More air dry clay

This is the other idea I had for the air dry clay, and it worked out a bit better. I embraced the wonkiness and did some leaf impressions - actual leaves and a rolling pin - then with colour more of a stain than a paint. This is a hydrangea leaf.

And an acanthus - very deep ridges and veins, which is good.

The "coaster" is diosma, which worked well. The edges are wobbly as hell but the leaf print is cute. 

So that is it for the air dry clay for now, I think I have got that out of my system. And a household only requires a certain number of little dishes.

Little projects

When we started with the garden I thought it was not much work at all - you do what you feel like, it doesn't matter about the rest - but now I have about a hundred little projects on the go. And several big projects that need tradies / other people to do ... and the maintenance as well of the things I've already done! I am not bothered by any of this because I can just leave it; but it's interesting that the more you get into it the more ideas you have and the more you want to do. 

We are contemplating doing beds towards the creek - the grass doesn't really grow there and we could mark it out more formally and plant. I have started with raking the leaves there and letting them rot down.

I have also made a few leaf towers. I think I'd like to try a hot compost pile but I'll have to read up a bit more, and make sure I have enough bulk. I am going to buy a compost thermometer.

Our friends who are moving to Perth are very generously giving us a ton of their outdoor stuff that they don't want to move. I have put many of my seedlings into this little shadehouse, which is much better than the dodgy frost cloth structure I had built (chicken wire and star pickets). 

We have elegantly put their table and chairs under some autumn-leaf trees. There is a project there to restore and repaint.

The elephants have gone on the sheep ramp but I don't think that is good karma. You can't be sending elephants off to the abbatoir.

And here is the finished bridge! This wasn't at a little project, this was a very big project but it's fabulous to have it done.

This old table came out of the lavender shed (which has the boxing done for the floor and the aggregate down! Progress indeed). It is quite solid so there is a project there to fix the top. According to Elizabeth who did the gardens 25 years ago that was an original from the sheep farm days and smelled of lanolin from the fleece. I did sniff it, in the interests of science. It smelled like old shed. 

Star pickets

Pam asked about star pickets - be careful what you wish for - because the answer is quite simple but also star pickets are the life force that holds the universe together. Like duct tape, or command hooks.

Star pickets are steel fence posts - this is our western fence and a fairly typical agricultural fence anywhere in Australia. They have four points so look like a star from the top, although these might be "Y" ones looking closer. I don't know anyone who has ever bought star pickets, they just appear, and you always have them, but never enough, and they are completely indestructible. We have some that we pulled out of the creek, and many more that were just lurking in the corners of the sheds. They come in short and long versions, and you can get little plastic covers for them with star-shaped insides if you want to use them as supports (or not impale yourself).

A common way of building compost bins is pallets and star pickets. You put the pickets in (we have a star picket driver, very useful) then thread the pallets through them at the corners.

When I made my ad hoc green house out of frost cloth I put in smaller star pickets to tie the chicken wire to so it wouldn't blow away. Here they are holding up the old gate that forms the end of the big wood pile.

And stuck into besser blocks (also known as breeze blocks, concrete blocks and grey bricks) for the smaller wood pile so they won't roll away. 

And for marking out the site of our future vege beds in the vege cage ... in preparation for making a layout decision. Someday, maybe. So there you go, just a small fraction of the wonder that is the star picket. I didn't include any that were holding up sapling trees because that is Bad Gardening (too destructive when you remove them or something).

Air-drying clay

I firmly blame TikTok for an unexpected foray into air-dry clay. For some reason my feed decided to show me artist after artist making cute little things with DAS clay - and it looked so easy! So satisfying! Just slice, mould, dry and paint! Yay! So I watched a few more detailed Youtube tutorials, dug up the various tools and ordered in some supplies.

It went about as well as you would expect. It is indeed a forgiving material, and fun to work with, but it is very difficult to get even a halfway decent result. I tried slab cutting and some just finger-smooshing but you can't use too much water, so minimal handling is best. They call it clay but it's mostly paper, and dries over time without firing, so it's not food safe or particularly water-resistent but you can make it quite robust with sealing, painting and varnishing. 

I am not neat-fingered, and my first try was absolutely the Year 1 ashtray that we all made, back in the day. Just a lumpy mess. This one above didn't even get past first base - when I went to sand it before painting I broke it in half. The same thing happened to two more little plaques I was doing and another dish I made way too thin.

This was a little more successful - it's a funny lumpy little dish - but I got through all the stages and it's pretty and exactly the right size to hold my rings. So that's good.

Here is a foray into decoupage - the brown flecked stuff is a flocked paper that I had for lino printing when I was excited about that for six weeks - which was quite interesting but the rest is an amateurish sham.

This is an oval one that wasn't too bad, although it's not smooth at all. It looks OK from a distance, to hold buttons or something.

And a square one. Painting it is fun but they are quite clearly made by a beginner in a back room. Nothing like the Tiktok videos! I might do a ceramics class at some point and learn how you do it properly, with a kiln. I've got a couple of other ideas to try but then I might put it gently aside.

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.