How lucky I am!

 I have so many friends and contacts who are able to help with this huge sort and clean up. Last week Bob & Ben the Tree Men came and dealt with 9 trees/stumps for me. The biggest job was the two huge Casuarinas between the low carports and the spiky Palm on the LHS. What a difference this has made to light into the house and hopefully to the amount of green waste I will generate in the form of Casuarina needles and spiky palm leaves. Here are some before and after pictures.

Today Craig (Kim's husband) came with his trailer to take a load of rubbish and metal waste to be disposed of. The carport now looks very much better.

After the rubbish had gone Kim and I just started making piles of like things for me to keep or dispose of to good homes and ended up in the area where the palm had been removed. One thing just led to another. It was a beautiful drizzly day so the work was not too dusty but very muddy.

We pruned the Hibiscus and raked out all the rubbish ready to plant a few replacement trees and shrubs. Perhaps a Callistemon or two to attract some birds.

I will remove all the grass from this little (actually quite large) patch and put my bulb pots around the front of the Hibiscus. I think they will go quite well in there.

Rod took some fantastic photos of the far corner of the garage. I haven't got into there yet.

Thank you Ben, Dave, Craig, Kim, and to all the family who have done bits and pieces for me and kept me going.

Boys sleep over

Last weekend Alex and Luke slept over with Ma. We had a great time feeding chooks, playing card games and lots of games in the backyard.

I had two other days looking after them at their house during the week and thought that my company might have worn a bit thin. They both slept well but I did wake up with two boys in my bed. Nice and warm and cosy.

They both love their new bedroom at Ma's house with all their toys and books in there and even a bed to sleep in. It is Geoff's old bedroom.

Berry in July

Last weekend I caught the train down to Berry to stay the weekend with Roger (Rauri) and Janice.

Janice and I went for a flying visit to a Camellia garden that was open. I really liked the pink-on-pink theme of Janice with the fallen flowers.

Then there was emergency fencing.

It all looks as though we worked hard (which we did!) Sometimes there was a little head-to-head discussion.

But in the end I had some long sleeps, warm company and wide open spaces in which I could breathe.

Ruby kept us busy along with eBay sales and online finance discussions. There was even time to shed tears over our lost friend Surrey. Thanks Janice and Rauri.

Tuesdays with Kim

For some months now Kim has come to help me with my grand sort each Tuesday morning.

It is amazing the work you can get through when you share the job and chat as you go. Thanks a million Kim!

Here are some photos of the work Geoff and I did in the garage the weekend before last. If you see anything you want in either carport then please just let me know. We've made a huge mess again.

These lamp stands are up for grabs but have no lamp shades.

Letters to Juliet

Last night Elaine and I enjoyed a great dinner and chick flick - Letters to Juliet - at the Sutherland Entertainment Centre. It was great to catch up after Elaine's recent visit to her family in NZ and to enjoy dinner and a movie together. Thanks Elaine.

NB: Don't watch the trailer on the film website, save it till you see the movie.

Friends to Visit

Today I enjoyed having Karen & Alastair and Helen & Bob to lunch. Great company reminiscing about over 35 years of friendship and activities like hording and collecting, wine bottling, wine tasting trips to Mudgee and games of croquet on the back lawn.

Of course, no-one comes to my house without leaving with a car load so today I was lucky enough to find homes for more grog, bromeliads, Cliveas, and jam.

Thanks for your company, what a great afternoon together. We even lit a waterlily candle in Surrey's memory.

The Garage - Episode 1

Geoff and I spent most of yesterday starting on the Garage clean up. Wow! what a lot to go through. I think we'll have enough for a skip soon and then I would like to hire a large commercial vacuum cleaner and someone to push it to really clean it out. We have gone through all the things from Surrey's old car, his camping and fieldwork gear and the things that had just been dumped at the entrance. The next job is to take down some things to Underhill, give away 2 spare fridges, and get Rod to sort some things that look as though they belong to cars.

We now have piles of metal recycling, bags ready for the rubbish bin or skip, whichever comes first, and Surrey's two bikes. I know there are more bikes in another garden shed too. We havn't even started on the tools yet.

Maybe I'll be able to store my gardening tools in the garage when all this is finished? I can't put the car in there because I can't fit it up the side drive so this is going to be spare space for pottering and storing. Wow! I'll be a real Australian girl with my own 'shed'.

Underhill in July

Yesterday Pernilla and I drove down to the block to check it out and do some of the winter maintenance jobs. Here is Pernilla pulling weeds for the chooks.

The weather was fine and relatively warm for this time of year. The dams are still only half full. There just seems to be very little run-off when the rain comes. When we were weeding the pots the soil underneath the surface was quite dry.

We also leveled the beehive so that it no longer has it's distinctive lean. No burning off this time because we didn't want to stay down too long but we were able to spread a few bags of compost from home. We spent a bit of time pruning the berries and broken fruit trees in the yards and stockpiling the prunings ready to burn off next time.

I had heated some water and soup at home and taken it in thermoses so it was quite a quick task to put the thermos water into the chuffer to boil it and then heat the warm soup in a saucepan. The stove stayed hot enough for long enough to give us a warm and comforting lunch.

Grown Ups

Last night I needed to kill a few hours before choir practice and was at Miranda Fair anyway so I decided to catch a movie. The only one that was not 3D or M15+ was Grown Ups and I must say it was a good laugh. Worth seeing if you've got a few hours to kill. As you probably know I hate shopping and the shops and food hall were all closing up anyway.

Da Vinci Secrets - Anatomy to Robots

Yesterday Pernilla and I went to the Da Vinci exhibition at the Sydney Town Hall. It is well worth a visit but will not be in town much longer.

There are examples of his art works, models of his many anatomical drawings that look very life like, and interactive working models of many of his mechanical devices based on human and animal movement.