Plantings

In a desperate effort to get some new veggies planted I threw the moon planting theory out the window and spent a lovely 20 minutes at the local nursery yesterday (after tucky, between a funeral and school pickup/wisdom teeth x-Ray for Drew). If I wait for the relevant moon phases to come by it will be weeks before I can plant everything I want to get in the ground. So with one eye on the clock and the other on the racks of seedlings I proceeded to walk along and, after some quiet deliberation, plucked 10 beautiful punnets for my tray. I got carrots, celery, mignonette lettuce, baby cucumbers, first prize tomatoes, black jack zucchini, jap pumpkin, butternut pumpkin, a curry plant (would have to nearly be my favorite plant) and some red petunias to go in the old boiler with the curry plant.

After the x-ray Drew visited his friend in hospital armed with a big packet of Allen's snakes and a Cosmopolitan(which he chose). I noted on the front cover that the "Sealed Section" was "back by popular demand"; great I thought. The only time he buys one of his friends a magazine it has a sealed section in it (and something else rather inappropriate on the cover too). Don't know what her mother thought but apparently F pounced on it when he walked into the room so it appears to have been a good choice.

Peach, the baby goat has developed an extremely naughty streak; I've taken to calling her Psycho Kid. She goes ballistic when she's let out of her pen, tearing around like a mad thing, flinging her body in different directions, jumping up on top of the chook pens and racing along like a freight train,

down on the ground, bouncing on the garbage bins from one to another, down on the ground, into the wheelbarrow and out again, standing on the very floppy permy garden fence, springing over said fence, up onto the Barnie cage, flying through the air to land right in the middle of the station I'd just planted - only to be very unceremoniously dumped back over the fence. I'd take some photos of all this except she doesn't stand still long enough for me to snap one. She's like a teenager who has just discovered that boundaries are there to be tested. If she could speak I'm sure she'd be saying "nar nar ne nar nar, you can't catch me". Roast leg of Kid is sounding good. Her mother, Pepper, completely ignores everything that goes on; all she thinks about is her stomach. (Managed to catch a couple of quick photos before she bounded away again; she's eyeing off the really big pen to the left).

Today at lunchtime I planted out half of yesterday's purchases and did the other half when I got home from the office. I also did an hour's weeding at the house grid; I figure an hour a day plus some extra on the weekend should see me close to catching up. I'm almost out of room in the round garden and I still haven't got eggplant or more eschallot seedlings. I also saw miniature lemon and mandarin trees at the nursery that I think I'll put in pots. I've always held off planting fruit trees because I always figured one day we'd move on to a place of our own and couldn't take them with us but if they're in pots it will be easy (but I've been thinking that for 23 years! I could have had a whole orchard or two planted by now, both here and at the old house if I'd just done it at the time!).

Gibbo got back from Brisbane and we caught up on goings on; sometimes I just shake my head and wonder what I worry about; the next three days involve forecasts and monthly reports, two of my least favorite things. Cricket is in Brisbane all weekend then he's off traveling again early next week; then we go to Canberra for the Wagyu Conference Friday 17th for the weekend then spend a couple of days visiting clients and co-operators in the south; school holidays start (last September holidays ever); Drew has an audition booked at USQ during the first week (still going through the motions for Uni in case something interferes with the Canada plan) and somewhere in there I'm scheduled to update CPR, Agchem and Vetchem certification. Oh, and work as well. Some days I just want to run away (but not for long and not unless I can take my husband, kids and iPad with me).