There has been a flurry of activity in the orchard. Once the tedious part of building the fence was complete, we started the fun part of buying the trees. Then Steve collected 3 trailer loads of yummy soil mix, and with that plus a heap of cow manure, he dug enormous holes to fill with rich soil to give the trees a great start.
Planted are: Bramley, Cox's Orange Pippin, Granny Smith, Red Fuji and Sundowner apples, Goldmine and Flavortop nectarines, Angel and O'Henry peaches, Newcastle apricot, Italian Sugar Plum and Greengage plum, Fuyu persimmon, Feijoa, Bartlett pear, Stella cherry, R2E2 and Kensington Pride mango, Hass avocado, Franquette walnut and an almond. We also have 3 hazelnuts that we'll plant as a hedge up near the house, in front of the car. It looks so nice to see trees in the orchard now, small as they are. This spring should be nice, when we see some new growth and a small amount of blossom, followed hopefully by the excitement of a teeny weeny amount of fruit.
So with all this lot plus the existing mulberry, fig, lemon, lime, mandarin and orange trees, I think we've covered most of the fruit in existence! We've chosen varieties pretty carefully, considering chill factor - we are in a low-medium chill area as we don't have frosts, and when we've planted more than one variety of a fruit, tried to choose ones that fruit at slightly different times, to try and avoid being inundated with fruit all in the same few weeks!
The breakfast club continues to visit every morning at dawn. I know they are there because Neo sits at the window watching them, I think he thinks they are big cats. The big girl at the front, who we have named Patience, cos she is always the first one here, pre-dawn, waiting patiently for her scoop of roo food, has a big joey still in the pouch. It's lovely to see the little one with its head poking out solemnly watching us.
Every year our embroidery group toodles off for a day workshop called Stitches By The Sea. Each year it is hosted by either our group - South Coast Embroiderers day group, or the night group or the Denmark group. This year it was the night group's turn, and considering there is only seven members, they put on a great day with a fun project, a great turnout of about 40 people, and lots of yummy food made by the group. The project was "Chicken Scratch Embroidery", there are varying theories as to why it is called this and also other names such as Depression Lace, but basically it is simple stitching on gingham to make it appear as if it is lace. It was good fun!
Speaking of embroidery, we gather every Tuesday at a hall in a suburb of Albany called Little Grove, which is on the other side of Princess Royal Harbour to the main township of Albany. I always admire the view across the water and finally remembered to bring my camera to embroidery and take a couple of photos. This photo is looking over to Albany town, which is nestled in between Mount Melville on the left, and Mount Clarence on the right. Pretty isn't it.
The other view on arrival at sewing that I always like is this little rowboat, sitting alone in a calm expanse of water.
I've been doing a bit of sewing at home too. I made my mother-in-law, who sadly has advanced Alzheimers and is in a nursing home, a 'sensory quilt'. Barbara likes to touch little things and I wanted to make something that she would enjoy looking at and touching. It's a small lap quilt with a fur edge on two sides, and the letters in her name appliqued in different fabrics, both in colours and textures. I've added the different texture of some crochet, stitched on so there are little tunnels to wiggle fingers in, a tassel with a shiny ribbon, hanging beads, buttons and bells, braid, a fabric flower, all on a background fabric of pictures of hats. I hope it gives her some pleasure.
The pusscat, shown here in mid psycho mode (the foofed forward whiskers are a clue) is no longer the little wee kitty I brought home nearly 3 months ago. He weighed 2.5 kilos as a four month old baby, but today he tipped the scales at a chubbalub 4.8 kilos. He thunders around the place at the speed of light so it doesn't slow him down one bit!
The water crisis is past. We have having regular drizzle and our tanks are both a quarter full now, thank goodness. Lots of rain forecast this week so we are hoping for some heavy falls which up to now haven't eventuated. The last couple of mornings we've had a eerie, heavy mist descend on us for an hour or so.
More splendid autumn sunsets, wonderful.
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