Resting at the beach

I took my cold - and my husband took his bung knee - and we spent a quiet rainy few days at the beach this week. It was a good idea to have nothing much to do (although I did finally join the local library down there! Access to another library full of ebooks, I'm very excited) except some sewing and making airplane models. I went for a couple of short walks and that was about it. The cat was very excited about my sewing and jumped up to lie on the material and help me cut it out. She still has all four paws but it was a close thing.

Speaking of paws, Fred the failed service dog came to art class again. He is very gorgeous and an absolute snuggle tart. 

The rain didn't last down the coast - just a day really - but there was still a big swell. 

Before we left we cleared out the lavender shed in preparation for concreting the floor ... it is a very old shed that we want to store things like star pickets and chicken wire in. Bulky, random things. 

The uprights are mostly quite solid and the tin isn't bad but the floor was completely broken up. 

Of course to get somewhere to put things we had to clear out the potting shed (which was very satisfying, I have been meaning to do that for ages) and there are still piles of stuff everywhere. If it is OK outside then we are leaving outside for now, until the concreting is done and we get ourselves sorted. It's a slow process.

Another quiet week

I'm feeling much better now but still not much energy - and it's been raining and cold - so all in all a pretty uneventful few days. I did make it to quilters and art class on Tuesday, so that's something. I didn't know what to paint so took this photo as I was driving off.

This is the work in progress - definitely not finished but you get the idea! A nice splotchy landscape.

I have been raking leaves in the garden. This not a high priority task but it's perfect for low-energy low-brain days. I can quietly rake away, then stop for a bit, and it doesn't matter. Friday I was going absolutely stir crazy so went into Canberra, had lunch with a friend and went to the Canberra Quilters annual exhibition. It was very good, lots of lovely quilts, lots of nice vendors although I didn't buy anything. I took some photos of quilts I'd like to try and was inwardly rude about the judging! Perfect.

Still struggling on

I'm still coughing and spluttering and completely fed up with being sick! This has lasted forever, or it seems so. I have terrible cabin fever but don't quite have the energy for going anywhere... Never mind, I'm on the up so it can't be long now. 

I did drag myself to quilters on Saturday because I promised I'd do a fabric dyeing workshop (we had tubs of donated plain calico that no-one was going to use for anything). It was super fun, I made up the dyes in advance and we had a happy couple of hours splashing it all about. I was exhausted by the end but it was worth it to get of the house and have a bit of socialising. I now have fifty bags of dyed cloth to rinse, but that can wait for a day or two longer.

We have put up a bird feeder by the garden shed for the king parrots. They are very young or very dumb or very hungry because you can walk right by them without disturbing them. The oak is slowly losing its leaves and the garden is lovely ... not that I do much but wander about in it at the moment.

Knocked over by a nasty cold

So this week has been very dull as I've had a nasty head cold - not the flu, or covid, just a cold - but it's still been pretty miserable. I've got things to do! Gardens to dig! Wood to chop!!! I made it to quilters on Tuesday but was too sick to do art in the afternoon, and missed the author talk at the local library by a local guy that I really wanted to go to ... I even read the half the book. I will read the other half and then talk to him at garden club.

I have been doing very small toddles around the garden for fresh air, and of course to inspect the finished veggie cage! It is very exciting. The wire curves out into the ground to form a rabbit deterrent apron - we might plant it out or just leave it for the grass to grow through. Lots of options. 

And that is exactly all that's been happening, I have been to the pharmacy and nowhere else. The cat has been keeping me company in bed or on the sofa, and my husband has been looking after me very well but it seems like such a waste of time. At least when you're sick and working there's a slight sense of enforced holiday, but I'm on holiday all the time now and coughing up a lung has no upside. 

Pottering at home

It's been lovely this week to potter gently about at home. A bit of gardening, although the wind chill has knocked the fun out of it a bit. I don't mind cold weather but having a gale rip through you is not very pleasant. I went out for about an hour yesterday before retreating indoors. 

I did manage to take some baja sage cuttings - we have a very pretty and healthy plant and I wanted to get some more, but it's not common and I couldn't buy either seeds or seedlings. So I have ventured into (another) unknown world and I'm propagating by cuttings! No idea if it will work but I followed all the instructions and found nodes and dipped in hormones and the rest ... I've done six that I will coddle through winter and see if they live to be planted in the spring.

In even more exciting gardening events ... our veggie cage is being built!!!! It is too hard to protect edible plants from rabbits, parrots, kangaroos and wombats individually, so we are building a big netted enclosure and putting everything in there. Vege beds, fruit trees, maybe some herbs? 

It is 9 metres by 12 metres which seemed perfectly reasonable when we made a little map out of paper but looks absolutely enormous now it's a steel structure in the western paddock. But given that we keep saying things like 'how about a permanent bed for asparagus? how about espaliered fruit trees? how about thornless blackberries? how about cold frames?' it might not be big enough...

Back to the autumn

Even just a week away has changed the landscape into autumn. It's very very beautiful around here at the moment. 

I'm appreciating the time I took to do the last trim and feed of the roses because we're getting a late flush, including some that I don't think have flowered yet during the summer. I suspect there has been some thoughtful planting. 

The dahlias and tomatoes have all died - before we left for Norfolk Island I pulled up the tomato plants and made all the green ones into green tomato chutney. It was quite fun but far too time-consuming to do the day before you go off on holiday and everything in my suitcase smelled vaguely like chutney. I had fun though, and it's very satisfying. Here is an oddly blurry shot of me stripping a cherry tomato bush, in the late afternoon sunshine.

The day after we got back we went into Canberra to farewell drinks for friends who are off to Washington on posting. They most cordially invited visitors but I don't think we'll be going any time soon .... We've put off the planned UK holiday until next year, and we'll have to save our pennies again after that to go to somewhere with proper hard currency ... but it seems a shame not to go. These are the same friends we stayed with in Jakarta in 2012 and we did have a lovely time.

Then on Monday we went back in to catch up with both children  - number two had flown up for number one's birthday party on Saturday. We popped in briefly after farewell drinks, before the party had started, there is no overlap in time between old person drinks and young person party ... but went back on Monday to have brunch, a proper chat, and take number two back to the airport. Then we had to do a very large grocery shop which is more than enough effort for one day. But we LOVE our new car. It is so easy to drive.

Norfolk Island

We have just spent another lovely week on Norfolk Island with my husband's parents - which is why I haven't posted for a while - the internet over there is fantastic but I didn't bother bringing my laptop! It would take away from the time sitting, chatting, having a drink, going for a walk and poking about the shops. 

It was a very relaxing and fun week, although the weather wasn't as good as previous years. I took my togs but was not tempted into the water. I also didn't spend as much time sitting on the verandah chatting and painting ... I changed it up for sitting on the sofa chatting and knitting :) 

This year we overlapped with Brad's sister and her husband for a day, which was an excellent catch up. They'd been there for two weeks, which would have put me into an almost fatal level of relaxed I think. We tried to go for walks but wind, rain and laziness kind of put us off...

How pretty is this. What a lovely part of the world. 

Bouncing around

I bounced down to the coast for a couple of days (new car, so much fun, love driving everywhere) and then into Canberra for the day (old car with trailer, got ebike serviced, not much fun driving at all). In Canberra we took number one and girlfriend out for a lovely birthday lunch (Afghani restaurant, absolutely delicious) and I saw the new flat, which is light and lovely and in a super location close to town. So grown up!!!!!

At art class I finished my watercolour of Abbotsford Convent (in Melbourne, where we went in March). It's an awful picture and it kept getting worse the more I did to it. I broke out the pastel pencils as well and I don't think that was a good idea. I wanted to have it a bit wonky and artistic but it ended up in some uncanny valley between correctly proportioned and properly freeform. 

This is the original photo I took.

I finished a quilt finally, which made me feel better, because it's pretty. I pieced this last year some time but just got around to the binding and finishing now. Part of my push to use my solids! Not doing so well, I keep getting distracted.

Bonus bulbs

We got a bit excited with one of the primary school fundraisers and ordered a large number of bulbs that arrived last week. Such a box of fun - carefully picked from the catalogue and chosen for a particular place in the garden.

This post is not about those bulbs, it is about the line of random pots full of grass and weeds that were here when we moved in ... and we don't think the tenants had them so they would have been there for at least three years. I thought they might be salvageable to plant things in so emptied them out - and they were FULL of bulbs. This is about half of them, there were more.

No idea what sort - my husband thinks daffodils but all bulbs look the same to me - so I took the little tub full to plant underneath the pines at the road end of the front lawn, where no grass will grow. I am not terrifically optimistic but daffodils are tough, and these were free.

It turns out my little pot contained 157 bulbs, which took me three hours to plant, and now my legs hurt. But the odds are good for some of them to come up? I will report back in spring.

The cat watched me from the kitchen window. That is my reflection in my awesome orange overalls, which I still love.

In other gardening events, one of my broad beans is up.

I pruned the banksia roses and we took a ute-load of the clippings down to the community garden and added them to the dead hedge. It is quite a cool concept, but a bit untidy for us at the moment, we are not quite as feral in practice as we think we are.

Block printing

On Saturday I did a one-day block printing on fabric workshop at the local arts centre. This is the kind of thing that I thought I would do in retirement, and after a year I've finally done it! Seen something interesting, booked it, did it without worrying that it would be a 'waste' of a weekend day ... and of course I had a lovely time.

In the morning we printed the fabric, and in the afternoon we sewed it into something. They had a heap of fabric there, various sewing patterns, lots of printing blocks or you could carve your own ... the tutor took an action shot of me putting little dots on my pink drill. It's a very forgiving style that looks OK even when your skills aren't up to much, and your ink is a bit uneven, and your spacing is a bit wobbly.

I made a bag and matching hat :) there were all sorts of clothing as options but I didn't think I'd wear any of it, but a bag I can always use. I do fully intend at some point to wander down the main street with my matching bag and hat ... or perhaps to garden club! There's a thought, the ladies at garden club appreciate a good colourful floral. Or floral-adjacent.

I printed a different sort of colour way for a contrast pocket (and alternate panels on my hat) and even block printed the lining. With dots. 

I can see this becoming a very addictive hobby but I can also see me ending up with metres and metres of hand-printed fabric that I have absolutely no use for. 

Last of the dahlias

We have the first frost predicted for next week - no guarantees it will happen but the tomatoes and dahlias are looking nervous. The dahlias in particular are glorious at the moment, but there are many vases in town looking like this as people bring them inside to enjoy them. And the last roses too.

Garden club yesterday was delightful as ever - three gardens in town including the big retirement community just on the outskirts. It is quite nicely set up and we can see the attraction of new build, low maintenance, insulation ... not just yet though.

And there go the maples too. Autumn is definitely here! I went into Canberra on Wednesday to have lunch with friends and do some grocery shopping and it was a perfect, warm, autumn's day. It didn't make me want to move back but Canberra can be lovely sometimes, despite what they say.

Feeding the fire

We had a lovely quiet Easter, mostly at home. For the first time in many years I didn't go to the Folk Festival - I had a pang of missing out when I saw it on the news though, so maybe next year. I just didn't feel like people and travel, despite all the wonderful music. So my Easter travel was riding my bike into town twice and that was it.

The cat has been very happy because the nights have been cool enough to put the fire on ... although our threshold is low, because we just love having a fire. And we do really have mountains of wood. Most of  yesterday was spent in wood management. I am happy to use the little battery chainsaw, and my husband uses the slightly bigger electric chainsaw, but he says we need a proper petrol one to get through the big stuff.

We are both happy to wield the splitter for about ten minutes ... then we're puffed. Or, in my case, my sciatica flares up, because I grew two actual babies and my ligaments are stuffed. But splitting wood is a very satisfying business, so I still do it.

In less successful gardening stories, my seeds were not germinating very well and then I realised that the you beaut seed trays have liners that you're meant to use to hold the soil... I had put it all straight into the plastic trays with NO DRAINAGE and then religiously watered them for weeks until it was just a potting mix soup.

I am not sure if this adequately captures the morass these poor seeds were left in. Anyway I transplanted the ones that had germinated - despite them being way too small - into other pots, and some into newspaper pots so I didn't have to transplant them yet again. 

I am not sure about newspaper pots, I think they will disintegrate, but I saw some youtube videos that seemed fine. Sigh. I really don't know what I'm doing. At least the Manuchurian pears are starting to get their beautiful autumn colour. 

Dad, rest easy, I'm not going to have a vegie bed under the trees. I just wanted to put broad beans in there to see if they'd come up - long term it will be shade loving perennials. Possibly hellebores, or we might even go native grasses. And yes, it is a full electric car, we don't see the point of hybrids. Also, you were right about autumn sowing for the lawn, none of the spring stuff did very well but I'm having way more luck with the patching that I've done in the last few weeks. Other than that, the cat would like me to stop taking photos and let her get back to her nap.

Other people's gardens

 It was the preschool fund-raiser open garden even last weekend, so we wandered through five of the six open gardens and judged other people's choices / found inspiration as the mood struck us.

Mill Pond Farm was interesting, especially the restored old mill. The gardens had a nice mix of recent plantings and very old, half dead pines, which we could relate to.

Longsight was a lovely old house with wraparound verandahs. I love wraparound verandahs - and broad gravel paths - and am thinking how we would get the same vibe in our not-so-posh cottage. It should be possible?

Everyone's dahlias were amazing. Such variety! One guy had converted an old chook shed into a dahlia planting bed supported by the wire and they were absolutely incredible. 

We also went out to Mona Farm which operates primarily as a very expensive wedding venue with guest accommodation, although they do have kitchen gardens for catering, pigs, and some super cute furry cows with horns. I love furry cows with horns. The property was very gorgeous but not inspirational because you could tell they had an absolute army of gardeners and were happy using all the water in the world on the lawns. They had a ten year old stone bridge, which probably tells you all you need to know about the gardening ethos.

In our garden, the last of the big dead pine tree finally came down. Like all trees, it was truly astonishing how enormous the branches were when we finally saw them on the ground. God only knows how we are going to split it for firewood, it will take some professional help, or at least professional equipment. I'm sure they'll let us hire a hydraulic log splitter!!! Surely!!!

They managed not to squash the shed but did put a hole through the fibro. Could have been worse. The strawberries got well and truly flattened though. I saw a TikTok about how to build your own cold frames out of recycled materials and I'm tempted to give it a go, and maybe put them there, backing onto the odd concrete wall....