Fungal dramatis

Although we've only had about 30mm over the past week, the added moisture together with still warm air and soil temperatures has seen meant we've seen the appearance of some sexy little fungi over the past week. These guys are in our rainforest garden, happily working their decomposing magic on the leaf litter.
And in our Great Big New Bush Garden (everyone else seems to be going with Great Big New...) we've seen these gold-tops pop up as well as...
this beauty..and as you can see by the visitors on it, it's trick, apart from looking remarkably phallic is to give off a fragrance not dissimilar to rotting flesh, hence the attractiveness to flies.

Last night for Gian Marco and Maurizio

The boys leave us tomorrow when I drive them up to Surfers Paradise where they will be staying for a few nights and looking for labouring work. I was heading to our Gold Coast campus tomorrow anyway so it works out well for them.
They've been wonderful - always smiling, always willing to take on tasks - they bolted on a new handle on the chookery door, they mulched till there was no more mulch and a whole lot of other stuff. All of our Help_Xers have fitted in really well and Maurizio and Gian Marco have been no exception. We are going to miss these guys, but hopefully they will come back again some time, like our Helpers Yann and Maxime who stayed with us again just before Xmas (and who contacted us this weekend on facebook to let us know they are back in France).

Paddock slashed to bits...but all good

Robert the slasher man did his fine work over three days last week and transformed our two west-facing paddocks into something almost golf-course like..well not quite but the change is quite impressive.
Now we just have to keep them like that....so we've been thinking of different beasts to get and at the moment my thoughts are with miniature cattle.
I have a similar feeling at the moment to when we first bought the place - all this 'new' land to walk around on and think of possibilities. Photos courtesy of Shane.

Italian boys are good chook whisperers

The Italian boys quite like our girls (the chooks) and I think the feeling is mutual. Gian Marco gave them some extra straw the other day and they have thanked us with an increase in egg production. Today they excelled themselves...7 out of 7 (not counting our little black bantam hen, Sushi, who lurches from one hysterical moment to the next). Here is a proud Gian Marco cradling today's output (6 of which are being used as I type in a spectacular tiramasu).

Gym gets a workout

Maurizio puts the hmmm I don't actually know the name of this, but anyway, he's really working his muscles hard here.
While Gian Marco completes his 50th press up...

Setting the table

Something that we've noticed with our Help_Xers is how the way the table is set varies quite a bit from culture to culture. I'm going to start an irregular series of place settings beginning with this approach, Italian.

A native lime

Until moving up here I was unaware that we had a native lime (yes a citrus species) that grows naturally from about Lismore northwards, called finger lime. The green variety is the most common but you also get them in reds and oranges. They are tangy and look fantastic when the pulp (which looks like caviar) is squeezed out from the fruit. I am thinking of buying about 15 plants and seeing of I can grow them for a bit of extra money. I have found quite a good area on the property that just might be excellent finger lime country.

Expanding the bush garden

We've been buying in loads of mulch (15 cubic metres at a time) over the past six months to create a bush garden on the side of the house facing McGuinness Road. Most of our Help_Xers have at some stage or another barrowed mulch on to this garden and Maurizio and Gian Marco are no exception. Here they are returning to the mulch mountain to refill the barrow. Isn't the liquid amber in Marissabelle's property look autumnally stunning.
Where are your work shoes, Maurizio?
Gian Marco wears sensible shoes but is perhaps exposing a little too much skin to the harsh Australian sun. Slip, slop, slap, Gian Marco.
I buy native plants for about $2.00 a plant (tubestock) from the Friends of the Koala nursery at work and plant them in this ever-expanding garden. The wattle is only about 12 months old.
The newly mulched area is a deeper brown and I'll mass plant this in spring. No more plantings now coming into winter.

Inked

Maurizio has several tatoos including this rather impressive dragon on his back which is not yet finished. He promises to email me a photo when it is finished. I'm sure some of the readers of this blog will look forward to seeing the completed tatoo.

An Italian meal

Not only did Mauritzio and Gian Marco work hard for us today removing lots of weeds, they also kindly cooked us dinner. Here they are in the kitchen preparing lasagne and tiramasu.
Voila. One delicious lasagne. Buonisimo, boys, buonisimo!
And Gian Marco's tiramasu was scrumptious. Nice and light and not too sweet. Tomorrow night I cook my special lamb shanks.

Gianmarco - firestarter extraordinaire

We had our first fire of the season tonight which was expertly created by Gianmarco, who turns out to be a very skillful firestarter. The fire crackled and spluttered all night, warming the loungeroom and kitchen. We'll let it burn out slowly over night so when we wake up tomorrow, the house will be warm.
Maurizio, in a jealous rage, about to hit Gianmarco for being such a proficient fire-man. Yes, there is an iron bar wrapped in that newspaper. Well not quite. Gianmarco lives to light another fire. Probably tomorrow night.

Fruits in a basket

custard apple, pear, avocado, apple, pineapple (or papple - just ask Warwick), mandarin, lady finger banana and some organic garlic (certified) for contrast.

Two new Help_Xers: Maurizio and Gianmarco

I'll post some pics up later this week, but I collected Maurizio and Jean-Marco from Lismore bus terminal this afternoon, after they had spent an unscheduled night in Surfers Paradise. They are, as you might realise, Italian, and are lovely! Very friendly and personable who seem to have fitted in very well here at Maryville, already, though the glass of vino blanco in the spa at sunset might have had something to do with it. Maurizio has worked as a body guard and in a gym....you do the math! They also seem to be willing to cook us Italian dinners...'tiramasu...no problemo'

a little nest of eggs

For reasons best known to themselves, the girls have decided that the nest boxes in which they used to lay their eggs are no longer suitable, and they have begun laying their eggs in a nest they have fashioned in a corner of the chookery. It took us a bout a week (and 33 eggs) to actually find this new laying site - I was convinced they had gone off the lay following the untimely death of one of their sisters. Anyway, my colleagues who buy eggs from me are happier now that egg production is back to near normal levels.

Slashing, not burning...but oops

We have decided to get our paddocks slashed as the weeds and long grass are just too out of control. Slashing the paddocks means we can also prepare the paddocks for some livestock and we are considering a few options (more to come on that later). So the slasher man came last week and left his tractor and slasher here in readiness for slashing this week. Unfortunately, as I was taking this pic on Saturday I noticed that he has a rather flat tyre. And this tyre is rather large. Anyway he's coming out tomorrow with his compressor so here's hoping.

Ladies who lunch

After we came back from the Billen (see below), we hosted a small lunch for the ladies who Steve works with. They were a fun mob who enjoyed lots of glasses of bubbly, delicious food and lots of laughs. We took them on a tour of the house and they even strolled down to the creek. We look forward to their next visit.

Saturday morning: opening of Billen Cliffs Hall

As some of you know, Billen Cliffs solar community, comprising about 100 homes, sits above us. An ex student of mine, Anton, who I taught in the early 90s, lives there with his wife Abby and two kids, Jaman and Stella. Anton invited us to the opening of their community hall which has taken something like 17 years to complete.

Saturday was perfect weather and we toodled the five minutes up the road together with our friends Stewart and Matt from Georgica. I stupidly forgot my camera but it was a lovely morning, with stacks of kids, a cute miniature goat with wooly hair and a lovely welcoming atmosphere. Residents set up various stalls selling plants, scrummy cakes, and other stuff and the Mayor of Lismore, the wonderful Jenny Dowell officially opened the hall. Anton invited us back later on in the evening where there was to be a bonfire and music, but we didn't end up going back.

Enrolled!

Today I enrolled in a Cert IV in Massage Practice with the Australian College of Massage. Woo hoo! I've been umming and aghing about this for some time - vacillation is my middle name - but after talking it through with Stevie, I decided to take the plunge and do it. I had been tempted by a similar course taught through Byron Bay but that one required 2 nights a week for 12 weeks whereas four of the subjects in this course are done externally and the other four are taught over four weekends in Brisvegas. Anyhoo, I should be a fully accredited massage therapist by the end of September. Not that I am contemplating a career change, but it's nice to have more strings to your bow.

Sometimes, things just don't wanna work

We were hoping to get a few things done outside over the weekend, but technology of various kinds seemed to get in the way, well malfunctions in technology, I should be saying. First the brush cutter wouldn't even brush, let along cut. It's cord was limp and flaccid and had no hope of starting the motor.

Then it was Rita's turn to be contrary today. After her spectacular performance when we last mowed three weeks ago, the old Rita was back, labouring to get up gentle slopes and deciding to pack it in after about 20 minutes. Even Rove was a bit of a rascal, over-revving to billy-o when a more gentle and measured rev was all that was needed.

But we managed to achieve some domestication of the grounds around the house and it was an absolute beauty of a day to be doing it. We spent the morning at Channon Market (we really are market-tragics) and bought lots of plants (including seedling lettuce and cabbage) some more gingers and a bat plant.

Maartin meets Kimba

Maartin, a backpacker from Utrecht in The Netherlands, stayed with us last week as a Help_Xer. He was a really nice guy and worked hard for us, shifting about 10 cubic metres of mulch from a big pile to the native garden we're establishing (which keeps getting bigger and bigger). Anyway, Maartin was keen to get to know Kimba a bit more.
He seems to be enjoying the close contact. Maartin left us on Saturday to catch a bus up to Murwillumbah and then on to Brisbane. He's catching a lift with a guy across to Alice Springs on Tuesday. And no, he hasn't seen Wolf Creek.

Reptile and Frog Expo, Sydney Showground

The hobby of keeping reptiles and frogs (herpetoculture) is a fast growing one in Australia and annual 'expos' are becoming popular ways of showcasing and selling these amazing critters. This trend follows what happens in the US where tens of thousands of people flock to these snake-fests. So I went along to the expo held over the ANZAC long weekend in Sydney.
Lots of reptiles on display, lots of reptiles and frogs for sale, and of course all the things that go along with keeping your reptiles healthy, including frozen rats and mice. I think there's a lot of money in frozen rodents an so too, does this outfit, Crittersnax. I was thinking of starting my own business and called it 'Snakebites'. The problem I kept running into back in Newcastle was lack of space. Hmmm and now I have 16 acres...
One exhibitor with lots and lots of snakes and lizards for sale including, on the bottom, some shingleback lizards and several baby black headed pythons and some magnificent green pythons up the top towards the left of shot. Green pythons sold for $10k just a few years ago but now that more people are breeding them, the price has plummeted to under $2k. I might just get one one day soon. Reptile economics is fascinating. Anyway, after I spent a few hours wandering around marvelling at all the reptiles, I walked out, empty handed.