Random gardening

It's still a bit hot and humid to do much gardening ... but humid is good for growing. We had some proper rain finally and the plants are relishing it. And I am doing something I have never done before - growing from seed!!!! I cannot imagine this will work but seeds are cheap. 

These are very hardy perennials for the new bed that I haven't finished yet. I'm not sure if I'll plant them in the bed this year or leave them in pots in a sheltered spot until spring. We were planning an overseas holiday in spring but now we're reluctant to fly anywhere ... most flights from Australia go through the Middle East or you can go the other way through the US and who wants to do that? They don't do transit and I will never be in the mood for US immigration. First world problems, that are making me second guess my seed planting and propagation schedule. Did the various regimes think of that? They did not.

This is the tomato bush that mysteriously popped up in the middle of the rose and hellebore bed off the verandah. We have harvested five very delicious tomatoes and there may be more. 

This canna lily is looking lovely in the big blue pot. I like pots in garden beds, and cannas are tough enough for anything. 

And this little fellow came to quilters this week! It is a brush tailed possum joey - about 90 days since gestation so eyes not open yet, and would normally still be in the pouch but his mum was killed. So now he sleeps in a little fleece bag and gets carried around to events in a calico shopping bag and drop fed ten times a day. Super cute, although in NZ possums are a feral pest and we kill them, so I have had to do some mental adjustments.

Basketweave strings

Sorry Pam, but here's another quilt - if it's any consolation it is a real utility one. When we were sorting out all the donated material and trying to get it in shape to be sold there were all sorts of odds and ends going into 'the tub'. So a couple of us decided to make string quilts from the tub and this is mine! The scraps are pieced over squares of calico (there were two whole tubs of that) without any thought or design.

Not pretty in any way! But a quilt, that can be used for something, and all from real scraps.

We had a go at the stash sale up in Gunning over the weekend. There's a big craft group there that puts this on every year but this is the first time our little quilt group had a table. We did OK - didn't get rid of masses of stuff but certainly got rid of some, and made a few hundred dollars to keep the lights on for another month or two ... and the material is all prepped now so we can try again in our own town later on.

I had quite a fun day chatting with crafty people. Gunning is about an hour and half's drive away so it was an early start (still dark! lucky I didn't hit a roo) but quite an interesting drive on roads I haven't been down for a while (if at all). I was resolved not to buy anything but I failed. All yarn! I have finished my first sweater and will take photos of it when it's blocked, so now I'm looking for the next project. Just what I need, another hobby.

There's been a lot of driving this week - Thursday we went in to Canberra to pick up our new (not new, new to us) ute! Very exciting. We bought it off a friend's 17 year old daughter, who chose an enormous diesel twin cab as her first car ... and after about six months has realised it is not the most practical vehicle for suburban life so we happily took it off her hands. It is a tank but our cars were not cutting the rural life. Friday I went back into Canberra for drinks for a colleague who is stopping work and lunch with another friend who has also just gone on long leave pending retirement. I enjoyed both but not as much as these pigeons enjoyed outside the Vietnamese cafe where we had lunch.

Big gardening and little gardening

It's been hot and dry here for the past few weeks - this afternoon yet another set of storms managed to sweep to the north and the south with just a few showers for us. A few showers are good, but a day of rain would be better. The little gardening is a new garden bed over in the west paddock where it's rocky and dry, with lots of wind and western sun. At the moment it's mostly grass - struggling - so we're going to create more beds around the rocks and put tough things in them. 

This is the one that we're doing first as proof of concept. It looks tiny but by the time I mattocked and spaded the edges, then killed the grass (with round-up) and spent an hour this morning mattocking/spading/forking over about one quarter of it ... I think it's good we just started with one bed. I'll keep turning it over and put some compost in it, then put in some perennials in March and fingers crossed they survive the winter and take off in the spring. I do not know what I am doing but that is what the internet is for.

And this is the big gardening - for an eyewatering sum we are slowly getting the big dead pine down. A massive branch (about eighteen inches in diameter) had broken off and was just dangling there, which gave us the push we needed to finally get someone in.

They have taken down the broken one, and some of the others, but to get the remainder they need to go away and get other equipment. Or something, I don't get close enough to understand. They are trying to avoid squashing the garden shed which is good - I would be VERY CROSS after spending all that time painting the inside. 

At least there's plenty of firewood! But the strawberry bed was a bit of a casualty.

Central coast

We had a weekend away somewhere I'd never been - the Central Coast of NSW, which is an hour or two north of Sydney (about four and a half hours drive from here) and seems to be an aggregation of small towns, beachside villages, bad roads and wonderful views. A friend has moved up there so a few of us went to stay for a weekend and have a nose-about.

This is the most stunning view from her house. Cursed steps and a terrifying driveway ... but worth it when you get there. Much wine was drunk on the balcony.

We went for lovely walks along various beaches (too cold for swimming), a couple of pub lunches, fish and chips on the waterfront... it was lovely. A very relaxed vibe, although our friend commutes into Sydney twice a week - two hours each way! I can't imagine, I used to get cross when my twelve-minute commute turned into 15 at rush hour. 

This is the light pole at the local boat ramp - like a trophy wall? But with fish skulls? Some of them were high enough to need a ladder, which is an awful thought. How (and why) would you do it?

We stopped for a night in Sydney on the way back to test drive another car - we are buying an electric one - but didn't do anything exciting there (it was raining).

Bicycling ensemble

I have been biking about in any old thing, which is fine, but skirts tend to whoosh up at the front and flash your underwear at people, wide-legged pants get caught in the chain, shorts ride up your bum and I am far too fat to do my errands in leggings. Actually I am think I am just far too old to do my errands in leggings; nobody under the age of about 35 seems to worry about body shape, which is good for them, but I cannot revisit my ideas on showing the shape of my fat arse at this late stage.

So I made some knee-length culottes! Bloomers! Bicycling pantaloons! They are very practical and comfortable and they have flowers on them.

I bought the cheap rayon at Rathdowne fabrics in Melbourne last July and it was easy to sew and is lovely to wear. My pantaloons even have pockets. 

"Who sent you?"

This is a scrap quilt called "Who sent you?" from some song lyric, as usual. It is a floribunda block which I have done a few times before, but this time in old-school browns and creams with a bit of red.

I love the block and I love the colour scheme, so this was fun to make. The only problem is my machine went on the fritz half way through the free motion quilting - nothing serious, it just needs a service and kept skipping stitches - so it is partly quilted in flowers and partly just straight lines. 

It doesn't seem to matter too much. Cat included for scale.

Heatwave

We've had a nasty heatwave in Australia where temperature records were broken (again) and even our shady corner got uncomfortably warm. I took off to the coast for a few days where it was still hot but you could always jump in the ocean to recover. I took absolutely no photos but it was very very nice - especially because school went back for a new year!!! Hahaha I do not miss that, not one bit. Other than swimming I had a sewing frenzy - including some fabric that I'd lifted from the quilt shed, they are happy to be rid of it - and read some of the two dozen books I got at the book fair.

Art classes continue on, and I continue to attempt faces. This is Susan Sonntag. It is not terrible but also not very good. The teacher makes me change things if they're not right (not something I do for myself, I tend to throw it in the bin) so I spend the full two hours smudging away at my latest victim. And the next week I did this bloke, who was a life model from many years ago. 

It doesn't look like him at all, it's hard to describe how it manages to be both the shape of his face and a completely different person. Sometimes you capture the essence and sometimes you really don't. 

We also had a friend to stay for a few days which was a real treat  ... he parked out front and made the cottage look MUCH classier than it usually does! He took my husband for a few spins with the top down but I have informed him we are much too poor for a mid-life crisis convertible.