family fun & piggy love

You know how sometimes you only kind of look forward to going somewhere and then when you've been, you sit back and think, 'wow, that was fun'? Our little excursion to the Penguin Sustainable Day turned out to be just like that! I've been struggling a bit to get all sorts of agenda's and necessities happening around here, and wasn't really feeling like going out anywhere but a day out among lots of like minded peeps was obviously just what I needed  because today I'm facing The Impossible Tasks with a little more gusto!! 

We left home in the dark at 6.30am and had to scrape ice from the car windscreen - oh yes, our first frost! All day I kept thinking about how the garden would look when I got home....hopefully not too frost burnt! I really like this idea that I saw in the garden at Sustainable Day. I'm thinking it would keep plants a little warmer for longer - it's a steel frame covered with chicken wire and then plastic. Both ends are open but I wonder if it would be acceptable with the ends covered in plastic too? With perhaps a small area at the apex left open for some air flow? 

That's what I like about going to these type of places - Inspiration!!   

  (The verdict on our garden? The zucchini's were burnt a little and so were the beans. Luckily I had covered the cucumbers and most of the tomato's with a large sheet of plastic the night before - and the remainder were only lightly burnt. Not long till the end, though!) 

 

I have to point out that although I am ecstatic about my carrot growing capabilities, these bio-dynamic ones put mine to shame! And the daikon radish were easily two feet long! I picked up a brochure about a bio-dynamic course available in May and had momentary thoughts of going along but perhaps not this year.......

The children spent a large part of their day in a pig pen!! Lovely Eliza from Mount Gnomon Farm very generously allowed them to frolic in the hay with four two and a half week old piggies! Now, I know these piggies are destined for someones table and as a veggie lover I should be horrified about such happenings but I'm a believer in 'each to their own' - my choice is not every one's choice, nor is yours mine. I'm ok with that because we all travel a different path - and I know some very nice carnivores as well as herbivores! (Having said that, I do get a trifle disturbed about seeing BBQ'd piggy tails, which you will find if you scroll down a little on Eliza's blog!)

All that to say I had a lovely, relaxing, chatty kind of day. There were less visitors than last year due to the Day having been postponed, but that meant that we weren't spending all our time discussing heaters and could drift around to other stalls. I was really wanting to bump into some people from Bloggy Land but sadly it was not to be. Kate commented that she was too shy to say hello which makes me feel like a minor celebrity.... because I really wanted to have a photo taken with Tino Carnevale from Gardening Australia and I was too shy!!! And he is a celebrity!! I hope to meet you another time though, Kate!