Berlioz Te Deum and more

Wow! What a time I had on Saturday night at the Opera House. My distant cousin Ruth invited me to accompany her to the 90th birthday concert of the Sydney Philharmonia. They performed the Berlioz Te Deum and other works. It was a most enjoyable night and most of the music was new to me so it was quite interesting. The choir was great. So precise I could hear every word. Thanks Ruth.

Dinner and a Movie

We enjoyed another dinner and movie at Sutherland Entertainment Centre on Wednesday. The movie was South Solitary and apart from the poor sound quality it was really quite good. The best thing was being able to enjoy a great meal and entertainment with friends for such a reasonable price. I would thoroughly recommend the activity.

Underhill in October

 This visit we were greeted by a beautiful red tulip in the dog yard. Every Spring, depending on the alignment of weather conditions and date of visit we are greeted by something beautiful. This time it was a tulip, a pear tree and quince tree covered in blossom and a few blossoms on one of the apricot trees.

There was also quite a thick carpet of grass though on closer inspection an awful lot of it was actually bindii.

 Greg and Evelyn drove us down in their new car and Anne came as well. Our achievements were:

• internet access checked with my new Telstra dongle on my laptop - no luck - it did get two bars and opened up my blog but not my Gmail so cannot be used as a communication tool,
• checked that the chimney on the stove actually draws - check - and that we can now assume we can successfully cook a meal after the trauma to the kitchen roof,
• timber from the trees felled by Terry last time has been tidied and stockpiled except for the very largest logs that need chainsawing before they are moved,
• berry yard weeded and weeds collected for my chooks at home,
• two apple trees that had died because of ring barking by feral goats were demolished ready for burning off when we next light a fire.

Thank you Greg, Ev and Anne for coming with me and working on so many tasks.

Soon I'll need to make decisions about the fences on the dog yards as they were broken during tree felling. There will also be chainsawing to be done. I will also need to deliver some of this chook poo that I will be bagging up from the old chook shed area at home.

The Chook Shed Saga

Well at last I have space for my vegetable garden in the chook yard. It was a long slow process. The first job was to move the chooks and take on the task of hand filling their water until I have rigged up their small water tank that was plumbed into their old sheds. I now have them housed in these two sheds and they are laying again. I can't let them out to free range just yet as they need two weeks to learn where home is.

Then Gav and Stef returned after their travels and were roped into starting the dismantling task with Geoff.

This proved a bit difficult for us all except for the dismantling of gates, waterers and fittings. Gav helped me get the tank down and then used the angle grinder on the little low shed we were using as a tank stand. This originally came from the Federal Match Co. when they were cleaning up. The oldest shed in the corner was the canopy of an old truck also from Federal Match. This one was my main problem because it was not starling proof and from the amount of food I am using in the new sheds we have been spending a great deal of money feeding the starling population of Sydney. The chooks are now using about one tenth of the amount of chook food.

Today the big guns came to complete the dismantling job. Craig and Phil brought angle grinder and truck and now I can see the back corner for the first time since about 1972.

I have a lot of digging of chook poo (I hope it does not rain because it is so much easier to dig while it is dry). Then I'll need to do a bit of leveling and clearing old bits and pieces of concrete and brick from the site. Then I can create vege gardens. I also have a huge pile of firewood to chop or give away. If anyone would like to help with any of these tasks I will be most grateful.

And my chooks will soon get a tank to supply their water so I don't have to hand fill their water. That means I must build a tank stand.

I'll get there eventually, thanks to all those fabulous helpers I have had.

Lunch at Helen and Bob's

Last weekend the old gang was treated to lunch at Helen and Bob's. It was a great day with good friends. Janice and Roger brought Marie and Iain and I brought Stef and Gav who are staying with me at the moment. We spent the time chatting, touring the garden and house and eating; catching up on news of the gang and days gone by.

Here we are watching for the elusive native bees to return home to their hive but I think they were all out feeding.

As always, the repast was magnificent. Added to the beautiful meal prepared by Helen were Marie's delightful butterfly cakes and Jane's yummy sticky black rice with taro and coconut milk. Mmmmm ... I didn't need any dinner when I got home!

The garden was looking great with lots of unusual plants.

Stef and Gav were quite amused by the whole event.

Thanks to all for a great day.