June 2016 – Page 3 – Head in the Clouds

Dancing on the Roof

Ok – we weren’t exactly dancing on the roof… we were being responsible adults and attempting to fix some leaks.

It stopped raining so Jeff asked for my help to do the job. (I was not really that helpful. I took photos, cleaned the top of the skylight and helped wrangle the ladder!)

Really – this skylight is old and whoever put it in was possibly dodgy. I suspect come next summer it would be smart to get a proper skylight person in to remove it completely and put it all back together with new parts. We don’t know where the leaks exactly are – the whole thing looks suspect!

While Jeff was having words (a few naughty ones) with the filler, I went and took some photos of the yard from the roof – never having brought the camera up there before it was nice to have a different view.

I saw this view coming across and thought we should hurry things up!

Despite that dark bottom it didn’t really rain much this afternoon.

Different story right now! Its becoming quite heavy out there. I must go stare at the skylight and see if any of the 20 spots ‘we’ calked actually was the right one!!

I just had a peek – so far, so good…

The two holes circled were the only obvious thing I could see that may have caused the upstairs leak. they have been calked so fingers crossed it was something that simple!

(Yeah, yeah… I know. Nothing is EVER that simple!! 🙂 )

We started having a good look at the yard and ruined path to see what we could do… we even started doing ‘stuff’ (for another day), but later in the afternoon I got onto putting together a terrarium.

One of my lovely sisters, Michelle, had given me a beautiful hanging glass teardrop – but I hadn’t done anything with it. Another friend tagged me in a post on facebook that had a fabulous beach scene terrarium, so I got a bit inspired

(I would like to add I have no clue about what to do or rules or anything about terrariums)

Since we are always collecting beach treasures, it wasn’t hard to get a bunch of possible decorations together for this project

I got a little of my compost soil and spooned it in on top of the sand base at the back – something for the moss to hopefully grow into

Filling this sea urchin shell with dirt took ages! I used a chopstick to poke the roots of the succulent in

I tried a few different items in the teardrop, but settled on a very simple arrangement. A bit disappointing as I have so much stuff to use! Perhaps if I don’t kill this one, I can make more!

Hopefully I will get some nicer photos tomorrow when the light is a wee bit better!

I have hung it in the kitchen where it looks pretty nice!

Enjoy the upcoming weekend everyone! Next week back to my regularly scheduled “Fridays Footprints” & “Ruby Tuesday”

Cheers

ps – occasional extras via my Facebook Page

Escape From Flowerdale

Hello! Thursday is at an end for me. Jeff had finished a few nightshifts, so today we thought we should get out of the house and far away – just for a change!

The weather was having a Tasmanian Hissy Fit for about half the day, changing from blinding rain to blinding sun every 20 minutes or so.

We headed on out to Dip Falls to see how it was looking after all the rain

(You can see some comparison photos from this Friday’s Footprint story)

The pathway down to the bottom of Dip Falls was its own little waterfall and river course!

Still a heavy flow of water by the walkway

The falls were impressive today. We could see where the water rose to, and it has stripped all the lovely man ferns that grew around the viewing area

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The river is rushing wildly

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I haven’t seen the view from the top covered in so much water before

This is a pathetic trickle in comparison!

Of course, for me no walking through the bush is complete without looking for some fungi

After saying goodbye to Dip Falls, we headed on into Stanley to visit our favourite shop, “Sticks, Stones, Shells & Bones” As you may guess from the name, its full of wonderful rocks, fossils, sea glass jewellery and many other attractive things.

Because I make friends wherever I go, it was great to go into the shop (it had been a while since we were there) and have the owner so happy to see us, she comes out to give us a hug of welcome! 🙂 Awesome!

After a long browse and chat, Jeff and I treated ourselves to a coffee and a hot chocolate at a new shop in town “The Chocolate Gallery & Café”

FREE chocolate samples! All so divine! We also splurged on a fresh baked muffin which I can’t show you because we ate it before I could think about photography.

The sun was fast going down, but we couldn’t resist going in to Black River Beach to have a bit of a walk and see what the aftermath of the rains had done to the area.

Lots of wood and hay washed up on the beach… all a bit messy!

The afternoon sun was beautiful

I am hoping the colours in the sky tonight means a nice day tomorrow!

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That was a day well spent! We enjoyed getting out into the fresh air and walking about & meeting people.

Hope your day is fantastic too

Cheers

Source Images: DSC_6245.JPG (Av: F10.0; Tv: 1/400 sec.; ISO: 640; FL: 44.0 mm) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — The chill was starting to set in… time to go home and enjoy a night by the fire!

The Garlic Is In

The rain exposed the small stones in this plot

It was time to get out and get that garlic in the ground. The weather went back to gloomy and overcast… but I only got misted on rather than rained on really.

Right now, its midnight and the rain is coming back steadily. Communities are being evacuated, cows are washing up on beaches, and rivers are swollen to several times their size. A real testing time for little Tasmania!

Anyway, I raked out the area to make the surface a bit more even

I find it easier to go along and poke holes in the ground where I want the garlic to go first.

When I plant my garlic I leave a tiny bit of the top poking out

I was able to fit in 135 plants! I guess that will have to do me for this year.

I am listening to the rain and hoping it won’t go too crazy as going back to the vegetable garden and trying to recover 135 cloves of washed away garlic would be tedious.

I noticed that the couple of self seeded oca was dying off so decided to dig them up and see if anything worthy was in the ground

Enough for the dinner plate tonight and some to save and hopefully plant later this year.

It belongs to the oxalis family. I hadn’t heard of them before coming here. they are nice baked in a bit of olive oil and garlic salt. Maybe next season if I deliberately plant them AND take care of them I will get bigger tubers.

My naughty chickens were stalking the broccoli again!

Halfway though planting my garlic THREE of them flew back over into this patch again! I tried to scare them out but it seems its ok to fly in but no idea how to fly out again! One panicked and got caught in the bird netting! I was worried she would injure herself! I finally got her and un-netted her. The bonus being I got to give her a good long cuddle! She was surprisingly really quiet in my arms and her feathers are silky soft! Lucky me!

Then off to the hothouse! Plenty of water in the rain barrels to give everything a nice long drink

Still lots of cucumbers!

Offloaded a couple to a visiting cousin today – and ate one tonight

Tomatoes are slowly ripening

Some go rotten quickly – the chickens win those ones but mostly we are still getting a decent amount from here

The chillies are ripening and reflowering all over the place!

We got some succulent cuttings a week or two ago – supposedly for the path that just got washed away… they have produced roots really quickly

And lastly, the broccoli in the hot house is really charging along!

That’s all from me… I am just sitting here listening to that rain get heavier!!

Have a wonderful day

Cheers

Blue Skies and Housework

Today couldn’t be more different from the last week!

Hello!

Apologies for the lack of “Ruby Tuesday” I just didn’t get over there today for a story – so have to take a rain check!! (so to speak)

Today was amazing. Warm, blue skies and no wind. I was in a t-shirt mostly.

Pip enjoyed a bit of outside time too – he was sick of being cooped up inside

Eating some grass, no doubt with plans to come back inside, pick a nice spot on a bit of rug and perk it back up.

Even the little cows out the back looked happy not to be rained on today! They stayed close to the fence all day!

I decided that the main living areas in the house needed a good cleaning. When you have this continual soggy weather, a wood fire and an old house… it just gets manky, no matter how much you try to keep the outside from being tracked in. We had to put the outdoor shoes and boots inside because the rain was blowing in under the veranda to the back door. That meant storing some wood inside too – and it sheds.

So I got thoroughly domestic – Jeff was sleeping off a nightshift. Probably thought he woke up in the wrong house! 😀

I did get side tracked and sorted my garlic!

These guys are trying to sprout already!

I have enough cloves I think to fill the area I have prepared – around 150 cloves. They need to go in tomorrow, so I am hoping the weather will continue giving me a break.

I picked some leek – these had self seeded. I made them into a soup with potato, bacon, garlic & chicken stock!

Leeks are hard to wash… they hide dirt in every fold!

Also raided the herb garden to bake a loaf of garlic-herb bread to go with the soup tonight

I want to share an easy little recipe I found the other day.

I had planned on having ‘Beef Surprise”

Basically because I am getting down to the packets of meat that lost their labels when I had to chisel apart all the frozen lumps.

So I have to thaw out an anonymous lump of meat to see what it is before I can decide on how to cook it.

What I ended up thawing was some stewing steak. I knew I had a tin of coconut milk in the pantry & so had a taste for a curry of some sort. Most recipes I found had ingredient lists a foot long and just looked too fiddly. I wanted something basic or straight-forward.

This one was a gem and we loved the taste. Will definitely cook it again!

1kg stewing steak (2.2lb)

1 large onion chopped

2 cloves crushed garlic (I did a few as I like garlic)

2 tablespoons curry powder

2&1/2 cups beef stock

400ml can coconut milk

2 tablespoons brown sugar

Rice to serve

Preheat oven to 180C (350F)

Cut beef into cubes – I put into a bag with a bit of oil and seasoned with garlic salt. I then browned in pan in batches, putting each batch into the casserole dish as I went along

Reduce heat in pan, add oil, cook onion and garlic for a few minutes.

Add curry powder and mix in until onion coated.

Slowly add the beef stock, stirring as you go.

Add coconut milk and brown sugar and bring all to boil.

Add all to casserole dish and stir to combine.

Cover and cook in oven until tender.

I also thickened it a little with cornflour (corn starch) once it was cooked

It really didn’t take long to make up. And being only the two of us, it was dinner for two nights! Bonus!!

Well, I am going to take a leaf out of Pips book and get some sleep! (After getting some more beef surprise out of the freezer!

Have a wonderful day everyone!

Cheers

Cats can be comfortable any which way they twist!

Deluge Aftermath

Well… after a wild and woolly night, I was greeted with a bit of a mess this morning.

Its insane how much stony gravel there was…. I am sure we didn’t have that much! But it certainly spread its way down the back!

This is going to be really annoying to clean up

So really, my way of dealing with the situation was to grab my camera, jump in the car and go see what was happening in the local area.

Lots of stories floating (haha) about with damage, flooding, missing boats and garages collapsing on BMW’s (I didn’t even know someone in little sleepy Wynyard actually owned a BMW) 🙂

Insurance companies were incredibly busy today running about sorting out claims.

Anyway, first unscheduled stop was the bridge at the start of our river walk. I saw cars parked, including police, so I dove in, parked and went to stare at the raging torrent our little tidal river had become!

Here is what we are used to seeing:

This was today:

Source Images: DSC_5806.JPG (Av: F16.0; Tv: 1/100 sec.; ISO: 800; FL: 20.0 mm) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — Footbridge was under water. This was taken from the highway bridge. Tree in the middle is same as tree on right side of above photo if you are trying to work out scale.

The river walk path has been obliterated and the people on the corner property have lost their fence (you can see it on the right side)

Next stop, Wynyard Wharf

Pulling up logs that had jammed under the boats and pier

It was a very busy scene

Its not even quite high tide, but the water is higher than I have seen it before

Some of the boats did not have a good night

Source Images: DSC_5829.JPG (Av: F16.0; Tv: 1/160 sec.; ISO: 800; FL: 75.0 mm) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — My cousins boat has survived even if it has a little bit of a lean! (This is at the mouth of the Inglis River looking out to the ocean)

Next stop… see what Wynyard Beach looks like

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It seems incredible that mere water can move huge tree stumps like this!

Kids playing on the ‘driftwood’ before the tide came in even further

Source Images: DSC_5876.JPG (Av: F16.0; Tv: 1/50 sec.; ISO: 0; FL: 60.0 mm) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — I spent a while getting ‘splash’ photos!

Source Images: wave 1.jpg (Av: F11.0; Tv: 1/500 sec.; ISO: 500; FL: 75.0 mm) Processing: Fusion F.3 (HDR; Mode 1) — Churning muddy waters

Someone lost more than just a few woodchips and stones!

I did enjoy a bit of art that was provided by Mother Nature

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I hope everyone else’s day was a little bit drier!

Cheers

I Wanted a Water Feature – But Not Quite Like This

Well…I think it was a good call to abandon any thoughts of going to a market today.

It was soggy

Partway through the afternoon we sprung a leak in the lounge room – which was a worry as there is an upstairs before the roof!!

In the end we took the panel off the wall upstairs to see where the water was running in from. Its really hard to get into places in this old house. We shoved an old towel into the gap and let it hang down… once it was soaked, we could guide most of the drips into a bucket. Very high tech.

Unfortunately that’s not the only leak. The skylight in the dining room always gets drippy with prolonged heavy rainfalls and we haven’t managed to stop it yet! Its a slow drip, so a few buckets are under it.

Then, for the first time, our old fireplace seems to have sprung a substantial leak!!

BUT… that’s not the worst of it!

I have just spent the last hour outside in the dark, paddling about in the rain. Why? Well… I got to thinking about my rain-gauge spiders and how the rain gauge was filling up like no-ones business. I thought by morning the poor things would be drowned! (Weird, but I got a little fond of them)

So… I took the rain gauge into the newly cleared bbq area and relocated them into the kindling box. I am pretty sure they will be happy there.

I also measured 169mm of rain (6.6in)

I’ll be interested to see what we get overnight

The gutters and downpipes are at capacity!!

Our front yard is in a bit of trouble…

I stood there and waved goodbye to our woodchips 🙁

Then that lovely area that I started cleaning up to make a garden?? Well… its a pretty spectacular waterfall right now!

I am wondering by morning if we are going to be able to access the garage!!

The path in front of the garage door is being eroded away!

I went down to the foot of our waterfall – it actually looks quite pretty although I couldn’t quite get a decent photo – something about holding a torch, umbrella and trying not to get an expensive camera wet – did I mention it was dark and raining???

The stones and woodchip from the path have washed right down the back and its a mess. I’ll have to inspect it properly in daylight tomorrow – if it ever stops raining!

Going to trot off to Pinterest and see if anyone has Ark-Building instructions available!

Stay dry

Cheers

The water starts somewhere around the front, flows in front of the house then to here…before turning into Norwich Falls!!

Tip Day!!

I went to get gloves and Jeff had almost half emptied the trailer before I got back! Man on a mission!

My cousin Jeff (want the family breakdown?? He is the step-grandson of my mothers second cousin. lol… I just call everyone ‘cousin’ Much less of a headache) arrived this morning with his part of the barter deal we made.

I mentioned a few posts back how I helped paint his house in exchange for firewood!

Good shock absorbers… that’s all I can say!

And now I have a job to do… however this lot is a bit green so a few weeks with the wind whistling through the pile will do it good!

Right now this pile of wood is getting rained on – a lot!!

Jeff (My Jeff this time.. husband Jeff) got the ball rolling with cleaning up today by burning off all our… well… ‘burnables’

It was pretty windy, and I was watching him go through matches trying to light the fire in our barrel… then I decided to step in before he had a major tanty with a scoop of coals from the indoor fire

Whoof! She caught fire very nicely

We got the clean up bug and decided to sort out the BBQ area which was in a disgraceful state

Again – its easy to keep putting ‘things’ in a spot that is not used, and before you know it, its embarrassingly hideous!

I found these (I know -how do you ‘lose’ something this big?) I’ll use them to extend the raspberry patch, as I need to have structure to cover with netting.

Jeff got all my scrappy garden stakes and cut the rotting ends where necessary to a new point and bundled them up for next season.

We decided to go for a tip run. We don’t get garbage collected here, but we get tickets to use the tip free when we pay our rates. We find we need to go once every three or four months. We burn burnables, compost a lot, scraps to the chickens and free recycling of all bottles, glass & plastic. So it does take a little time to fill the two bins.

I love tip day – feel so free of rubbish!!

And check this out!

I brought together my extensive pot collection! Most of these were left behind by the previous owners and there are a lot more around the property!! They will come in handy when I get onto my upcoming garden ideas!

We even moved our bare-breasted goddess (another left behind item) from hiding in the corner of the BBQ area to under the small Acacia Cognata. She looks happy there.

So totally feel like we achieved something today.

Sadly, tomorrow is a market day and the weather is feral. Right now its howling out there with wind and rain. Forecast says the same all day tomorrow.

Looks like I will be finding indoor activities to keep myself amused!

Hope your weekend isn’t as soggy as mine (unless you needed the rain of course!)

Cheers

Friday’s Footprints: Japan, Nara

Even though there are a lot of places I love in Japan, Nara always feels like home to me. It was the first city I lived near and visited way back when I arrived as a teenager, working as a golf caddy in a mountain area in Kyoto.

There have been other capital cities, prior to Tokyo and Nara was the first permanent capital, established in 710! (The ancient dates I keep running into when reading information about Japan really does my head in!)

Probably the most famous place to go to is Nara Park to see Todaiji and the Great Buddha – Daibutsu.

Nandai-mon , an enormous gate prior to reaching Todaiji, contains two fierce-looking Niō guardians . These recently restored wooden images, carved in the 13th century by the sculptor Unkei, are the coolest guardians ever

This is the largest wooden building in the world. Amazingly, the current structure was rebuilt in 1709 and is only two-thirds the size of the original building, which was founded in 745 and took 15 years to construct!

It houses one of the largest bronze figures in the world, Daibutsu. It was originally cast in 746. Not much of the original remains, as bits have been recast over the years.

The present statue, recast in the Edo period, stands just over 16m high and consists of 437 tonnes of bronze and 130kg of gold!

I love the faces on these guardians

Of course, you have to take a moment to be a tourist

Octagonal Lantern at the bottom of the steps, is one of the oldest treasures in the temple dating from the founding of Todaiji.

Nara Park in general is such a great place to walk through. Beautiful wide paths lined with mossy covered stone lanterns lead the way to shrines tucked away here and there through the sprawling area.

At the right time of year, this area is a mass of purple with the wisteria in full bloom (All my photos of this are on film!!)

Of course, no trip to Nara Park is complete without meeting the deer!

As you walk the streets, you may just run into some newly weds!

When you have had enough of the temples and shrines, there are beautiful Japanese gardens to explore

garden

Of course, when nature gets too much you can enjoy the delights of the shopping area – lots of fantastic little shops & arcades without the overwhelming frantic-ness of Tokyo or Osaka

Sock Shop!! Emma was both delighted and overwhelmed!

One of the memories we have that makes us chuckle, was looking for a restaurant with a Japanese friend of ours, Yusuke, that had our favourite food – Yaki soba & Okonomiyaki. We were in an information shop asking where to go and we were kidnapped by this fabulous little old lady, who proclaimed herself “The Boss of the Area” and dragged us to this excellent little restaurant and then proceeded to instruct the owner to give us a good deal on our meals!!

Emma and I ready to eat our okonomiyaki (kind of a cross between a pizza and a pancake)(and an omelette!)

Nara is an easy place to miss, as tourists flock to Tokyo, Kyoto and Hiroshima.

I say make the time. There are lots of really interesting places to see in the area and its well worth the effort. Its a little quieter than the big cities and less over-run with tourists.

Hope you have enjoyed a little look.

Cheers

I think I need one of these in my garden somewhere

The Day of Mundane

Really, today was another gorgeous day for winter – but I was so boring I am not going to send you to sleep reliving my domestics!

Our local Jehovah Witness lady popped by this morning with a couple of potted plants for me! Cool huh? She has finally given up on my immortal soul and we talk about chickens and gardens instead! 😀 Not even a hint of the Watchtower!!

Apparently the plant on the right is edible in a salad but is a bit bitter. Its a good one for the chickens and when it goes to seed, it goes really tall and produces daily blue flowers that are also edible in salads! Can’t wait!

Speaking of chickens… their reaction to the rosemary in their usual nesting box was – to move to another nesting box!!! I laughed when I saw where the eggs were today!

There are three nesting boxes – they always all lay in the same one!! Todays production low with only three!!

I did spend some time contemplating my major garden overhauls during this winter.

Plannnnnnnnnnnn — The winter back yard looks kinda forlorn!

I am pretty bad at getting a plan in my head. We need the access as we drive down to the back of the hothouse to drop firewood off and sometimes other bigger garden purchases like mushroom compost.

I need to be able to still let the chickens out to a decent sized run, but would have to keep any additional garden beds very separate from them! I like the idea of a bunch of raised beds in the back area somehow.

I have decided to extend the raspberry patch by one more row.

Then – there is the back of the house yard which I so very much want to landscape!

Plan

I have plans to move the clothesline to the side of the hothouse – it will get good sun there but not be in our view.

This whole area to me is wasted as lawn. I have dreams of a crazy rambling garden – but no idea where to start!! (Hence it being lawn for 4 years!!)

Oh well… I have the whole winter to work on that. Readers suggestions (Sensible and crazy) are totally welcome!

Cheers!

You know the fire is hot enough when the cat starts oozing out of his sleeping bag!!!

Winter: Day One

Pip doesn’t actually like the wheel barrow.

Well… winter started today and it was a good one. Sun was out & I was working in the garden in a t-shirt again!

Since it just turned into June, I thought I should start to prepare my garlic patch. The rogue dahlias had finished so I could pull them up plus any spare potatoes that had started growing

Since garlic likes a more alkaline soil, I gave it a reasonable dusting of lime

Time to dig it all in

Nice! In a few days I will add blood and bone – then plant my garlic cloves

What fascinates me is the fact this plot has been dug over several times since digging up our potatoes. Not to mention wallowing about in the dirt sifting it through my fingers! How the hell did I miss these?

Potatoes are good at hiding. I have also transplanted three that had grown rather well… who knows what they will do? Produce winter potatoes?

I have a good lot of dahlia tubers to relocate

My self seeded lettuce are half-heartedly growing!

I figured it was time to replant the broccoli that a certain chicken made a salad bar out of…

Look at them all milling about eyeing off the greens!!

Stakes in with high-tech pot barriers so the netting doesn’t slip through

And no – the end result is not pretty. But I think it will do as a chook-deterrent until they can get established.

Picked what broccoli/broccolini I could see that was ready

several small pieces – not nearly as impressive as Ruby’s!

Next task was the coop! I found half a bag of chopped hay, so I was able to half clean the coop. Scraping off all the poo and putting new hay in nesting boxes

Since I have plenty of herbs around the place, it doesn’t hurt to pick a bundle and chuck a bit in the nesting boxes and around the coop. Have no idea if its especially beneficial, but it makes the whole place smell a bit nicer – and I am sure the chickens appreciate the lengths I am willing to go to, to keep them happy!

I considered some of the curry-plant, then thought better of it!! 😀

Hope your day was great too!

Cheers