Rocks – Head in the Clouds – Feet in the Dirt

Attacking the Hothouse

Hello! How is the weekend going?
Weather has been a bit ordinary… lots of off and on rain, temps dropped and the wind blowing pretty hard!

I figured working in the hothouse might be the way to go today. Less chance of being rained on. Plus after a while the wind usually makes me a bit nutty!!
As you can see – Tentacular is still in the process of taking over the world!! Still unsure what to do with it – if anything (Apart from build that second hothouse)

We’ve found about three passionfruit so far…

Anyway, I wanted to rearrange the hothouse so I could start planting some things in what little ground Tentacular has left me.

Felt good to get the rubbish out and make sense of this area again.

I needed to move at least one table today, so planted some seedlings out and moved others anywhere I could

I put some of the cos lettuce and celery that were badly grown in the egg cartons into the newly weeded area in the herb garden and covered them up… will see if they go ok or not. Its all an experiment. Some I took off the egg carton, some I didn’t.

Found some nice surprises today too

Even though every season I tell myself… “Only TWO cucumbers” I can’t help it and put in three. Then in a few months, inevitably I will have cucumber regret!!

Some of the seedlings I moved to the cleared bench. Hoping to get these out in the next week or so – I’d rather wait until it wasn’t blowing a gale. (Also have to decide WHERE and prepare more plots!)

Excited to see some tomato flowers!!
Not to mention a stack of self seeded plants doing well.

Today I also made room and planted four eggplant seedlings and 3 capsicum. They were pretty tiny, but hopefully they’ll be happy in the dirt with some compost and I’ll see some growth soon!
They are all tucked up under their bottles tonight!

I still have high hopes of fitting in watermelons, basil and more capsicum. 🙂

Anyway, I am off to bed.
Hope everyone has a great Sunday planned. We have a full day ahead – hopefully heading out to a big craft fair. Looking forward to a good old fossick about seeing what clever people make!
I will leave you with my magic rock and water trick.
We put a lot of our collected-but-unpolished stones by the shed door.
Its amazing the change when you pour a watering can full of water over it!
Enjoy.
Cheers!

Then:

To This:

There really are some gorgeous rocks in this pile!!

Panning

Hello! Well, todays weather was quite revolting… dark, grey and raining – and lets not forget the wind!
Jeff was still keen to go panning for sapphires, and I was keen not to be stuck in the house all day.
The secret panning spot is a pretty little area.

Even though it was hard to see in the grey light and raining a bit, it was fun to pan through several lots of dirt to see what we could find!

Jeff sieves out the larger rocks and then we pan through the smaller stuff

I only wandered a short way to see what else interesting was in the bush.

Back home we sorted our treasures and panned through some extra sand that Jeff brought back.
Lots of zircon, some hematite, and a good number of little sapphire chips!
I’ll have to take photo with a coin or something for scale. They are all quite small, but we enjoyed the hunt!

I hope your day was full of treasures as well!
Cheers

Love the pretty blues! Interesting with the greens, purple and yellow too.

Varied Day – Getting Better!

I can tell I am on the mend. Apart from my appetite returning and lots more energy… I also snapped off about 60 photos of various things that were happening today. Iron clad proof that I am getting better!

Like our sapphires? Jeff was let into a secret spot to do some gemstone fossicking! I didn’t go because I classed it under ‘Possibly Overdoing It’ but Jeff brought me home some sand to pan and it was great! Found a couple of the above sapphires.

The creek is full of zircon and hematite – although some have looked at the photos and also suggested garnet but will have to look into that.

There are all just tiny scraps but so pretty!

Then I started on a long long long overdue job – turning Ruby’s old fence palings into kindling!

Out with the saw horses and power tools!
Also a mallet and splitter

I did a good number without going mad and split quite a few

Our kindling box was looking a bit grim

Much better – just have to get back out there more regularly to work through those palings and get them out of the way. They looks so rubbishy hanging around!

Pip whinged for ages about coming outside. So I opened the door – and he walked away. I closed the door, he returned and looked sad. I opened the door… he walked off… If you own a cat, you’ll get this!! Eye Roll.
Eventually I just grabbed him and suited him up in his harness and took him for a walk

I thought it was time to introduce him to our new chooks
There was initial shock as they all stood stock still, necks stretched up watching our every move!

Then they sought safety in numbers with the older girls

Curiosity got the better of a couple of braver ones who returned for a closer look…

Then, for no reason, they thought something was going to eat them so all six sprinted up the other side of the yard! (Chickens are hilarious when they are running flat out)

Meanwhile the older girls are like ‘meh’

Clearly the show was over the other side, and soon everyone was together to stare at Pip

Pip stared back

One of the young birds did a lot of walking back and forth a lot closer… she was curious but didn’t come all the way over.

Pip eventually gave me that ‘look’ which probably meant it was time to get back to the comfort of a couch and fire

I finished up by snapping a few shots of the autumn leaves as the colours are so deep and pretty – even if they are past their best!

Cheers!

Rain, Hail and Shine! (& Rocks)(Lots of Rocks)

Despite the on and off again rain, I put my gardening clothes on to get out and do something – and I promptly got hailed on.

I am not kidding to say that the photo below was seconds after the one above!

And a minute or two later –

I swear some kids got into the celestial weather room today and have been flipping the light switch & turning off and on taps!!!

So I watered my hothouse (or rather the things in it, as the hothouse was getting a good watering by Mother Nature without my help) and went back inside to have a proper look at what stones we found yesterday.

I sprawled over the floor with my macro lens in average light and tried to get some decent shots to share with you.

This one was my favourite pick up from yesterday. Looking forward to polishing this

Its amazing the difference between wet and dry – and despite the slight discomfort of fossicking in the rain, it sure makes the colours and patterns stand out.

If this had been dry I would have passed it by on the beach

When wet, the strip of agate shows through clearly… curious to polish this one back although its too big for my tumbler

Its not only agate I pick up – I loved this colour with the stripe of (I think) quartz through it!

The underside is almost flat – I’d like to just polish this side flat

This piece was translucent – put it against a torch so we could really see the patterns through the rock!

I also took a few snaps of the recently finished tumbled stones to share

Hope your week has started well!

Cheers!

Soggy Day of Not Rest

Remember yesterday I said something rash about putting the fire on, taking it easy… ? Well, there was lots of rain today and I did get the fire on, but Jeff thought it would be the best day ever to spend a few hours on the beach agate hunting!!

It was pretty bleak outside and it was hard to muster appropriate enthusiasm, but I found my gloves, beanie & raincoat and joined in the fun!

I didn’t even take my camera as I knew it would be too wet to take it out 🙂

Still… for all my initial lack of enthusiasm, we really had a great few hours on the beach with some nice finds. Yes, we were pretty wet by the time we were done, but weren’t as cold as I thought!

I’ll take some photos of some of those finds when I have more light

The cherry blossom out the front has a few nice clusters of blossoms out. Over the next week it should look amazing -as long as the wind doesn’t kick up too much more!

Speaking of wind – How are all the Florida people going?? I didn’t look at the latest news today! Hope you are all hanging in there safe and sound!

I did empty the tumblers again tonight. I took a quick snap of the successful rocks – I think one of the agates was crumbling and adding grit which hasn’t been helping the polishing stage.

I’ll try to get some better photos tomorrow!

In the meantime, stay dry, warm and enjoy what is left of your weekends!

Cheers!

Hobby Day

I fully intended to sit in front of the fire today and crochet… that’s all.

Then I remembered wanting to chisel out the remaining packs of beef that were laminated to the bottom of the freezer – out with the hammer and screwdriver!! Happily Jeff took over the job, because I am short and its a long way to the bottom of the freezer 🙂

Then… because we started so sunny I put on laundry. And yes it was raining by the time it was ready to go out. And no – I never learn. Because Jeff had taken down my undercover line to repurpose it into a cat lead, I had to spend some time restringing the new line.

Of course – despite yesterdays gale force winds, nary a breeze today so all I achieved by hanging the clothes outside was to make them colder! (Fireside fixed them though!)

Then… I remembered my rock tumbler that was tumbling away in the shed. I figured the rocks must be about ready.

Once dry, most of them weren’t as highly polished as I know they can go… so I spent some quality nerd-time by admiring each one and forcing Jeff to stop whatever he was doing and join me in mutual admiration of all the colours and patterns before returning them to the tumbler for a few more days work.

I found this in the driveway of a local restaurant!! Its Calder River Agate – probably the nicest sample I have found!

So – I eventually DID get to my fire and crochet – I did a little more with the new wool…

But forced myself to get back to my original shawl as really, there is not that much further to go before its done.

In the middle of all this, cousin Jeff dropped off a rather soggy load of wood – slid his truck down into the yard and almost redesigned our vegetable garden!!! 😀

We are getting him to bring a couple more loads soon – we threw tonights lot under cover (Which is good because right now its PELTING down rain out there!) and will see about stacking it tomorrow.

And that is the weekend done and dusted!

Hope you all had a great one!

Cheers