New addition to the family

Martin checked waters 2 days ago and came across this little fella. He had wire wrapped around his leg and in the process of trying to get, had pulled the wire even tighter. Unfortunately his mother was nowhere to be found.

After some initial perseverance, Ned has taken really well to a bottle. Luckily we had a bag of denkavit in the coldroom and some calf teats in the fridge!

Ned's offside hind leg is very sore and swollen and he's reluctant to walk on it. We have been bathing it with salty water and applying Betadine and the vet is sending us some anti-inflammatory medication and penicillin to give him.The vet suggested we also massage his leg to help get the swelling down.

Charli and BJ have got used to having Ned around and no longer bark at him....instead they like to lick his face after he's been fed!

Garden Club

I recently took on the role of garden club co-ordinator and was soon in for a shock. I hadn't realized one of my responsibilities was to organize gardens to view when other garden clubs graced us with a visit!

This last weekend saw the Longreach Garden Club visit us....and I must say I had a wonderful weekend. The most stressful part of their visit was finding gardens for them to view, but some very helpful people helped out there, and an after dinner guest speaker. A local lady recently put together a put called Gardens of the Beaten Track in Western Queensland and so I asked her to tell about the dramas of her book....I was being presumptuous in thinking that it wasn't all a smooth process!

 So on Saturday afternoon, after a lovely lunch at Daisy Cottage, we headed off to visit 3 lovely gardens, all lush, green and beautiful but oh so very different. A number of our own garden club members joined us and helped make our visitors feel welcome. Here is a snapshot of some....

As you can see, the gardens were stunning, and if any of the gardeners were nervous about having others enjoy their garden, that was soon dispelled when they saw how relaxed and friendly everyone was. It was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon.

That evening we joined in a tour of the woolscour and a delicious campoven dinner. It's some years since Martin and I had toured the scour and Nathan never had, so it was an ideal opportunity. The evening turned cool, but we enjoyed our meal in the cookhouse, where it was cosy and warm. We had a meal of roast beef, mutton and pork with all the trimmings, damper and an array of scrumptious desserts...all the great old fashioned Aussie ones...YUMMMMMM!!

On Sunday morning I headed back in to town for the rest of their visit. We began with a visit to the retirement village. Some very keen gardeners live there and the village always looks really lovely. The chairman of the committee told the history of the village before we set of.  The ladies marveled at our wonderful facilities for the aged citizens of our community and took the opportunity to chat with the residents. Afterwards, we all enjoyed a lovely morning tea in the final garden. It was very relaxing and when it came for our visitors to leave, many new friendships had been forged. For me, it was also a wonderful opportunity to catch up with some lovely ladies I hadn't seen for a good few years.

Another garden group is visiting next month, but fortunately I don't have to plan anything for that one. Next April, yet another group is headed out way.

in the meantime...I can get back in to my own garden.......

Bright little Faces

These have been flowering in my garden...aren't they so pretty? Like little rays on sunshine aren't they.

I have had a bit of a battle to get them though...battles with a certain little bowerbird! For some reason he seemed to think I shouldn't enjoy them! The little terror would fly in, break off the bud and drop it on the ground and then fly off! Finally I had to put a net over them!