A Few of My Favourite Things ......!!

Spring has arrived in a flurry and the garden is alive with bees, birds, lizards and insects...was so excited to find our Japanese Maple absolutely dripping with ladybugs....they've arrived in time for the annual aphid infestation I think.  They are mating and laying eggs all over the tree...I have done a bit of a google and they are 'Harmonica Conformis' or the large spotted ladybug.  We use no chemicals at all in the garden and vegie beds and the earth is full of worms, the borage and lavender humming with bees and now the ladybugs!!.....We have installed a habitat pond but as yet no frogs...hopefully they will arrive soon.

Ladybug and her eggs...the tree is crawling with baby ladybugs

They were busy doing what ladybugs do....quite a few of them were in threesomes?

All of the fruit trees have blossomed and hopefully the bees all do their thing and we have loads of fruit this season.

Apple Blossoms...hope this means lots of fruit!

An early Spring morning shot driving past the small lake at the end of the street.....it was so beautiful in this light with the morning mist rising off the water....lots of new baby duckling swimming around there now.

The lake at the bottom of the hill.

 This dog of mine is such a gentle laid back beast......she is so relaxed ...spends most of her time lying near me wherever I am....She needed a clip and a bath....the glasses stayed on for ages!

Daisy....Crazy hair and a pair of my glasses.

After a trip to the groomers it was time for a snooze on the couch....she's hilarious !!  when she gets into these positions I always do a quick check to make sure she can breath with her face stuffed into pillows. 

It's a hard life !!

A travelled by train to Melbourne and met a friend for the MOMA exhibition at the art gallery....I'm not really a big fan of modern art, I guess it's all in the understanding of what the artist is trying to say....but I did love this huge piece from Ghanaian artist El Anatsui ... a sculpture made from liquor bottle tops and seals discarded by Nigerian distilleries.  Anatsui and his assistants flattened, folded & linked the pieces together with copper wire....I thought it was spectacular, and my favourite modern piece.

Europeans used alcohol to barter for African goods and it became a key commodity in the transatlantic slave trade.

 It is always great to see original art from famous painters that we rarely get to see here .
I took a few pics of some of the great names..

Don't love Picasso but great to see an original

I love Frida Kahlo...one of her self portraits was on display

Van Gogh's famous portrait of a postman....I love some of his other major works

The original Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe

That about wraps it up.....my favourite things for September and October.....!!

Everythings Super....!!

A weekly catch up of all things super....firstly that amazing super moon...unfortunately it was pretty cloudy where we are so viewing wasn't the best....but there were amazing images circulating...It really looks spectacular....

The Spring garden is going 'super'....so many beautiful colours in the yard which seem to have popped up from nowhere...the bees are loving the flowering sage, borage and lavender ..

Picked most of the broad beans...still a few left in the vegie patch...and also dug up the rest of the potatoes...a couple of artichokes which I am going to practice on ...rhubarb and a little cauliflower.

This year I am growing beans between the corn.....supposedly they will use the corn stalks to grow up alongside of them....will see how that goes....some early zucchinis popping up too.

Little blue thing on the bottom is a sprinkler head...should make things easier

 My hardworking man has very kindly installed a watering system in the top garden to save me having to drag the hose through the garden beds to get there...hopefully it will also reduce the water usage as he has put drippers on the fruit trees and tomato plants and little spray heads in the garden boxes.

Drippers on the root line of this apricot tree.

 But the really super exciting thing is I have some tiny little apples on a couple of the apple trees...and also both pear trees have quite a few baby pears on them. ... they are mature trees but have only been in the ground since the start of the year so they may fall off before they ripen...fingers crossed I get a couple to keep growing....even just one would be fabulous.

Tiny little apples appearing on the apple trees......

Also baby pears have popped up on both the William and Packham pear trees....fingers crossed

The weekend also saw us attending our usual get together for a 'Super' Asian style luncheon...J & A stole the show with a fabulous chicken satay entrée that was voted 'dish of the day'. ... the Big K & Robbie provided all of the main which was Changmai slow cooked pork (fabulous) and a chicken dish with Asian greens, rice and Roti bread...the delightful J&M provided a lovely rice pudding dessert with lychees, lemon curd & passionfruit.

 

 

The super spread from the Big K and Robbie.

Hoping things are just 'Super' for everyone out there....happy gardening !

Let Loose in an Orchard......

For the first time in my life I've picked apples fresh from the tree..... the lovely lady who teaches the community writing group that I attend let me loose in her orchard. ..... I always bring her any goodies I have growing in the vegie garden and she said she would bring me in some apples but I said I was happy to go and pick them myself . ... She is widowed and in her 70's ( although very fit for her age) and the orchard has become quite overgrown and a little neglected but there were masses of apples just waiting to be picked......it was fabulous and I ate one straight from the tree and somehow they just taste so much better ...... simple pleasures I know but such a lovely experience.

The orchard is a bit overgrown but there was masses of fruit on all the trees... no pesticides so make great eating.

So many had already fallen wasted onto the ground...... such a shame.

Now I need to get busy and work out how to preserve some of them.....maybe apple sauce or cook them up and freeze.

Delicious apples......I even grabbed a couple of lemons and a few pears....

When I got home I checked the vegie garden and picked tomatoes, rhubarb, a couple of small eggplants and some new potatoes.  Beautiful to have so much lovely fresh produce around. 

Picked from the garden today

Only one little lonely egg today....the young girls still haven't laid any eggs yet but they can't be too far away. they are nineteen weeks old.... so hopefully egg production will be on the rise again soon.

Monthly 9 Link Up - April.......

We are well into Autumn but the chill in  the air today makes me think Winter is not far away.  I am joining in with Christine with my monthly 9 link up for April.

Nourish:  I thought I would share something that I chanced upon here  this blog is enchanting and an  absolute "feast" for the eyes....I spent way too much time scrolling through all of her posts...the photos are just mesmerising...I love it...nourishment for the soul !!

Prepare:  I thought I had prepared my harvested pumpkin for storage....I left them outside for 10 days to dry then bought them inside and stored them in the laundry cupboard...that was two weeks ago...I noticed this morning that they are growing fluffy fungus on the stalks...I think it is too warm in the laundry....have read that you can wax the stalks so I am going to remove the fungus and coat the stalks with organic beeswax....hope it works...anyone else ever had this problem?

horrible fluffy fungus growing on the stalks of my pumpkins....all suggestions welcome.

Have added new mushroom compost / soil mixture to a few empty garden beds to prepare them for the autumn / winter planting....hopefully lots of goodies sprouting here very soon.



two beds almost prepped and ready for planting...just need a nice day to get out there and do it.

 Reduce:  I managed to have a wardrobe cleanout...not that I had all that much to get rid of as I am not much of a hoarder....but it was good to sort out things I haven't worn for ages.... and the charity bins were happy to get them.

Green:  As always am avoiding plastic wherever possible...juice and milk are in cartons, all food is stored in glass jars...even only buy take away drinks in glass bottles.....still haven't found a way to totally avoid gladwrap......will keep trying to come up with options...wish they made recycled plastic wrap...now there's an idea !

Grow:  Have my seedlings waiting patiently to be planted .  Baby capsicums were pickled , filled and bottled....last of the tomatoes have been put in the freezer...things are a little quiet in the garden this month......the lone fig however now has many friends....hopefully all will ripen up soon...


Lettuces, beetroot, broccoli, silver beet.. ,all waiting patiently in the greenhouse..

Onions , leeks, kale and chard .... bugs have already attacked the kale .....hopefully it will be okay when planted..

The first ripe fig....the start of things to come....he looks a bit like an ant eater... !!

Create: I managed to knit the cushion I planned in my March post.....that was one of my projects I wanted to finish...there's always May !!

Finished the knitted cushion from March post....a gift for my daughter.

Discover:  This month I discovered Pinterest....I know ....I'm pretty late getting on board but you could lose days looking at that stuff.......some of the photos are truly bizarre...there seems to be a bit of a fascination for people to put their pets in ridiculous outfits and odd places....I'm an animal lover and I'm not sure if it is cute or cruel ????......it's definitely odd.

I don't know.....kind of cute but also disturbing !!

This one seems a little cruel...don't know how they got him into that little jumper...he doesn't look terribly impressed

He looks like he is saying...okay you've had your fun, know get me out of here !!

 Enhance:  Then you finds things like this on Pinterest....this would certainly enhance my backyard

Then you see gems like this.....how beautiful does this look outside...

There seems to be a bit more than moulting going on in the hen house....this girl is the bossy chook and usually spends her time pecking at all the others.. ...looks like the other girls tried to enhance her tail....she has a big bald spot...maybe there is a pecking order challenge going on....has this happened to anyone else's feathered friends?



Quite a bit of feather loss on this poor girl.,...not sure if its moulting or hen pecking

Enjoy:  April was  a lovely month...Autumn is one of my favourite times of the year....the smell of wood smoke in the air as everyone around lights their open fires....we had a lovely trip to a winery...then celebrated my son in law's 30th birthday at a micro brewery in Mornington..a sunny afternoon.....beer tasting paddles and woodfired pizza's ...my man was in heaven.....needless to say I drove home !!

Hope everyone out there enjoyed April as much as I did.....May is our birthday month....my two daughters and step daughter all celebrate this month.....keep warm and stay happy !!

The Lone Fig....



The Lone Fig......there were a few tiny ones but unfortunately they dropped off...what to

do with one fig !!!

The single lemon.....hopefully a sign of better things to come next year !!

It would be reasonable to suggest that I am not the most patient of people....it would beg the question why would I plant fruit trees......after 12 months my fig tree has produced "one" fig..(it had four figs when I got it last year)...

The lemon tree....which was laden with lemons when we planted it early last year....has also produced only "one" lemon....the apricot tree is only 12 months old so needless to say has produced no fruit......I'm hoping for bigger and better things next year....am going to plant mature apple and avocado trees.....hopefully the wait will not be too long.