Saturday, January 24, 2015

TODAY'S FLOWERS, Nature Notes & I Heart Macro - Red flowing strawberries


Sorry I have been a sporadic blogger lately.
Summertime there is such a heavy load of dragging hoses 
to keep things alive that, with the heat and exertion,
I am usually too exhausted to get my brain back into gear.

Here is a recently acquired little darling that goes 
so well with my white flowering, old fashioned strawberries 
in the raised bed my grandson made for me.


They add such a nice touch of colour


and started bearing as soon as I put them in.


Here is the raised bed with a couple of very hot Thai chillies
in the centre, a couple of perpetual bearing spinach plants
that give me a good feed every couple of days,
red flowering strawberry on the left and a few
petunias for leavening.

Very soon the strawberries will take over,
they are already throwing out runners.


Gardening is really such fun!

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Thursday, January 22, 2015

SkyWatch - Last night'd sky


This week the skies have been pretty ordinary,
uniformly grey or blue.

Last night we had this tiny touch of colour . . .
if you enlarge it you may see some interesting 
tints in the pink cloud


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Thursday, January 15, 2015

SkyWatch - Tonight's evening sky


Feeding and locking up the chickens at night has it's
compensations.

I hope these clouds stick around for tomorrow,
temps. are set to skyrocket again


Westward sky across the paddock behind my house


our faraway paddock on the Eastern side
all lit up and pretty


the last rays of the sun catching one of the stock-water tanks.


Hope you all have easy weather to live with.

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Monday, January 12, 2015

OUR WORLD, Nature Notes & Wild Bird Wednesday - On the Strut


The imminent fire threat has passed
and I can now turn my attention to pleasanter things.
Thank you to all of you who cared what became of me 
during that stressful time.

A pair of peacocks strutting their stuff on my water tank.

Her Ladyship with her brilliant green neck
and rather drab coronet


his Lordship, magnificent even without his showy tail


together they make quite a pair


at the moment herself is sitting on a huge set of eggs
threatening a population explosion.


The older male cohabiting with us,
has become quite tame and comes up when I feed the
chickens and eats out of my hand.

It is rather nice to be feeding the chickens in their cage
with a peacock on one side and my dog on the other,
both waiting for their share.

Life is GOOD!

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OUR WORLD

Monday, January 5, 2015

OUR WORLD & SkyWatch - A fiery start to the New Year


The afternoon sun breaking through a smoke cloud
on the 3rd. January


the paddock behind my house


but the fire still was two townships away.
Next morning  there was just a small smoke cloud in the area and 
we thought the worst was averted

until late afternoon when there was smoke everywhere
and my daughter packed me into my car and 
sent me away to Angaston, 35 km away.

A lonely night in an old-fashioned hotel with no news
except for a text from my daughter that our local 
hospital had been evacuated and it was raining ash at home.
Since the power was out on the farm and due to the thick smoke
satellite reception for the mobile was intermittent,
it was hard to communicate with the children.

Had the situation not been so dire, I would have sought 
shelter at the hospital but that would not have been 
an option in this case.


a fiery sunset from the hotel car park
when I went to release my dog from the car and take
him for a walk.


Luckily the wind changed and I could go home yesterday 
morning.

For the moment the fire is being roughly contained but the 
hospital is still empty for the next few days
as the temperatures are soaring again tomorrow.
Lightning storms forecast for Wednesday with temps 
into the 40's C.

My car is packed, the few old photos, my husband's violin,
documents, my trinkets, receipts for the farm tax return, 
a few clothes, dog food and some art materials to ward off 
boredom during the time of uncertainty, and water.

I would prefer to stay and fight but he grandchildren 
don't want to have to worry about me as well as
fighting the fire and keeping the animals safe
if I hang around
and all I want, is for them to be safe.

What a start to the New Year

Hope yours was a little less dramatic!

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