Prickly Brains

We visited the Albany Show a couple of weeks ago, always interesting to see a variety of things.  There was log chopping...

 And cutie pie alpacas...

 And more cutie pie alpacas...

 And impressive huge metal sculpture...

 And bizarre cacti that look like brains...

 And magnificent poultry...

 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.

 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.

 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.

 For our reference, this is the water tank level on November 1st.

 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!

Until next time... xx

Softly, Slowly, Gently

It'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.

 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.

 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! :-)

 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.

 A wee rest on the steps before we walked back to the car.

 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!

 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!

 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.

 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.

 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.

 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. 

 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

Until next time... xx

Special Occasion for Special People

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!

 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!

 When Steve was doing his half of the drive to Perth, I was working on my crocheted cardigan, it's coming along slowly.

 I finished the second oven cloth, I think they look quite nice sitting there together. 

 I used old denim as the cloth, it matches my tiles reasonably well.

 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.

 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.

 We've had lots of rain the last few weeks, so the creek is belching out masses of water at the lower end.

 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!

 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!

 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. 

 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.

Until next time... xx

One Lonely Apple

I'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!

 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.

 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.

 We donned our wet weather gear and had a property wander a little earlier, here is Steve all rugged up.

 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.

 Here's Growler and her joey Pixie, watching as we did our creek walk in the rain

 

I love this plant, this is the new growth on my Karri Oak, or 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.

 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.

 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.

 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!

 After much chop chop chopping and cry cry crying, we were ready for action.

 We have five big jars of pickled onions,

 and eight jars of caramelised onion chutney.  Now we have to patiently wait a month for both to mature before we can sample them.  :-)

 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!

 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!

 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!

 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!

 And here's the start of another new project, lots of colour in this one

 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.

 I've done a bit more on my embroidered oven cloth

 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.

 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 :-)

 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 :-)

Until next time.... xx