Voldemort Lives!

This is a very exciting photo, allow me to explain.  You know how we call all our King Skinks Voldemort, they abound in our shed and woodpile.  But we have one special Voldemort that has lived inside this old settee that is just outside our bedroom window for about a year.  He/she has become relatively tame as I feed him (let's call him a he for simplicity) banana and he is quite used to our presence.  We aren't on touchy feely terms with him but he will happily allow us within a a couple of metres of him. 

 Anyway, just after Christmas, Paul and Sam were returning from the beach and they saw a great hullaballoo going on on the other side of the driveway.  There was a huge Wedgetailed eagle on the ground battling with Voldemort, and the eagle won, carrying him away to be devoured.  We were rather devastated about his, and mourned him for quite some time.  Well, look who's back!!  The skeptics among you will say that it is a different Voldemort, but we don't think so.  He came running up when I threw some banana and gobbled it up (it took me months to get him tame enough to do that), and he is behaving the same way as always, doing his cruise around the outside of the house, sunning himself in the same spot, so we are happy to say it is him, and the eagle grabbed one of his relatives.  Anyway, we are very happy to have a King skink back outside our bedroom window, giving Neo the shits....they have staring contests through the glass. :-) This photo shows Voldemort atop the settee and Gerald the girl magpie hanging out with him...she has learned there is food to be had when Voldemort is out.

 Speaking of birds, this is another exciting photo for us.  In case you are wondering, it is the bums of two female Red Eared Firetails, a beautiful little bird that fossicks on the ground but we rarely see them near the house.  So the fact that they were on the grass in the back garden makes us very happy indeed.

 This is yesterday's harvest.  The peaches have all but finished now, gosh that's been a treat.  We are starting to get some of the Italian Sugar Plums, the oval purple things.  They are often dried to make prunes apparently, ours are not lasting long enough for that ha ha.

 The peach on the left is from a small tree that blessed us with about 15 fruit.  It is an Elberta peach, a freestone yellow fleshed variety, and boy was it yummy.  The nectarine on the right is a white fleshed Goldmine variety, we got the grand total of two because we ran out of nets so the green parrots got into the heavily leafed tree and secretly scoffed the lot!

 Our friends Mel and Sheila came to stay this week, we have seen them for three years so it was lovely to catch up.  Here they are at the ever beautiful Shelley Beach Lookout.

 We drove down to the bottom of the cliff and had a wander on the beautiful Shelley Beach.  It really does have shells now, for quite a few years the shells disappeared, but there are huge piles of them here and there now.

 Such a lovely, photogenic beach it is.

 Back in the paddock we have the chicken who thinks she is a kangaroo once again.  She is so funny, she just loves hanging around with them.

Speaking of kangaroos, have I ever told about how I name them?  Their names are always very sensible, to do with how they look usually.
Lucy, the old girl, is so named because she has the most amazing, long, curled eyelashes, so she is named after Lucille Ball.
Patience, the slightly younger old girl is so named because she patiently waits outside our bedroom window every morning for a breakfast snack of a handful of rolled oats.
Growler, another female, is so named because she does!
Split, another female, is so named because her right ear is split in two from tip to base.
Elsa has a very faint, very long triangle on her forehead, it reminds me of an ice tower, so she is named after Elsa, a character from the movie Frozen.
Quirrell, another female, has two dots and a line on the back of her head that looks a bit like a face, so she is named after Professor Quirrell in Harry Potter, who had the face of Voldemort on the back of his head.
Rabbit, Lucy's daughter, is so named because she was the scrawniest joey we have ever seen and looked just like a rabbit.  She is easy to identify now because she is missing half an ear.
Julius, one of the dominant males, has a distinctive roman nose so he is named after Julius Caesar.
Floyd, one of the younger males, is very very beautiful so he is named after an American bank robber Pretty Boy Floyd.
Professor Moody had a punch up and had a revolting eye injury and now he has a distorted eyelid, so it seemed most apt to name him after the eye patched Prof Moody from Harry Potter.
The new, huge alpha male is called Ano.  He has an enormous body and a tiny head which reminds me of the cartoons of overly muscled men on steroids, so Ano is short for Anabolic Steroid Boy.
Nash is a two year old male who got himself caught up in wire when he was little.  My neighbour freed him and he thanked her by biting her, so Nash seemed an approriate name for him.
I will stop now although there are many more, but I thought you might be amused by the way my mind works.  :-)

Until next time xx

Who Doesn't Love A Pav Test Run

I had a very quick trip to Perth last week, to wish a special young lady a very happy 9th birthday, I'm glad you like your dreamcatcher Stevie, Happy Birthday xx

I also wished dear Sam a very happy birthday for next week too.  Sam is a Game Of Thrones fanatic and I've been planning the making of a Targaryen House cushion for her all year.  After lots of intricate cutting, fusing and stitching, I'm very pleased with it, and Sam loves it so yay!

 We also had a very pleasant few days at home when Angie and Amy came to visit.  Here we are at good ol' Boston Brewery.

 Michelle sent us the most amazing advent calendars for a present....mine is a cider one and Steve's is a beer one!  Every day we open a numbered brown paper package containing a little bottle of Australian beer or cider, and they are all different.  What a great idea hey!  Today I'm drinking Batlow Oaked Pear and Apple Cider and it is very nice indeed.  Thanks Michelle! xx

 We are slowly getting organised for Christmas visitors.  Steve had to do a test run of his pavlova recipe....oh okay then....YUMMY!!

 A couple of weeks ago, two pleasant young men came and installed our outdoor blinds that we'd ordered late October.  Very exciting!

 As you can see, they are the sort that you can see through from the inside, and they block out 80% UV and wind, so it's almost creating a whole new room.  Not only will they be good in summer, we think they will also be great in winter for stopping the storm rain that comes straight at the house, and keeping the cold wind at bay.  We are still learning the best and different ways to position them to get the full effect but we are really pleased with them.

 This is what the house looks like with the blinds down from further down the hill.

 And further down the hill we find the resident roos, along with their chicken friend who spends very little of her day with her chicken friends, she is always out exploring, very intrepid!

One of the chickens is doing weird things with her eggs, look at this teeny tiny egg!  It only has white in it and I believe, according the very wise Google, that they are called fart eggs.  Indeed! 

Until next time... xx

Cuddly Lilly and Hungry Voldemort

As Easter approached there was the most amazing moon.  I woke up in the wee small hours two nights running to find the light of a glowing, golden, full moon shining across the bed.  This photo really doesn't do the colour justice but setting a camera up whilst half asleep is a big fat fail, so I settled for auto and hoped for the best.

 Even as dawn broke the moon was still there, hovering above the horizon looking magnificent.

 On Good Friday the family arrived.  We were blessed by a visit from Michelle, Paul, Sam and our granddaughters Stevie-Lee and Riley.  It was so good to see you all :-)

 There is nothing, NOTHING, more heartwarming than hand-made cards.  They are proudly displayed on my fridge now.  :-)

I organised a range of things for the girls to do.  I made them both a scarf, then I showed Riley how to make pom-poms that we attached to the ends of the scarf.  I think she wore it all weekend.  Stevie preferred the idea of a fringe, and as she was busy playing an engrossing and imaginative game with a small doll alongside me, asked me to do it for her ha ha. 

We went and visited our neighbour who kindly showed the girls her miniature horse Star with her most divine little foal Lilly, who adores being cuddled upside down on a lap.

We went for walks, watched the kangaroos, did jigsaws, fed the chickens, and checked out the progress of Voldemort the King Skink's breakfast.  He lives under the outside settee and I've discovered he loves eating banana and cherry tomatoes so I chop some up and leave it out.  We can watch through the window when he gets hungry.

 Neo is engrossed with Voldemort and follows the skink's progress around the outside of the house by moving from window to window with his nose pressed close, watching intently.

 And when he is bored with watching Voldemort, he sits on his favourite chair by the sliding door and watched the bouncy little wrens eating their breakfast of dessicated coconut outside on the path.  It's like Neo personal wildlife video :-)

 After we said goodbye to the family, we had the pleasure of a visit from Ange and Amy.  How many photos of kangaroos did you take Amy? :-)  It was wonderful to see you both.

 On the home garden front, the tomatoes are all but finished (thank god for that!).  We've reckon we've grown over 100 kilos this year which is really great but a lot of work to preserve them in various ways and I'm glad it's finished with.  Look at all the colours of the varieties we grew this year, so pretty! 

 I am fascinated to discover that down here the figs ripen much much later than Perth.  This variety is called Black Genoa, which is the tree we also grew in our Willetton back garden.  We used to get the start of ripening figs at the end of January in Perth, but here they have just started, in mid April.  Granted this summer has been weird and everything has been a few weeks late but this is a big difference.  But no matter, we are thrilled with our first Black Genoa figs, and they are HUGE!! Look at this one, it's about the size of a pear! 

 On the craft front, I've downed tools for a few weeks whilst we've had visitors.  But in progress is something I'm making Riley for her birthday in June. 

 I am way behind with the current 'crochet along' blanket that I'm doing on the internet, but no matter as I'll catch up eventually.  These are the squares from week 1.  We make three of the same pattern but changing the order of our pre-chosen colour scheme. 

Steve very kindly made me a blocking board (hey Paul, do you recognise this wood?  It's the offcut from your bar top!).  Often when you crochet you need to block your work, it can be a bit out of shape, so you peg it out and dampen it and stretch it into the shape and size it should be, then when it dries it stays that way.  As this blanket needs 36 squares all ten inches square, it will make the sewing them together so much simpler if I have blocked them all, then they are exactly the same size.

Embroidery isn't something I spend much time on at home, I usually do embroidery when I go to the Tuesday group in town, and this is what I'm working on slowly but surely.  This type of stitching is called canvaswork and I've been making it up as I go along, all I knew was that I wanted to stitch a line of houses, sort of like something reminiscent of an English seaside village street.  It's coming along okay.  The eventual use for this is as a decorative top to a door stopper.  I am going to stitch up a patchwork cube filled with rice to sit in front of the bedroom door to stop it slamming, and I thought this might look nice sewn on the top of it. 

Time for a cuppa, see you next time xx

Of Tomatoes and Harleys

It's been busy this month!  Steve has finished his lovely little coffee table.  Isn't it beautiful, She-oak has the most beautiful grain.  He even made a couple of coasters too.

And here is Chief Appraiser, Madam Lucy, giving the table her undivided attention ha ha.

 We have gazillions of tomatoes ripening so I've been chop chop chopping them for various recipes.  I've also done a few jars of dried tomatoes in olive oil, time consuming but worth it as they are delicious.

 Gallons of tomato ketchup cooking

 And loads of chopped rhubarb about to become jam.  That is a recent discovery - rhubarb jam, it is rather delicious and tangy.

It never looks quite enough after all the hours of preparations and cooking, but here is 3 litres of tomato ketchup and 5 litres of rhubarb jam.  Not to mention the big containers of bolognese sauce that I made the week before that are now safely tucked away in the freezer.  The next big batch of tomatoes I will simply chop and freeze as is, very useful for cooking later in the year.  It's all very satisfying using produce in different ways, and knowing it can be used over the year when the growing season is over.

 We've both had birthdays recently so have treated ourselves to a couple of meals out. 

 Here we are at the Emu Point Cafe, a lovely venue that never disappoints with their food.

 Emu Point is a beautiful place, so picturesque.  Here's Steve looking at the channel from Oyster Harbour into King George Sound.  I used to fish here when I was a kid on holidays, wonderful memories.

 We've had visitors too!  Firstly Steve's cousin Terry came down to stay with us.  Here he is with his beautiful Harley Davidson motor cycle, specifically a "Fat Boy Harley", I never knew there were different types!  He and the South West chapter of the HOGS (Harley Owners Group) came down to have a ride to the Porongurups with the Albany HOGS.  It was great to see you Terry :-)

 And we've just said goodbye to our dear friends Angie and Andy who came to stay with their lovely friends Marty and Judy who are here from England.  It's always so nice seeing people enjoying our kangaroos and little birds.

 We had a gad about town, including a visit to the stunning Wind Farm, one of my favourite places in Albany, the scenery is beautiful and the paths are really well maintained.  You can stand right under one of the turbines and marvel at its power and listen to the deep and powerful "whomph" as it rotates.  Not to mention the fact that it supplies Albany with 85% of its power, yay for green energy!

 Above we have Angie and Andy, and below are Marty and Judy coming up the path.  It was lovely to see you all :-)

 Other visitors were of the unexpected kind.  For a few days we had these two rams wandering around, in and out of our place.  I think they live on top of the hill and take advantage of old, broken down fences to have a bit of an explore. 

 And of course we have our residents who we love dearly.  Here is Patience curled up on the grass outside the front door, enjoying the last rays of sun.  It's like having a pet dog :-)