Sensational Spring!

Spring and Autumn/Fall are my two favourite seasons. I love the changing colours and the more mild temperatures. I think that Spring probably just manages to gain the edge over Autumn though, because Spring is an amazing, glorious riot of colour and scent.

Ornamental Plum Blossoms

 We live in an area where there are a lot of orchards, so Spring always brings a patchworked landscape of hills covered in pink and white blossoms. It's so pretty when the blossom petals start to fall and gather like pink and white snowflakes.

Apple blossoms - I hope the birds don't get them all this year!

A bobtail lizard staying cool under the agapanthus

Gorgeous irises and lavender that we picked up at the local farmers market.

Aren't they gorgeous?

A Crimson Rosella just hanging out in our fig & mulberry tree.

Someone must have announced groundhog day... we went back to rain, and frozen toes!

The first poppies of the season

 I just love the poppies. They make me feel happy. The pink mop head poppies are my favourites (which I think I mentioned last year) and sadly we only got ONE single pink one again this year. I found a lady at the local markets who had some seeds for the pink poppies, so I'll have to scatter them in the garden soon in the hopes that next year I'll have more than one!

My lone pink poppy

 Last week we went to the local botanic gardens for a friend's birthday. We had a devonshire tea in the tea rooms and then let the kids run around and burn off some pent up school holiday energy! I keep forgetting how much I love the botanic garden.. which is dreadful as it's only 5 minutes from my house!

Fields of poppies!

There are lots of lovely water features around the park.. it's so tranquil and peaceful.. Except when you're chasing after 5 crazy kids!

Pansies are such adorable flowers.

You could imagine that you were a million miles from civilisation..

The Wisteria at the Tea Rooms. Divine.

And what could be a more tangible symbol of spring than baby chickens? Phillipa and I purchased 6x day old Golden Laced Wyandotte chicks between us in the hopes that we could graft them onto my broody bantam, Honeydew. Amateurs that we are, we tried too early and she hadn't been sitting for long enough, so now we're hand rearing them.

At 4-6 days old - some people have goldfish on their desks while they work, my husband had chickens.

2 weeks old - enjoying a week's holiday at Phillipa's while the kids and I spent a week with my Grandparents.

The chicks are now 3 weeks old and are comparatively huge, compared to when they first came home with us. They have lots of feathers and are spending the days outside in our "chicken palace". They love it when we let them out so they can explore. They have no fear and will attempt to fly from pretty much anywhere! Another week or so and they should be able to spend the nights outside too. Unfortunately, getting the chicks didn't solve my broody Honeydew issue.. so last week we picked up some fertilised Araucana X eggs (the blue/green ones) from another breeder close by and she's now happily sitting on those. 2 more weeks and we should have another 4 chicks to add to our "family"!

The kids love the chicks, and I love that they have the opportunity to experience raising and caring for the baby chicks - especially now that the bantams are bigger and prefer to do their own thing (and Bean is much more comfortable dealing with the smaller chicks - he loves Honeydew but finds her too big to handle).

My poppies, all out in their splendour.

Ahh Spring.. what a splendid thing!