In the neighbourhood

We're not doing much but the days are flying by. We went into Canberra for drinks at friends and overnighted at other friends, which was a good chance to catch up and, probably, buy a car off them. Many birds, single stone.

It hasn't been very hot in the mornings so I took the chance to go for a bike ride around the neighbourhood - although not down the main street which was insanely busy!!!! After twenty years of driving through the main street at this time of the year on my way to the coast I am now Shocked and Horrified by the number of Canberrans on my roads. 

This is the way that google maps keeps trying to get me (and visitors) to come to our place. It thinks this is a perfectly normal road that your average sedan should go down. We haven't had significant rain for a couple of weeks - so the creek is very low - and there is NO WAY I would take my average sedan (or my new shiny ebike) over this crossing. When I give people the address now I have a copy-paste sentence I use about ignoring google maps if it suggests this route. Apparently it is one minute quicker. 

I spent most of one day dealing with this apple tree - yes, that whole lighter green part is a single apple tree, and the red thing is a normally sized wheelbarrow. The tree is enormous and absolutely covered in apples. Gosh the grass is brown isn't it, we do need some rain. Unfortunately the apples are full of bugs, and the birds are starting to get them, and most of them are dropping on the ground, so I went in to rake them up. 

Once you get under the tree you can see that most of the branches in there are dead, so I went back in with the reciprocating saw and secateurs and gave it a solid chop. Just the dead stuff, which should be OK. 

We've chipped it now, it took an hour, and in winter we'll think about how best to prune the living branches. And perhaps do some spraying - it is so incredibly prolific I'd like to figure out how to keep some of the fruit.... they are small and green but going slightly red on the tree, so could be any sort.