One

It is hard to believe that we have been here for a year now.  We have loved the past 12 months and are looking forward to the next 12 months too.

We have done a lot of work cleaning up and renovating, and have a large list of things to do both in the house and outside.  Lucky for us we have no time pressure to do anything as it is a slow process.

We celebrated our milestone day by going to Church in town, pruning the orchard and doing a tip run.  Just another regular Sunday really.

Before and After ~ The Cubby

We were excited when we moved here because there was a cubby for the children.  It is home built from timber grown here too.  The only problem with it was the stairs were broken, and that it was sitting next to the carport and shed.  Not exactly the safest place for children to play.

We decided to move it, which involved lowering it to the ground and sitting it on some timbers to act as skids.  We hooked it all up to the tractor with fingers crossed.  I half expected something to go wrong and thought Santa would have to buy a new cubby for Christmas... 

Thankfully I was wrong and the cubby now sits in the orchard, lower to the ground and under the big almond trees which will have full shade in Summer.

Much better!

Pistachios

I picked as many pistachios as were ripe for harvest and spent the afternoon, and some of this evening removing the outer hulls.  I have learnt a bit about this in one evening.  When pistachios are ripe they will fall off the tree with little coaxing and be easy to shell.  Don't pick them if they are not ready yet as it is a case of 'softly softly catchee monkey'* with these nuts or it is hard work.

I have a bundle upstairs laid out to dry on a towel. 

I will get a dry weight to see what volume we ended up with in this first round but that will take about 3 sunshine filled days, or about 10 hours in a slow oven. 

I love that you can toss them in the freezer and keep them for up to three years!  I should just need to gather a 12 month supply but more is always good!

We ate these, Possum was 'nut hungry' and even in their not so dried out state these taste great!

*I can't believe the Mr had not heard this saying before the other week when I used it for something or other.  Now I delight in using it as often as possible.

In The Orchard.

The cockatoos ate all the almonds.

The big wet caused all the nectarines and apricots to swell and split and the fruit fly moved in and then moved on to the plums. 

 I have high hopes for the peaches and persimmons. 

The pistachios also look good for now.

Time will tell...

Today we sprayed the fruit fly and took the time to pick up all the dropped fruit and bag it in the sun to try to control the fly.  Better late than never I hope.

I will be more organised next year.

Slashing

The orchard was a little overgrown.

The veggie beds in the front yard looking through to the orchard.

2.5 weeks post settlement and I have already been busy outside. 

There has been hard work clearing rubbish and cleaning up.  Already I have turned the soil in the garden beds ready for veggies. I have pruned over 30 fruit trees in the orchard which is something that I suspect has not been done in some time. It was hard work with my small pruning saw but I feel like I know each tree now.

Harvest from our trees!

We have juiced lemons to freeze for cooking throughout the year and we have enjoyed fresh squeezed orange juice too.  The sheep have been eating the mandarins and I have decided not to do anything with the kumquats this year.

We have all enjoyed the mild Winter days in the garden and orchard and there is still a lot of work to be done but i think we are slowly getting there!

In the first week we had 21mm of rain and yesterday we had a further 15mm, the garden will be thankful as will I with all the weeding and digging yet to be done!