Wednesday 27 September 2017

Birds Eye View From A Drone

The wildlife is showing itself more and more as we head deeper into spring.  Voldemort spends a lot of time sunning himself on the arm of the settee.  Did you know that King Skinks love banana?  I throw him a couple of small pieces most days and he gobbles it up.
 There are a lot of kookaburras around at present, sitting motionless waiting for a snack to show itself.  I guess they are nesting and feeding hungry babies?  I like this photo as it shows my bank of clivea that are bursting into beautiful orange flower.
 This is Coco the Quenda or Southern Brown Bandicoot.  We were really surprised the other morning to see it scoffing the wrens' desiccated coconut just outside the back door.  Normally it does the rounds outside the house just on dark, we always know when its around as Neo starts darting from window to window watching it.  This one turned up at 9.30 in the morning.  I love that it has coconut all over the end of its nose :-)
 I'd love to know if it's male or female.  Apparently the female has a backwards facing pouch, to keep the dirt out of it when she is digging.
 Here's a little video of the Quenda.
 I've been busy in the kitchen making hordes of sausage rolls amongst other things.  This picture shows the filling being put atop the pastry sheets before brushing the edges with egg and rolling them up.
 All cooked and ready to be bagged up for the freezer.  When I make them I do it enmasse, nothing more satisfying than knowing there are over a hundred of them in the freezer, healthy homemade sausage rolls, ready to pull out for a quick lunch.
 Steve, who is the bread maker of the house....we have a bread making machine, has been experimenting with making bread rolls lately...they are SO GOOD!  Surprising really as it's the same bread mix to make either a loaf or rolls, but it seems to taste better as rolls.  Which is not necessarily good as we scoff far too many of them!  He went a step further the other day and had a go at making focaccia.  It came out of the oven beautifully crusty, the only thing we did wrong was leave it a bit too long before eating it, so by then the lovely crunchy crust has gone soft.  It still tasted really nice though.
 We welcomed the arrival of eight family members on Saturday, so I busied myself earlier in the week with finding spots for enough beds and making them up warm and cosy as the weather is frankly crap at present, cold and very very wet.  This is Michelle's bed, it's actually in our walk-in wardrobe!  We named it Harry Potter's  Cupboard Under The Stairs and Michelle declared it to be very comfortable and cosy :-)
 I love taking shoe photos when there are loads of people here.  They were all rather soggy actually and were drying out.  Stevie and Riley and I had huge fun on Sunday afternoon playing in the creek despite the weather.  We took off our shoes and rolled up our pants and stomped around, wriggling our toes in the sand, flinging mud around and made excellent dams.  It was very good fun :-)
 Paul brought his drone with him, here he is with the girls driving it with a little remote control. 
 We were amazed at the footage from the drone, it's wonderful!  Here is a still shot of our place.
 And a still shot of the vegie patch, chook yard, orchard and my front fenced garden.  We were amazed to see how straight all the lines are.
And here is a video from the drone.  Absolutely amazing!
 And finally, here is my ta-dah moment, my crocheted blanket is finished, it is on our bed and I just love sleeping underneath it!  It kept me busy over the whole of winter. :-)

Until next time.... xx

Monday 11 September 2017

Spring Explosion

It never ceases to amaze me how after just one week of warmer (well, warm for us, about 20 degrees ha ha) weather, the dormant trees just know that it's time to start stirring.  Nature is truly amazing.
This is the almond tree, it is smothered with flowers and the beginnings of teeny tiny nuts, and now it has burst into leaf.  That's one of the big male roos on the other side of the fence, having a nice rest in the sun.
 These lovely pink flowers are from the Angel peach, a flat, white fleshed peach.  This is the tree that has given me the most grief with leaf curl, so I am crossing every finger and toe that it will not be a big problem this year.  Apparently our climate is the main issue, cool and damp spring weather is the harbinger of doom for leaf curl.  We shall see, they are lovely peaches to eat, evidenced from the dozen or so we got a couple of years ago, here's hoping.
 And these pretty white flowers are apricot blossom.  This tree thankfully isn't troubled with leaf curl, and it has an explosion of blossom this year so maybe it's an apricot jam making year!
The chooks just love foraging in the orchard.  They are very useful, there is not a grasshopper to be seen, and very few weevils.  I didn't think the chooks would eat weevils, those ones with armour plating, but I know when a chook has found one from the crunching noises :-)
Once the weather changes it's time to get busy outside.  Steve has put in a mammoth effort this week in the vegie patch.  He spent ages weeding, then cultivating the soil and barrowing in heaps of heavy, wet, smelly, wonderful cow poo to enrich the soil. 
We seem to grow rhubarb very well here, and the plants were massive and getting way too thick.  Oddly it never seems to die off in winter for us, so regardless of the leaves and stems, Steve put some muscle into digging it all out with a big garden fork, then broke it up into smaller crowns, thinned them out and replanted them in newly cow pooed soil.  I potted up the spare crowns to give to some friends.  It's looking a bit limp and sad for now, but already it is sending up new leaves so all good.
 The spring planting has begun.  We need to be careful we don't plant too early in our cooler climate otherwise seedlings languish and often rot.  Steve has just planted some tomatoes and he has built them a little house to harvest the sun and keep off the worst of the wind.  I'm doing a load of various seed planting into tray today and I'll keep them out the back in the sun pocket near the kitchen window, so within a few weeks there will hopefully be tiny leaves sprouting.
The garlics have been sitting quietly through the winter, growing very very slowly.  They are suddenly looking greener and taller so they should put on a big burst of growth over the next few months.
 This bed in the corner of vegie patch is smothered with chickweed that we hadn't got around to removing.  Under all that lot we had planted a few puny asparagus crowns last year, and we'd all but decided that they'd died.  But what's this!  We did a doubletake when we saw this tall thing waving around, it's asparagus!  Just one mind you, but we are excited :-)
I busied myself weeding that bed so we could admire our one asparagus stem better ha ha.  After a careful dig around we found a couple more crowns so there is life in the asparagus bed yet!  Alas we are not allowed to eat any until at least next season, but it's still good knowing it's there.
 The olive is budding up.  This year we are determined to get some olives before the parrots decimate the tree, so it's getting a net thrown over it to keep them away.  Who'd have thought a bird would enjoy eating a revoltingly bitter olive, but they do!
 My cliveas are coming into flower.  Gosh I love these so much, the bank of them under a big peppermint is getting bigger and bigger as the years go by.  They are looking really healthy this year, possibly because the last load of cow poo was positioned not far from them, so the cliveas got the benefit of that in their soil reach.
In the shade of cool, damp forest of peppermint trees I am still finding patches of these delightful, teeny tiny fairy toadstools.  Little glints of red amongst the leaf litter.
 Finally, after weeks of stalking them, I managed to get a nice posed photo of the male Splendid Wren in full blue plumage.  Normally he turns his arse towards me whenever I take his photo, but not this time.  Isn't he beautiful!
 And a close up.
 With the rising of the day's temperatures, the next beastie to awaken was Voldemort The Younger, the King Skink.  We think he hibernated inside this old couch that sits outside our bedroom window.  He loves to spend his days sunning himself on the top of the arm of the couch, and Neo just loves sitting with his nose pressed to the glass watching. Voldemort The Elder, the largest one, is over at the shed, he likes to hang out under the hoppers full of chopped firewood.  There are smaller Voldermorts inside the shed too.  We like them :-)
 I haven't done much crochet this week, I feel guilty doing that when the weather is nice.  I need another week of rain to get it finished!  I am currently on row 6 of 10 of the border, this particular row is very slow going so once I'm over the row 6 hurdle it shouldn't take too much longer to finish..... nearly there....
Okay, I've finished my cuppa and now I'm heading out the back to plant some seeds in pots. 
Til next time  xx

Sunday 3 September 2017

Little Bit O' This, Little Bit O' That

It's Fathers Day, happy day to all fathers everywhere, but especially to Paul, Steve and my dad xx  I unearthed this photo from the sixties of dad, looking amusedly at moi, the baby with the permanently grumpy face.  Do you remember this dad?
 Steve had phonecalls and gifts from his kiddies from afar, thanks Michelle and Paul xx
 Neo thoroughly enjoyed the gift opening process, and delighted in upending the mailing box and scattering packing stuff everywhere.
 The picture of innocence....
 I whipped up to Perth for a quick parents and children visit last week and while I was away, Steve busied himself restocking the woodpile that has become sadly depleted.  When I got home Steve got the chainsaw out and dropped a very dead, old, rotting Jarrah and was able to get some decent wood from it for the fire.  We have chainsaw rules here, you are not allowed to chainsaw unless someone else is here!
 I've been busy making batches of lime butter, which is a handy recipe if you have a gazillion limes and gazillion eggs.  The fabulous yolks from our hen's eggs make it really really bright yellow! Yummy :-)
 I'm still in the process of making orphan joey pouches, but my sewing machine has had a hissy fit and refuses to cooperate, so I think it might be time for it to have a service, as it is annoying the crap out of me.
 My crocheted blanket is all joined up, hip hip hooray.  Now I am working on the border, there are ten rows and I'm just starting row four.  Photos when it's finish, hopefully before the end of the month.
 Spring appeared for a few days, lovely sunshine and warmth.  The Splendid wrens are starting to colour up.
 And here's the female.  She may not be as pretty but at least she knows how to pose for a photo!  I love their red beaks.
 I spied this handsome Blue-tongued lizard trying to be incognito in the garden bed. 
 The best thing this week is that Patience's joey is finally having time out of the pouch, learning the hopping thing.  It's a scrawny little one but boy can it hop.  Not sure of the sex yet, I can't see a pouch mark on its belly so I'm thinking it's a boy, but time will tell. The joey is staring intently at a couple of magpies near the front door, not sure what to think of them, next minute the joey hopped right at them and scared them away!
 Sooooo cute!
 And here's a short video of this funny little joey
 The Hardengergias are looking lovely at the moment.  They grow wild here, I love the colour of their flowers as the vine makes its way up the trunks of the peppermint trees and around my shrubs.  Sometimes they get carried away and then it's off with their heads!
 This flower is rather insignificant, but the leaves are something else.  The plant is a citrus geranium, and the pungent aroma of citrus from the leaves is amazingly strong.
 After a couple of days of spring weather, the wind and torrential rain returned, we had over 20 mm in 3 hours the other day, and because the ground is so saturated, the creek went crazy.  It never looks much in photos, but this is the waterfall belting along, with the water right across.
 And this is the creek lower down, completely flooded and overflowing all over the paddocks!  A few hours later it has all calmed down, back to a gentle flow. 
It's still windy but the rain is settling down now.  I need the wind to settle too as I need to respray the stone fruit trees with copper to hopefully keep the leaf curl disease under control this year.  I managed to get one spray in last week when it was warm, but if I can get another done then it's extra insurance.  We would really really love a huge crop of stone fruit, pretty please! :-)

So, my mission for the next couple of weeks, while the weather slowly turns to spring, is to get my crocheted blanket finished, that's kept me busy all winter, and then I can turn my mind to more outdoor things.

Til next time xx