Winter weekend stills.

This weekend was all about winter. Right on cue, the night time temperature dropped down to 3º C. Just the right time to wrap the bed in super soft flannelette sheets. I had all the best intentions of getting stuck into studying this weekend (and I did do some), but I really needed to recharge from a super busy couple of weeks.

For me, this meant getting outside into the garden. I've been a bit of a tardy gardener this year, especially since the chickens razed last year's garden to the ground! I checked the Alice Springs sowing calendar and decided I could sneak into winter by planting spinach, silverbeet, broccoli, rocket and parsley - all those delicious greens.

Other weekend highlights included tapas with a friend, sitting in a laneway lined with candelit tables, live music played by a gypsy jazz band - we really had the sense that we could be anywhere! I also caught a film, Rich Hill, as part of the Human Rights Art and Film Festival. It was a harrowing documentary set in a small town in rural America, following the lives of three teenage boys and their families amidst poverty, violence, mental illness and other challenges. It didn't give a lot of hope - maybe just a small glimmer - that the cycle of disadvantage would be broken.

1. On Saturday, I met friends at the Steiner fête, a famous school fair at the lovely campus set against the southern side of the MacDonnell Ranges. I think my inspiration to get the garden going was spurred on by the fabulous kitchen garden in the school grounds. I also picked up a vintage cashmere-wool blend coat, it's soft and warm and a real bargain - $5.
2. Boss of the chickens. This one is brazen and bolshy and will sprint around behind me, sometimes even pecking at my heels.
3. Broccoli...
4. Spinach...
5. Silverbeet.
6. Super snug winter bed. Sooooo warm. Sooooo hard to leave in the morning.
7. From the garden - eggs and mandarins in abundance.
8. The mandarins are just how I like them - more tart than sweet. 

Joining up with Em's weekly Stills link-up x

EDIT: Oh, and speaking of gardens, have a gander at the green thumbery happening over in Prue's backyard. Go on!

Stills: Another Week in Alice Springs.

1. Planting the trees and shrubs we bought last weekend along the back fence.
2. And another.
3. And...another one!
4. Watering. Growing grass here in Alice Springs is quite the ordeal. Red dirt abounds.
5. Corrugated iron back fence...
6. ...And the fence beyond that.
7. I hope you aren't eating! My filthy post-gardening feet with fruity orange/pink/red toenails.
8. If the back door is open, you can guarantee Missy is trying to sneak in.
9. Finishing a big, busy weekend (that included helping a local candidate in a by-election for the local town council) with a couple of quiet ciders at the local.
10. There's always something interesting and quirky at Monte's.
11. 'Tis me. Blurry. And a grubby mirror.

I've got a post brewing about 'pulling out the gender card' and how damaging it is for gender equity which I'll hopefully summons the courage to articulate later this week.

Weekly cricket update*: My team fielded first and my bowling was on the better side of dreadful. They didn't get that many runs off my balls but I did bowl a couple of wides. We had some catches and bowled a wicket. Then we batted and I was 'third drop' which meant that I was the third in line (but fifth to bat). I just padded up (this means putting on your leg pads and gloves to get ready to run on if someone retires or gets out!) and then we won the game by four overs (there were still four overs left for the other team to bowl but we had already caught up to their score, so we finished there!). 

How was your weekend?

Linking up with Em at The Beetle Shack - check out the linked posts, as there are always some fabulous new blogs to read!

*A new addition to my weekly 'stills' post! I play cricket in a team of awesome women. We play on Thursday nights. I know nothing about cricket, except for the rules I've learnt through playing (last season was my first) and I still don't know the 'lingo'. I love it.

Stills: Inside, outside.

1. I picked up this mirror from a trash-and-treasure stall at the local markets. It reminded me of a mirror I used to have that belonged to my grandmother. It was misplaced in a move at some point in time, so when I found this one it was meant to come home with me.
2. Bougainvillea from the plant alongisde the house...
3. ...on the mantlepiece, alongside the mirror.
4. This morning I picked this mega-zucchini from the garden. It is really heavy! 
5. Natives for along the back fence.
6. The chooks have been getting into the veggie garden and helping themselves to almost everything in sight.
7. Except, it seems, sweet basil and thyme. They also didn't care much for lemongrass and the zucchini bushes. They did, however, take a liking to corn, silverbeet, kale, Vietnamese mint, and the leaves from the chilli plant. Clever chooks left the chillies.
8. The guilty three, who now have clipped wings and a double-height fence!
9. Luckily they have been earning their keep and laying two-a-day.
10. We had book club on Sunday morning. We all rode our bikes together into town for breakfast and a chat about the latest books. This month we read Patrick White's The Twyborn Affair (which I'm still ploughing through) and The Long Weekend in Alice Springs (a graphic novel based on an essay, which I talked about in this post). Some of us also read the Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, which I'm just about to start now that uni is over for the year.

What are you reading at the moment?

Linking with the Beetle Shack.

Stills: Another weekend in the garden.

1. After a bit of a stinking hot week here in Alice Springs, we awoke on Saturday to an overcast sky and a few little droplets of rain. It stayed reasonably cool (i.e. high-20s to low-30s) all weekend and I spent much of it in fishermen's pants and Rossi boots.

2. Two of our tomato bushes are laden with fruit. I counted 37. The third tomato bush was not going well at all, so we pulled it out and planted another in its place.

3. Zucchini is going well! This plant has easily quadrupled in size in a matter of weeks and there are a couple of zucchinis growing there.

4. Missy knows she's not supposed to go into the veggie garden.

5. This will not usually prevent her from sneaking in to sniff at stuff.

6. 'Tis the start of the dry skin season.

7. Currently perched here with a cup of tea.



Linking with Em at the Beetle Shack

You, my friend, are not a hen.

We came to the realisation last weekend that one of our chickens is, in fact, not the chicken we thought it to be. You might remember from this post that a couple of months ago we picked up some fuzzy little chicks and were raising them in the hope of having a trio of egg-layers.

Evidently, that's not to be.

I noticed a couple of weeks back that the chooks, and one in particular, were developing some deep green, glossy feathers around the neck area. Then, the largest of the brood - and the one with the deepest, greenest, glossiest neck feathers - started to grow a spouty green tail. Then everything started to fall into place. The standing-up-tall-wing-flapping. The play fighting. The launching off the ramp and bursting out of the chookhouse as soon as I open the door in the mornings.

And then, the crowing.

For the moment, it sounds like a teenage boy whose voice is breaking. Thankfully, he practices at about 7:45am and not any earlier. For now.

We suspect there's another rooster amongst the brood, and one hen. Which means eggs, I suppose, but not exactly what we had planned.

A treat for ya feet.

Would you believe, I have never had a pedicure. Nope! Not ever. Partly due to my excessively ticklish feet, but mostly due to laziness. That's not to say my feet don't need a pedicure. Things can get a little dry and a little extremely cracked from those long summers doled out by the desert.

Here is a little treat I whipped up after a quick search of the internet (I don't even remember where I found the recipe!). Try it. Your feet will thank you for it. Mine sure did, although I have spared you a foot portrait (phew!).

Pour some olive oil into a small bowl. Stir in some sea salt. Add some drops of essential oil - I used lavender, and some fresh rosemary leaves, shredded a little. Mix it into a paste, and it's time to slather it on. Best to do it in the bath, or with a bowl of warm water handy to wash it off. But not until you've spent some time massaging it into your feet. It feels and smells a treat. 

Lavender oil from Mount Wayo Station Lavender Farm. The only thing I bought at the Alice Springs Show!

Sea salt

Rosemary...mmm

Mix. Then slather.

The matter of time.

Time flies past and slips away. So much packed into the days, and the hours. Sleep comes very readily these days. Despite the frantic pace, still there has been time to share food with friends, to embrace the evening cool before summer properly arrives.

And the notion of time was unfurled in our most recent book club book, Ruth Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being. From the author's website (and a most fitting description):

Open up this book and discover: an earthquake-causing catfish, a hundred-and-four-year-old Buddhist nun, French maid cafes in a manga-fied world, cyberbullying, natural disasters, Zen philosophy, the infinite possibilities of time, and an uplifting story of love, loss, and wisdom old and new.

1. Lemon tree against the evening sky, walking the dogs after work.
2. Mid-week dinner at a friend's place, with a delicious meal from a Jewish cookbook. It was chicken with vegetables and clementines. Clementines! I didn't know they were an actual thing until this point.
3. Kitchen busy-ness. And golly, I'm in love with this kitchen.
4. Iron boost with freshly grown leafy greens.

And, a link to Em at The Beetle Shack!

Fuzz and feathers.

For most of this year, we've been talking about chickens. Whilst still in the grips of a long, hot summer, preparations were being made in the backyard. A fence was built and a chookhouse pilfered from friends who were getting rid of stuff. Thatching was made for the roof to create a shelter that would be protected from the harsh summer sun and provide some warmth in winter.

For months now, all we needed were the chickens.

Here in Alice Springs, there's a Facebook group that practically everyone in town is a member of, where you post things that you're selling or giving away. A while back, we saw a post advertising chickens and taking orders for Rhode Island Reds, Leghorns and other types of chooks. We put our order in, and then the wait was on.

Finally, in early July, we got the call. The chickens were here. Now, I'm not really sure what I was expecting, but the last time that we had chickens, we picked them up at around 16 weeks old, and they already looked chicken-ly. Not this time. These chickens were tiny little balls of downy yellow fuzz. Day olds, freshly hatched. Tiny, teeny little fluffy things.

All of a sudden, panic set in. What do you keep these little tiny things in? Do we need a heat lamp? What do they eat? It was 4:56pm on a Wednesday and we were just outside town in the rural area. As new chicken parents, were really weren't prepared.

Thankfully a local pet store stayed open until 5:30pm so we were able to pick up a heat lamp, a feeder and a water holder. We would have to wait until 8:30am the following day to pick up the chick feed, so we had to make do with crusty bread crumbs that they eagerly pecked at.

It was amazing to see them move around in their box, already starting to scratch around and peck at imaginary bugs in the shredded paper.

Five weeks later, and they have grown most of their feathers and no longer fit all three into one of my hands. And yesterday, our little chickens moved out of home. Well, they actually moved out of the plastic tub lined with sawdust that was residing on the floor of my study. (I no longer have to do my uni tutorial with little cheeps in the background!)

We placed them into their new home and they huddled together for a while, gingerly taking a few steps as a little posse. An hour later they were exploring the floor of their chookhouse, pecking at their food and scratching at the straw like proper hens.

Then we opened the door and they ventured out to explore their own little fenced off section of the veggie patch.

Now, we are eagerly awaiting the next part of the lifecycle - eggs.