Gardening trivia

Here are some of the tiny gardening things that we have been up to. This is mostly for Dad, I don't think anyone else is very interested ... other than me! It will be the only way I remember what I've done, although my husband is keeping an any year diary of what we do each day. He's already making entries under old entries, which is very exciting ("this time last year we had already pruned the buddleia! What we were thinking!" etc). 

First up is the first (and so far only) planting in our new garden cage, and it's in a pot, so probably cheating. A woman at quilters brought in some "planting garlic" so I snaffled a couple of heads and planted twenty fat garlic cloves in this pot. They should be ready in February, and require very little care until then, allegedly.

Here I am sweeping the rocks. I don't plan to make a habit of sweeping the rocks, but I'm in the very very slow process of clearing this overgrown garden bed. We didn't know there were rocks in there, and they are actually quite lovely, and form natural tiers. So I'm sweeping them off this once, to see the shape, and then we will contemplate planting around them in the fullness of time. It was completely overgrown by rosemary, so I've cut that back to almost ground level and we will see what survives.

This is something I'm calling "baby's first formwork" because this is, indeed, the first time I have ever prepared formwork for a concrete pad. We're getting the floor of the lavender shed reconcreted so we can store things in there, which requires a concerete truck, so we may as well get some other little things done too. This is under the clothesline, which was worn into bare dirt, and it took a fair amount of swearing, digging for tools in the shed and googling youtube videos. But you have to start somewhere and it is level (despite appearances). My husband provided guidance but he has been busy with his compost beds (on the left hand side, fabulous colorbond, nobody's burning those down).

I also cleared off the front of the garden shed to put a path in there, but there are water pipes half way down and electricity conduit near the shed, so we have decided against concreting in case we need to get into it at some point. Of course we discovered this after we'd sledgehammered up the old concrete path and made a big dirt mess ... we are thinking of putting concrete pavers down. We have some from the old house and they're robust enough; it's just a bit more work. At least it was a good job to have tidied it up.

I also used my weed tea on the new bed before putting mulch down. It smelled like the very breath of satan but I diluted it 1:10 as recommended on the internet and poured it over the bed, to improve the nitrogen. Does my bed need nitrogen? I don't know. I put the decomposed weeds on what remains of the compost, where apparently they will not spread weedy seeds, and I made more tea with new weeds. 

And lastly we have a truly terrible bird photo - there is an owl in there. A very lovely, very well camouflaged owl, that watched us carefully but didn't fly away. That's its favourite spot and he's quite obvious once you see him ... but you can't. Not in this photo.

Busy busy busy

We've had some sunny days and produced some electricity ... but not a tremendous amount. Our roof is quite shaded, especially at this time of year, so we're not sure if it is going to be the powerhouse we had hoped for. The only day we've put any into the battery at all was Sunday, when we left the house for seven hours to go into Queanbeyan to meet friends for lunch and go grocery shopping. Turns out the best way to use less power is to turn everything off and go somewhere else! Wow. 

We have been unusually social though, these last couple of weeks. There was a concert at the museum - local musicians, which was excellent. They moved some of the exhibits out of the big room upstairs that has a stage at one end - apparently it was the first time it had been used for live music since the 1920s! There might have been dancing then. We did not have dancing, but there was a bar.

Then there was the historical society annual dinner (no bar, bring your own bottle(s) of anything) where our table came third in the trivia and there was an excellent speech about the local home guard during the second world war. Sounds a bit dull but was really interesting - the guy was very entertaining. He is writing a book and kept saying things like "I've found this obscure record, does anyone know a William Maynard, born about 1920?" and someone up the back would go "Uncle Bill!!!!! He lost three fingers in 1952 and his wife was an alcoholic" etc. Small towns.

Then we went to an art exhibition opening for another art group in town - they seem to be a bit more serious than our group and have artist statements and coherent styles. It was great, and we knew a few people there, and there was a bar. Actually the same bar because the art people ran the bar at the concert too, to make a few extra dollars.

Then I was not social at all and went down the coast for a couple of days, which is why all these pictures are beach pictures. Only an hour away but ten degrees warmer. I made a pair of pants that worked out and a shirt that really didn't.

Solar panels and a battery

Another project knocked off - 28 solar panels up on the roof and a 27KW battery hooked up to them on the side of the house. In theory, for the amount of electricity we use, the battery should soak it up during the day and cover what we use at night ... although the theory has been falling down since we had them installed because it's been cloudy and rainy. 

Our contribution was to admire the balance of the young people doing the installation (all over the roof, didn't even blink, utterly unafraid) and fork over vast sums of money. In theory it should pay for itself in eight or so years but we will see. It's nice to have protection for the blackouts that we get once or twice a year and our bore pump runs on electricity so it's good bushfire protection too. 

We were a bit worried that it would spoil the look of our cute little house, but it's much less intrusive than we thought. A nice low profile on the roof and the black isn't that different from the tin. We have six facing east, six facing west and sixteen facing north - all shaded by the pines but between them they should give us enough juice if the sun is shining. 

The battery has an app that shows how much electricity we use, how much the panels produce, how much the battery has and how much we are pulling from the grid or putting back into the grid ... it is one of the horribly mesmerising things like a weather station or flight radar that you get obsessed with even though it is objectively very dull. 

More block printing

This is my new enthusiasm after the success of the test printing. I'm not sure exactly what you can use block printed fabric for - it has its own aesthetic - but bags are fine.

This is the fishies! Quite a nice tote bag. I lined it but it's still a bit flimsy. Very useful though, I put my knitting in it last week when I went into Canberra to join a friend's knitting group. They sit in the coffee shop in the lobby of the Hyatt, have coffee and knit. It was absolutely lovely and I think I will go in as often as I can.

Second project was a brush roll for my paintbrushes. I've been carrying them to art class in a paper bag and it's just not practical. So I made an enormous brush roll in yellow with flowers all over it. 

I measured my brushes and everything but it's not exactly right. Some of them fall out if I hold it upside down. But it works better than the paper bag and it is very bright and cheerful. I  sandwiched it with cotton quilt batting to absorb any moisture.

Third project was a monster tote. I like this pattern - variegated spirals - just the same thing over and over but I think it looks cool. I had planned to do another dot in there to give it some more dimension but it didn't look any good in the test print so I stuck with the spirals. 

I underlined it with calico so it has a bit more body, which I think works better. It also has a fancy magnetic closure which I didn't put in the right way at all but it's useful.

And fourth project was a silk scarf. It's the flowers again, but quite a different effect - almost translucent.

It is very pretty but I'm not sure if it works as a scarf. The silk is quite solid and the paint makes it a bit stiff, even though I've washed and dried it. 

I have had this silk sitting in a cupboard forever - it's from my work trip to India in 2018. When we visited the National Art Gallery in Delhi they gave us flowers and put lengths of white silk around everyone's necks during the welcome. All very lovely but travelling cabinet ministers don't want lengths of white silk so I quietly scooped them up. Like a good little underling. Hahahaha.

More projects

 Unsurprisingly, one of the projects is to build new compost bins. In a way it was a good thing I destroyed them - they weren't big enough and were in the wrong spot - so now my husband is happily engaged on some Very Serious Compost Bins made out of metal roofing sheets. Again, from our wonderful friend who is moving to Western Australia and can't take much of anything, and was a bit of a collector of "might be useful one day" items. 

This is not compost bins, this is much more exciting - the floor of my art studio!!!!! Can you believe it, despite having a quite large house and a dedicated room I am building a shed in the garden to do my arts and crafts in. I can't quite believe it, but there is proof, a steel subfloor concreted in. 

There is still a long way to go and we are doing the painting etc ourselves (aaaaargh) but that's the first thing done. I made them angle it to exactly due north :) It is going to be tucked in quite nicely behind the pines to the west of the house.

I had some dye leftover from the quilters' dyeing session so one of the ladies came over and we splashed some dye about under the last of the oak leaves. It was lots of fun and only rained a little bit.

Number two came home for a visit last weekend to break up two weeks work in Sydney! Paid work too - as a notetaker in the writer's room for a new TV series. It's a great opportunity, hard work concentrating all day (and definitely not there to give any input, that was a bit of a struggle) and an eye-opening way to see how TV operates. Quite different to the theatre world.

I drove up to Goulburn for the train pick up - it has the cutest little train station. With an open fire! The photo doesn't show the flames but there were definitely flames. Needed too, it's been very cold and frosty.

My broad beans are looking remarkably healthy. I didn't plan for any sort of crop; they are really just there because they are hardy and will grow in winter. But I may get some broad beans!

And this has to be the last of the roses. This yellow rose is unstoppable, I love it.

I burnt down the compost bins

Soooooo, I had a little oops yesterday when I emptied the ash bucket into the compost bins. As you normally do, but it appears that some of it might have been still aglow. It was about a week's worth, and it needed emptying, so I didn't think too much of it and just dumped it in the compost and wandered off. 

And this is what my husband found when he went outside this morning - two bins completely destroyed and my hot compost pile reduced to nothing! It certainly got hot enough, briefly, before it burned down. The most damage is near the rubber mat I was using to hold the heat in, rather than near the ash, so we're thinking a coal got too near the rubber and it caught alight. 

Absolutely reduced to nothing, the leaves have completely burnt down. As a reminder, this is what it looked like last week.

The little compost tumbler to the right is reduced to a few bits of steel; the rubber mat is a smouldering shadow of its former self and one of my brand new weed tea buckets has melted. Not completely though, just around the lid, and the weed tea is actually looking pretty good. 

Anyway, another learning experience. It was directly under several very old and very flammable pine trees, and about three metres away from our garage, with all our stuff including our brand new car. We are going to take the opportunity to relocate the compost bins and build new ones, and I've already got a larger ash bucket that all ashes are going into from now on for AT LEAST a week before they go on the compost. 

Block printing

I did enjoy that block printing on fabric workshop that I did earlier in the year ... and so I thought I'd give it a go at home. I don't really need any printed fabric, but the idea was intriguing enough for me to corral my supplies and have a bash.

I carved my own blocks - simple is better with fabric printing. It's actually more like fabric stamping the way that I do it. You can do wonderfully intricate prints but I'm starting at the very basic end. Shapes and things. Luckily I still have all the tools from my brief foray into lino printing so I carved some shapes.

I super-glued on cut-up ends of foam mats for little handles. It proved surprisingly effective (it is wonderful to have a husband who knows his way around different glues!)

I used acrylic paint mixed with textile medium. Once it's heat seat it is washable. Apparently screen printing or block printing ink is better, but I didn't want to muck about with anything oil-based and I already have a ton of acrylic paints (and textile medium). I don't mind ironing it to heat-set.

So here are my test prints. Lots of photos but I want to try and record what I did for future reference. These little fishies worked well but the flower needs more carving. Too much noise around the edge. 

You need a smooth surface to roll the ink out on - firstly I used baking paper which didn't work at all. Then I tried a heavier glossy art paper which worked OK but didn't hold up for very long. I've since found a piece of mdf in the shed which is much better but I don't know how long it will last if I wash it every time. 

You use small foam rollers to get the ink onto the stamp - mine were from the dollar shop and they weren't very good but I'm not sure where you get better ones from. They are mostly kids toys. I did try the brayer that I use with proper ink but the paint mixture was way too runny and the brayer wouldn't hold it. I also tried a stamp pad that can apparently work ... mine did not work at all. And it looks like an advanced course in wound management. It all got rather messy.

Anyway you get the idea. I tried all my shapes, then ironed it and washed it and the colours didn't fade or move at all which is amazing. I have a couple of ideas for projects ....

Art exhibition

My art classes put on an exhibition of the things that we've done in class at the local art group. It opened while we were in Melbourne so I missed the champagne and canapes :) but I did my shifts on the door last weekend when we were back. It was open both weekends, and we had a few people through, mostly family and friends. And some tourists. 

It's hard to take a good picture of an art exhibition, especially one with 18 different artists doing wildly different works across all media, all subject matter and all talent levels too. Mostly amazing - I felt very much a beginner. We did put in our bottles though, that we started with, in charcoal. It's hard to see because of the reflection but there was a bottle wall. Intriguing how everyone takes a slightly different tack on exactly the same objects.

I put in six, including these two pastel landscapes on the right. And, yes that is a red dot because I SOLD a picture! Can you believe it, an actual person used their actual money to buy one of mine. I am confused but delighted.

Melbourne

It was the King's Birthday weekend here so, like last year, we headed down to Melbourne for the Australian Scale Model Expo. That is, we both went to Melbourne, but only one of us went to the model show (and indeed entered something and got a Highly Commended! which is good, apparently the standard was very high this year).

Once again we stayed in an apartment close to number two's share house and took the train into the city for a bit of shopping and a cruise around the art gallery. The shopping was mostly for the child (ugg boots, a puffer jacket, new jeans - essential purchases in a Melbourne winter) although I did get some unecessary art supplies and a couple of even less necessary books. Number two is doing an unpaid internship at one of the theatres so we got to see the foyer. It all looked very cool.

We ate out at many good restaurants, including one we discovered last time. My husband went to an exhibition at the museum on Ancient Rome while I perused the nearby fabric stores and general groovy stores of artisanal stuff made for young people. I went to Jimmy Buttons which is an INSANE haberdashery shop behind a roller door in what appears to be a very old shed. I would have bought lots of things but I waited half an hour for someone who works there to cut the ribbons off the roll for me ... the lady kept vanishing so I gave up and left. It was an experience.

Number two had some work and social commitments so Brad and I found a historic house to go and look at. It was interesting but not much architecturally ... although the guide assured us that it was the second most haunted house in Melbourne (after the old gaol) and that has been PROVED by SCIENCE. She was a volunteer guide in dodgy historical costume so we politely agreed ... my husband does tours of the local historic cemetery dressed as a Victorian policeman so we are full of respect for anyone who will spend half their Sunday looking slightly ridiculous for the purpose of public education.

After we did a brief walk along the bay - it was super still and the water was very calm. There was even someone on a paddleboard.

It was our first long trip in the electric car ... it was fine but it definitely takes longer than with a petrol car because of the re-charging stops. In theory you ought to be able to recharge twice - we tried to do that on the way back so scraped into a little town on about 8% ... to find that there were only two chargers, and a queue, so we waited half an hour then another half an hour to charge. The only cafe in the town was closed for renovations and it was raining, so we're not doing that again. I think once we find our rhythm it will be fine but the charging stops don't seem to coincide with meal or toilet stops, and our car does not do anywhere near the 560km advertised range on the highway. More like 360km. But it was super comfortable and even using the most expensive chargers it cost less than half of a petrol trip. 

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.