Furry Grey Doppelganger

We grow good winter veggies here, particularly root crops for some reason, so we've been enjoying plenty of home produce for meals.  It always surprises me how things grow when freezing cold wind is whipping around, I suppose that might be why root veggies grow well, being insulated by the soil.  We have decided however that we are not growing turnips or swedes again, we've tried hard to like them but really we don't.  Carrots, potatoes and parsnips can be next winter's root crops.

Finally the creek has started running, it's at least a month later than normal this year, but to be expected with the lack of rain earlier in the year.  We are making up for it with our July rains being very prolific.  In saying that, it is a magnificent sunny day today, nice to have surprises like that hey.

Steve calculated, roped up for safety, then cut down the top of old dead jarrah in my garden.  It's been starting to crack and big chunks of bark were falling off at random so rather than me be squashed by it one day, down it came.  Another nice pile of firewood from it :-)

We've had the pleasure of the company of visiting friends and family over the last week.  Firstly Doug and Jenny came to stay while they popped into Denmark to visit Jenny's granny, the oldest living person in Denmark at 99 (hope I've got that right Jenny!), how about that!  It was great to catch up, even if you did beat us at Boules :-)

 A couple of days before Doug and Jenny arrived we had one ripper of a hailstorm, which was rather surprising as we don't get hail here much.  Photos never really do it justice do they, trust me that there were buckets-full of hail everywhere and the gutters all overflowed as the hail has jammed up all the downpipes when the rain came pouring down later.  It was all rather exciting!

Then we welcomed son Paul and his friends Chris and Eilisha for a few days.  First stop was Boston Brewery for beer tasting.  I think the boys declared the wheat beer to be pretty special, both rejecting the brown sludge called stout that Steve likes to drink.  Actually Steve now likes a beer called a Porter, a new one the Boston brewer has been playing around with.  Personally I think all beer is crap, give me wine!

We toodled around a bit, here we are at The Gap, which was a little uninspiring as the sea was very calm.  It's still a hell of a drop to fall down though, as I watched those people over the other side, the unprotected edge on the other side and wondered how they'd fare if a sudden puff of wind hit them.

One purpose of the visit was for Steve, with all his fandangled equipment, to help rebuild Paul's bar into something more practical and pretty.  Chris very kindly transported the bar from Perth on the back of his specky flat-top ute, and I nearly got smacked for daring to think it might be a Holden!  ha ha Chris, I was only screwin' with ya :-)

Much cutting, measuring, welding and screwing later, Paul is very pleased with his new bar, seen here in its raw state, it was oiled and varnished when Paul got home.

 Father and son.

Paul brought his cat Cassie with him.  OMG she and Neo are identical!  She too is a rescue cat, she was found as a pregnant stray by the rescue team, rehabilitated and Paul has owned her for a couple of months.  She is still very nervous, but she seemed pretty calm here when we sat each cat on their owner's lap.  What we forgot was that Cassie at that point was still under the effects of the sedation she had for the long car trip, the next day she made it absolutely plain that she hated me and Neo and I have the holes in my hand to prove it!  Luckily we kept them separate and no harm was done.

So, thank you everyone for your company, it was really nice.  Now it's back to work, I am busy outside flinging trailer loads of cow poo all over the grass runners outside the house.  I'm halfway through making our bedroom curtains, god I'll be glad when I've finished the house curtain making, 12 down, four to go!  Steve is very happy, we were given an ancient cement mixer but unfortunately the motor was dead.  Our friend Laurie gave Steve an old washing machine motor he had spare, and after buying a $15 pulley, Steve put it all back together and hey presto he has a working cement mixer, yeehar!  It will be so useful for all the retaining walls and fencing that Steve needs to start soon out the back.  Very very good.