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Hello! How is your weekend treating you?

Today I was kinder to my body and kept the fire company while adding a few more rows to my latest crochet project.

Since I had so many photos from yesterday, I have decided to break the story up into two parts!

We started at the west end of Sisters beach and headed up around the hill you see in the above photo.

As we walked up around the hill we could hear a bunch of noisy voices – kids. We thought a whole class, but turned out to be only three!! Before we saw them, one young voice cracked us up –

“OOOOoooooh Wow – Wallaby Poo!!”

Pokemon Craze – eat your heart out!! 😀

The hill flattened out nicely and we headed through the Banksia Grove

 

I do love the view over the top…

I promise I didn’t get over excited this time about potential ambergris… although I was firmly banned from touching it!

As usual, there was a lot of cool stuff on the beach to fossick through

Due to the recent rains and storms, we noticed a lot of changes to this beach. A lot more rivulets of water making streams down to the sea, exposed rocks and we suspect the usual high tide mark has gone higher and washed away the beach edge vegetation

Every now and again, proper blue sky would break through the clouds

And be reflected in the puddles on the beach

At one point, we got quite soggy with this misty rain that came though

But you wait for a few minutes and turn around to enjoy the colours

Even the rubbish thrown up by the storms had an artistic quality

Interestingly this eroded channel exposed the roots of the coastal grasses – long ropy things that, when plaited, proved quite strong!

It was a really fabulous walk along the beach yesterday – so much had changed and there was a lot to see.

I shall return tomorrow with photos of the second half of our hike, where we wandered off into the bush to find Doone Falls

Enjoy what is left of your weekend!

Cheers

I am pretty tired tonight and there is no way I am going to be able to sort and post process the umpteen photos I took today!

We ignored the rain and took ourselves on a hike down to Anniversary Bay, and then found another path to a waterfall we had previously not known about.

So five hours, give or take, going up hill and down dale (literally) has taken a bit out of me, since I have been doing way too much slothing by the fire these days!

So enjoy a couple of the photos and I will come back and sort them tomorrow.

In the meantime I am going to fall into bed and whinge and moan about my ‘Old Lady Legs’ 😀

Cheers!

I am starting to feel more cooped up than the chickens!!

Outside is pure misery and the idea of bundling up, as per Pip photo and watching movies all day is really quite attractive!

I did get out briefly to go foraging at the supermarket.

While I was gone Jeff washed all the eggs

The soggy chickens are still laying really well, considering the time of year. Our chickens have always laid eggs right through winter. They slow down slightly but most other chicken owners I talk to say their chooks don’t lay any!

I reckon its something to do with the warm mash, variety of food and being able to free range. (And love??)

Or we are just lucky!! 🙂

Jeff said he would use a rug if I made it for him! So I abandoned the other couple of knitting/crocheting projects I am working on to start on a rug. He wants it black and white. Easy peasy… It covers a whole knee already!

That’s all from today’s rather boring household.

The rain is coming down heavily – I will be interested to sneak a peak at the rain gauge tomorrow. (and I better go upstairs for a look and make sure the buckets are in the right place to catch all the drips from the leak)

Jeff will be sleeping tomorrow in preparation for starting nights again, so I plan to nip down to see Ruby and see how that foot of hers is getting along!

Cheers!

I got a bit caught up today and didn’t get over to see Ruby for a cuppa, so that will have to wait until tomorrow!

Tonight I uploaded the last album for the photo – challenge I have been running on facebook these past ten days – so I thought I would share with you the entries I put in.

Day one was “ORANGE” This whole album looks great when you glance at all the photos and varying shades of orange together!

I found a bright orange fungi down at Dip Falls

Day two was “HOMESCAPE” My made up name for landscape around your home  – house or town or area!  This was a really surprisingly great album – we have a number of members scattered literally all over the world and it was so fabulous to see where they all called home!

My photo was a rare early morning for me in the fog in our yard!

Day three was “SQUARES” I was running out of time and still nothing really grabbed my attention so I grabbed some sugar cubes in the supermarket and set up my tripod with my macro lens.

BTW disappointingly sugar cubes are not even close to being a cube these days!!

Happily group members had no shortage of amazing squares of their own – ranging from chocolate, to shadows and cleverly set up scrabble boards!!

Day four was “OLD FASHIONED” and you already know in depth how I got my shot. Again the variety of interpretations from group members was fabulous – from beautiful old clunky classic typewriters, to heirlooms and LP’s!!

Day five was “BUBBLES” Oh my what a fun album that is!! Although a distressing amount of bubbles from washing the dishes featured!! Some people had suds, some had amazing free-floating bubbles all nicely lined up (jealous) others had bubbles in drinks.

I settled on a single floating bubble for mine!

Day six was “FROM THE GRAVEYARD”

I find graveyards fascinating! There are some really interesting headstones and descriptions. Its like a small history of people to wander through. Group members have come up with some fabulous shots – some spooky night shots, other poignant glimpses into a past life all quite different and wonderful!

I somehow avoided all the powerlines to get this shot in our run down neglected little old graveyard

Day seven was “WINDOWS” Again – totally enjoyed the variety that people put forward.

Mine was more ‘space for a window’

Day eight was “FEAR” which scared quite a few people. Working out how to go about it!! We have everything from bathroom scales to spiders!!! lol

I was clueless until the night I had to post it and came up with acrophobia! (with my ‘boxmen’)

Day 9 was “BICYCLES” So far some really great shots coming in. Rusted tricycles to sleek new machines!!

Jeff is miffed I only used the shadow of his bike – she is called Betty (Or sometimes “The Other Woman” 😀

And lastly tomorrow, day ten, I have asked for “EVERYDAY OBJECT/S IN AN UNUSUAL PLACE”  I am expecting some fun stuff in this one.

Jeff and I spent some quality time at Fossil Bluff taking photos of a portable clothesline! Did we get weird looks?? Oh yes we did!!

Two ladies that read this blog, Lyra and Amanda, have also joined in contributing photos and it was really wonderful to have a couple of new additions to the challenge. They have put in some wonderful images and we are enjoying some sights from a different part of the world!

This is the sixth time I have run one of these. Usually around 30 people join in, give or take a few. Some group members have been in every single one too, which is lovely!

Its all quite relaxed and people seem to have a really good time.

We are voting on each album, and in a few days we shall see who comes out on top this time! oooooo – the suspense! 😀

Actually – the surprising thing is to most people, but the hardest thing about the challenge is choosing where to put your votes!!

Hope you have enjoyed this odd collection of photos!

Enjoy your day!!

Cheers…

 

 

 

 

 

Take a moment to view the above photo. 🙂

That seriously took me all day to create and get right!

Tomorrows challenge subject is “Old Fashioned”

I question my sanity because, to be perfectly honest – living in a house that is over 100 years old which is full of interesting heirlooms and fantastic old books, all of which I could have spent a few minutes on with the camera, and “Voila” !!

But no – I have to do a total furniture re-arrange, which involved a lot of my muscles to drag the big blackwood dining table out of the way and its not-so-light-and-dainty chairs. Manhandling that big awkward main chair in from the back room, meaning I had to move a whole heap of other furniture out of the way to fit it through!!

Of course the tea set I wanted was in the cabinet that was blocked by the newly moved dining table. So that got moved again!

Then I thought I couldn’t possibly have a fake afternoon tea setting, so I baked muffins.

The house was a wreck!

When I had this idea, I really didn’t realise how long it would take me to get right. I started with a clean slate and added elements, and moved things around.

Tried different angles

I really wanted to use the old Carltonware tea set my Nanna gave me – this was an early effort

Naturally the stickybeak Siamese had to come in and check proceedings!

I added in my great grandfathers books, actually found some flowers in the garden and tweaked the tea set arrangement.

By this time it was late and the lack of light was a bit of an issue. I realised that the light behind the stained glass had gone, so I had to go out and set up a lamp for the final shot!

My delightful husband woke up – rested after his nightshift, wandered through the rubble and didn’t blink an eye!! (Does he think this is normal behaviour??) The muffins were still warm and he was pretty happy to sit down to a cuppa and a couple of fresh muffins (so I gained points there)

Midnight now and most things are back where they came from.

I did leave the mantle pretty much with its new style as I really love the look.

And of course… whats a day in Flowerdale without a gorgeous rainbow to clear away the winter blues??

Cheers all!

I totally had planned to swan about inside today, watch movies in front of a cosy fire, pretend my muscles ached a lot more than they actually did due to the wood stacking, listen to the pouring rain that was forecast.

Sigh.

No rain. Woke to blue sunny skies and felt too guilty about my swanning plan.

Why not do some laundry?

 

Sensibly the towels went in first.

Then I got cocky and put on another load. I really should know better by now. Four years in Tasmania has taught me nothing!!

I did some ‘down the street’ tasks like buying a creepy doll from the op-shop (thrift shop) and some sugar cubes. (Explanations later)

Got home and put out the second load of clothes and went and grabbed my pruning shears to tackle the salvia

I almost got the first cut in and the heavens opened and the rain came down!!!

I said a lot of creative swear words as I threw down the snippy things and ran for the laundry!!! Those towels were nearly dry!!!

Was totally out of the swanning mood, so I did mundane tasks – like kitchen cleaning, clothes folding, chook feeding etc.

The rain of course cleared up and I decided to tromp down into the neighbours paddock to get some photos for my photo challenge that has just started.

Today’s subject was “Orange”

I am so pleased there are a few of the readers here participating in the challenge – either watching or actually posting images which is lovely!

Tomorrow is ‘Homescape’ My made up word to describe the landscape around your home.

I braved crawling (literally) under electric fences to get where I wanted to go – its really nerve wracking – since the last time I went near one of those I got severely zapped on the backside which was both painful and undignified! AND left a bruise in an unmentionable place! LOL

Anyway – this is what I came up with:

None of the above I actually used!!

In the end I settled on one of the foggy morning shots I took a week or so back

The creepy doll I am hoping to get a photo for ‘Fear’ and maybe the sugar cubes for ‘square/s’

Its a work in progress!

Hope your day was splendid, wherever you are!

Cheers

PS just a couple more shed images from today

This photo of Pip sums up everyone’s general opinion about the weather today.

Cold, dark & gloomy with never-ending rain!

I went back to bed for a sleep in as soon as I saw how miserable it was outside. Pip came in and snuggled under the covers. Then got out from under the covers. Then got back in again. Then out again. Then in. Then… you get the idea.

Once he had me thoroughly awake I got up, and that pest of a cat went back to bed and we didn’t see him again until the afternoon!! I think I got evicted so he could have the whole bed!!!

I spent a bit of time this afternoon happily disemboweling a few vegetables I had been saving for seed

The fire was ticking along all day and it was very pleasant getting this task done

I thought there would be a lot more seed in this one.

The bottom end of the zucchini yielded a lot more seeds

Sticky squishy job – but satisfying popping them out of the pulp

I found one that looks like its about to germinate… tempted to pop it in the ground and see what happens (maybe in the hothouse…)

I think I have more than enough to grow a few new plants next season. Maybe even sell a few seedlings!

Next on the list was another cucumber.

Now that was a lovely sticky mess!

I enjoy the slow pace of winter days… just dabbling in a few little projects there and there.

Spring, summer and autumn are pretty full on, so I am happy to amble through  days that are cold and dismal. The sun will come back and we’ll take the opportunity to get out and do a few more outside tasks – always such a great thing if you’ve been cooped up inside for too long.

Speaking of cooped up – I took some scraps to the girls at 4.30pm today and they had all already put themselves to bed! Clearly they were in the same mind as Pip and had enough of the grotty weather!

Stay warm & dry!!

Cheers

 

 

Yay – I have finally finished my “Nanna-Knee-Rug”!

Apart from a number of loose threads to sew in, I can now just enjoy snuggling under it. Right now, for instance, its across my knee keeping Pip warm!! Opportunistic Cats! 🙂

Today was full of domestic mundane-ness, slow cooked dinners and weather that changed every 20 minutes!

So totally nothing exciting from me today, but a hello and hope you are all having a marvelous mid-week day!

Cheers!

Recently I bought some amazing hand made raspberry chocolate.

It was sooooo good, but way out of my budget to buy in the quantities I need… so I thought I would try to make some.

My ten minute internet search didn’t help much – just kept giving me dessert recipes.

Time to go it alone!

I was kind of following a chocolate liqueur recipe that I have… (Which is excellent by the way)

Once I had some chocolate in the mini cups I spooned a bit of raspberry into them

What didn’t fit into the cups I put in a tray and swirled the remaining raspberry in.

Of course – the chocolate set, but the raspberry remained runny.

Mind you – if you throw the whole thing in your mouth at once, end of runny problem and it tasted pretty good!

So I need to rethink it and maybe spend more than 10 minutes with google.

Not all was lost. I re-purposed the block into chocolate muffins.

 

Now what to do with the rest of the chocolate???

I certainly had a good time cleaning up the dishes anyway!

Hope your week started out brilliantly!

Cheers

I am going to have to do my ‘proper’ post tomorrow. Its now gone into the wee hours of Saturday!

A young cousin of mine was having her formal dinner at school, so I went down to take a bunch of photos of her and the family!

Jeff and I then treated ourselves to going out to get some take-away for dinner and go to a movie! (Now You See Me 2 – which was good fun!)

So… I am going to leave you with a few of the snaps I took down on the beach at Fossil Bluff this afternoon. The sun had come out and we couldn’t resist getting out of the house to soak it up a bit! (Of course found a bunch of cool rocks and a few nice pieces of agate!

Yay for the weekend! Hope you’ve got some grand plans and perfect weather!

Cheers