tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90747885651476449112024-02-08T09:35:16.220+08:00Halfway Over The HillOur life amidst the trees, birds and kangaroos, and a peep into our attempts at
living a gentle life of home grown fruit and vegetables, funny chickens and a crazy cat. Dyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01740876889996960105noreply@blogger.comBlogger280125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9074788565147644911.post-10448546447565925252018-11-25T15:23:00.000+08:002018-11-25T15:23:14.726+08:00Prickly BrainsWe visited the Albany Show a couple of weeks ago, always interesting to see a variety of things. There was log chopping...<br />
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And cutie pie alpacas...<br />
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And more cutie pie alpacas...<br />
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And impressive huge metal sculpture...<br />
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And bizarre cacti that look like brains...<br />
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And magnificent poultry...<br />
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On the home front there are loads of little birds buzzing around, gathering nesting material and showing off to each other. This magnificent fellow is regularly outside the kitchen window, a fabulous Splendid Wren.<br />
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The weather is very strange, it still feels like we are in winter with it being wet and hovering around 17 degrees, but suddenly we will be blessed with a sunny, warm morning. Neo is content to burrow under the blankets until the temperatures rise.<br />
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Steve harvested his fantastic crop of garlic. They have grown really well this year, the globes are huge and very healthy looking. They are drying over near the shed now, then we'll strip the browned off foliage from them and store it in a basket in the pantry. <br />
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For our reference, this is the water tank level on November 1st.<br />
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We've been looking through a few more boxes of Barbara and Eric's things. We came across this interesting sword. We believe it is a replica of an old Chinese ceremonial sword. I'd love to decipher the text on it!<br />
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Until next time... xxDyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01740876889996960105noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9074788565147644911.post-71879153183650620212018-10-31T15:41:00.000+08:002018-10-31T15:41:34.477+08:00MemoriesSteve's mum Barbara left us on September 30th after a long long journey with Alzheimers, she's flying free with Eric now xx <br />
We are so grateful to the caring staff of their nursing home for looking after Barbara and Eric since 2012. <br />
After all this time Steve felt ready to have a look through Barbara and Eric's possessions that we packed up in 2012, and we had a healing time reminiscing over hundreds of slides of days gone by, and remembering the stories behind ornaments and trinkets.<br />
Goodbye dear Barbara, we miss you, and we miss you too dear Eric xx <br />
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One night last week we drove up to the War Memorial in Albany, there is a wonderful art installation to see. It's called Field Of Light by Bruce Munro. He has installed 16000 lights all along the Avenue Of Honour, that pay homage to the 41000 troops that left the shores of Albany destined for the battlefields of WW1. I believe the lights are representative of the souls of those who lost their lives. <br />
We parked the car, and with many other people, walked slowly in the dark up the long, winding avenue, surrounded by magicial, beautiful lights and the shadows of the enormous trees lining the road. It was amazing, not only in its beauty, but is also really made us reflect on the devastating loss of life in wartime. It is well worth a visit, and the installation will remain in place until just after ANZAC Day 2019.<br />
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Until next time...xxDyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01740876889996960105noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9074788565147644911.post-19438943519338499112018-09-29T10:44:00.000+08:002018-09-29T10:44:25.626+08:00RepurposingWe are caught up in Grand Final excitement today, come on WC Eagles! <br />
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Neo, on the other hand, is uninterested in muscly, sweaty men chasing a leather ball. <br />
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He does enjoy being warm and gooey atop his bookshelf after the fire has warmed the upper air. <br />
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His buddy Voldemort has awoken from his hibernation and is back basking on the settee.<br />
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Voldemort is rather hungry after his big sleep so he's been stuffing his face on banana.<br />
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The male Splendid wrens are colouring up in readiness for the breeding season. His girlfriend is not quite as spectacular, but cute nonetheless. <br />
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Brows has taken to perving in the bedroom window waiting for her breakfast.<br />
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And Lucy sits right outside the door. <br />
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Do you remember me telling you about Rabbit (Lucy's last joey) and how she was a new mama? Well I finally got a photo of her bub, cute.<br />
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Rabbit is on the right, and on the left is one of the boys, his name is Pretty Boy Floyd, or Floyd for short. He has a beautiful face.<br />
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On the left is Pixie, Growler's joey, and on the right is Chevie, Split's joey. <br />
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There's Split at the back and another boy, Pawlie, at the front.<br />
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I dont know who this one is at the front, he has interesting facial markings. Still thinking of a name.<br />
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We decided to throw caution to the wind and support the local Albany strawberry grower. $16 for 4 kilos of magnificent strawberries, with not a needle in sight :-) <br />
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We've eaten them au naturale, with ice cream, with cream, made them into syrup, and I also tried dehydrating them. I have to say we were a bit underwhelmed with the dehydrated ones but it's good to experiment. <br />
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I have a beautiful teapot that has a broken lid so this week I decided to repurpose it, as I have another teapot anyway. What do you think? I potted my African Violet into it, I think it looks fabulous!<br />
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The start of a new crochet project, I've put a couple of other projects aside that I'm not in the mood for. This is called the I Heart Granny lap blanket, I've chosen a colourway that is totally not me, but the colours just sprang into my head. It's for me to keep me warm when I watch tv. It's a little challenging to do but I'm enjoying it very much. <br />
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Until next time....xxDyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01740876889996960105noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9074788565147644911.post-18998278703804340342018-09-13T11:15:00.001+08:002018-09-13T11:15:43.064+08:00Softly, Slowly, GentlyIt's good to remind ourselves of the beautiful things around us, no matter how small and insignificant. My cliveas are bursting into bloom, huge, happy orange flowers that last for weeks. So vibrant and lovely.<br />
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We are still abounding in citrus, this was my haul of lemons, limes and oranges the other day. Leaving the oranges until they fall off the tree seems to be the trick here, they are so lovely and sweet now. <br />
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I love this sight. Steve is the bread maker of the household and when he makes rolls he lets them rise by the fire. Which reminds me, looking at that photo, that glass needs a clean! :-) <br />
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Walks along the beach, rugged up against the cold. Cosy Corner is a beautiful place, and I love the sight of the line of wind turbines off in the distance. <br />
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A wee rest on the steps before we walked back to the car. <br />
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There are more and more bulging pouches, and the start of the tiny joey faces popping out. This mum is Jane, so named because she has no markings and is plain as plain, but I am interested to see her joey has a nice big white mark on its forehead...makes it much easier to identify them later!<br />
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This mum is Nibble, so named because her right ear has all these little bits missing on the edge, like it's been nibbled. Her joey is a little overdue for becoming independent, look at this size of that pouch!<br />
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And here is said joey, who popped out of the pouch a few minutes later, had a big scratch and then proceeded to wallop mother. Feisty little one! It's amazing something that size can fit into the pouch.<br />
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This is Rabbit with her very first big pouch, Steve caught a glimpse of a tiny nose poking out yesterday, my ambition over the next week is to get a photo. I am feeling very grandmotherly towards this joey. Rabbit is Lucy's last joey and we have known Rabbit since she was a baby, so feel very close to her baby and looking forward to meeting it. <br />
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And here's the dear old girl Lucy, up at the house for breakfast. She is accompanied by Brows who is scouting around for any oats that Lucy might have missed. Brows is the chick of Peg, a one footed female magpie that we've known for the whole 6 years we've been here. Sadly Peg broke her other leg a couple of months ago and we were unable to catch her and she disappeared, presumably she has died. Brows was still learning the ways of a magpie from her mum Peg and has sort of adopted us. Her name is Brows at present because she has little white eyebrows in her juvenile feather colouring. She is rather daring the way she wanders around under Lucy, who could squash her any time. <br />
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Oh yes, I can finally show you my secret crochet project, now it has been delivered to its new owner. I made dad a lap blanket for Fathers Day, it's called an Ellipse Blanket. Just the right size for keeping legs warm when watching the tellie. <br />
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I went so far as to add Dad's initials on a little crocheted disc in the corner, the design taken from his wedding ring. I'm so glad you like your blanket Dad, I enjoyed making it for you. xx<br />
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Until next time... xxDyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01740876889996960105noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9074788565147644911.post-90548200730896408492018-08-24T12:10:00.000+08:002018-08-24T12:10:44.630+08:00For The Love Of PatienceThe cat was astounded this morning, astounded. He kept wandering around, looking at us with a shocked expression, not quite knowing what to do with himself.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Why? Because Steve hadn't lit the fire! It was a tad warmer this morning and we thought we'd leave lighting the fire until later. No, unacceptable. The cat was horrified, so Steve lit him, HIM, a fire! ha ha ha<br />
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Here he is, placated, although you wouldn't know it, as he refused to smile for the camera. <br />
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Speaking of keeping warm, I am so darn proud of myself, having succeeded for the first time ever in making myself something to wear. It's a bit different when the thing you are making has to be a specific size, unlike blankets that can turn out any old size and will do. <br />
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Ta da! Here am I modelling my crocheted cardigan, and it fits me, hooray! :-) <br />
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It will suit my needs well, being one that doesn't close at the front. I dont feel the cold that much and don't like being drowned in warm clothes, so this will be a nice, light woollie to keep me just warm enough. <br />
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Now, I must share with you some sad news. Last week we said goodbye to Patience, one of the most lovely wild kangaroos we've had the pleasure to know. She chose to be our friend which was such a privilege. <br />
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We presume that she must have been hand reared when she was young, as she included us in her life all the time. Patience would appear on the doorstep like clockwork early each morning,
and patiently (hence her name) wait until we woke up and then asked
hopefully for a wee bit of breakfast....how could we refuse that beautiful face.<br />
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She brought her babies to meet us, what a privilege when a doe will allow her tiny joey out of the pouch in the presence of humans, such trust.<br />
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She spent most of her time on our property, napping away in her favourite places. <br />
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Sadly Patience broke her foreleg, and although we did everything could for her, including persuading her inside our orchard to keep her safe, then getting the wildlife vet to come out and splint her arm, she started looking very unwell and quietly went to sleep a few nights later. We think she was quite an old girl, perhaps about 11, and we'd like to think she's had a good life. Goodbye beautiful Patience xx<br />
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Until next time... xxDyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01740876889996960105noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9074788565147644911.post-37064112643180383712018-08-12T15:33:00.000+08:002018-08-12T15:39:11.840+08:00Special Occasion for Special People<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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We popped up to Perth overnight to see some special people and help them celebrate a huge milestone - 60th wedding anniversary! Congratulations Mum and Dad!</div>
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We had a lovely dinner at Chez Pierre in Nedlands, yummy yummy food and great service. Sorry for the crap photos, I couldn't remember how to make the flash work on my camera!<br />
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When Steve was doing his half of the drive to Perth, I was working on my crocheted cardigan, it's coming along slowly.<br />
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I finished the second oven cloth, I think they look quite nice sitting there together. <br />
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I used old denim as the cloth, it matches my tiles reasonably well.</div>
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I made another joey night bag for my friend Claire. I'm doing them one at a time to begin with until I get the size right. <br />
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Speaking of kangaroos, here is the lovely Lucy. She is definitely a lady of many years, she is getting some grey in her fur now. She is adorable.<br />
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We've had lots of rain the last few weeks, so the creek is belching out masses of water at the lower end. <br />
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We noticed one of the very old trees alongside the creek, which had a huge overhanging branch, suddenly looking lower than we remembered it. For a few days we made a point of not walking underneath it. Just as well!<br />
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This is what greeted us a few mornings later, the whole thing fell down. It was pretty much dead and had snapped off at the base. Steve got busy and it's now all chopped up and on the woodpile!<br />
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Have a look at this fascinating fungi. There is a small area in the back garden where these pop up. They stink! Like something has gone off. Hence their name. Aseroe rubra, or Anemone Stinkhorn. <br />
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This is a sight that pleases me, this is Callistemon Little John, a mini bottlebrush that grows to about 3/4 of a metre tall. I love the dark red flowers, and the little nectar birds are very happy to see the flowers too. <br />
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Until next time... xxDyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01740876889996960105noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9074788565147644911.post-33443866878215460052018-07-28T12:02:00.000+08:002018-07-28T12:04:52.061+08:00Knitted KnockersStorms have abounded these last 2 weeks, I think most of the south west of WA has been battered and saturated. For us the water tanks are overflowing and a few branches down but otherwise unscathed. Often after a big storm, there is a big swell in the ocean, and the thing to do in Albany when there's a big swell is to visit The Gap and Natural Bridge. As it turns out, big swell day was also our Embroidery group day, and as The Gap is only a 15 minute drive from Embroidery, I kidnapped three of the ladies, and we wagged embroidery for an hour and nipped out to see the ocean. The day was bright and sunny, giving a beautiful view over the Natural Bridge, but you could hear the undertones of the rumbling and whooshing of the power of the ocean swells. <br />
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Turning around and looking towards The Gap you can see what a 7 1/2 metre swell can do. Can you see those tiny people on the platform of The Gap, absolutely dwarfed by the humungous spray coming up from the deep. It was so exhilarating and majestic to watch. <br />
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One of the trees alongside where we park our cars has been slowly growing a very large branch that was leaning towards the cars and we've been a bit worried about it crashing down and squashing them, so Steve decided the branch had to go. He didn't relish the idea of being up the ladder with the chain saw, so he took the opportunity to test out the limits of the new reciprocating saw, a much safer option. It did a darn good job, slower than the chain saw, but with the same result of the removal of the offending branch and keeping our cars safe. <br />
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I was driving home along Cosy Corner Rd the other day and I just had to pull over and photograph this beautiful sight. That rainbow ended in the cow paddock, just past where the cows were grazing. So pretty. I scanned the paddock for the pot of gold but the leprechaun that guards it must have hidden it well. :-) <br />
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We visited Goode Beach earlier this week and had a nice walk. Halfway along the beach, where the sand meets the bush, you come across this stone marker, with the plaque telling you that this freshwater spring was discovered by Captain Vancouver in 1791. The spring runs constantly I believe, and generations of Albany children have spent busy days at Goode Beach, trying to change the course of the spring with buckets and buckets of sand, but the spring always prevails in the end and goes on its merry way as always. <br />
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We also stopped at Misery Beach, a tiny, beautiful beach with perfect white sand and an amazing view over the beautiful King George Sound. I love the light in the photo, shining through the clouds gathering over the water. <br />
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And this is the view from the path to the carpark, showing a bit more of King George Sound. I am trying to find out the origin of the name Misery Beach, so far it has been suggested it was so named in whaling days, as this beach used to get offal washing up from the whaling station nearby. I thought I had also read something historical about a group of people being marooned on the beach and as there was no fresh water, had a hell of a time. I need to spend more time on this to get the right answer, I love a good mystery! <br />
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On Thursday mornings I go to a craft group at the Elleker Tavern. Usually we just do our own thing, but this week we all helped out with a good cause. What do you think you are looking at here? No clue? We were stuffing knockers! They are called Knitted Knockers, and they are made for ladies who have had a mastectomy. <br />
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The organisation <a href="http://knittedknockersaustralia.com/" target="_blank">Knitted Knockers Australia</a> , has volunteers knitting soft, comfortable boobs for mastectomy patients to pop into their bras to regain some shape. They are given to patients free which I think is a wonderful wonderful thing. One of our Elleker crafters, Robyn, is a member, so she came to craft with a pile of knitted knockers that required stuffing, so that's what we did, stuffed them and then sewed them up. <br />
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So, how many of you staggered out of bed last night to see the Blood Moon? We kept opening our eyes and peeping out the window, seeing heavy cloud, so expected to miss it, but just before 4am we had a brief period of a crystal clear sky, so we popped outside to see stars everywhere, and a beautiful orange/red moon with a bright bright Mars alongside. I was too tired and cold to get the camera out so sorry, no photo! <br />
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Until next time....xxDyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01740876889996960105noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9074788565147644911.post-50625426234057844002018-07-15T15:33:00.001+08:002018-07-15T15:33:31.089+08:00One Lonely AppleI'm sitting here at the window, snug and dry in my ugg boots, watching the rain run off the top of the water tank. Winter has certainly arrived, it's freezing cold, the wind is howling and it is wet!<br />
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A photo of the water tank level shows that it has increased dramatically in the last few weeks, excellent, we love a full water tank. <br />
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This is something I hadn't expected with our new blinds, they do a grand job of stopping the driving rain coming straight at the house, but they also get this pretty sort of iridescent sheen to them when saturated with rain. It only takes a hearty gust of wind and it all falls off, but it's pretty while it lasts. <br />
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We donned our wet weather gear and had a property wander a little earlier, here is Steve all rugged up.<br />
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And what did we find? We found a flowing creek at long last, hooray! It's been very late to start this year, testament to the dry autumn we had.<br />
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Here's Growler and her joey Pixie, watching as we did our creek walk in the rain<br />
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I love this plant, this is the new growth on my Karri Oak, or <span class="st">Chorilaena quercifolia, a large shrub that is endemic to Karri forests. I planted this one in my garden about 6 years ago, it took a good 3 years to settle in but it grows really well now and the birds love it as it has small but nectar filled white flowers in spring.</span><br />
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This is Grevillea olivacea, Orange Glow, growing in the same little front garden as the Karri Oak. Same again, it took quite a few years to become a happy plant and this is the second winter that has produced a huge mass of winter flowers, beautiful. This is a very large, dense shrub and the wrens love it, they spend a lot of time deep within, it keeps them safe.<br />
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And of course, the winter flowering favourites, the acacias. Mine are Acacia fimbriatas, I also have Acacia Cyclops but they are not quite flowering yet. Such a lovely cheery show, and they smell so fresh and fragrant. The bees are in happy, buzzy heaven.<br />
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As the weather has been a bit yuk, we've been doing inside things. Steve came home with a 10 kilo bag of pickling onions for only $8, so we had to put those to good use!<br />
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After much chop chop chopping and cry cry crying, we were ready for action.<br />
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We have five big jars of pickled onions,<br />
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and eight jars of caramelised onion chutney. Now we have to patiently wait a month for both to mature before we can sample them. :-) <br />
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Egg production has been very slow the last six weeks, averaging one a day, but it's interesting how a couple of days with some sunshine changes that very suddenly. Today we found three eggs, good stuff. I want to make a batch of lime butter as we are drowning in limes, and now I have enough eggs to do it, yay. I found out the other day that I can freeze the lime or lemon butter, that is really good to hear as it urks me that it only has a limited life in the fridge, so that solves the problem!<br />
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This photo of a forlorn tiny Sundowner apple is a statement proclaiming the very last piece of fruit from this season in the orchard. We have had a constant supply of fresh fruit from the orchard since just after Christmas until today, a fact that I am thrilled about as we carefully planned our orchard and the various varieties of stone and pome fruits so that we had continuous fruiting for six months, and this year anyway, it worked extremely well. And we now have citrus in abundance so it's all good!<br />
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And now I feel justified in pulling out my stock of apples that I dehydrated a few months ago, when we had a glut of fruit. What a lovely way to continue with eating our own fruit, I love dried fruit and find it hard to only have a little!<br />
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Continuing on with the inside activities, I am still crocheting at a furious pace. A secret crochet mission has just been completed, more about that later, but for now I have made a start with the scary scary task of trying to crochet myself a cardigan. It's a big learning curve making a thing that has to be a specific size!<br />
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And here's the start of another new project, lots of colour in this one <br />
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I thought I'd have a go at making a crocheted rug using fabric scraps. It's slow going as it's hard work on the hands so I shall pick it up every now and then, but I rather like the concept, and using something that is technically rubbish for a useful purpose always pleases me no end.<br />
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I've done a bit more on my embroidered oven cloth<br />
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Steve was dabbling in the shed and he found a half finished woodwork project. He'd put it away because something about it was frustrating him, but he is looking at it with new eyes now. It's meant to be an open book, the other way up, but he got stuck on how to create the look of the open pages. But he had a thought to display it this way up instead, and as I have always loved how he did the cover, I think this is splendid idea. He's got some more playing to do with it but I am happy to see it resurface again.<br />
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I went back to Bunnings with the non-working hedge trimmer....it ended up being a faulty battery so they gave me another one, and all is well. We also added a reciprocating saw to the power tool collection. We've had a little play with this during some brief sunshine, it does a great job of pruning and also cutting smaller pieces of firewood that are a bit small for the chainsaw. So with this and the hedge trimmer which will whisk through the softer growth of the overgrown plants, when I finally get my arse into gear and get out there, the garden should look spick and span in no time :-) <br />
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And as is the way, you can always find a positive in life if you look for it, so through the cold, windy and wet weather, we are blessed with the most magnificent of sunsets. Makes the heart sing :-)<br />
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Until next time.... xxDyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01740876889996960105noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9074788565147644911.post-61665632337975974372018-07-01T15:24:00.000+08:002018-07-01T15:24:33.284+08:00Bobble MuncherThis is the face of a naughty cat. He enjoys sleeping on our bed, and more so since I crocheted this blanket for our bed, it's nice and snuggly. There is quite a bit of textured crochet in the blanket, and for the most part Neo is very respectful of it. However, there is a section just in front of his rear end that has bobbles on it, and he can't quite resist those. He stares them down, knowing he is not allowed to be bad to the blanket, but eventually he can't resist any more, and attacks those bobbles. They are looking a bit fluffy from their beating. This morning while we were in bed with a cuppa, I told him off for being a bobble muncher, and to his credit he did stop. But Neo doesn't like to back down, so instead he decided to lick them. Neo the bobble licker, he's a dag :-)<br />
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We had company at the front door this morning, Lucy came right up to say hello and ask please can I have some breakfast? She is a smart cookie is Lucy, we often find her undercover on the verandah when it's raining. <br />
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Here's this morning's breakfast club, having a munch on some lucerne chaff and wheat. <br />
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Here's the chickens and Spuddles the duck. They are thoroughly enjoying eating cabbages at present, I cut them in half and leave them in the yard, and they have a lovely time tearing it to pieces. The yolks of their eggs are so beautifully dark because of their extra diet of cabbage. Steve has broccolini growing in the vegie patch, and I pull off the lower leaves for the girls, they love those too, any brassica family foliage is much appreciated by the girls.<br />
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These galahs are very cute but they are also a pain in the arse. My goodness there are so many of them around here, most days we have 40-50 and they make quite a racket. One thing I will say in their favour though, is that they dethatch our grass magnificently, no need to do any vertimowing on our grass!<br />
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We finally got around to pruning the fruit trees. This is a very respectable looking almond tree now, it was probably three times the size of this before I got to it with the cutters. This is an odd tree, it grows rampantly in spring, the branches grow really long, the foliage is lush and it sets loads of fruit. But it can't seem to sustain what it has grown, and by the end of summer we find the ends of the branches die back and a lot of the fruit and foliage goes dry and falls off. It gives the impression of perhaps not having enough water, although all the trees are irrigated and they all get the same amount. This year we decided to prune it back really hard so it wont have quite so much of itself to maintain, if that makes sense. If you are wondering why there is a pile of old wood under the tree, we do that to stop the chicken from digging huge holes. They are very tenacious with their digging, to the point of exposing roots sometimes! <br />
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I toddled off to Bunnings the other day and invested in a not too heavy, not too light cordless hedge trimmer to make the work of pruning shrubs a little easier. I have some osteoarthritis in my right hand these days and find using hand pruners rather painful after a while. So I think this will be good. I was hoping to play with it yesterday, BUT, the bloody thing wouldn't start! We suspect there is a fault in the battery or the charger that came with it, as the battery didn't seem to charge, so I will have to take it back and get it swapped. Oh well, I can look forward to playing with it next week instead. :-)<br />
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While I was in town, I popped into Spotlight and stashed up. This particular yarn, Lionbrand Heartland is one of my absolute favourites but it's expensive so I rarely buy it. Yesterday it was half price...happy dance! I want to have a try at crocheting myself a cardigan with the blue yarn, I've never made an item of clothing before and would like to give it a go. I love the colour, which is more turquoisy than the photo shows, so it's something to look forward to.<br />
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I've been gathering up a healthy collection of non-plastic grocery bags. I already had a few of the green shopping bags from Coles, but I also crocheted a couple and sewed another one. As I only shop once a week or a fortnight, I need to have quite a few bags stashed up ready for all my groceries. <br />
I am a person who believes strongly in reusing things and thus was very pleased with my light bulb moment when I realised that I had a pile of about 10 used calico flour bags. We buy our Lauke bread mix in 10kg bags, and these calico bags come with handles and a drawstring - perfect! I've been testing them out at Coles the last few weeks, they are longer and skinnier than the standard grocery bags and thus wont fit on the frame thing they use to pack groceries, but I've been happily offering to pack my own groceries and its been fine. I feel so virtuous reusing the bread mix bags. :-) <br />
Now of course, the biggest problem to overcome is to remember the take the bags into Coles with me, and not leave them in the car! I suspect we will all do this to begin with :-)<br />
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On the embroidery front, I've been making a couple more oven cloths. My first one, the light one bottom right, is usually very grubby because I don't have enough cloths to wash it regularly, so I cut some denim from my stash of old jeans in the sewing room, and started prettying it up. <br />
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Denim matches my kitchen tiles really well, so the old jeans are a great, free resource for sewing bits and pieces. Plus it's thick so I don't have to stuff it with too much more weight to avoid burning my hands. <br />
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When I arrived at our embroidery group last Tuesday, I was very taken with this scene looking over the water towards Albany town. There was a break in the heavy cloud bank, and the sun was shining through directly onto one tiny little cloud low in the sky. I thought it looked really pretty.<br />
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And then there is this magnificent sunset, looking through towards Denmark, with the red light shining onto the waters of Wilson's Inlet. Breathtaking. <br />
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Until next time....xxDyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01740876889996960105noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9074788565147644911.post-86429133760075916572018-06-24T12:53:00.000+08:002018-06-24T12:53:14.463+08:00Foggity Fog Fog FogIt seems that the south of WA has been very foggy lately. We woke up to this pea souper this morning, it didn't clear until after 11am. <br />
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Eerie and beautiful<br />
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It's rather chilly too<br />
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Even a fog enshrouded Acacia fimbriata in flower is a beautiful thing<br />
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as is the Silvereye enjoying nectar from the flower of the Moonlight Grevillea behind the shed<br />
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Our little Navel orange tree has surpassed itself this year, look at all that fruit! It needs to stay on the tree for a while longer though, they are still a bit sour.<br />
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The garlic is starting to grow.<br />
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Here is Pawly watching what's going on. He is so named as he was very very poorly as a joey, but he's okay now. I think his growth was a bit stunted but he starting to fill out now as a five year old. <br />
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This is the mess of the chook yard's nets, they were ripped to shreds by the recent storms and are full of huge holes. We are going to take it all down and replace it with wire to make it a lot stronger and more permanent. <br />
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We had a ripper hail storm a week ago<br />
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The blueberry plants are appreciating the cold snap, and this variety has put on a magnificent show of colour with its foliage. Interestingly, only one variety is doing this, the other has still got green leaves. <br />
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This is my African Violet that was grown from a cutting. It is very happy sitting in the kitchen window and is rewarding me with lots of pretty, frilly flowers.<br />
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This time of year is good for cooking and stocking up the freezer. These are Steve's apple and rhubarb pies, it was hard to find space in the freezer amongst the containers of soup, curries and cottage pies that I'd been busy doing. Nothing better than grabbing dinner out of the freezer for a quick meal.<br />
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Neo is happy, he loves it once we start lighting our fire to keep the house warm. Here he is atop the bookshelf, his Man Tower, and refusing to put on a cute face for the camera. He is a very stubborn cat when it comes to photography! :-) <br />
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We dashed up to Perth overnight as it was present giving time! Happy Happy Birthday to Riley who is now eight! Riley chose Timezone as her birthday outing so off we went, walking through the park to the shopping complex near Paul's house to watch a frenzied hour of fun. This is a basketball hoop shooting thing that the girls enjoyed. <br />
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There is another birthday coming up too, our darling baby boy Paul is turning the BIG 30 in a few weeks! We feel old! ha ha<br />
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I crocheted Paul a lap blanket, I was amazed to find a multicolour yarn that had all his favourite colours in it. And it's gradient yarn that has lovely gradual colour changes, so it was very enjoyable watching the colour movements as I crocheted it. <br />
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At the beginning of the year, Steve has a lump of sheoak timber and an idea in his head to make Paul a box. This is the start of the many hours of routing to create the holes within.<br />
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Lots and lot of smoothing, measuring and routing continued<br />
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And this is the end result, isn't it beautiful. <br />
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Sheoak has the most magnificent grain, photos just don't do it justice.<br />
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And this is what's within when the doors are opened.<br />
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A nice bottle of Glayva - a whisky liqueur, two etched glasses from the Torbay Glass Studio near us, and a little piece of family history - one of Steve's father's pocket watches. <br />
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Happy Happy Birthday to you dear son xx<br />
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Until next time.... xx<br />
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<br />Dyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01740876889996960105noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9074788565147644911.post-18192829942330723212018-06-04T14:10:00.000+08:002018-06-04T14:37:42.245+08:00Vroom VroomMy goodness it's been a strange few months, life is only just starting to slowly normalise once again. It's interesting how when being told a major organ in your body is playing up how it screws with your head, not to mention the tramping back and forth to appointments and dealing with horrible side effects of new medications. In summary I have a heart that likes to beat to its own very crazy rhythm and the cardiology gurus decided that it would be better for my health to make it behave itself. So, after many tests and trials of medication and then a procedure that unfortunately failed, I am now on another medication which thankfully is more agreeable. More appointments to follow but hopefully we have found a status quo.<br />
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Anyway, moving on. In the last blog post I had only just picked the olives, since then they have sat in brine for some weeks, and today was bottling day. First I amassed all the bits and bobs that were needed.<br />
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Into each sterilised jar I popped a sprig of rosemary, a slice of lime and a garlic clove, then in went the olives to an inch from the top. Then I filled the jars with a mixture of 2/3rds 5% brine and 1/3rd apple cider vinegar, then added a centimetre of olive oil on top to stop any air getting to the olives. <br />
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17 wonderful jars of our very own, home grown, Frantoio olives! Technically Frantoios are more of an oil olive, they don't have a huge amount of flesh on them, but this was the first olive tree we bought when we knew no better, and it's the one that is fruiting. We have two Kalamata trees but they are still young and haven't started fruiting yet. The Frantoio olives are still very nice to eat, they have a nutty sort of flavour, so we are looking forward to sampling them in a month or two. :-) <br />
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Steve was also busy in the kitchen, cooking up some of our Granny Smith apples for making pies for the freezer, yum! <br />
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This is a nice shrub in the back garden, a cherry guava, and I like the fruit very much. A lot of people don't but I enjoy grabbing a few fruit from the bush when I go out the back. I have to share the fruit with the birds, they are very partial to them too, and that's fine with me.<br />
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There's nothing I like better that bee bums poking out of flowers. These happy bees are having a marvelous time collecting pollen from my Kunzea. This pretty pink Kunzea is known as Solomon's Pink.<br />
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I'm still trying to get the perfect photo of the Red-Eared Firetail male. This one is a bit clearer.<br />
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...and this one shows his profile. They spend most of their time on the ground foraging around, I'm so happy that they are in the back garden now. <br />
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Even though the weather is totally bizarre this year, we are starting to get the usual beautiful sunsets of autumn, except they are late. I love the gorgeous red glow of the setting sun in this one.<br />
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...and the wild look of the clouds whipped up in the sky with golden glow of the sun behind.<br />
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This was an afternoon when lots of people were burning off and there was a lot of smoke in the air, which ended up turning the sun pink. <br />
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We decided to have a day out yesterday and took ourselves into Albany for the 2018 Albany Classic, a day of car racing around the streets of Albany town. We parked down by the water and crossed over the railway line on the pedestrian overpass. This is a photo of Albany's new silo art. I am trying to like it, it is certainly different. Steve thinks it looks unfinished and needs some background. It is meant to be some sort of Leafy Sea Dragon. Most people, including us, were unaware Albany even had these! We were expecting something more well known, like whales perhaps. Most people we know are not that impressed with the subject choice. Anyway, it's better than a plain white silo hey. <br />
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We wandered up the lower end of York Street, admiring the shiny and lovingly maintained cars.<br />
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Look at this beauty. The main streets of Albany are closed off and become a racing track, it must be a massive effort to bring in fencing, concrete walls, remove the roundabouts and all other many tasks to bring the event to fruition. The setting up happens overnight, as does the clearing up, to hats off to all who make it happen. <br />
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There are all sorts of races for differing types of vehicles, here's an older one roaring up Aberdeen Street. <br />
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These ones are heading up Grey Street.<br />
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And for those of you that like car racing, here are a few videos we took...<br />
These are a line of cars heading out for their particular race. We were very taken with the beautiful, white, XK120 Jaguar coupe, it's all lovely and round, in the middle of this line-up. <br />
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Race in progress. These cars have just roared down York Street, and have turned up Grey Street, left turn up ahead then they will tear down Collie Street.<br />
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Steve took this little video, his favourite car is in the race, I think it's the fourth car, a white one called a Shelby. <br />
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It was a great day out, the weather was perfect and we toddled off home with throaty car sounds reverberating in our ears, the whiff of exhaust in our noses, glad that we'd made the effort to go. :-)<br />
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Until next time...xxDyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01740876889996960105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9074788565147644911.post-90929948537903622018-05-09T11:01:00.000+08:002018-05-09T11:01:03.553+08:00Big Lesson LearnedIf you saw these Navel oranges in the shops, would you buy them? Probably not. I was thinking about how we are brainwashed by marketing and sales to only want perfect looking fruit, regardless of how they actually taste. These are the start of our Washington Navel oranges, they look as manky as hell on the outside, having been battered by wind and scratched by a wire fence, but let me tell you, they are absolutely delicious, as sweet as can be and a delight to eat. The tree is loaded with them and we are very pleased!<br />
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It was olive harvest day on Monday. We managed to save our olives this year, we have one Frantoio olive tree that is now producing loads of fruit, but the last two years the green parrots have stripped it bare. This year we netted it, and until two weeks ago the net did a fine job of keeping the birds out. Eventually the parrots managed to chew a hole through the top of the net and we kept finding a couple of intrepid greenies inside, munching away. So, harvest date was set before we lost them all again. <br />
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After coaxing the net off the tree, taking nets off fruit trees is not much fun, branches grow through them and get caught up, it requires great calm and patience to remove the net intact, we set to work picking the fruit. We were very pleased to discover that our clever olive tree had given us 4 3/4 kilos of fruit. They are quite small but going on the one jar I pickled five years ago, they have a lovely, nutty taste.<br />
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I spent hours putting a slit into each and every olive and they are currently soaking in water. In a few days time I will sit them in a brine solution, where they will stay for 3-4 weeks, changing the brine every few days, then they will be bottled in a half brine half vinegar solution and the jars topped with a centimetre of olive oil to keep the air out. After a month of that then we can eat them. It's quite a process but worth it in the end. We also have two Kalamata olive trees that are still quite small, but they are stubbornly refusing to flower and fruit, here's hoping they get their act together next season!<br />
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The birds were all thrilled to see the net off the olive tree and they finished off the last of the olives right at the top of the tree that were too hard to reach. It beats me what birds see in olives off the tree, they are as bitter as all hell!<br />
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I've started pruning the back garden and I'm being ruthless as a lot of the shrubs are very overgrown and leggy. Above is the lavender which I've cut to almost ground level, it will be fine, they like a good hard prune. It has created a new vantage point for this lovely female RedWing Fairy Wren to watch for insects to gobble up. <br />
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I'm still trying to get a good photo of this beautiful RedEared Firetail male, fossicking amongst the limestone pebbles on the back steps. He is another lovely little bird and we are thrilled to see them in the back garden this year, previously they kept to the bush undergrowth. <br />
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Speaking of birds, I have a sad story to relate, and from it we have learned a big lesson, never, ever underestimate a predator. You know how the chickens have been escaping from the orchard and have been roaming around? There was one chicken who couldn't jump the fence and was being left behind, so we started leaving the orchard gate open a wee bit, so she could squeeze through and join her friends. What a stupid thing we did. A fox, in broad daylight, snuck through the gap into the orchard and into the chook yard where it grabbed one of the ducks, then a little while later it also grabbed one of the chickens who were in the bush near the shed. Steve was walking to the shed when the other chickens burst out of the bush towards him, and he realised that the fox has grabbed the other chicken. He locked those three up and followed the trail of feathers and then found both the chicken and the duck's bodies, it wasn't until then that we realised the duck has been taken too. Oh my goodness, we've been really sad about it, and felt like we let the duck down by not protecting her in her yard properly. Because we've had no problems with foxes all these years, we became complacent about predators, almost thinking that our little farm was immune to nasty things like that. Needless to say we have learned a huge lesson, the gates have been fortified to stop the chickens jumping over, the gates remain shut, and we are keeping a watchful eye out. Nature can be very cruel.<br />
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Neo spends a lot of his time at night sitting in the window watching the creatures of the night that we can't see. I expect he has seen the fox roaming around in the dark more than once. It makes me wonder how often they are around. <br />
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I had a trip to Perth last week to visit mum and dad. I took the opportunity to give mum her Mothers Day present early. My secret crochet task can now be revealed, a lap blanket for mum. It's a light weight one, made of cotton, not for really cold days, but for just when you need a little something over your legs. I'm really glad you liked it mum, I enjoyed making it for you. xx<br />
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Water tank level for our records. It's going well, the level is on the rise. <br />
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Until next time... xxDyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01740876889996960105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9074788565147644911.post-18120743888416569792018-04-25T14:46:00.001+08:002018-04-25T14:46:39.274+08:00The Mystery Blob On The Floor<div style="text-align: left;">
The weather has finally turned, there is a chill in the air and we've had over 50 lovely millimetres of rain in the last week. Steve has lit the fire a couple of times as the house has been getting a bit cold. Neo has been freezing, he keeps roaming around trying to find warm places to snooze during the day. He is very happy in this photo, have you spotted him yet? Silly dag has parked himself in the wood basket!</div>
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A decent amount of rain is not before time. Some of the big peppermint trees down the bottom have been suffering badly. This huge tree has split off nearly a third of itself, the leaves are very dry and sick looking. The rest of the tree is okay we hope, and with the soaking rain we hope the dry, parched trees will recover. It's interesting how one big tree is clinging to life, yet another, only 10 metres away is as happy as Larry. Anyway, Steve has been busy with his chainsaw today, cutting this big broken section into next season's firewood. <br />
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It took him a while longer to clear up the fallen tree part, because he had helpers. Helpers that got in the way. These marauding chicken helpers! They roam all parts of our property now, it is bizarre to find them right down at the bottom near the creek bed. They are slowly turning over every square inch of our place, nary a bug will remain! They are pretty savvy, they ran for cover the other day when an eagle was circling overhead, and when they were caught in heavy rain they all stuffed themselves inside the hollow base of an old Jarrah to keep dry. <br />
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But with all that intelligence, they still haven't quite got the hang of their Treadle Feeder! They know food is in there, and if I put my foot ever so slightly on the treadle and they see it open the lid a titch, then they will step on it to make the lid rise and thus begin to eat, but they haven't quite made the connection yet that they can begin the process themselves. Apparently they will in time, I hope!<br />
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The kangaroos are enjoying the spate of succulent, green grass that is poking through after the rain. Here is Elsa having a munch.<br />
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I came staggering out from bed minus glasses this morning, to make a cuppa, and in the dim light of the living room, noticed something little lying on the floor. As I can't see a thing without glasses, I collected it up onto a piece of paper, found my glasses and looked to see what it was. This is what it was, alas he was as dead as a doornail and stiff as a board. A tiny little bat! To be precise, it's a Chocolate Wattled Bat or Chalinolobus morio. We know they are around as if we sit outside just before dark we can
sometimes hear the faint clicks of their echo location and see the hint of
something flying by. Apparently they are known as a micro bat, and feed on moths and beetles. We can't work out how this poor little fellow got inside the house, we can only surmise that as he is so tiny, he may have squeezed through a minute gap at the edge of the bird-proof cat netting around Neo's enclosure and then got inside through the open laundry door. I suspect Neo may have had something to do with his demise in that case, although there isn't a mark on him. Neo is an indoor cat for precisely that reason, but sometimes even that is not enough. I'm sorry little bat. <br />
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Another crochet project finished, an earflap beanie for Michelle. <br />
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I ended up making quince paste with the 4 quinces from our tree. Everyone raves about it with cheese, to be honest I don't understand the fuss about it. It's okay but to me it doesn't quite go, maybe I need to try it with a stronger cheese?<br />
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Until next time.... xx<br />
Dyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01740876889996960105noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9074788565147644911.post-76278324197483855742018-04-17T11:08:00.000+08:002018-04-17T11:14:32.272+08:00Tamarillo ThiefMichelle popped down for a visit a couple of weeks ago and she brought a cool little fisheye lens that she can attach to the back of her phone for taking photos. She kindly allowed me to purloin some shots for the blog. Aren't they great!<br />
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I love the different way it highlights flowers, and the Magic Faraway Tree looks spectacular. You can see how dry and brown the ground is under the trees.<br />
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The nosy chicken had to stick its beak in for a look too. :-) <br />
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A few years ago I attempted to make Michelle a moss garden terrarium. It was gorgeous, moss mounds, pebbles and Steve made a cute Hobbit door out of wood. It didn't last very long unfortunately, the whole thing was gobbled up by a white fungi. So, this visit, Michelle brought it down with her and we cleaned it out and had a go at redoing it. We added a piece of Maidenhair fern for a tree too. M reports that it has started to get a bit of white fluff growing again, she's opened the top up to try and dry it out a bit and see if that helps. It's pretty though isn't it.<br />
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Here are Michelle and Steve at Cosy Corner.<br />
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And Steve and moi there too, we went for a little walk on a pleasant, sunny day.<br />
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Does anyone remember these? They are Chunder Buns, a relic of the seventies. Grated cheese, chopped celery and tomato sauce mixed together, dumped on halves of a bread roll then popped in the oven til melted. Very yum.<br />
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Here is the cat. As the weather is cooling off he is constantly looking for warm places to nap. He'll be very pleased when we start lighting the fire, which wont be far off now.<br />
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This is what the cat has been getting up to in the wee small hours. I picked a dozen tamarillos from my tree and dumped them in the fruit bowl. Neo cannot resist fruit that had a stem attached, and in the dead of night will sneak up on the benchtop, purloin said fruit, then amuse himself batting it around the floor. <br />
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This is the last of the harvest from the vegie patch. We are thrilled with the haul of Butternut pumpkins, first time we've grown them. I made a batch of soup yesterday, it was lovely. I have frozen some of the corn, I've been slack this time and just frozen them whole rather than stripping the kernels off the cobs. It will be interesting to see how they are when defrosted and cooked.<br />
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I finally made a start on dehydrating apple slices. This was a small experimental batch, leaving the skin on. I wont do that again, the skin goes a bit tough. Since then I've done another couple of batches with the skin off, much better. <br />
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On the reptilian front, here is Voldemort who has temporarily taken up residence in the woodpile in the shed. There are at least 3 big Voldemorts in the woodpile, and we have baby Voldemorts! Very exciting! There are three tiny little ones, like mini replicas of their parents, as long as a finger and not even as thick as a pencil. So cute, and even cuter is that they can sometimes be seen riding on the big ones' backs....I am trying very hard to get a photo of that, not yet though, the babies are very skittish. <br />
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If you look closely mid photo, you can just see the head of a baby Voldemort peeking out from behind the wood. It is trying to get to the chopped grapes I've put on top, but it's not quite brave enough to come out while I'm there. I need the parent and child photo to give you an idea of the size difference....watch this space!<br />
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My back garden is very overdue for a big prune, and yesterday I did a bit to start. The birds have finished nesting now so I figured it's time to get on with it Look what I found when I chopped down a big shrub near the back door. At first glance it looked like a mound of dried grass in the fork of the shrub, about half a metre off the ground....<br />
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but when I gently stretched open the tiny hole in the side, the wonder and technical brilliance of the (empty) nest became apparent. Inside it is soft and watertight, coated with various fluffy bits that feel almost like they've been felted, it was very thick and strong and cosy in there. I am pretty sure this the nest of the Splendid Wren.<br />
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Here's one of the females peeking at me. Clever little girl she is to make something so amazing. No wonder she raised four fine children.<br />
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I am very excited to see this bird again. It's a White Robin, there were three checking out the back garden last week, and it's the first time I've seen them for about four years. They are quite a bit bigger than the Splendid wrens and a lot shyer. I hope they stay around.<br />
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These are lovely birds too, the Western Spinebill, that chestnut colour around his chest is just lovely. He is a nectar feeder, he's sitting on my Abutilon shrub where he feeds often, <br />
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but he will be pleased too that the Bottlebrush are coming into flower now as well. <br />
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For our records, this is the tank water level on April 1st. It's gone down since then, gosh we are having a dry autumn although we've had a few little showers here and there, not enough to soak in but enough to green the grass a touch. The kangaroos will be pleased. <br />
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Until next time.... xxDyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01740876889996960105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9074788565147644911.post-78827851348964909962018-03-31T15:35:00.003+08:002018-03-31T15:35:33.534+08:00Goddamn Varmints!Do you remember that lovely rockmelon from last time, that complete, untouched rockmelon. Well. Look at it now. Bloody goddamn varmints, it's completely hollow!<br />
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So I picked the final one, I hope it's ripe enough to eat. I also harvested the four luscious quinces before anything ate those! <br />
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I did the first apple harvest, the crisper in the bottom of the fridge is now full to the brim with these beauties. We still have heaps on the trees, I'm planning on dehydrating lots of sliced apples next week, yum yum yum. <br />
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This, in my opinion, is our very best apple tree, the Red Fuji. Really really nice fruit. <br />
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These are the Cox's Orange Pippins, as you can see they are a completely different skin colour to the Fujis. They have a nice flavour too but they are not as crisp as the Fujis and I love a really crisp, sweet apple. We haven't touched the Granny Smiths yet, probably next week. The 6 kilos of apples in the bucket will keep us going for a while :-) <br />
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I am waiting somewhat impatiently for these to turn orange, these are Fuyu Persimmons and I think they are my absolutely most favourite fruit. <br />
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Isn't the blossom on this Dwarf Lilly Pilly pretty, the bees love it.<br />
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The agapanthus I salvaged from my good buddy Ruth are growing nicely. They are planted along the right edge of the gravel area where we park our cars. The ground drops away there and created a small bank, so I'm hoping the strong root system of the aggies will stabilise the bank nicely.<br />
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My friends Ruth, Lesley and I were given a single African Violet leaf stuck in a small pot of potting mix by our mutual friend Ellen, who has some beautiful specimens at her house. I am most proud to present my happily growing and now flowering baby African Violet, all from a single leaf!<br />
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This time of year we see and hear a lot of the huge Black Cockatoos, as the Marris and Jarrah are setting seed, they sit high in the trees and crack open the nut. <br />
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These are Red Tailed Black Cockatoos, the one above is a male because the red on him is a solid colour. <br />
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And these two, who have stripey red are apparently either female or juvenile. I only learned that the other day. Gorgeous birds. We get a lot of the White Tailed Baudin's Cockatoos as well, but they more often fly over our place rather than land in our trees and feed like the Reds do.<br />
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Steve has been a busy busy boy giving his shed a big spring clean. It's been a mammoth task for him and there is still a way to go, but this part looks very spick and span. We both keep getting surprised when we go into the shed! <br />
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He's finished the hoppers of medium sized wood for the fire. We haven't quite got to cranking up the fire in the house yet, but I suspect it wont be long, there is a definite chill descending in the evenings now.<br />
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This is Steve's new toy, he saved up his Christmas and Birthday money and bought it. Apparently it is called a 'thicknesser'. It's a doodad that you bung a piece of wonky timber in the back, and it comes out the front as smooth as a baby's bum. He is happy :-) <br />
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I got stuck into cleaning out the chook shed, supervised by a couple of the girls. The apple trees now have a lovely load of chook poo flavoured hay surrounding them, and because those trees are still under nets, it means the chooks can't get at it and strew it everywhere. We love having the chooks and ducks in the orchard, they keep bugs to a minimum, but the chooks are buggers for digging up around the bases of the trees and kicking mulch all over the place. <br />
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There we are, a spiffy clean chook shed. You will note that there are two perfectly good nesting boxes screwed to the wall that the original chooks used to use all the time. This lot refuse to have a bar of them and like to lay their eggs at ground level. Finally, by accident, I discovered that they love old washing baskets with one end cut out. Whatever floats their boat :-) <br />
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And here is their new treadle feeder. They hate it. It make a big clanking noise when the top shuts after they step off the treadle, and it scares the crap out of them. I am told they will get used to it, and for now I have it in the locked open position during the day and I close it at night. The good thing though is that the galahs aren't nicking any food out of it. <br />
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We used to have one jump over the fence, escapee, intrepid explorer chicken, then two, then three, so now we leave the orchard gate open a titch so the fourth one, who obviously hasn't done her wing muscle exercises and can't get up and over, can be with her friends. My goodness they have become bush chickens! We have no idea where they are most of the day, and late afternoon they wander out of whatever wide roaming area they have discovered that day. They are very good at following me back to the orchard when they see me though, I feel like the Pied Piper!<br />
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And they still love hanging out with the kangaroos!<br />
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I haven't talked much about vegies recently, most of our vegies are finished or nearly so. We are still picking the last of the cucumber, corn, pumpkin, beans and potatoes. I just had to show you a photo of our fabulous pigout homegrown vegie dinner. That's our roast potatoes and pumpkin, our boiled beans, corn and carrots, our roast garlic, along with a bit of roast beef and gravy. Deeeeeelicious!! <br />
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Here's yesterday's photo of Voldemort eating breakfast. For a change he had a feast of cheese and grapes which he enjoyed very much. <br />
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We are having a lovely Easter break enjoying the company of Paul and Sam, so good to see you both xx<br />
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Until next time xxDyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01740876889996960105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9074788565147644911.post-3108300189326640322018-03-19T16:58:00.001+08:002018-03-19T16:58:42.946+08:00Waiting For The Turning Of The SeasonI was bringing some shopping in from the car this morning, when Voldemort popped out from under the settee and looked at me expectantly. "Just a minute Voldy, I'll be right back!"<br />
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So I sat down on the grass 2 metres away and tossed pieces of banana to him. "Is this for me? It looks delicious, do you mind if I try some?"<br />
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"Be my guest Voldy, enjoy" And he did, about six pieces, well five actually as one of the magpies rushed over and nicked a piece!<br />
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See this giant wood pile inside the shed? This is what Steve has been busy doing for ages, getting all our winter wood ready and this time he is storing most of it in the shed to keep it dry. He has hoppers under the shed verandah but it still gets damp from the rain mist, so he's filled the hoppers and the corner of the shed, so depending on the weather, we'll have dry wood from one or both locations. Steve reported the other day that he watched Voldemort from the settee wander over to the shed and had lots of fun 'playing' with another, bigger, blacker Voldemort in the new woodpile. We don't know who is male and who is female, but it would seem that more baby Voldemorts may be on the cards. :-) <br />
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There are lots of jobs awaiting the turn of season. I have a trolley full of struck cuttings that are awaiting planting into the garden, but I'm waiting for the rains to start as it's pointless planting them into the ground now, it's so hard and dry. I have a huge pruning list too, but I am again waiting until it cools down plus also making quite sure that the little birds have finished nesting. I would hate to uncover a nest when pruning, so it's a good excuse to wait.<br />
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Things are starting to die down in the vegie patch, the pumpkin leaves are dying off and behold, underneath we can see the extent of our fabulous Butternut pumpkin crop. You have no idea how thrilled I am about this, for years now I've tried to grow these, I can grow other pumpkin varieties, but Butternuts are my favourite and up until now they have stubbornly refused to grow. This year however, we have about a dozen good sized pumpkins. That should keep us going for a while. We cut one the other night and had it mashed and it was sensational! <br />
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The almond tree has struggled at the end of the season as I mentioned last post. I harvested everything I could see the other day. The grey ones are the outer coating, the brown ones are the husk and the almonds are within. The almonds that are healthy are lovely, fat and delicious, but a lot of them have dried out and withered. I'll have to do some more research on this as I really really want to grow almonds. Anyway, it's been very nice to sample the couple of dozen edible ones. :-)<br />
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We are guarding this and one other rockmelon. As I mentioned before, two ripe ones were eaten by something, so we picked one but it was far from ripe, so we are leaving this one to ripen and woe betide anything that has its eye on it! <br />
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This is the third and last area of sweetcorn, Steve stagger planted this year so it was spaced out instead of us having heaps and heaps all at once. It's worked well and we are enjoying eating it fresh instead of me freezing it all because there was too much to manage. Yum!<br />
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I'm a bit excited about this. In my back garden is a tiny tree, planted there for its beautiful autumn foliage but also for its fruit. This is a quince. There are four on the tree and they are almost ripe, and I say this quietly, no wildlife have discovered them. Mind you, a quince is disgusting to eat as is, they have to be stewed and then they are wonderful. Looking forward to picking these. <br />
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The orchard is quiet at present, the summer fruit has finished but the apples are about to start. We tried a Red Fuji and a Cox's Orange Pippin a couple of days ago, not bad but not quite there. In the meantime the lemons are in abundance and there are heaps of limes, most not quite ready but we are finding a few to squeeze into soda water with ice....our favourite drink while we continue the long diet haul.<br />
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The kangaroos are constantly searching for food in the dry dry bush, then they spend their afternoons lazing in the sun. I rather like this family shot, that's Chevie on the left, behind her is Growler with her big joey in pouch, her current boyfriend Julius, Growler's daughter Ra is front right, and I'm not sure which two are in the centre. <br />
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Patience in the foreground, Nash sound asleep and Rabbit in the background. These three like to snooze along the outer side of the fence of our back garden.<br />
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The front grass area is a little greener as we water it occasionally, so the roos like to graze there, helped along by the galahs and the two intrepid chickens. <br />
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The chooks get right up close and personal, here is one chatting to Elsa with her joey. <br />
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My big job coming up is to clean out the chook house. I do this twice a year. I use what is called a deep litter method, meaning rather than a thin layer of straw on the floor that gets covered in chook poo and removed and changed regularly, the deep litter method means you start with a thin layer on the floor, then as that gets soiled, you add another layer of straw and so on, so by the time I clean it out, it is a thick pile of layered straw and mostly rotted down chook poo, so I can then safely put the older layers straight around the fruit trees as a nutritious mulch, and the fresher layers go on the compost pile. <br />
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We bought two compressed bales of barley straw today in readiness. I've never seen barley straw compressed like this, it's a little dearer to buy but it's worth it for the lack of mess in the boot of the car....bales of hay and straw scatter themselves everywhere in the car!<br />
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We are awaiting a 'treadle feeder' for the chooks, it's a large feeder with a lid and a big treadle along the front of it, which the chooks and ducks have to stand on for the lid to open to access the food. Up to now I feed the chooks daily in open bowls in their yard, and it seems that we end up feeding about 40 galahs as well, not to mention intrepid rodents. I get rather frustrated after lots of effort to completely enclose the chook yard, including netting above, to find that the galahs rip holes in it and wriggle through to gorge themselves on chook food. As far as I know galahs are too small to work the treadle feeder, so once our hens and ducks have got the hang of it, I hope it helps to alleviate the problem. <br />
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The chooks are naughty too, they will insist on digging up the edges of their yard, gradually lowering the soil level, which ends up creating holes at ground level for the rodents to sneak in through...it is rodent time of year at present, I've spotted a few in the chookyard at dusk, and boy do they like eating our tomatoes, tidily leaving the skins in a neat little pile on the ground in the vegie patch. Originally the soil level in the chook yard was where the wire is, but they've dug down so far that they've exposed the wood I dug into the ground to stop things burrowing in. So an overhaul is needed. It's a shame we dont have rocks on our property, they would be very handy, so I might get hold of some old bricks from somewhere to discourage them. When I dig the sand out of the creek next month, I might get Steve to bring that up to the chook yard in the trailer, and top it up a bit. <br />
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These are the pink and grey thieving ratbags! They are very beautiful and we do like them but bloody hell when we are besieged by them, the noise is deafening. Normally the numbers start to dwindle towards winter thank goodness. <br />
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I will never tire of these divine little creatures though, god I love wrens. These are female Splendid wrens, with their blue tails and orange beaks. There are loads in the back garden. <br />
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Now this might interest you. This is a male Splendid wren, you know, the ones who are totally brilliant blue. Well, this is a male <i>after</i> the breeding season, (they breed twice a year) they lose most of their blue colouring. So they look a lot like the females with a blue tail, but they keep a little of the blue on their wings too. It's an amazing difference between this and the full blue breeding plumage hey. <br />
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We are starting to see a few more of the RedWing Fairy wrens in the back garden now, they certainly play second fiddle to the Splendids, but as the Splendids have finished breeding they are not so rampant in their search for food, which gives the RedWings a turn. This is a male, another beautiful little bird.<br />
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On the home front, I have been crocheting for the last six weeks to finish a SECRET thing, more will be revealed in a couple of months. <br />
I am also trying to get myself back into drawing and watercolour since the workshop I did back in January. It scares me you know, and you would laugh if you'd watched me over the past weeks, busying myself with stocking up on supplies, poring over instructional webpages, reading how to paint and draw books, but not actually picking up a flippin pencil or paintbrush. I'm dancing around actually doing it. I will show you the one thing I've actually plucked up the courage to have a go at, and I'm fairly pleased with it. Following step by step instruction in a watercolour book, I painted this...<br />
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Until next time xxDyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01740876889996960105noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9074788565147644911.post-23454552521738060432018-03-05T14:53:00.001+08:002018-03-05T14:53:25.886+08:00Summer Fruit Summary This is the birthday boy, he's an old codger now having attained the age of 60 today! Happy Happy Birthday to my dear husband xx <br />
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The fruit harvest is slowing down now with the summer fruits all but finished. We ended up with 2 1/2 kilos of these lovely Italian Sugar Plums. None of ours made it to the drying stage to turn into prunes, we gobbled them up as delicious fresh fruit.<br />
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We picked the final few pears today, 9 kilos in total. It took us a while to work out when the right time was to pick them so we had a few dodgy ones. I dehydrated a dozen....peeled, cored and sliced them, then soaked briefly in water with a lemon squeezed in to stop them going brown, then a brush with a little bit of honey (as I was drying ones that weren't quite ripe). They are a very nice snack. We failed with the right time to pick the rock melon too, it's a bit under-ripe. Two earlier ones were scoffed by creatures of the night so we were trying to beat them to it! Food growing is a continuous learning curve. One the right is the last of the Bramley apples, very early this year, they are soooo nice as a stewed fruit with rhubarb.<br />
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The final tally of fruit over summer was....<br />
Cherries - ten only, the first taste!<br />
Flavortop yellow nectarine - 8 kilos <br />
Apricots - 5.5 kilos a mix of Story, Trevatt and Moorpark on a triple grafted tree <br />
Angel flat white peach - 10 kilos<br />
Elberta yellow peach - 2 kilos, the first fruit from this tree<br />
O'Henry yellow peach - four only, the tree is not growing well, may need to be moved.<br />
Goldmine white nectarine - two only, we ran out of nets and the parrots got them all.<br />
Italian sugar plums - 2.5 kilos, the first fruit from this tree<br />
Bartlett pears - 9 kilos<br />
plus a few handfuls of blueberries, strawberries and blackberries that had only just been planted.<br />
Oh yes, and loads of rhubarb, a constant cropper. <br />
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Non events were the Greengage plum and Coe's Golden Drop plums....they are pollinated by the Italian sugar plum but that flowered much too early so the tiny fruits just fell off. We may put another pollinator in.<br />
The almond tree that always starts out magnificently with massive leaf growth, loads of flowers and then almonds, always ends up looking sad and damaged at the end of summer with only a few almonds left...the rest shrivel up and the ends of the leaves are brown. We may need to question if it's getting enough water right at the bottom of the orchard. <br />
The little walnut tree that has struggled for the last two years finally died.<br />
The three small hazelnuts in the back garden also died. <br />
We should probably presume that our soil is not suitable for growing nuts unfortunately.<br />
However, adding that lot up, it sees that we have harvested over 40 kilos of fruit since Christmas so hip hip hooray!! :-)<br />
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Coming up over the next two months are the Fuyu persimmons (that still has plenty of fruit despite being blown over twice!), Cox's Orange Pippin apples, Red Fuji apples, Sundowner apples, Granny Smith apples and 3 quince on a small tree in the back garden.<br />
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Water level photo for the beginning of March for our records. Probably about 35000 litres of usable rainwater in there (we cant use the last 10000 as that's what stops the tank from blowing away!) which is okay, but it's very very dry and some rain would be marvellous pretty please.<br />
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There was a mystery bird of prey hanging around the other day, I knew it was there because the magpies were giving it merry hell. Try as I might I couldn't get a clear photo, but looking at the feather markings I think it's either a juvenile Goshawk (we've seen one of these before now), <br />
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but this photo shows a collar of lighter feathers which indicates it might be a Swamp Harrier (what a cool name!) Not sure which one is was and it's gone now. I'm not surprised there are birds of prey hanging around, there are zillions of galahs. </div>
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We had a lovely afternoon at Boston Brewery with friends Angie, Amy, Judy and Marty last week. It's the first time we've been when there is live music playing and we were entertained by the very talented blues musician <a href="http://www.moondogj.com/" target="_blank">Moondog</a>.<br />
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Steve and I must get back to our early morning walks on the beach now that Perth visits are over and visitors have departed. We were going every morning for a while there but life gets in the way and now we must regain our good habits. It's always so pretty, I love all the flat bottomed clouds in this shot. <br />
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This was a morning when we excelled ourselves and were down at the beach at dawn! Our area is unusual in that the morning sun rises over the water, that's an odd sight in Western Australia. Very beautiful<br />
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Oh yes, I finally finished my crocheted cushion. It's big and squashy and very comfortable to lean against on the settee.<br />
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Until next time xx<br />
<br />Dyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01740876889996960105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9074788565147644911.post-90305589171459807572018-02-16T17:59:00.000+08:002018-02-16T17:59:02.087+08:00Voldemort Lives!This is a very exciting photo, allow me to explain. You know how we call all our King Skinks Voldemort, they abound in our shed and woodpile. But we have one special Voldemort that has lived inside this old settee that is just outside our bedroom window for about a year. He/she has become relatively tame as I feed him (let's call him a he for simplicity) banana and he is quite used to our presence. We aren't on touchy feely terms with him but he will happily allow us within a a couple of metres of him. <br />
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Anyway, just after Christmas, Paul and Sam were returning from the beach and they saw a great hullaballoo going on on the other side of the driveway. There was a huge Wedgetailed eagle on the ground battling with Voldemort, and the eagle won, carrying him away to be devoured. We were rather devastated about his, and mourned him for quite some time. Well, look who's back!! The skeptics among you will say that it is a different Voldemort, but we don't think so. He came running up when I threw some banana and gobbled it up (it took me months to get him tame enough to do that), and he is behaving the same way as always, doing his cruise around the outside of the house, sunning himself in the same spot, so we are happy to say it is him, and the eagle grabbed one of his relatives. Anyway, we are very happy to have a King skink back outside our bedroom window, giving Neo the shits....they have staring contests through the glass. :-) This photo shows Voldemort atop the settee and Gerald the girl magpie hanging out with him...she has learned there is food to be had when Voldemort is out.<br />
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Speaking of birds, this is another exciting photo for us. In case you are wondering, it is the bums of two female Red Eared Firetails, a beautiful little bird that fossicks on the ground but we rarely see them near the house. So the fact that they were on the grass in the back garden makes us very happy indeed.<br />
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This is yesterday's harvest. The peaches have all but finished now, gosh that's been a treat. We are starting to get some of the Italian Sugar Plums, the oval purple things. They are often dried to make prunes apparently, ours are not lasting long enough for that ha ha.<br />
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The peach on the left is from a small tree that blessed us with about 15 fruit. It is an Elberta peach, a freestone yellow fleshed variety, and boy was it yummy. The nectarine on the right is a white fleshed Goldmine variety, we got the grand total of two because we ran out of nets so the green parrots got into the heavily leafed tree and secretly scoffed the lot!<br />
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Our friends Mel and Sheila came to stay this week, we have seen them for three years so it was lovely to catch up. Here they are at the ever beautiful Shelley Beach Lookout. <br />
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We drove down to the bottom of the cliff and had a wander on the beautiful Shelley Beach. It really does have shells now, for quite a few years the shells disappeared, but there are huge piles of them here and there now.<br />
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Such a lovely, photogenic beach it is.<br />
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Back in the paddock we have the chicken who thinks she is a kangaroo once again. She is so funny, she just loves hanging around with them.<br />
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Speaking of kangaroos, have I ever told about how I name them? Their names are always very sensible, to do with how they look usually.<br />
Lucy, the old girl, is so named because she has the most amazing, long, curled eyelashes, so she is named after Lucille Ball.<br />
Patience, the slightly younger old girl is so named because she patiently waits outside our bedroom window every morning for a breakfast snack of a handful of rolled oats.<br />
Growler, another female, is so named because she does!<br />
Split, another female, is so named because her right ear is split in two from tip to base.<br />
Elsa has a very faint, very long triangle on her forehead, it reminds me of an ice tower, so she is named after Elsa, a character from the movie Frozen.<br />
Quirrell, another female, has two dots and a line on the back of her head that looks a bit like a face, so she is named after Professor Quirrell in Harry Potter, who had the face of Voldemort on the back of his head.<br />
Rabbit, Lucy's daughter, is so named because she was the scrawniest joey we have ever seen and looked just like a rabbit. She is easy to identify now because she is missing half an ear.<br />
Julius, one of the dominant males, has a distinctive roman nose so he is named after Julius Caesar.<br />
Floyd, one of the younger males, is very very beautiful so he is named after an American bank robber Pretty Boy Floyd.<br />
Professor Moody had a punch up and had a revolting eye injury and now he has a distorted eyelid, so it seemed most apt to name him after the eye patched Prof Moody from Harry Potter.<br />
The new, huge alpha male is called Ano. He has an enormous body and a tiny head which reminds me of the cartoons of overly muscled men on steroids, so Ano is short for Anabolic Steroid Boy.<br />
Nash is a two year old male who got himself caught up in wire when he was little. My neighbour freed him and he thanked her by biting her, so Nash seemed an approriate name for him. <br />
I will stop now although there are many more, but I thought you might be amused by the way my mind works. :-)<br />
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Until next time xx Dyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01740876889996960105noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9074788565147644911.post-77879407977239924682018-02-07T17:06:00.003+08:002018-02-07T17:06:57.505+08:00The Moon, She HidOur attempt at losing weight continues. We are trying to walk as much as we can, heading down to Cosy Corner at the crack of dawn some mornings. This was last week, very early with rain clouds gathering, so beautiful.<br />
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It brightened briefly as the morning progressed, the oyster catchers were scurrying around, waiting to see what the wave wash brought them.<br />
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Then when we were at the furthest point of our walk, the heavens opened. We got absolutely drenched. It was rather fun actually although we had to take care with climbing back over the rocks....we laid bets as to which one of us would have to be airlifted with a broken leg, but fortunately we both remained unscathed. Here we are back at home with Steve putting on his best unimpressed face ha ha<br />
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A few days later it was the night of the super/blue/blood/eclipsing moon so we toddled off back to Cosy Corner about 7pm, admittedly with a generous lack of excitement as the whole day was really cloudy. As expected there was a massive cloud bank completely covering any sign of the moon rising, but instead we were blessed with the beautiful sunset colours on the rain clouds. We admired the photos of Perth people's view of the moon on the news the next day, you had a great view up there in the capital!<br />
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Our garden continues to bring forth its harvest. The runner beans are starting to tail off now, the tomatoes are just revving up, the rhubarb is a constant glut, the Bramley cooking apples were the first off the little tree, and our chickens continue to be marvelous girls and reliably give us 3 or 4 eggs a day. The peaches came to an end last week, 10 kilos is nothing to be sneezed at! The next tree with ripening fruit is the Italian Sugar plum...they are small, oval, purple fruit that are often dried to make prunes. This is the first year we've had these so we are rather impatient for them to ripen!<br />
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A big pot of rhubarb and Bramley apple stewing, yum! Our diet dessert is a blob of this with a blog of home-made yogurt, very nice.<br />
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For our records, photo of the water tank level at 1st February, just over half full. It's going according to plan. <br />
Which is just as well as the *&%$# bore pump shat itself AGAIN, this time it wasn't iron bacteria like last year....we had just done a $200 water treatment to eradicate that. No, this time a tiny piece of something that looked like fibrous root had got inside the submersible pump 50 metres underground, jammed in the impellers and wrecked a couple of them, causing the stupid thing to cease up. It's just come back from the repair shop and is now behaving itself thank goodness. <br />
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The garden has coped with minimal watering whilst the stupid pump was away, the more delicate things got a sprinkle from the hose with rainwater. I thought I'd take a photo of these lovely flowers. Mum, do you remember giving me this plant as a gift about three years ago? It's a dwarf Canna with beautiful, bright, orange flowers. It sulked for the first two years and I thought it was going to die, but this year its roots must have found a nice spot underground as it has grown massively. It's such a cheerful looking plant. <br />
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I was messing around on Google Earth today, first time for a couple of years, and I was thrilled to see that our area has really up to date imagery. We reckon this was only 3 months ago and we are mega impressed with all our bits and bobs around the place. I told Steve he should be well proud of himself with all his construction and fencing, it looks great hey!<br />
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Until next time.... xxDyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01740876889996960105noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9074788565147644911.post-10240992631476857512018-01-28T14:51:00.001+08:002018-01-28T14:51:31.624+08:00The Surprise In The GardenLife potters along in lovely, cool Albany. Currently it is 19 degrees which is surprisingly cool for this time of year even in Albany, it's lovely. <br />
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Steve is our resident bread maker and he is today making small bread rolls instead of loaves as it helps make our portion sizing a little easier while we diet. We're not eating much bread so we've been freezing most of the rolls and grabbing a couple out when we need them. These ones are in the process of rising, they'll be going in the oven soon and the house will smell divine...... :-)<br />
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The Angel peach tree continues to bless us with her wonderful fruit, I picked these 2 kilos this morning, that 9 kilos in total from this tree, with probably another kilo still on the tree. Yum.<br />
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I'm experimenting with freezing some of them, skin off, stone removed, sliced and frozen on trays before bagging up. I hope they keep okay, it will be a big treat to have peach flesh in the freezer after the season has ended. <br />
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Bees are very busy in the garden, collecting pollen from the profusion of flowers that continues. This is a very pretty, pale pink pelargonium.<br />
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And these are Candytuft, they self seed every year and provide and mass of low colour, they are almost white with the teeniest blush of pink. The butterflies like them.<br />
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Just look at what I found in the garden this morning, I'm still in shock! I have a little grove of banana trees in the back garden, simply because I love the look of them. Never did I expect to find a huge flower with the the beginnings of teeny tiny bananas forming. It will be interesting to see what happens, I would be gobsmacked if they developed fully, surely its too cold down here? Anyway, I was very excited and isn't it pretty!<br />
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It sounds like a bird aviary out the back, there are so so many little birds, which is just wonderful. I managed to snap this pair this morning, a feat in itself as they dart around constantly, a Redwing fairy wren male and female.<br />
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Here's our old girls, Lucy at the back, and Patience in front.<br />
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And here's Ben, doesn't he look bony the poor old bugger. He seems happy enough though and has become a permanent resident. As long as we put some food out for him he is content to eat, drink, then lie around and snooze.<br />
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This is one of his favourite spots, tucked under the lime tree.<br />
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Since doing the illustration/water colour short course last week, I am trying to make myself do lots of little sketches. At the moment I am mostly copying others until I have enough of a stockpile to be confident to start trying to develop a style of my own.<br />
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It's amazing how you can't think how to do hair or what angry eyes look like, so it's good to have previous sketches to look back on.<br />
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I am determined to master line drawn cats, I find them hard. I discovered after drawing my mouse, that to turn it into a rabbit all I needed to do was lengthen the ears and change the tail, it's a case of working out the important bits of an animal to recognise it in a quick sketch. Practise practise practise hey<br />
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And speaking of cats, here's Neo with his best 'slightly pissed off' face. :-) <br />
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Until next time, xxDyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01740876889996960105noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9074788565147644911.post-41807396658319634952018-01-21T13:47:00.000+08:002018-01-21T13:47:24.783+08:00Fruit, Fruit, Glorious Fruit!Well, Steve and I are on a diet. It's a good time of year to do this as there are plenty of bits and pieces in the salad line that are growing in the garden. Apart from the chicken and cheese, everything on this lunch plate is from the garden, which makes us very happy.<br />
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Our stone fruit continues to be magnificent, after the nice lot of yellow nectarines we picked at New Year, we were blessed with 5kg of luscious apricots.<br />
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And today we have just started picking the flat white peaches....oh my god they are sensational, so juicy and sweet! We have waited very patiently for these peaches, this is the fourth fruiting season since we planted the tree, and apart from about 8 tiny fruit the very first year, the tree had all sorts of problems with leaf curl the following two seasons, so badly that the tree was weakened and dropped all its fruit. This year the spring weather has been better and the leaf curl was not quite so prevalent, and finally we are being rewarded with lots of lovely lovely fruit. Great for dieting, a delicious treat instead of fattening things.<br />
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I've been to the Albany Summer School the past week, doing an art course run by a children's book illustrator Gabriel Evans....if you want to check out his work, click <a href="https://gabrielevansartist.com/" target="_blank">here</a>. We learned mainly water colour techniques (which was a huge learning curve for me as I knew nothing), things like skin tones, shadowing, <br />
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interesting skies, scribble techniques for shading, wet wash, dry wash, loads of stuff. Although parts of it overwhelmed me, I enjoyed the course very much and felt I learned heaps and heaps. Now to keep practising!<br />
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Speaking of chickens, our escapee chicken thinks she is a kangaroo. Not only does she continue to escape every day, she spends most of her time hanging out with the kangaroo mob, going right up to them totally unconcerned. Here, one of the joeys is a bit taken aback at the sight of someone with feathers, but after a sniff they ignored each other.<br />
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Here's one of this year's joeys, looking all chubby with her fluffy baby fur. Her mum is Split, grazing behind.<br />
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Do you remember me telling you about our alpha male Ben, that he got into a fight with another huge male just after Christmas? He was a right mess, a bad throat wound and a damaged mouth as well as being very very sore. The photo below shows Ben back in October when he was a magnificent specimen of a huge male kangaroo. He had lost quite a bit of weight after this photo when the breeding season started, presumably too busy chasing the girls to eat, but he still looked pretty good early in December.<br />
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Poor old Ben, he disappeared for a few days after the fight but then he dragged himself back to our place, poor bugger could barely walk, and started following us around, (which unnerved us as big male roos can be dangerous, but he was only able to move as slow as a snail so that was okay) desperate for food. We realised that he couldn't eat, or rather couldn't graze, he was holding his mouth half open so we wondered if he had a broken jaw. He's a pitiful sight, I'm sure you agree.<br />
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So, we had a decision to make, do we ignore him and let nature take its course, do we find someone with a gun and put him out of his misery, or do we look after him? Well, we don't cope well with seeing an animal slowly dying before our eyes, so we decided to start looking after him. We had to plan carefully how we would feed him as male roos are not to be trifled with, not even sick ones.<br />
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So, every morning, after checking carefully where he is, we put out half a bucket of roo muesli for him, alongside the 50lt water bucket that we always have in the paddock for the roos to drink. His mouth is slowly recovering and in the last week he is able to chew much better than before. He still doesn't seem to be able to graze, as in bringing his front teeth together to bite grass, but he can eat the loose stuff we give him.<br />
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So he spends most of his time in the same spot, where we put the food. This is good actually, as he has stopped following us. He has a little mate with him too, the smaller roo, his name is Nash, is a two year old joey whose mother disappeared a few months ago. He is independent but normally at this age he would still be hanging around at least near his mother, so he is appreciating a bit of food too, as he is on his own. <br />
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So Ben is looking better, he has put a tiny bit of weight back on, he is eating better, but is still moving very slowly like an ancient old man. He spends most of his day lying down against that fence, or tucked under the lime tree, then gets up and has a feed and a drink then repeats this all day. He goes away at night, presumably into the bush. He has definitely lost his alpha male status. The big boys don't keep that status very long, I think he's been the alpha male for 18 months. Anyway, we are happy that he's not starving to death. The chicken checks up on Ben a few times very day too, she goes right
up to him. He could easily squish her but he tolerates her cheekiness.<br />
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I've done a bit of crochet lately, I made another market bag for shopping. <br />
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And I want a couple of large, round, fat cushions for our settees, so this is the front of the first one. I still have to sew it into a cushion but the crochet is finished. <br />
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And I had a lovely time doing the jigsaw Michelle gave me for Christmas. I love busy jigsaws and this one was wonderful!<br />
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Until next time.... xxDyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01740876889996960105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9074788565147644911.post-71916355049456984172018-01-03T16:47:00.000+08:002018-01-03T16:47:35.873+08:00Happy New YearHere we are, mid Christmas. We're somewhat tireder than that now, having had the pleasure of Mum, Dad, Michelle, Michael, Paul, Sam and Riley to stay in batches over the last couple of weeks. It was wonderful to see you all xx<br />
Now we are doing NOTHING but relax for the rest of the week ha ha <br />
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I forgot to get my camera out over Xmas as per usual, but here's a few... here is Paul, midway through a game of Uno. <br />
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and Michelle with her dad. She is wearing the elf hat I made her, love the ears!<br />
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Here is a close-up of the hat. Cute hey!<br />
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My god we ate, so much food and so much variety. This was a new thing, a glazed ham that we started on Xmas Eve. I've never done one before, it was yummy!<br />
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This is the Nutella Xmas tree that seven year old Riley made. Isn't it pretty! It was gobbled up in record time.<br />
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Here is Riley's unicorn hat that I made her, I was very relieved to see that it fits okay!<br />
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And this is an in-progress photo of Stevie's Wonder Woman bag in the making.<br />
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And here is the finished bag. Hope you like it Stevie :-) <br />
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Paul brought down his impossible jigsaw that with lots of perseverance was finally conquered EXCEPT there was a piece missing! Thankfully when Paul got home he found the missing piece so hooray, it was finished :-) <br />
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Over New Year I got my crochet hook out again and made myself a crochet hook roll after spotting a pattern for this one.<br />
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It will be very handy, it has slots for my crochet hooks and I've managed to find a spot for my scissors, and wool needle, stitch markers and a pen. So as long as I don't forget the crochet roll then I'm all set.<br />
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I went into town yesterday, the first time I've set foot out of the house since before Xmas. Waiting for me at the post office was my Christmas present to myself...the pattern and the yarn for the next blanket I want to make. This time I am going with the colours suggested in the pattern instead of choosing it all myself, I adore the look of this blanket, which is smaller than the one I made last year, it will be perfect for snuggling under to watch the tv. <br />
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Outside, things are growing well. This was today's harvest, 5kg of nectarines, 1 1/2kg of beans and 5 eggs. My goodness we've had eggs, I think we used about 80 eggs over the Christmas fortnight and we still have a couple of dozen in the fridge. Total of the nectarines was about 8kg which we are thrilled with. This is the early tree, the Flavortop, we didn't get any last year. The next fruit that will ripen will be the Angel peaches, flat, donut peaches with white flesh...maybe in a week or two.<br />
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We have giant zucchinis! My goodness we have had a lot of giant zucchinis. I've ended up cutting them up for the ducks and chickens, who are all very partial to a bit of zucchini. We will use the smaller ones.<br />
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We harvested our garlic mid December. After letting it dry out then cleaning it up and trimming roots and leaves, we ended up with about 2 1/2 kilos of very nice looking garlic.<br />
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These are some of the bigger ones, we have a variety of sizes of the globes. They are tucked away in a basket in the pantry and we so enjoy using our own garlic for cooking.<br />
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On a different note entirely, my little silkworms all spun their silken cocoons, hatched out into these ever so cute moths (just look at the gorgeous little face) who then got together and did the wild thing for days, then laid many many many eggs, then kicked the bucket! So, I have a container covered with eggs and not sure what to do now. I read somewhere that you put them in the fridge until you are ready to have them hatch, I must read more. In the meantime if I notice they are hatching then I'll start feeding them again.<br />
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We are having to be careful at present and take stock of who is where when going out in the paddock, there are a lot of big male roos here, following the females around. The one on the left is Ben, who until recently was the alpha male, but he got into a huge fight with Ano who I think has taken over as boss man. Poor Ben has quite a nasty wound on his throat, presumably Ano bit him, so he's been feeling a bit sorry for himself the last few days. <br />
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Flowers, birds and bees abound as usual, much to my delight. Isn't this pretty, it's a mini fuchsia, called Ballerina I believe. The flowers certainly look like little dancers don't they.<br />
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And this photo is for our reference, showing the water we have in the tank as at January 1st. Steve keeps records of our water and rainfall but we are adding a photo on the 1st of every month to make things easier to remember.<br />
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Until next time xxDyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01740876889996960105noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9074788565147644911.post-38439463458915774322017-12-09T19:29:00.000+08:002017-12-09T19:29:31.616+08:00Who Doesn't Love A Pav Test RunI had a very quick trip to Perth last week, to wish a special young lady a very happy 9th birthday, I'm glad you like your dreamcatcher Stevie, Happy Birthday xx<br />
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I also wished dear Sam a very happy birthday for next week too. Sam is a Game Of Thrones fanatic and I've been planning the making of a Targaryen House cushion for her all year. After lots of intricate cutting, fusing and stitching, I'm very pleased with it, and Sam loves it so yay!<br />
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We also had a very pleasant few days at home when Angie and Amy came to visit. Here we are at good ol' Boston Brewery.<br />
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Michelle sent us the most amazing advent calendars for a present....mine is a cider one and Steve's is a beer one! Every day we open a numbered brown paper package containing a little bottle of Australian beer or cider, and they are all different. What a great idea hey! Today I'm drinking Batlow Oaked Pear and Apple Cider and it is very nice indeed. Thanks Michelle! xx<br />
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We are slowly getting organised for Christmas visitors. Steve had to do a test run of his pavlova recipe....oh okay then....YUMMY!!<br />
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A couple of weeks ago, two pleasant young men came and installed our outdoor blinds that we'd ordered late October. Very exciting!<br />
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As you can see, they are the sort that you can see through from the inside, and they block out 80% UV and wind, so it's almost creating a whole new room. Not only will they be good in summer, we think they will also be great in winter for stopping the storm rain that comes straight at the house, and keeping the cold wind at bay. We are still learning the best and different ways to position them to get the full effect but we are really pleased with them.<br />
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This is what the house looks like with the blinds down from further down the hill.<br />
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And further down the hill we find the resident roos, along with their chicken friend who spends very little of her day with her chicken friends, she is always out exploring, very intrepid!<br />
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One of the chickens is doing weird things with her eggs, look at this teeny tiny egg! It only has white in it and I believe, according the very wise Google, that they are called fart eggs. Indeed! <br />
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Until next time... xxDyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01740876889996960105noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9074788565147644911.post-41920699526047232852017-11-22T12:56:00.002+08:002017-11-22T12:56:57.683+08:00Silky Stripy MunchersMy goodness, we hit November and suddenly everything is happening, November is certainly our busy month. Things start growing like crazy, including weeds! The ride-on mower, Helga, is dusted off and gets to work, we need to get firebreaks ready and comply with other fire safety regulations by December the 1st, and we've learned by experience that there is no point doing it too early as it all grows back and we have to do it again! And suddenly everything need watering, so the bore has been reactivated and the small tank is filling up. Thankfully we haven't had the problems of iron bacteria blocking up the submersible pump like last year....we know what to look for now and can deal with it chemically if necessary.<br />
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The orchard is a very interesting place when the temperature rises enough for the trees to leave dormancy, it always astounds me how leaves and blossom just appear from nowhere. We have been busy trying to get all the trees under nets before the parrots start chewing off the young fruit, it getting harder to do each year as the trees get bigger, but they are nearly all done. Here we have some tiny cherries, there are about 30 on the tree, more than last year's 8 ha ha, and hopefully we wont get any pesky little birds getting under the net and gobbling them up like last year.<br />
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We have apricots. All three varieties have a few fruit set, I hope they all make it to ripened so we can compare the taste of them.<br />
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These are teeny tiny Bartlett pears. The tree has gone bonkers and set far too many fruit and a few are starting to fall off now. As long as we get a taste.<br />
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These are Cox's Orange Pippin apples. We also have Sundowners, Red Fuji and Bramleys all setting their fruit at present.<br />
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This is the Granny Smith covered in blossom, the last of our apples. This one is the main pollinator of the other apples so it's good that it is reliable.<br />
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We have a decent amount of nectarines and peaches so far this year. These are Angel peaches, a flat, donut, white fleshed peach that I hope will be productive.<br />
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Last year our stone fruit was decimated by this dreadful fungal disease, Leaf Curl. Unfortunately our climate is ideal for the disease to flourish and last year it was so severe that the trees defoliated about five times, thus leaving them no energy for fruit and we lost the lot. This year I have been absolutely diligent, I sprayed with copper as much as I could without causing toxicity in the soil, and every other day I pulled off every diseased leaf I could see, before the whole thing got out of control. We had quite a bit of leaf curl, but now the weather has warmed up we are past the danger time, and the trees seem to have recovered, albeit the odd distorted leaf here and there. There is still fruit on the trees so we live in hope!<br />
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The vegie patch has sprung to life too, the tiny zucchini seedlings that sat there for weeks hardly growing, have turned into monsters and are producing zucchini at an alarming rate! The rhubarb that Steve divided and replanted has gone berserk, so we are never short of that.<br />
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The dwarf beans are starting to produce, we are having our first meal of beans tonight, yum. There are loads of tomato plants growing well, with the first tiny green fruits starting to appear.<br />
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Finally, after five weeks of very hard work, Steve has finished the enclosed growing area and greenhouse. The finale was us hauling a net over the entire 10 x 4 metre space, stretching it and securing it in place. We are hoping (HOPING!!!) that this will be bird, rodent and cabbage white proof.<br />
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Now the construction is finished, Steve has started planting out the beds. <br />
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But the main reason for this enclosed growing area is for growing berries. Like these beauties here, they are unripe blueberries. Steve has planted five blueberry plants, four thornless blackberries, strawberries, a red currant and a white currant.<br />
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All the plants seems to be growing well, we are a bit excited about the possibility of growing loads of berries and actually getting to eat them ourselves instead of the birds nicking them! <br />
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Speaking of birds, there have been a few of these beauties around, the Red Tailed Black Cockatoo. They sit up in the Marri and Jarrah trees scoffing the seeds within the gumnuts. Beautiful, majestic creatures aren't they.<br />
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My garden remains a profusion of little birds... Red Winged Fairy wrens, Splendid wrens, White Browed Scrub wrens, Fantails, Silvereyes, Western Spinebills and the occasional glimpse of Red Eared Firetails. They have suddenly decided that the like the little birdbath I popped into the garden bed just outside the kitchen window, sothis is the sight that I am blessed with...</div>
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The photo below has thrilled me no end this morning. I have always been happy that I have created a garden that the birds now live in, and I have been hoping that they would also breed. Well, this morning I could hear a lot of cheeping deep within a pittosporum, and upon quiet inspection I could see four (FOUR!!) baby Splendid wrens sitting huddled on a branch, while their parents frantically dashed around finding them insects to eat. I managed to get a photo of the rear end of one, you can just see her open beak to the left, and her mum is the dark blob to the left of her. I am so so happy that the birds have graced my garden with their progeny.<br />
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And while all this wildlife stuff is happening, we made Neo an outdoor enclosure, accessed from the laundry door that we don't use. It's about a metre wide and four metres long, and netted right up to the eaves. We netted very carefully, not only so Neo cant get out, but also so nothing bigger than a bug can get in. He has a chair to sit on and Steve added a shelf in the corner so he can get a view from higher up.<br />
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He absolutely loves it, and spends most of the day out there now that the weather is pleasant. He loves lying on the ledge in the sun, snoozing, but with one eye open on the little birds that flit around in the bushes just out of his reach. <br />
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Here he is up on his tippy toes, watching the ground cover beyond the net intently. That is because Voldemort the King Skink is lying in the ground cover, having a sun bath. I think they stared at each other for about half an hour before it got boring.<br />
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Look what I've got in a container in my kitchen, silkworms! Some young lads were selling them at the Torbay market and I was so impressed with their enterprising business sense, the brilliant way they had set up their stall, and the enthusiastic way they talked about their silkworms and how they care for them, that I couldn't help but hand over $3 and bring home 20 tiny silkworms. We have a mulberry tree so feeding them is not a problem. They are absolute gutzes! When I put the new leaves in the container every morning they set too gobbling them up, and if you put your ear close by you can hear them eating, it sounds like the snap, crackle and pop of milk on Rice Bubbles. They are so pretty with their stripes, and if you stroke them gently you find that they are velvety soft. Most of them have just pupated now, so I'll need to cover the container so we don't have a house full of moths flapping about!<br />
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I've been churning stuff out on the craft front. This is a pile of thirty joey bag liners that I made for a local wildlife carer who is overrun with orphan joeys at present and was running short of bag liners. She gave me a great big hug and showed me all her gorgeous joey babies so it was absolutely worth it. :-)<br />
In the background on the foam head and in the crochet bag is a Christmas present for a small person in the making, all will be revealed at a later date.<br />
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I had a go at making a Christmas crocheted bauble, I was testing a pattern for a friend.<br />
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I finished a dreamcatcher for a certain special young lady who is turning nine very soon. She informed me her favourite colour is green so I hope she hasn't changed her mind! <br />
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We are overrun with duck eggs at present so I had a go at making pasta with duck eggs. Very nice, not much different to using chook eggs so it's good to know that's another way I can use them.<br />
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Look at this gorgeous little joey, who I hope is a girl. The markings on its head look a bit like a halo, so if its a she then her name just has to be Angel. :-) Her mum is Jane, so named as she is completely and utterly plain, with no markings at all. Sadly Patience's joey Willy who I had photos of in the last blog post, disappeared about ten days ago. Patience showed up as usual at our bedroom window for breakfast, but with a saggy, empty pouch. We had a look around for him in case he was caught up in a fence, to no avail. We just have to accept nature but it's still sad. So we said goodbye to Willy in our hearts and look onwards to the three or four little darlings like this haloed one, and hope they stay safe and healthy.<br />
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Until next time xxDyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01740876889996960105noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9074788565147644911.post-39383813060049566842017-11-01T14:36:00.000+08:002017-11-01T14:36:16.907+08:00Happy Little FlowerIs this not the happiest little flower you ever did see? I swear that my photo is straight from the camera, it just so happened that the angle of the flower and the shadows created this lovely little bonneted smiley face. It tickled me no end.<br />
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The other flowers that are making me very happy are these beautiful irises. They are probably my favourite flower, I love the colour so much. My friend Ellen gave me a heap of spare bulbs that she dug up from her garden and I planted them a couple of months ago. I think there are 7 flowering at the moment which is very very good.<br />
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These are Western Rosellas, we don't see them that often, they are very shy. I thought there was a small wren in the foreground of the photo too, but upon zooming in I discovered that that dark shape is in fact three pieces of giant kangaroo poo ha ha<br />
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Mum and dad came down for a four day visit, it was lovely to see you. While dad had a nap, mum and I went and had a look at Shelley Beach Lookout. Always beautiful and this day was no exception.<br />
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Then we drove around the cliff and down to the beach for a walk. We have always loved Shelley Beach, we used to bring our kids when they were tiny. It has a marvellous freshwater stream that runs across the beach...great for rinsing sandy little bodies. I imagine the fresh drinking water helps create a fantastic ecosystem for many species.<br />
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Here's mum having a rest on a convenient rock at the end of the beach. <br />
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Steve continues his great work, this is the new growing area he's created just up from the orchard. What was only a few weeks ago a weed ridden, overgrown piece of ground is all dug over, paths created, fencing almost finished and the greenhouse built. <br />
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And from the other direction. We still have to put a net over the top, that will be the last job.<br />
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Little lettuce plants are growing happily in the warmth of the greenhouse. <br />
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Here's a comparison. These three tomato plants are growing in the greenhouse, watering can for size comparison.<br />
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And these two tomato plants are growing in the open, planted at the same time. Look at the difference in size!<br />
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Today was an exciting day, we planted five blueberry plants and four thornless blackberry plants, and popped in a dozen strawberry plants along the edge. Oh my goodness, it will be so exciting to grow a decent number of berries and not have the birds nick them all! :-) <br />
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The chickens are fascinated with the goings on. They can't get into the new growing area but hang around, as Steve throws them any bugs he finds as he's digging. The best bugs are a large beetle larvae, they look like witchety grubs and the chickens go ballistic over them, the lucky chook will grab the grub and take off at a rate of knots, with the others chickens in hot pursuit! The chicken on the right, now named Houdini, is the same feathered friend I mentioned in the last blog, the one that has taken to wandering. Well, she has become extremely naughty and escapes all the time! We are finding her all over the place, and within minutes of us putting her back, she's out again. I think she's realised that the fences hold no bounds for her, I'm surprised her colleagues haven't followed suit actually. We are now getting four chook eggs and two duck eggs every day, amazing. <br />
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"Please can I have some breakfast", says Patience with Willy enpouch, every morning she waits hopefully. She wins us over with her beautiful face. <br />
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Willy is out of the pouch more and more. Patience is very protective of him and keeps to herself, so the other roos don't come too close to her precious baby. Interestingly, Ben, the alpha male, is very caring of the joeys, he doesn't seem to mind them at all. <br />
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I love this photo of Patience, she really is the most beautiful girl.<br />
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My crochet hook is still clattering along. I made the Meandering Pawprints scarf for my neighbour Claire as a present. I'm rather pleased with how it turned out. If you are interested in the free pattern, it's here - http://amysastitchatatime.blogspot.com.au/2017/01/meandering-paw-prints-free-scarf-pattern.html<br />
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My newest project is one I've been coveting for a while. I made myself wait until I'd finished all sorts of other projects for this one, it's called the Lost In Time shawl. I bought this delectable, gradient yarn called Blueberry BamBam, what a great name hey, produced by Scheepjes. So the top of the shawl with be cream and it will gradually change to grey then to light then mid then dark blue. I've got a long way to go and it requires concentration but it's so enjoyable, particularly using a very special yarn. <br />
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Right, I think that's my lot. Until next time xxDyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01740876889996960105noreply@blogger.com1