It’s Spring, here! I know we’ve still got a while until the Equinox, but here on the Homestead the magnolias are out, fruit trees are blossoming and our neighbourhood reverberates to the calls of lambs and mums searching for each other. A kind of continuous, ovine game of Marco Polo.

Spring is also the season of howling gales, evidenced by the strategically stored, upsidedown, huddled together outside furniture

This Spring I am working on not panicking. I’m trying to be all serene, stopping to admire the daffodils down the driveway while looking past the weeds they’re pushing through and the fact that the driveway needs spraying and resurfacing; celebrating the first flowers on the broadbeans instead of spinning out about plantings and growing times and I’ve got to get those vege in the ground! *Deep breath*

In actual fact, my list keeps me on the straight and narrow, ensuring the essential stuff gets done on time. It’s the other stuff that has the ability to stress me out; the “spare-time” fillers. Like the aforementioned driveway work which is very visual but not really super essential right now. If we did it, it would look like we were really onto it but would also swallow a goodly dollop of cash and a weekend of all-hands-on-deck; there’s lots of other uses for both of those resources right now.

So, instead I’ve decided to direct my spare moment efforts and a fraction of the dollars to the real unsung heroes of the Homestead. Leonardo and his ladies ask for little in the grand scheme of things: that their feeder be ever-full, there be clean water on tap (hah!), a handful of feed wheat and the emptying of the scrap bucket when they least expect it, and clean beds. Whipping around the coop morning and evening takes me five minutes tops and the return is huge.

So, it’s only right they get a coop spruce-up. The door is falling apart, the nesting boxes hang at a jaunty angle, the jumble of just-put-it-in-with-the-chooks detritus needs to sorted and filed and as for the colour: there was no way that was ever barnyard red. I signaled my intention last week by a thorough weeding of their environs to get rid of the stinging nettle and fledgling thistles. Hopefully, they’ll think twice before setting down roots again (no, I’m not holding my breath).

The coming week is a bit of a scary one – I’ll fill you all in once we’re on the otherside – but right now I solemnly swear, in writing nonetheless, that any spare moments that do pop up belong to the Homestead flock. But right now it’s lunchtime…

egg mayo sandwiches, I think.