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My God-Cousin Michael, his wife Phoung and little boy Andy came to visit us today! Phoung’s sister and brother in law live in Tasmania, so they came along too and it was a lovely day!

Phuong is originally from Vietnam and the culture is based heavily about food, so they had a splendid time grazing their way through the garden! We shared gardening ideas and they were able to take a few plants/seeds home with them

Its the first time we have met Andy, and he is a delightful little chap! So happy and friendly!

Phuongs sister & husband live in Tasmania, as she is studying nursing here. Its nice for us, as Michael & co come to see us as well when they visit family.

In between eating and wandering about the garden, we managed to make a bit of time to get down to the beach – only Fossil Bluff as the tide was fast coming in and it was the closest beach!

I have pretty much known Michael since we were babies. His parents are my God-Parents (I always refer to his mum as my Fairy Godmother (Because its always great to have one of those 🙂 ))
Growing up, we lived in the country and Micheal’s family lived up Sydney way.  Many happy memories of holidays spent together – either us going up to their place, or them coming down to us!

We also enjoyed meeting this lovely couple for the first time!

Was cute watching Andy enjoy himself on the beach. Sometimes its good to be reminded that all you need to be happy is a rock and a stick!!

Cheers!

Well… not much got done today… visitors didn’t materialise… but at least the house is clean and I had dinner prepared!!

So – Let me tell you about Tasmania’s Opium Poppies!!

The farmer over the road from us has put in a crop of poppies. Tasmania produces about 50% of the worlds supply of licit poppy straw which is then refined into opiates like morphine and codeine.

They are a pretty sight at this time of year

Its a lucrative crop, but tightly controlled as they can be deadly if ingested. In fact several people over the last decade have died trying out some ‘poppy home brew’

Once the flowers die off, a capsule is left. (The part which is harvested and sold) Theft of these capsules happens – A total of 516 capsules were stolen in 2015-16, up from 331 the year before, although far below the 3,923 capsules stolen in 2013-14. Don’t ask me how they know precisely how many they have and how many wander off!!

Its quite the tourist attraction, with visitors stopping by the roadside to take photos (and possibly souvenirs!!)

A total of 653 licenses were issued last financial year. There is a control board that regulates all aspects of the crop – including areas where regrowth occurs. Obviously you don’t need a whole lot of these randomly self seeding about like my broccoli! Mayhem!

Anyway – Tomorrow is “Visitors – Take 2”

Cheers!

 

Its not only the snow peas that hide from me! I couldn’t work out what was stripping the laterals that I had in a jar bare!!
I finally had a really good look and found this really fat grub!! Damn. Most of the leaves have gone now!!

Its also fast. I intended to sacrifice it to the chooks – but I went off on a short errand, came back and it had totally disappeared!!! I wonder what it is eating now?

Anyway – most of my day was wrapped in in domestics, so I shan’t bore you with that!

Have a great day!

Cheers

Hello! Midweek – a bit of a grouchy day weather wise today – I did a bit of random weeding but not a lot else exciting.
Just thought I would share a few photos from our walk up to the Lee Archer Cave yesterday

I really love the coastline in the Rocky Cape National Park

This little trek was all to reach a cave with excellent slanted rocks so I could get a photo that fit into the subject ‘Alternative Perspective’

But with a bit of camera tilt –

Job done, time to head home

Hope your week is going well!

Cheers!

Tonight I posted the last album up of the ten day photo challenge that I have been running on Facebook.
Thought I would share the 10 images I submitted with you.

Above – day one was nice and simple – PINK
I really didn’t want to do flowers, but with one thing or another, I didn’t get any other inspirations, and these wonderful flowers were growing all over the traffic islands at the local supermarket!

Day two was STREETSCAPE

This was the one I decided on after a night on the town with my friend Marsha. The (almost) empty streets of Wynyard!

Day 3 was SPLASH. You saw some of the ones I did last week – this was the one I settled on

Day 4 was DESIGN.  I was totally stumped for a cool idea, and in the end (and rather late at night) I photographed one of the agates that I had recently collected at Fossil Bluff

Day five was SELFIE. I am sure a lot of group members cursed me over that one. Not everyone is a fan of the selfie… but its not a photo challenge to be easy!!
Happily this scared a good number of people

A nice coating of Tassie soil – I am covered in it most days, probably just not to this extent. Jeff, with only minimal eye rolling, decorated my head in flowers.

Day six was ABANDONED – and you are all familiar with that one (Although it was hard to choose which one to use!)

Day seven was LEAF or LEAVES. I chose one of my rainbow chard leaves as the bright yellow stalk was attractive to me!

Day eight was UP IN THE AIR. That one also I had a bit of a blank spot with. Luckily I had been experimenting with night sky shots recently so was able to use one of those.

Day nine was SIGN/S.
This was a bit of fun…
A sign that we are not alone in the universe…

Step one. Call farmer and ask if I can do a crop circle in his paddock.
Answer – confused silence.
Me – hasty explanations.

Step two. Convince husband that this will be the most fun ever – and he helps haul all the gear over a fence and across two paddocks to strap a plank on his foot and do circles.
(I married well don’t you think??)

Finally day 10 – ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVE
Again, a little walk with long suffering husband to do a tricky balancing act

Amazing what you can do with cool geology and a tilted camera angle!

Anyway – there are still photos coming in to the albums, and voting to be done, but I don’t need to run about thinking of mad photo ideas now!
Back to concentrating on the garden!

Hope you have had a great day

Cheers!

Mum and Dad’s last day today! And what a beautiful day it was too! So glad they didn’t leave until later in the afternoon so they could enjoy it. We went for a last beach walk down at Wynyard beach

Of course, we popped into Ruby’s to see her and Margie to have a cuppa and say goodbye

Then about five minutes before we hopped in the car to go to the airport, my very cool cousin, Fiona rocked up on her motorbike! She just got her ‘L’ plates and is getting braver at buzzing about the place.

So who is going to be clever enough to be staying here when the five million raspberries need picking??? mmmmm

Jeff started a project out of some of that free wood we picked up a while back – a cover for the bore and bore pump switchbox!

I had been a bit busy to attend to my worms. Finally got to all the scraps and chucked them through the ‘Gee Whizzer’

Then tonight I spent several hours with Margies daughter in law, Marsha, prancing about Wynyard with our cameras, trying to get some streetscape shots for the upcoming photo challenge – then ended up at the beach trying to take star photos! (I got home soooo late!!)

Time for bed I think! Hope your weekend has been brilliant.

Cheers

Sad news this week. Most of you know Margie, Ruby’s daughter.
Her husband, Des, passed away on the weekend just gone.
I think I can safely say that there are very few of us left that cancer has not had an effect on ourselves, family or friends.
It was scarcely a month from diagnoses to goodbye. My heart really goes out to Margie, her lovely boys and their families.

Des was a funny bloke. He loved our fresh eggs – it was like a password system to get in their house
“You got eggs??” He would shout from his chair when I would knock on the window
An affirmative answer and I was welcomed with open arms.
Then he would go on a mission to collect all the five cent pieces in the house to pay the $4 for them!
He enjoyed that as only a Dad/Grandpa could!!! (I still have a HUGE stash of five cent pieces that I haven’t taken to the bank to change! 🙂 )

Des was keen on fishing, he also swam frequently during summer in the ocean, which is right across the road from their home. Des & Margie did a lot of camping & Des loved a little flutter on the race horses!

I had the pleasure of scanning a bundle of photos for Margie for the funeral which will be on Friday. The above photo I love. It may be scratched and the colour faded, but its just the sweetest thing!

All Margie’s family is gathered around (And to be honest I think Ruby just signed herself on for another five years to be there for her daughter!!)

My parents flew in today. Its lovely to see them again so soon – I just wish it wasn’t under these circumstances.

Anyway – so Norwich House is a bit busy and topsy-turvy So I may or may not be swinging past the blog much over the next few days.

Make the most of every second with your loved ones. xxx

 

The thunder was rumbling over the hills just before dark tonight. I stood out the back admiring the lightning – and got quite a few shots of empty sky. The above shot was a bit of a fluke, but it made me happy! Very hard to capture a strike like that in daylight!

Anyway – Monday has been and gone for me. Just a couple of random images and events to share

Cut up my last pumpkin. I made part of it into soup and the rest of the pieces are now in the freezer waiting for the next time I need pumpkin on the table.

The soup is very straight-forward!

I bake my pumpkin – better flavour.
I fry up some onion in a pot, add some chicken stock, (I put in a litre today) added the pumpkin, and also a couple of potatoes to simmer.
Once the potatoes are cooked, I use the ‘Gee Whizzer’ to puree. I also then like to put in a can of coconut milk. Gives it that creamy-dreamy flavour!
(Probably add salt to taste)
Anyway – its easy with minimum ingredients and tasted pretty good!

I also saved the seeds

Then there was accidental-guest torture

The chillies in the hothouse that stayed alive over winter have been putting out very very small fruit. So I went and nipped most of them off in hope that the plants will reflower and grow more impressive sized chillies over the summer. These, as well as being small, have no heat and are almost like a capsicum to chew on

So I am giving my friend Rachel the grand tour of the garden, I pick a chilli, bite the end off and wax lyrical about how sweet it is.
Then hand it over.
As Rachel takes a bite I am saying “See, not hot at all! Just like a red capsicum”
Her eyes welled up a bit as she said in a small voice “Well, it seems hot to me…”
She is thinking I am totally bad-ass chewing on raw chilli and I am thinking she must be pretty sensitive, so I took the chilli back and took another bite to make sure.
Holy Cats!! I made a bee-line for the strawberry patch to start trying to put the fire out in my mouth!! I think it was about half an hour before my taste buds came back to life. 🙂
Ahhhh – the perils of gardening!
(BTW Rachel has fully forgiven me.)

I bought an old ladder at the market yesterday – I wanted a shoe rack for the grungy outdoor footwear.
I might eventually paint it…

Anyway, hope your Monday is/was fabulous.
We have the rain back and the weeds are growing… like weeds!! Must get back into the gardening clothes ASAP!

Cheers

 

 

 

Hello! What a beautiful sunny day we had!!

My friend Rachel and I took full advantage! We started at the local markets by the beach, then moved on to Penguin markets, followed by a short tour of my favourite rock-collecting beach at Penguin (See here) (I only picked up 6 rocks today! Inconceivable!)

We were very keen this afternoon for a decent stroll up one of the local beaches – so we trotted off to Sisters Beach. Note to self… must check tide times!!
Here is a reminder of how much sand and walking space there is at low tide:

This was when we got there this afternoon:

It was a bit disappointing not to be able to go for that nice long walk! Usually at high tide there is still a few meters of beach to walk on. Not today!

So – thwarted there, we decided to drive one beach over to Boat Harbour for a look.  The tide didn’t cover the entire beach at least – but even though its such a pretty area, not much space for a decent walk. Still… lovely to wiggle our toes in the sand and admire the view

The drive along the coast had gorgeous views today

I am managing to keep the garden watered, and paying a little bit of attention to it – probably need a good days work tidying up the enthusiastic weeds that grow faster than anything and everything (except maybe the lawn!)

 

I managed to take a little time (in between swanning about at beaches) to tie up my hothouse tomatoes. Instead of staking them, I like to hang some stocking from the roof and simply twine it around the tomato stems. As the tomato grows, I can untwine and redo tighter/higher.

And we even got a tiny handful of strawberries to finish the day with!

Hope you are having (or have had) a splendid weekend!

Cheers!

PS Occasional extras on my Facebook Page