December 2017 – Page 2 – Head in the Clouds

Tomato Relocation Day

See whats missing here??
Oh yes – my other croc! That little devil must have returned last night and nicked it!!! Did quite the walk around today and could not find it. Mind you, by now its probably chewed to bits.
My spare crocs are inside tonight!

Anyway…

I moved the potting table out of the hothouse so I could get the chillies in the ground

A job that was continually interrupted with moving tomatoes out. There are so many growing in the hothouse which will make things crowded and painful, so I rehomed or potted a lot up today

A lot were probably too big to move, but I have given it a go anyway

I pretty much dug little trenches for the bigger plants and lay a lot of stem under the dirt

I remembered that I had started weeding the area in front of the snow peas… another space to plant tomatoes

They started pretty weepy and wilted but most were perking up by the end of the day

This ‘finding places’ for tomatoes drives me crazy. Next season I am going to pre prepare a huge area and keep them all together.

Anyway, the chillies finally got put in.

I think a lot of these plants should go out the front on my stall. Just waiting for them to all perk up and have a few other things for sale so the tables are interesting enough when people stop by. Probably some raspberries would do the trick!

Enjoy your day!
Cheers!

Devilish Evening

Well Pip and I had a little excitement this evening!
Jeff had gone to work and I am hearing all this thumping about on the back veranda. I usually assume its one of the possums, but this time it was pretty persistent.
I caught Pip at the back door staring at something playing with Jeff’s gumboots. I thought it was a cat at first – so I switched on the light expecting it to scarper, but nope. It was a baby devil and it was intent on chewing the boot!!
I was thrilled!

Sadly the photos are all pretty dodgy – very dark with a dark moving animal through glass. Not optimal!!

It was pretty happy to chew its way across the veranda!
Moved on to Pips harness and lead and played with that for a while.

Then it moved onto my crocs – relocated them and chewed each in turn!

I think I will have to call someone and talk about relocation. I don’t mind having them here but we live on the highway and since these little chaps are endangered, its not the best place for them I wouldn’t imagine.
It was such a treat though to sit and watch it play – with that ‘devil may care’ attitude?? haha
Oh… these are the little bite marks my crocs now show:

I took one shot with a flash, but as I suspected, didn’t help much except add the red eyes, which I suppose for a devil, is pretty suitable! Although it did show up the markings a little more clearly for you to see.

Hope your day is equally as surprising and fun!

Cheers

Bit of Mulch

Hello!
Its a good day when you underestimate the size container needed to pick your raspberries! Not much off a kilo here! The local supermarket has them on sale at $34/kg!! Leading up to Christmas I have seen them as high as $54/kg which is daylight robbery.
Just glad we have plenty of our own to enjoy.

Plenty coming along on the canes as well!

I also found some baby butternut pumpkins!!
And like other adventurous toddlers running off … a few plants were making their escape into the neighbours paddock!

I’ve redirected them and also spent some time mulching most of the garden in this area.
I will possibly give up on the watermelons though… maybe give them another week or two to see if they look like bouncing back.
I still think the tomatoes will be fine.

A few basket fulls of rose petals. Not sure what I will do with them… if anything. But they are pretty.

With a bit of a shock I realise its a week until Christmas. I am even less prepared this year than last!
I did, however, actually send out a card today.
I am not sure if Jeff will be working, but one or both of us will be planning on trotting down to Rubys for a quiet Christmas Lunch – I’ll be making a pavlova and some home made custard and Ruby will be baking something!
Sounds like a grand plan to me!
I hope most of you have something wonderful planned for the festive season.
Whats tradition in your household?
Of course being in summer, an older tradition when we headed back to our home town for Christmas, was to eat a nice big lunch, hang out with family and open presents at some point.
Later in the evening all the ‘kids’ – neighbourhood crew etc (now slightly older) would gather up leftovers and meet down at the weir to swim, catch up and eat more. Fantastic summer evenings.

The day lilies are blooming and I was greeted this morning by the yellow lilium! Nice start to the day!

Hope your week has started well!

Cheers

Plant Progress

Its nice to do a round of the garden and see some food progress.
We had a great meal tonight… I fished out the last steaks that were lurking in the freezer, Jeff bbq-ed them and I steamed some new potatoes and made a fresh salad – including a couple of fresh laid boiled eggs just because I could.
Topped off with some home made strawberry ice cream I made today.
Nice and full and happy 🙂

Anyway, plants…

Some more garlic

The basil is looking amazing – it might be time to make up a batch of garlic pesto?

Definite capsicum growth this week!

Lovely tomatoes everywhere, but no hint of red yet!

My patch of watermelons really do NOT look happy. I am just hoping for the best… if they all die I’ll just have to plant something else there. Hoping they will eventually perk up and do watermelon-like things.

In better news, the passionfruit is an extremely happy plant. I would go as far as to say ‘ecstatic’

Since it was a really beautiful day, we took off late this afternoon to do a circuit around Anniversary Bay.
We saw a few wallabies on our way.

Peeking through the scrub until I got too close.

Lovely view today!

I forgot to have lunch today, so without the energy reserves I found those hills a bit tougher! Still, it took us less than two hours and it was gorgeous out there.

Hope your weekend was great too!

Cheers

Progress in the Duck Yard

This is pretty much what we came home to in the duck yard garden. Things slightly out of control.
We took time this afternoon to make a dent in that.

Bit by bit it was getting done

Somehow my marigolds have survived back here!

Still digging up treasures!

The chooks were a bit excited to get in and have a dig… I had to keep stopping them from making a bee-line to my beetroot plants though, the little snots.

Hope your weekend has started fantastically!

Cheers

Japan -Day 1 – Kinkaku ji

Hello!
It seems such a long time ago – our first day in Japan with my parents! The travel the day before had been such a long one. Early out of Melbourne, up to Cairns, breakfast and tour with friends, flight out to Osaka, train to Kyoto, car to accommodation!
Amazingly we were quite ready the next day to poke our noses out of the house and go and see something!

Kinkaku ji (The Golden Pavilion) wasn’t far away so it seemed a good place to start.

Not more than five minutes up the path and my parents were accosted by a group of Japanese school children who sought to practice their English on unsuspecting tourists! Its great fun. The kids are cute and try their best.

After two such groups, we eventually extracted ourselves and got into the temple grounds

Kinkaku ji – officially named Rokuon ji (Which translates as Deer Garden Temple) – really is quite a sight.
Lovely reflections in the ponds where the top two stories that are covered in gold leaf really stand out.

The site was originally a villa called Kitayama Dai. Its history dates back to 1397 when the villa was bought by one of the Shoguns and was then transformed into the Kinkaku ji complex and later the building converted into a zen temple

During the Onin war (1467 -1477) (mad dates from so long ago!!) most of the complex (aside from the pavilion) was burnt down

On July 2, 1950, at 2:30 am, (so precise!!) the pavilion was burned down by a 22-year-old novice monk and the current building dates from 1955.

Even though its one of the most popular places for tourists to go and it does get crowded, its actually not too bad. The temple is over the water so as you walk around you get good views without someone being in your way all the time.

The mossy gardens are lovely and the path leads everyone in past the pavilion then around the gardens and out (via a few souvenir shops haha)
So people keep moving and there didn’t seem to be a glut.
I’d still recommend go to these places as early as possible to beat the tour buses!

Small waterfalls and waterways crisscross the gardens

I love the stone lanterns and rock water basins

It was a bit early in the month, but there were some autumn colours starting to show

Jeff – always waiting for the photographer!

It was a nice way to start our holiday!

Cheers!

Less Weeding

Friday rolls around again!
That seemed fast!
Anyway, I took it a bit easy on the weeding front. I did have a nice time picking and eating raspberries though…
And look! The first cucumber!! That went into the salad tonight which was nice.
The herbs went into the lasagne I made for dinner. Along with some of the lovely fresh garlic.

Check out my Shinkansen Shawl progress:

Crocheted at 300km/hr on the Bullet Train!! (Shinkansen)
Oh those trains are a dream to ride on! But we did have a couple of long stretches so I am glad I had brought along some yarn and a hook.
It hasn’t got too far to go before its done.

But of course – I got a bit distracted with a new pattern I found on Youtube. So I have been getting into that of an evening.

Its fun to do something different. The hardest part is finding the right coloured yarns to work into it – it is taking more than I thought so I couldn’t just stick with the first three colours.
As you can see its quite long. Once I have it wide enough it will really be snug to wrap around the shoulders!

Anyway… short and sweet
Hope everyone has a super weekend planned!

Cheers!

Guess What? More Weeding

Hi there!
Another warm beautiful day here in Tasmania! Bit of a change from the 6 weeks of rain we had prior to leaving the country!
Jeff and I dived back into the garden today and did a mammoth effort in clearing weeds. I think we were out there for about 6 hours straight! I am creaking again tonight!

Not so many photos. But we put a decent dent in the weed (notably twitch) population and build up the dead weed pile a bit higher!

Once this part is properly done I will plant a row of tomatoes up the fenceline – got plenty of little tomatoes popping up all over that need a home.

Some of the young self seeded potatoes that I had to dig out (just too entangled in twitch and weeds) produced some nice little new potatoes. Looking forward to seeing these on the dinner table tomorrow night!

All up we got a fair bit done – still a number of hours work left in here. No wonder no-one has put their hand up to come and visit us at the moment!

Cheers!

Planting Flowers & Taking a Walk

Hello!
I am feeling a little extra sore tonight. Finally did my first hike around Anniversary Bay with Fiona this afternoon. Creaking now!

I am not sure the before and after has much impact in this garden. Still… its another job done that was lurking around in the back of my mind. I had to get in and try to carefully dig out the oxalis that was starting to creep in

Beau planted out my sunflowers here while we were away and they are doing well… pretty close to flowering I think.

I also put in the remaining marigolds that were still in pots…

I also had a good number of surviving Portulaca in pots so I got some of those in the ground too. I was happy to note that there are quite a number that have self seeded, even though so far they are very small.

Our weed pile is really getting big. It keeps the chooks amused though. If they are not digging through it, they are napping in it!

Around the garden, things are on the move… the corn seeds I put in the other day have started popping up, as have the sunflower seeds!

I am yet to get a zucchini to grow… I suspect this one might die off too.

The watermelon doesn’t look super happy… but at least I am starting to see a flower or two.

The recently planted tomatoes that were in their pots too long are still looking fine. The new growth is coming through green so I hope they will be ok.

I am anxiously watching those cucumbers… I so want them in a salad! Maybe a couple more days…

Tomato plants are randomly appearing everywhere. This one is growing in the runner beans. Sigh… whatever! I’ll leave those alone and just see what happens!

The tiny outside tomatoes really put on a growth spurt in the last week!

Still debating over moving this self seeded lettuce. I have to put something around it if I leave it where it is so I don’t trample it.

The apple cucumbers are trying their best!

And one lonely egg today!

Overall I think the garden still needs an awful lot of work to look nice again! I am happy that food is growing, but even as aesthetically relaxed as I am… all those weeds are really bugging me!

Anyway, swapped my gardening clothes for my hiking clothes and met Fiona at the top of the turnoff to Sisters Beach and we went down for our walk. A sea mist was in so it looked a little gloomy today.
We didn’t do too bad. I was surprised really as its been about 6 weeks since I have done proper hiking! We didn’t even have to stop when we went up our least favourite stretch which we have nicknamed something unkind.
My policy is not to swear on my blog… So I can’t tell you its name. haha.
It really is a horrible little stretch of hill… pretty much straight up and it tests us every time! I don’t ever seem to be able to get a photo that adequately shows you how steep it is. You’ll just have to come and see for yourself!!

We were lucky enough to come across a wallaby on our walk today too!
I was able to walk a lot closer than I thought I would be able to! It took a while before he/she decided I was too weird and hopped off.

You are welcome for the wallaby-bottom shot 😀

There are tiny wildflowers out everywhere up there at the moment. I will have to take up my macro lens next walk to try to get some nice photos of them.

Anyway, that’s about all from me today!
Hope you had a fantastic day too!
Cheers!

More Berries

Hello! Not much from me today.
I tried to do not much.
Apart from some overdue housework, a lot of watering, berry picking, tracking down a few more people to call for this project and getting into a new crochet project I think I sort of succeeded!
I’ll have to take a photo of the crochet thingy tomorrow – I found a nice easy you tube tutorial and its been fun starting something different!

Hopefully I will get out and do something tangible in my flower garden tomorrow!

Cheers!