101 Uses For A Breadmaker

Well, here we all are in summer.  Today our temperature gauge on the outside of the chook shed said it got to 39.3 albeit briefly.  Most of today it's been around 34 but we have been pretty comfortable in the house with the curtains and windows closed.  It's 5.30pm and it is nearly time to open the house up, one great thing about living down here is that it always cools off beautifully at the end of the day. 

Steve and his mate Laurie went fishing a couple of days ago, first time for ages.  They came home with a nice haul of King George Whiting, which would have to be the ants pants of fish in our humble opinion.  The bag limit is 12 per person and they caught 10 each so we have a few packs of fillets in the freezer, yay!

Meanwhile my friend Ruth and I solved the problems of the world, drank tea and wandered Ruth's lovely garden.  Ruth is a resourceful soul, and her birdlife have many choices of water receptacles for their daily bath in the variety of old frypans she tastefully positions under the shrubs in her garden.  I discovered that Ruth's recycling of receptacles holds no bounds however, she has very healthy little African Box shrubs growing in three old breadmakers in her garden!!  Crazy woman ha ha ha but by gosh can she grow plants well.  :-)

This year I am hoping to get started on some garden around our house.  As we have been concentrating on establishing the food growing areas, the sand dune around the house has been left.  Not exactly a pretty picture and it is just useless white sand that sustains virtually nothing.  In a couple of months we will get Mark the bobcat man in to do some earthmoving around the house, removing excess sand out near the driveway and creating some terraces at the back of the house.  Then we'll chuck some yummy stuff on the soil and try and get some grass growing along the front.  Out the back I need to cajole Steve to stabilising the terraces with sleepers then I want to start planting up a small kitchen garden.  It will be nice to not have the sand blowing all over the place!

In the meantime I have planted a very small garden bed at the end of the house, where it meets the driveway.  This is the Orphan, Damaged and Malnourished garden bed, made up of sad little plants that have been struggling elsewhere.  So I ripped them out of the ground and planted them here, in holes fortified with some compost, straw and manure and liberally mulched with straw.  I am watering them a couple of times a week and I can already see new growth on a few things.  So, if the roos and rabbits don't eat them, there is hope! :-)

 Steve is still harvesting heaps of potatoes.  Look at the weight of this monster!

My lavender plant is settling in nicely and I think it looks rather pretty amid the Queen Anne's Lace, which is a annual beneficial insect plant.  The bees and hover flies love it, although I notice in this photo the midgies are hogging the flowers.

 

We have had the pleasure of the company of more visitors.  Our friends Doug and Jenny escaped Perth's heat and spent a couple of days with us.  Much wine and hilarity prevailed.  Good to see you both.  :-)

We of course had to challenge them to a Boules forest tournament.  We are getting more organised with our tournaments, prior to this one had to juggle ones wine glass whilst flinging a heavy metal ball, but this time we took a wine table with us that worked very well I might add!  One bottle of wine per round, one game to us, one game to them, very pleasant afternoon.  We might have to paint the little jack ball bright pink though, as we like to throw the jack into challenging spots under the tree canopy, often we have no idea where it is and just throw the boules anyoldwhere!  But by the time the wine bottles are empty do we care?

We had a spend-up in the January sales.  We've been meaning to buy new settees for at least 10 years, they were about 30 years old and ever so saggy with shredded fabric on them from decades of pussy cats sharpening claws sneakily.  Anyway, it so happened that we found the matching settees to our comfy red rockers we bought last year, so it was a done deal.  Took us a few days to get used to the sea of red but we really like red with timber coloured floors and it all looks like it's been there forever now.

We have been looking for a nice wall clock for ages, waiting for just the right one.  We fell in love with this one, bought from Bunnings of all places!  It has a Steampunk look about it which we like very much.  I might comment here though, that the clock hands don't stand out hugely, so one needs to be sober as a judge to tell the time.  :-)

Well, it's dropped to 25 degrees outside so I best be off and open up all the windows to let the lovely breeze in.  Hoping you poor Perth people get some relief from the heat soon!