Thursday 17 November 2016

Ah The Moon Tis Lovely

We had a visit over the weekend from our dear friends Angie and Andy.  The weather was lovely so we went out and about. 
 Here we all are atop Shelley Beach Lookout, the view up there never disappoints.
 We took ourselves down to Cosy Corner on the evening of the supermoon.  Alas we had our facts wrong and got down there an hour too late, the moon although beautiful, was high in the sky and wasn't as big as when it just rose over the horizon. 
 Nonetheless, we had fun for a short time, testing our camera skills.  Then the mozzies attacked enmasse so we headed for home.
Neo is enjoying the sunny mornings.  We put a chair up against the sliding door, where the morning sun shines through for an hour or so, and we also wrapped the curtains around the back of the chair, so Neo has a hot box cubby.  He loves it and spends a couple of hours in there every morning, toasty warm and amused by watching the antics of little birds outside.
 The warmer weather is bringing the big male roos in, in search of romance.  Here is Marx, fat with an enormous joey in her pouch, and her chilled out beau.  We thought it was Brutus, the biggest of big boys, but he has three diagonal white dots down his face and it looks like this one only has a forehead dot, so he shall remain nameless.  Brutus will not be happy that another chap is after his women!
 I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I had won a couple of prizes in the Embroidery section at the Albany Show.  I think Steve's beautiful round frame he made for me helped too.
 And I finished my task for the Embroidery Xmas party on December 6th.  Every year we are given a mission, to make something specific, and this year it was to make a Xmas decoration, then wrap it up and put it in the box.  Then we play a fun and silly game to mix the parcels up, so everyone gets a parcel back, but not their own.  I hope the recipient of mine is happy with it.
Well, I am going to put my feet up now, we are both tired out.  We are busy trying to set up dripper systems for all the garden beds, so lots of pruning and weeding is happening, then threading miles of dripper pipe through the beds so each plants gets some water.  It's coming along nicely. :-)

Monday 7 November 2016

Need To Fix Dem Holes

The sun is slowly starting to show itself for brief periods, it's amazing how fast wild grass and weeds grow with a bit of warmth, mowing and whipper snipping are happening in earnest.  The kangaroos are loving the increase in temperature and are spending a lot of their time comatose on the grass.  Elf, on the left, knows how to make himself comfortable, while Patience looks on sleepily.
 Here's another photo of orphan Poppy that our friend is hand rearing.  She has started taking a few awkward, gangly hops in the last few day apparently.
 I bought one of those bird seed blocks just for the heck of it whilst grocery shopping, and tied it up in the Abutilon shrub just outside the kitchen window.  Well, word did not take long to get around, and we have a family of Silvereyes gobbling it at a ferocious rate.
 And here is the reason, they have their new family in tow, these are fully fledged babies not yet feeding themselves, so I've been delightedly watching the adults wrestling seeds and sultanas from the feed block, and stuffing them down the throat of the watching and cheeping babies.  Delightful!
 On Friday we sadly said goodbye to a huge old Acacia that was growing at the beginning of our driveway.  We have been getting notes from Western Power saying it was too close to the power line, and the note we got last week had LOTS of green highlighter pen used on it, so we figured they were getting rather cranky.  As it turned out, the tree wasn't in very good condition and nearing the end of its life, so rather than pruning, it came out completely.
 Amazing that all that's left of a huge tree is this pile of wood,
 and a pile of mulch.  This is not the actual mulch, this is another pile of mulch that the tree guys gave us from another job they did nearby, so we have two piles this size to move!  It will be very useful in our garden beds and around fruit trees.
 Steve started by mulching the pathways in the vegie garden, it always looks so nice when the paths are defined, all orderly.  Steve has also started laying down some driplines for watering, you can just see the brown pipe going up and down in the vegie beds.  We are gradually working our way through with driplines, it will save us so much time not having to hand water.
 This huge old dead tree trunk was also tidied up by the tree guys.  It's been worrying us as it is so big and heavy but we could see one long, arching dead branch was developing cracks so it was going to come crashing down soon.  So we got the guys to cut off the precarious branches at the top, leaving the beautiful, massive but now safe, trunk. 
 Here is Mr Chainsaw himself, hard at work cutting up what the guys took off the old tree above.  You can see the hollow section of one of the big branches, we really don't know what was holding it up in the air!
I have a knitting repair job to do.  This is the first pair of socks I made, they are mine, and it's been a learning curve with these.  Firstly, I learned why it's not advisable to use 100% wool for socks that get a lot of use, it's not tough enough, hence the holes in both heels.  Mind you, I also slightly shrunk and felted these socks accidentally when putting them in a hot machine wash without thinking.  So, I guess I will try and darn them to keep them from unravelling, although when one accidentally felts their socks the advantage is that they don't unravel very much, the hole just seems to stay as is.  Regardless, I will darn them and then maybe try and crochet an extra layer over the top of the darn, not sure yet, will decide as I do it.  But I want to fix them, they are very comfortable.  I now use 75% wool/25% nylon for making socks, apparently that is the perfect blend of fibre for comfort and toughness.  And I hand wash them :-)