Banana Patch

Lyndal came for breakfast and suggested some work on my proposed banana patch. Kim came for the morning and it is now done. I have planted lots of old pumpkin, sunflower, pea and bean seeds until I can find a plant of the tiny Sydney banana. I think it is called a Lady Finger. If anyone knows where I can get one please let me know.

Here is my new patch just waiting for a banana plant. Warm, sheltered on three sides but lots of sun.

 Kim standing in the banana patch.

 The other end of the vege patch.

 The  view looking east in the chook yard. My whole vege patch.

 The silkies love it. So far they have not ventured over the little log fence and I hope it stays that way.

 We also moved the large wooden 'recycling box' that used to be in the front yard. It now houses empty plant pots in the carport. Eventually I'll be able to get a car into that carport when we clear out the other bits and pieces.

Thank you Lyndal and Kim for such an inspirational and productive day.

Textured Treasures weekend quilting workshop

I had a great time last weekend at a Textured Treasures workshop run by Lisa Walton.She also has a blog.

We played with paints, inks, rubbings, stamping from stamps we made, stencilling, beading and lots of other techniques to produce and embellish our own individual fabrics. Here are my efforts for the first day.

Because the workshop was at Epping I took the opportunity to sleep over at Lynne's place, a friend from our days of musicals.

Both the fabric workshop and the evening and morning with Lynne were fabulous. This was all topped off by the fact that Lynne and Lisa (tutor) are great friends and one-time neighbours.

Lisa also taught us about a fabulous sweet shop at Epping called Sweetness The Patisserie where, of course, I bought some treats for Lynne and I. Their forte is marshmallows and slices. Well worth a visit and they even do online mail orders.

30 Day Challenges

I was taken by this TED Talk by Matt Cutts and thought 'why not?' He has also put his 30 day challenges on his blog.http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/type/30-days/

No I will not be going skydiving or climbing Mt Kilimanjaro or even riding a bike to work! But there are other goals I would like to achieve.

I don't have 30 days this month but August might be fun for either:
* updating my plant identification skills
* finalising all my tax data and filing that mountain of paper
* finishing my England quilt that has been in the pipeline for nearly 30 years

In fact it could be quite liberating to only have ONE goal each month instead of 20!

Now here is a thought...

One photo each day to add to my 'Patterns, places, tracks and traces' photo file.

A Day at the Powerhouse Museum

I took Alex and Rod to the PHM yesterday and wow, did we have a great day and end up extremely tired.

Alex spent the day turning, pumping, climbing, building and lots more.

On the way in on the train Alex wrote down the names of all the stations and ticked the ones we stopped at. On the way home we only ticked a few because we caught an express train. He also saw lots of other trains, trams and the monorail. We rode on the light rail tram - his first time on this.

Underhill in July

Underhill in July can be very cold. This month Geoff, Elaine and Ev and Greg joined me at the block ready to face the cold.

We arrived in time for morning tea and quickly got fires started and water boiling to warm us up before starting work.

As it was so windy we decided against burning off fires so just concentrated our first efforts at raking up the fire break areas and keeping the 'house' fire and stove stoked up.

After lunch we began fixing the fence of the small 'dog yard' that had been damaged during the felling of the dead trees earlier this year. We now have a fence that might also be wombat proof if we are lucky. There was lots of rock carrying and fence tightening to do and Geoff even put in a rock under the gate.

We found a small frozen frog. Possibly Litoria peronii (Peron's Tree Frog) or maybe even L. tyleri. What a pity I did not take a photo of its underside as well.

There was an interesting looking pupa hanging in the desert lime tree.

In the evening we all sat up as long as we could staying warm by the 'house' fire but climbed into our snug warm beds by about 8:30.

This morning we decided that as there was a Severe Weather Alert for the area and it was already cold, windy and lightly raining we would pack up earlier than intended and head home. However, we had had a great time together. Thank you all for the work and our achievements.

NAIDOC Week Bushwalk

Last Thursday Elaine, Evelyn and I accompanied some others on a NAIDOC Week walk run by Sutherland Council starting at Prince Edward Park at Woronora.

It was actually a leisurely stroll but we were well informed by Uncle Max who told us some of his stories about the plants and animals we saw.

It was great to see so many small treasures and to be able to put some names to plants I saw.

 Grevillea

 Acacia

From Prince Edward Park we crossed the creek then walked south along it for maybe a kilometre or two.

 A cycad.

 Hakea

 Correa ?

Uncle Max and his dingo

Thanks Elaine for organising us to join you on this walk.

Doll's Point Walk

Today Elaine and I did a few hours of patchwork followed by a walk at Doll's Point. It was a beautiful clear warm afternoon. The water of Botany Bay was clear and calm.

We started at the eastern end of Russell Ave at Peter Depena Park then walked south along the bay. The 'walk' shown on the map from the St George Sailing Club actually does not exist but we found our way back to the Stan Moses Reserve and walked back through the parks to Russell Ave. In all it took about 1.5 hours.

 Dozens of Corellas and a few Sulphur Crested Cockatoos were enjoying something in the grass.

 The water was so clear and calm.

 Spoonbills among the samphires seen from the bird hide in the Stan Moses Reserve.

My Garden in July

I am so pleased with the flowers I am enjoying from my garden I thought I'd put up a few pics.

Pernilla came to stay

Pernilla is visiting OZ again. We had a great evening when Ellen and the boys came for dinner.

Car fits in the garage

For those who have not seen Surrey's garage in its original state it was always just a dumping ground and a comfy home for rats, cockroaches and spiders. There was a track through some of it but then progress was completely blocked by stuff.

(Thanks Rod for this photo)

I recently had some clear tiles put in the roof which made the back section much lighter and we could see enough to start clearing so Kim and I have spent a few months doing just that. Now the car fits in and we had an inaugural drive in on Tuesday.

Unfortunately I could not get out of the car because the spare timber was in the way so we did that last bit of clearing. Here is the final result. I still can't believe it! Thank you Kim.

It is really slow and tedious driving the car in and out down the very narrow drive way. Here it looks OK but the mirrors are folded back and the gate and downpipe get in the way. With the steering on full lock in the backyard it takes a 5-7-point turn to reverse into the garage.

Now that everything is roughly sorted and cleaned and rubbish items and things I do not want to keep have been removed my job is to sort the drawers and shelves that we have put everything in. This will be quite slow though.

If anyone wants to look though the stash of 'cool stuff' that needs another home please contact me and come and have a look through. Things like an old Vaccola bottling set, odd sheets of ply and other timbers, an old screen door, an old aquarium and much more.