Spring Has Sprung

Interesting weather we've been having. It was a warm start to spring, hitting 30°C at one point! Then we had almost a solid week of winds which seems to have brought in a sudden drop in temperature, giving us rains in Adelaide and, quite shockingly, snow in the north! This is uncommon even mid-winter, but practically unheard of in spring; the snow that is.

The plants and animals are certainly expressing spring. The plum tree has flowered and it was heartwarming to see bees busily collecting the pollen and nectar from them. We now have little plums growing.

The new cherry tree has flowered and is producing fruits too. This must mean that it was cold enough this winter for it to fruit.

Most of the chilli plants certainly decided it got too cold to survive. We didn't get much frost, but obviously it was enough.

Unfortunately, I think the plum is on its way out, because the new growth is not looking healthy. The branches have been rotting a bit these past few years, too. The tree is probably well over 20 years old, though, and I gather stone fruit trees don't live very long. I gather they can be rooted from cuttings, so I'm going to try doing that, because satsuma plums aren't easy to come by and they are lovely plums.

The chickens are laying again and going broody and the quails have started laying too. The boys have also started their trilling crows and we may have a few too many, so I'll need to balance that out before the females get injuries.

The white pigeon we rescued earlier this year has been confirmed to be a male. Besides trying to romance all the quails, who run in fear, he and Pigel have hatched two eggs. No, not my idea; I was going to remove the eggs when they were first laid, but hubby and daughter wanted me to leave them be and see what happened…just what you'd expect to happen really, more animals!

^{One of each colour, mini mum and mini dad.}

Talking of more animals, we have three baby bunnies which are now 6 weeks old. They are the offspring of our original pair, PolarBear and Fern, after a brief encounter where I was seeing if they would room together under the theory that maybe she was getting to old to carry a pregnancy at 4. This theory arose because I'd tried to mate her a couple of times with the new, broken patterned male, Sunny, and both times she pulled fur out to nest halfway through the gestation period, but failed to produce a litter. So it seems it wasn't Fern that was the issue, but Sunny. It’s a puzzle, really, because if he was infertile, that would have caused a bleed (like a period) in Fern and that didn't happen. It could be just that he hasn't yet figured out what he's doing properly. He's currently now in with his intended girlfriend, Noot, and we'll have to see whether he figures it out. It's been a couple of months and no signs of babies yet, but Noot has been particularly hormonal recently. _{It's a bit like PMT in human women!}

^{Baby bunny photos courtesy of @izzydawn}

I've moved the first planter down from the lawn, next to the patio and put some of the rooted pepino offshoots in it. As they grow they should fall down the sides of the planter and shade the metal from the summer sun. Two more planters and a lot more weeding to go.

As usual, I am behind with planting for the summer. The garden has been rather far down on my priorities list recently. I have a few volunteer tomato plants to transplant, then I might get some seedlings in, but first I need to prepare the ground for them. At least the rabbits are well fed on all the weeds that need to come out.

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