Mandala Madness

You know what you don't want in between lots and lots of family staying at your house, when the sheets and towels are being changed at a mindblowing rate of knots?  You don't want your washing machine to suddenly start screeching loudly, followed by the acrid stench of something very bad happening, with the finale of large belches of smoke that signalled the end of my 12 year old LG front loader washing machine.  As soon as the shops opened after New Year, we whipped into town and bought this beauty, another LG, I decided that I wanted to go back to a top loader and I was really pleased to find one that uses what I consider to be an acceptable amount of water, about the same as the standard front loader.  So, a gazillion loads of washing later, I am almost up to date and I am really pleased with the machine.

 We had a lovely time over the New Year's weekend with Paul, Sam, Stevie and Riley.  There were lots of Xmas presents for the girls that they enjoyed opening and playing with, we found a glorious park (Eyre Park, back from Middleton Beach - it has the BEST flying fox!), we ogled from the car as we drove through Sculpture Park where the wonders of chainsaw art are displayed in a bush setting, and the best treat was my neighbour bringing her orphan joeys that she raises over for Stevie and Riley to have big cuddles.  Lovely :-)
Our last lot of family visitors were my brother Pete, nephew Dee, niece Steph and her boyfriend Hunter who is visiting from Utah.  Our kangaroos kindly hung around so Hunter could enjoy seeing them, I was very pleased.  It was great to see you all! :-)

 Then I trotted up to Perth for a three day mother/daughter fun time with Michelle who was a birthday girl.  We shopped, walked, tried to entice kitties out from under the bed as apparently  I was a big scary monster but finally they consented, and we ate some wonderful vegan food.  On the last day we treated ourselves to dinner at Raw Kitchen in Fremantle, all plant based and a focus on raw, wow, the food was sensational!  Mine was Live Pad Thai, chocked with raw zucchini noodles and other vegies, with a lovely peanut sauce throughout.  Michelle's was raw nachos, I can't remember what the nachos are made of but they were delicious and the dippy stuff is a mixture of cashew cheese, tomatoes and other veg - yummo!  One the side we had a white bean dip drizzled with harissa oil and bread.  What a feast!

 I arrived home a couple of days ago, to a lovely quiet house.  It's been brilliant having everyone to stay and also visiting in Perth, but nothing beats home sweet home with my darling husband and pussy cat. 
I said hello to the roos, this is Andre, he is Growler's 2 year old, basking in some rays of sun.  He is a gorgeous little boy, feeling a bit left out as Growler keeps shooing him away as her newest joey spends time out of the pouch.

This is Noelle, the joey I rescued, playing with her mother Marx at the carer's place.  Noelle is fit and healthy, feeding well from the bottle, and as cheeky as a monkey by all accounts.  Marx is improving ever so slowly.  She is an amazing girl, apparently it is normally impossible to treat a wild adult roo, but she is tolerating all forms of treatment without any aggression, she seems to know she is being helped.  She's had x-rays, chiropractic manipulation of her lower spine (xray showed a small displacement of one spinal vertebrae), combined brain resources of three vets, not to mention the wonderful carers who roll her and massage her so she doesn't get pressure sores.  She is still not standing, but it is hopeful that she will.  The consensus is that the vertebrae that was out of whack compressed the nerves to her tail and made it partly numb, and as kangaroos use their tail for balance, they think this is the reason that Marx has been unable to get up.  She is constantly trying and her legs are strong, once the inflammation subsides it is hoped she'll be able to get up.  Small steps, the gurus think it will take a few months for her to recover, so we must all cross our fingers xx

 I wandered around my garden, drinking in the healthy growing plants that are supporting myriads of butterflies who are here this time every year.  Just wonderful.

 We have two male Red Winged Fairy Wrens along with females in the back garden at present.  They are competing with each other and trying to outsing each other which gives us the pleasure of hearing their wonderful melodies.

 I said hello to the chickens and the duckies.  The chickens now have names, Riley and Stevie have decided that they are Jacinta, Ivy and Twinkles.  :-)

 We are very excited about these luscious red globes.  These are the first fruit from our Flavortop nectarine tree.  Not many, perhaps a dozen, and we ate our first one this morning.  So much flavour, absolutely delicious!

 I said hello to the vegie patch that's looking healthy and happy.  I think the sweetcorn has grown a metre in the last few weeks!!

 I said hello to my garden gate that I have adorned with the mandala I was making before Xmas.  I love it there, I know it will wear out in the weather, but it makes me happy to see it every morning when I wander through this garden to get to the chook pen.

 In close-up.  Gosh I love mandalas, and if any of you have a hankering to crochet one like this, the free pattern is here - Starflower Mandala pattern

 And speaking of mandalas and crochet, let me show you what the postman sent me from Wool Warehouse in UK!  I was given a gift voucher for Xmas by Michelle and I had the most wonderful time deciding on the colours to order to complement what I already had.  This is my complete stash of Stylecraft Special DK Acrylic yarn.  I always poo pooed acrylic yarn, but this yarn is wonderful, so soft and good to work with, plus the added bonus of washability.  I am a convert!

 This is my colour palette (for now, til I order more ha ha).  I took this marvellous idea from the bestest crochet blog here - Attic 24.  Lucy showed photos of this great method for keeping tabs on your colours and how it helps to make decisions, by winding a small amount of yarn over pegs.  I didn't have pegs but Steve had plenty of long bits of scrap wood that he cut and smoothed down for me.

I don't know if you are getting it, that I am currently OBSESSED with crochet, I am all tingly and jumpy inside!  I have been planning a big crochet binge for months now, but first I made myself finish some knitting things like socks, and also this lace knitting scarf I made Michelle for her birthday.  It was almost the death of me, I kept losing my place, stuffing up and having to undo!  No-one could talk to me whilst I knitted it, and it was a bad bad idea to try drinking wine at the same time too! It turned out nicely in the end, I was very pleased with it, and Michelle likes it which is the main thing.

So, anyway, here I am ready to begin the big crochet binge, and I have something in mind.  After spending a lot of time on the internet, looking at photos and reading patterns, I am about to start a BIG MISSION, it's called Mandala Madness, website here if you are interested - Mandala Madness.  Basically it's another mandala, but this one ends up a massive 1.8 metres across, and is made up of zillions of rounds of different stitches!  Some people have made them with only a few colours, but others have gone to town and made wonderful colourful, happy creations.  And that's what I am going to do, which is why I had a buy up of many many colours, my Mandala Madness will be a riot of colour!  I have to cull my colours choices down to about 16 though, otherwise I will never be able to decide what to use.  I plan to start today, having been a good girl and done all the washing and cleaned the house, so I'll start posting a few progress photos on each blog post.

Joey Delights

Hello there :-)
Last weekend we toodled up to Perth to have cupcakes with a special young lady who turned eight - yay eight! Happy Birthday to you dear Stevie xx

Here are Michelle, Steve, Paul and Sam watching the girls play at a beautiful new park near Paul's house.  It was nice in the shade, it was a stinky poo hot day!  We felt sorry for the team of workers nearby that were creating what we think will be a skateboarding area, they looked very hot.

 We went for breakfast with Michelle to Halo Cafe in South Perth.  Well! Yum yum yum is all we could say.  I chose their homemade banana bread complete with caramelised banana and passionfruit syrup - delicious!

 Steve and Michelle chose the chia pudding, made with almond milk, agave syrup, and topped with almond butter and fruit.  They both loved it. 

 I have set myself a mission to use chia more, so I scoured the internet yesterday for a handful of recipes and doing a bit of tweaking, I had a go with the ingredients I had in the pantry.  Oh my gosh it was wonderful! 
Recipe for 4 serves-
1 400g tin of light coconut milk
70g (up to the 100ml line on a measuring jug) of chia seeds
1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
35ml of maple syrup
small handful (20g) of shredded coconut.
Put all the ingredients in a bowl and give it a good whisk to mix the chia seed well, then cover and put in the fridge overnight to thicken.  Serve with fruit.  Next try will be using almond milk.

Per serve of pudding (135 grams) - calories 225, protein 4.5g, fat 15g, total carbs 20g (within that sugars 10g), cost about $1.50

 Whilst we were in Perth, Paul served up Kale Crisps, we had never had them before - very very nice!  Shred up some kale, massage in some oil (we used coconut) and sprinkle with salt (we used garlic salt) and pop in a moderate oven until going crispy, about 13 minutes in my oven.  Our attempt ended up a bit salty but still very nice.  Who knew that kale could be so yummy.  Although, as my friend Cori commented, the kale is really only the vessel for oil and salt ha ha

 After the healthish cooking I also made chocolate chip biscuits ha.  Allow a moment of stupidity here, these two biscuits caught my attention and deserved a photograph.  These are the Emotional Biscuits. :-)

 We had a visit from our friend Claire from next door, who now mothers two orphan joeys.  Poppy on the left we had met before, and Pippa on the right has been with her for 2 weeks.  Oh my, what a delight, they are both hopping now, and we got to see Poppy hoon around like a total maniac.

 Pippa on the other hand was being quiet, and she spent ages holding my hand and sucking a fold of my jeans  Beautiful beautiful babies, and so soft!

 Speaking of wildlife, look at these two crazy magpies.  They look like they've died don't they.

 But no, they are alive and well, and merely sunbathing in the back garden, wings outstretched, warm as toast.

 Steve has been a busy busy boy carting barrows of mulch into the back garden.

 It looks so nice when garden beds are mulched, it makes everything look so neat and tidy and cared for.

 Hopefully the dripper watering system we've installed under the mulch will keep the plants watered well, but at the same time reducing weeds, by not watering between the plants like sprinklers do.

 I have been busy outside too, I whipper snipped everywhere to clean up grass and weeds, then I roared around on Helga and finished all the firebreaks ready for the fire season.  As I was bringing Helga back to the shed, a small stick got caught up underneath, a totally normal thing to happen, Helga chomps up sticks and spits them out, however this bloody stick got trapped in the drive system, destroying a pulley and thus the drive belt is loose and floppy and Helga isn't moving any more.  Bugger.  We pushed her back to the shed and are awaiting collection by the fix-it people to make her all better.  My reputation as a Helga wrecker continues....

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The view just outside the back door always makes me happy.  It is filled with lovely flowers, delighting the bees, butterflies and hover flies.  Bottom right is a very happy lemon thyme plant in full flower, to the left of that is a lovely pale pink trailing pelargonium.  In the background is the purple heliotrope that butterflies love, and the yellow abutilon at the back.
On a final note - the bushflies have arrived, flyveils are the current fashion statement around here.

Mum OBE

We had the pleasure of the company of mum and dad who toodled down here on the coach to stay with us for a week.  We treated them to a nice French dinner at the Lavender Cottage, it was a special occasion after all - Mum is celebrating her 80th birthday on Sunday.  I told her that she can now put the letters OBE after her name..... "Over Bloody Eighty"  ha ha ha.  Happy Birthday mum xx

 We spent a couple of days driving around taking in the sights, one of our favourite places was the wonderful Sculpture Park, a continual work in progress on the property of Darrel Radcliffe, a chainsaw artist.  Click HERE to read an article about him.  The drive through his property is fantastic, you stay in your vehicle and slowly cruise through, eyes peeled for carvings dotted around the place. 

Nothing beats a scenic drive around Mount Clarence to Middleton Beach, and we ended up at the beautiful Emu Point where we had a very nice lunch.

While we were in the car park I spotted a juvenile Pacific Gull hovering above.  He had some sort of shellfish in his beak, a clam perhaps, and he very cleverly hovered way up in the air above the bitumen, then dropped the clam to break the shell.  Then he did it again, diving quickly to gobble up his prize before the seagulls grabbed it.  I was most impressed at his cleverness.

Speaking of birds, this is our lot.  Breakfast time is a busy affair.  They all get on very well these days, the ducks are not quite so bossy, and most days we find 2 chook eggs and 1 duck egg in the nesting boxes.  Well done ladies.

 There are many many fat kangaroo pouches to be seen at present.

There are at least seven mums with joeys that are almost ready to start leaving their pouches for brief periods and learn how to hop and eat grass.

This little one, who has popped its head inside the pouch for a drink, has been seen awkwardly attempting to hop for the last week or so, the first of many.  It will look like a nursery here soon, I hope they all hang out together and play.

That big pile of cuttings and storm dropped branches behind the kangaroo has been sitting there while we wait for the appropriate day of weather to burn it.  That day came on Tuesday, we'd had a few dry days so it wasn't quite as soggy as usual, and, more importantly, the first day of light winds in ages, so there was no risk of embers flying around being dangerous.  After half an hour of flames it quietly smouldered away for the rest of the day.  Job well done, just in time, as the fire bans start next week.

 The orchard is continuing to sprout forth leaves and blossum.  These teeny tiny green fruit are Coe's Golden Drop plums.  They are a European plum and we are excited as there are heaps on the tree.  Lets hope they don't fall off and we get to try a few!

This is one small branch on the dwarf Sundowner apple tree.  It really is quite a show-off, absolutely weighed down with beautiful blossum.  It is also a very confused tree, it is supposed to be the latest of our five apple tree, fruiting in May/June, but this one doesn't know the rules and has been the first to flower for the last two seasons. 

 This is rather thrilling, although you may wonder why.  This is our little Stella cherry tree, and for the first time it has blossom on it.  Not a lot, about twenty flowers currently although I can see more coming.  How exciting would that be to grow a few cherries, yum!

This I am most unimpressed about.  This is our Angel peach tree, and this tree, like the other peach and nectarine trees in the orchard, are suffering from leaf curl, a fungal disease, which makes the leaves curl up and they get weird red lumps on them.  I am pissed off as I meticulously followed the rules to control this, spraying with copper when the leaves fall in autumn, and then again just before they start growing again in spring.  I did exactly what I should have, and yet the trees have the worst case of it we've ever had.  This tree in particular has got it very badly.  Oddly it doesn't seem to affect the fruit although bad and continuous infestations can weaken the tree, which is not what we want to happen.  Eventually these affected leaves will all fall off and then the healthy leaves will come through.  In previous seasons I have pulled off the affected leaves and burned them but this tree would have no leaves left if I did that.  So, I've sprayed them with copper again and I've given the trees a good tonic drink of Seasol and we'll hope for the best.  I think next year I will buy a fresh bottle of copper and I have since read that mixing a bit of oil with it can help it to stick better. 

My fenced garden out the front near the chooks is a haven for the wrens at present.  There are splendid wrens and fairy wrens and scrub wrens, all enjoying the thick cover of some of my plants.  Lots of bird arguing can be heard amid the best and thickest plants, while they contend for (hopefully) a good nesting spot.  This beauty is Grevillea olivacea, which is now about 2 metres across and 1 1/2 metres high.  It's covered in these glorious apricot flowers.

This plant, Leucospermum or teatree, is much the same size as the plant above, and is covered with these waxy flowers that have a delicious, subtle, honey aroma.  Birds and bees abound here.

This is a geranium, a particularly rampant one that grows thickly and has lovely burgundy flowers.  There was a huge hubbub going on inside this plant yesterday, lots of cross tweeting.

 I think I am rather attracted to five petalled flowers, simple ones with lovely colours.  I planted this recently, it's a ground cover geranium called Rosanne, and I was thrilled to see the first flowers emerge a few days ago, I love the colour and the delicate striping.

Well, we have sunshine outside, although the air is chilly, so I think I'll venture out and pull a few weeds up.....