her off, but this sheep was VERY fat, and dressed almost thirty kilograms, which means that as live weight, she would have been about 60 kilograms. Our butcher kills and cuts up our meat, rolling the front legs into roasts, and all for $30.00. We don’t have a meat saw, nor do we have a cold room in which to hang the meat, so this seems very good value to us.

This afternoon I went out to water the strawberries, as they don’t like bore water, and one step from the strawberry trough, I nearly stepped on a baby brown snake. Now, I don’t know how much you know about snakes, but a baby brown snake is as deadly as an adult!

I let out a HUGE scream for my husband, and in one bound I was on top of the outdoor table, with my feet on top of the bench seat. Did I want to be anywhere near that snake? No way! No siree! Nope! I hate snakes with a passion, and my vocal chords certainly had their workout for this week. My husband came out and re-located the horrid thing, and I dissolved into a flood of tears. Now, why, oh why, do they have to pick our back yard to have their babies?

The strawberries are growing wonderfully well, and we actually get to harvest our fruit, now that a good friend gave us a helpful hint:~

When you plant strawberries,

make sure that you have tinsel

scattered around the strawberries,

so that the birds don’t beat you to the fruit.

AND this helpful hint actually works. We only planted our strawberries this year, and they are fruiting so well. We planted blackberries (the thornless type) last year, and this year they were badly frosted, so we didn’t expect to harvest any, but they are actually fruiting again, now. This morning my daughter and I actually had our first taste of thornless blackberries, and they are every bit as good as the variety with thorns – YUM!

This morning my daughter picked the ripe tomatoes, and they are absolutely divine – I love home-grown cherry tomatoes, as the taste of a home-grown cherry tomato is so full of flavour! There are also a few Apollo tomatoes that are good for sandwiches, as it is so fiddly trying to place cherry tomatoes onto a sandwich.

I praise God for His constant provision over us, and I am truly thankful that He constantly provides us with all that we need. Notice that I said, “All that we Need”, for He provides for all of our needs, but never our greeds. I also praise Him for keeping me safe from the fangs of the brown snake that intruded into our back yard today!

For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. Colossians 1:16, 17

What’s Flowering at Our Place?

The Liriopes in our back yard are providing us with a very much appreciated splash of colour at this time of year, as the trees are beginning to drop their leaves, and not much else is flowering in autumn.

ALTHOUGH

The Lomandras in my daughter’s garden have the most delicate creamy-white flowers that you have ever seen. Look around you – what can you see flowering at your place? God created all things for His enjoyment – go ahead and imagine how you would feel if you were God and able to see all of the flowering plants at one time! That absolutely astounds me, and I guess that’s why He is God, and we are His people. We couldn’t cope with all of the beauty of this world in one viewing.

AND

On the subject of autumn, can you guess where all of the leaves are?

Yes, they’re all in the bottom of the pool – the prunus will be getting a rather severe haircut before it drops ALL of its autumn leaves!

Gardening – Thriving and Growing

Since arriving here almost seven years ago, we have been severely challenged gardening wise.The soil here is heavy clay, and for the first couple of years we struggled, having plants continually die after we seemingly cared well for them, watering them weekly and fertilising them.

This last year, we have been taking the unusual step of removing the heavy clay soil from around the planting area and replacing it with potting mix, and yes, it really worked. It might seem a bit drastic, but when you keep losing plants, it can become really expensive and VERY frustrating.

ALL of the plants that we have planted using this method are thriving and growing really well. The difference – only the soil that they are growing in – just like us, if we are planted in the good soil – reading and acknowledging God’s Word and praying, we will thrive and grow and bear much fruit.

And these are they which are sown on good ground; such as hear the word, and receive it, and bring forth fruit, some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some an hundred.

Mark 4: 20

What Amazing Things You See at Night

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Arachnida
Order: Araneae
Suborder: Araneomorphae
Superfamily: Araneoidea
Family: Araneidae
Genus: Eriophora

Isn’t it amazing what you see at night, especially if you go looking? My son went into the garden and photographed this Orb Weaver Spider’s web – isn’t he/she beautiful? This spider has made its home among the leeks, which are flowering at the moment.

Orb Weaver Spiders are incredible, for they build large, suspended wheel shaped webs that they take down in the morning and re-build every night. To think that God created Orb Weaver spiders Ex Nihilo (out of nothing) is something that continues to amaze and astound me. The ability that He placed within them to spin the silk for the web is incredible. Have you ever taken the time to watch a spider spin its web? It is a wonderful science experiment – go ahead and try it sometime.

God’s creation is absolutely spectacular, and I never cease to be amazed at the wonder, beauty and perplexity of it, and I praise His name.

Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.

Psalm 150:6

What Have We Been Doing?

What have we been doing for the last week of school? Well, the other day we made Christmas cards, but here we have been replacing the mulch around the roses. The previous pea straw had rotted away, so we removed what was left of it and composted it, replacing it with fresh pea straw which my husband mowed to make it finer, so that it was easier to place around the rose bushes. They have grown so much since last year and are looking so much healthier. After mulching them, we misted them with a fine spray of Seasol to help them through the summer.

Then, the next job that we tackled was the pruning of the front garden. Each year we prune back the larger plants so that they don’t become straggly and blow apart during the strong winds that we sometimes have in summer.