Independance Days update - for two weeks.

Planted: Green Manure, where the lawn used to be. Photos tomorrow maybe? Brocolli and silverbeet seedlings. Jerusalem artichokes, along back fence. May plant another batch somewhere else as I am finding it quite a dry spot.

Harvest something: Cherry tomatoes. It's the middle of winter, but in cleaning up the chook pen I found a bowlful of red cherry toms, going into salad tonight. I will also harvest some lettuce, coriander and parsley for the salad.

Preserve something: Nothing

Store Something: Chook feed!

Manage Reserves: Kitchen now sorted, and is much easier to access. I have a small amount of benchspace.

Prepped: Picked up chickens from a friend rather than the layer pullets. They are Barnevelders and are very pretty. Should lay every one to two days and I have 3 so that's more than enought for me and some to give away/barter. Had a day off Friday and fixed up chicken yard. The gate was broken. Made a temporary nesting box until I can get an old mower catcher. these are great for nesting boxes as they are dark and dry and have a handle on the top to pick them up with.

Worked on Local Food Systems: Went to a working bee day at Harmony Farm on the southern highlands. I think I'll try and go at least once a season. They have lots of fruit trees and I can learn a lot from them.

Reduced Waste: I got chickens. Now I can give them meat and dairy scraps instead of throwing out!

Cooked something new: Didn't cook anything new for me, but did cook with my two year old friend. She wore her special apron and helped me pour pre-prepared ingredients in and to mix and put everything into the container - result. Delicious apple crumble. However she didn't eat hardly any of it. I did though and so did her mum and dad. Cooking with kids is lots of fun, but you do need to pick the recipe and be prepared.

Learned a new skill: Grafting. At Harmony Farm yesterday we had a grafting workshop and I grafted 5 different apple varieties and am now praying for them to take. They say their apples graft the best so I started with them and maybe will try pears or something stonefruit next time.