Path of destruction

It's us, we are the path of destruction, as we prune and chop and dig our way around the house. I know it has to be done but I feel very sorry for some of the poor little shrubs that were just doing exactly what they are meant to be doing - growing and making pretty flowers. But they are all four foot across, with leaves only at the edges and massive dead twiggy hearts and they have to be chopped right back, to look sad and forlorn and covered in frost. 

Dad here is the rosemary that I didn't dig out but cut right back after you said that your one didn't die ... so if it dies it will of course be all your fault. 

This is a before shot of what I thought was going to be a small bed, quick to dig .... it was not. It was a nightmare of grass and bulbs and unidentifiable shrubs - that's a clematis (we think) over a dead tree and it's built up against some very old fence posts and random bits of concrete. And a brick.

This is what it looks like now. Much better! The old tree is very rotten but I figure the clematis will hold it up. There are red hot pokers over the back, and those early jonquils have grass all though them so we'll have to wait until they've died back and dig the lot up.

And here are the apple trees! What a difference. Actually I think two are apple and two are possibly pear trees ... whatever they are we pruned them for jesus and hope they'll live. The 'pear' trees have ferocious spikes on them, but were all very satisfying to chip. 

Isn't that a fabulous apple branch? Quite an old tree I think, and has clearly had a number of solid prunings. We will spray for moth but a proper treatment requires us to clear the bed below, which sounds like a lot of work, so we'll see whether we can be bothered. 

Brad took a lower branch of one of the smaller oaks - half an hour with the chainsaw then half a day getting the branch cut up, chipped and moved, or stacked for firewood. The cows were weirdly interested ... they just stood and watched, especially when power tools were involved? What goes through their minds? 

We raked up all the oak leaves and dumped them underneath the pines were nothing grows anyway (except mushrooms). There are some plants that like an acidic soil apparently (rhodos? Sounds unlikely) so we have a long term plan for a garden bed there. 

Yes, Pam, I do miss my grown babies, but they are very good at messaging / facetiming at odd moments and they are living interesting lives ... Melbourne is about 750 km from here so a good eight hour drive with stops - it takes all day but anything you can do in a day we think is a reasonable drive! It's the overnight ones where you might seriously consider taking a plane ... 

Melbourne and surrounds

We have just returned from a few days in Melbourne which was wonderful except for the weather which was TERRIBLE. Freezing cold, wind, rain and bleak. I took basically no photos which is unusual but it was not very picturesque. We spent time with number two every day, which was really really nice. This did mean a lot of amazing food - we had fabulous Thai, Vietnamese, Korean and an excellent cafe where number two goes for business meetings ... theatre people like a good coffee shop. I took a photo of my meal.

We also did a fair bit of shopping, including some very groovy shops that I would never have found on my own, and then boring grocery shopping to fill up the share house fridge in the time honoured parental way, and op shopping for two dining chairs which they needed. Ten dollars each, bargain. Number two also got the three of us free tickets to this play - it was definitely more peculiar than we are used to but funny and interesting and we really enjoyed it (or my husband and I did, our playwright child was a bit more judgy).

My husband had the Australian Model Expo to visit (he entered a model, got a Commendation which was very pleasing) and I had a quiet poke around and lunch by the river ... I sat outside even though I got a bit rained on.

And we did a day trip up towards Daylesford where friends have recently retired to a seven acre block, although they've had the block for years. It is basically the complete opposite of us - it was a sub-divided farm, so a completely blank canvas, and they built a hempcrete house themselves, and various sheds and outbuildings and planted everything new ... they are going as self-sufficient as possible so goats for milk, alpacas for wool (she spins and knits), ducks and chickens for eggs, huge gardens of vegies and fruit ... it is amazing and we were in awe. They built a greenhouse using recycled materials, have solar panels, feed the goats from farm waste and only need to heat the house when it's not sunny because the insulation is so good!!!! Utterly diametrically opposite to what we are doing (they don't even have a chipper because they are growing not chopping) but it still looks incredible and they are having so much fun. Just like us.

This is feeding the goats. It SNOWED when we arrived. Not much, just flurries, but my god it was cold. We went into town for lunch though and it was so pretty. I would like to return when the weather wasn't so awful.

Another quilt finish

Here is another little quilt finish. Tiktok made me sew it ... or at least the creator that I saw using the $4 IKEA fleece throw as batting. Batting is expensive, so I bought three $4 throws and thought that if it works it will be a good alternative! It's quite thin polar fleece, so could be OK or could be dreadful .. and it was really good. The main problem is it's only 120 x 160 cm, so you're limited to a small quilt, although I suppose there's no reason you couldn't join them? Hmmm, might think about that one some more.

It quilted up nicely and will probably wash as well as anything else I do. I might give it a wash and experiment, although I don't pre-wash any of my fabrics either, despite what the internet says, so it's likely to ruffle up. 

The fabric is largely from the scrap bin with some yardage to pull it together. It's very bright and cheerful and I like it. It's called "Rules for drinking" because I was listening to Annie Lou's song "Grandma's rules for drinking" while I did the binding, and I couldn't fit the word "grandma" on as well. Great song, ordinary quilt name.

Little updates

Here is the after shot of the front beds where I pulled out all the rosemary - not very exciting but much tidier. I've staked up the roses before their winter prune, and we are ordering a wide variety of hellebores to be decorative but close to the ground. It was a satisfying bed to do - not the endless invasive grass - and delightful to dig in. I think it has been a garden bed for 150 years which is not at all what I'm used to.

And Dad here is visual proof of us putting the mulch back through again ... it definitely makes it a lot finer but I don't know if we can be bothered to do it routinely. We have SO MUCH to chip and we're putting the mulch on the ivy covered beds and it can kill whatever it wants until we get around to them. 

We've also built some firewood storage to keep it off the ground. It's not covered but that doesn't matter too much round here. Bessa bricks, stakes, random offcuts of wood we found in the garage. There are four of these side by side on the way to the clothesline. We put brand new mulch from the chipper underneath so in a season or two we can figure out a more elegant solution for the firewood and turn the area into garden beds, as originally planned. We have a lot of plans.

Here is another after shot - we did this a while ago but the kitchen stuff is in the kitchen where it belongs and the books are in the bookshelf. Double stacked, but we did do a big clear out of books down the coast so will take some there ... and get rid of others, honestly. This is one of our two new double-glazed roof skylights - we had just the corrugated see-through stuff which isn't insulating at all, and replaced it with a double-glazed unit in this room and the kitchen.

Custom built of course, at vast expense, because nothing is square, and they don't open. The advice was to leave the laser light in because you don't mess with things that don't leak, and just put the glass underneath. I am a bit nervous about something completely inaccessible for reasons of condensation / cleaning ... but nobody else seemed bothered so we will just wait and see. It does seem to be noticeably warmer but it's hard to tell because it has become so much colder! The bird bath was frozen over until midday.

Long weekend

It was a long weekend in Canberra ... and we didn't notice and didn't care! How amazing. Although that's not strictly true, we noticed eventually because we went to the beach for a few days and there were a few more Canberra people than usual. It has settled into the cold and clear real winter days, which are beautiful down the coast. Beautiful at home too, but pretty cold. We've been having the fire on 24 hours and it definitely takes the edge off.

The beach was just sparkling and lovely. This the kayak hire place which is absolutely pumping now they've started selling coffees. People bring their kids / dogs and just sit in the sun most mornings. It is very delightful. 

We came back up on Sunday for friends who drove out to Canberra for afternoon tea. It was wonderful to see them and show off our country slice of life! Everyone is either recently retired or nearly retired and doing it in all sorts of different ways ... mostly downsizing and lowering maintenance, rather than our version. Oh well. 

This is probably the only photo of the two of us and the house that's been taken yet! We look vaguely old fashioned, maybe it's the knitted jumpers. Side note, both of those were bought from a truly marvellous knitwear shop on Norfolk Island (average winter temperature 21 degrees) which has, for reasons unknown, an enormous collection of no-longer-made knitwear. We think she bought it all ages ago and just keeps it in the cellar? Anyway mine is 100% wool, made in the Shetlands by Judane, which according to the internet went bankrupt in 2008, and was bought by me, in its bag, tags still on, in 2025 for $130. Brad's burgundy number is McGeorge, which at least still exists, but I don't think they've made that cable knit for a decade ... and it was also 100% wool made in Scotland and even cheaper than mine. Anyway it's an amazing shop and if you're ever on Norfolk Island you have to go.