Orange

A random post today.  Just went on a brief tour of our 'estate' with Orange on my mind.  Clivias are a favourite, one of them is just starting to open. 

 

We have a princely sum of four clivias in our clivia patch, three will flower this year, this is the first to flower.  They take four years to reach flowering size, so I'm hoping in four years I'll have a much larger patch thanks to these:

They're clivia berries, a bit shrivelled because Ruby got sick soon after picking them but I'm going to extract the seeds and hopefully propagate myself some new baby clivias.  

Most afternoons we'll walk around the garden with Ruby showing her the new spring growth popping up everywhere.  We finish each outing with a Tangelo picking ceremony, Ruby likes to help carry them inside.  

They are great for juicing.  This year we've had a bumper crop, and I'm sure it's all down to my girls - Sally and Sophie.

That's Sophie, our egg layer extraordinaire - she's got rice on her face in this shot.  She's been laying since early Feb last year.  Her BFF Sally went off the lay for a couple of months earlier this year but most days we get two eggs.  Since they started laying we've only had one day with no eggs.  That's an awful lot of eggs.  Here's today's harvest, I forgot to collect them the last couple of days.

I'm hoping their poo is going to help us grow something else orange - a giant pumpkin.

We're having a giant pumpkin growing competition with Wayne's family.  Last year we had a potato growing competition - we lost dismally.  That last photo was a bit unnecessary I suppose, a bit like the ubiquitous pointless live cross during the news on TV.