A few pics from around the property

This garden was created last August by our American HelpXers, Teo and Eric, under the guidance of Julia. It's coming along very well (compare with a pic of it after it was first created - see September 2010 archive). I've planted in a lot of kangaroo paws (with more to come) so it should look quite good once their flowers start reaching up towards the sky.

This is going to be a rainforest 'garden' running behind the shed. It's not looking its best at the moment, needs some maintenance but that's a job for our next Helpers.
One of the trees growing very rapidly is this pink euodia. We had one back in Newcastle and they are a beautiful tree, especially in flower as they are covered in masses of pink flowers that are highly attractive to butterflies.
However, just to show that not everything grows well on our place. This is an avocado tree that was one of the very first trees I planted when I first moved in back in September 2008. It has done nothing! I'm going to transplant it to see if it does any better in a different locale.

You Give me (Scarlet) Fever

Apologies to Peggy Lee. Great song, done brilliantly by Newcastle band, The Castanets in the late 80's. Memories come flooding back.

Anyhoo, back to the present and Steve's case of scarlet fever. Such an old fashioned malady to pick up, but picked it up he has. He arrived back from Newcastle looking and feeling terrible with flu-like symptoms. The GP confirmed flu the next day and thought the red rash covering much of Steve's torso was a heat rash. However, rash intensified over the next few days until he looked like he'd been sun burnt and his tongue started to swell a bit as well. Back to the GP and this time with the diagnosis of scarlet fever (although I think to diagnose 100% he would have needed a blood test). But from my consultations with Dr Google, he does seem to have all the symptoms. He's getting better, but looks like he'll need those two days this week on sick leave the doc gave him as well as all of last week.

One of my little quirks

As a kid I used to stand on a poof (the soft furnishings kind) in my grandparents' loungeroom and 'conduct' with a wooden spoon or ruler to the Mario Lanza Christmas album. My conducting behaviour has remained and often if I'm alone at home I'll select out my favourite conducting cd's and just well, conduct to my heart's content.

I was just in the mood for some conducting action so plonked on Elton John's Your Song (the version with the Russian opera singer and the mass choir - it's sublime) and began conducting while Piglet read a magazine. I thought it best to explain this quirky, somewhat possibly off-putting behaviour to him, and described my conducting as 'air guitar for dags'. I made myself giggle...I so infrequently come up with a good line these days that I was really happy with that one. Now off to conduct some more...Bette Midler's All Roads Lead Me Back is beckoning...

Spring is on the way

OK, so I'm generally a glass half full kind of guy, and I'm sure we'll still get blasted with some cold patches from the south, but I just get the feeling that today marks the beginning of a new spring. It's been one of those perfect winter days that we get up here, probably about 21 degrees, still, big blue sky and sun. I decided to make it a slow day as well and haven't really done too much at all.

The pic is of a zigzag wattle, Acacia macradena, which we have growing in The Big Bush Garden. It's covered in little fuzzballs of yellow and the wonderful wattle fragrance is wafting around, making me think even more of spring. Once I saw what a truly beautiful plant this species is, I've gone ahead and planted another half dozen so they will look pretty nice in a year or two.

I've taken notice of the birds I've seen today, or at least those I recognised, and so for my ornithologically-interested readers, I've listed them below, in no particular order:

Wedge-tailed Eagle

Magpie

Pied Butcher Bird

Masked Lapwing

White faced Heron

Wood Duck

Welcome Swallow (or Fairy Martin, not sure)

Satin Bower Bird

Rainbow Lorikeet

Eastern Rosella

Pheasant Coucal

Noisy Miner..I think that's it

We are also being dusted again with pine tree pollen. The verandahs are covered in fine yellow pine spoof.

Steve has gone to Newcastle to attend a 60th birthday party and catch up with friends. Piglet is here of course, going into his 4th of his 5 week prac at St Vincent's Hospital. He headed off to Bangalow Market earlier this morning and will be home soon to attend to The Girls (who I'm pleased to say are back on the lay) and The Boys (who have now become very demanding and have even taken to galloping, well almost, up the hill to the 'pen' (where we feed them lucern hay and their molasses and pollard) when they see one of our cars driving past in the hope that we'll give them a treat. Cheeky monkey steers!

Some frost-bitten plants

We had a bout 4 days of reasonable frosts which browned off quite a few plants....a jacaranda we planted down by the lower fence along Martin's Road has been badly burnt, or at least its top leave; a few of the Macarangas by the creek and even in the Big Bush Garden have had leaves killed and one of our smaller frangipannis has turned to mush. Fingers crossed we don't get too many frosts over the rest of the winter!

Bookshelves installed

I was fantasising a few blogs ago about wall-length, floor-to-ceiling bookcases and here they are newly installed in the study. They are courtesy of Ikea (the Billy range) and we hired a trailer and collected them from the Ikea Store about 20 minutes south of Brisbane a few weeks ago.
They make all the difference - the room really looks like a serious study now and seeing all my books together like this looks, well really nice. We still have to put one more layer of units on the top which will provide another 14 shelves of space which should provide me with enough capacity I think.

Frosty mornings

We've had frosts here the last two mornings (9 and 10 July) but I haven't found any plants that have been damaged by the freezing temperatures just yet. Fingers crossed they get through the frosty mornings unscathed. Last year parts of some of our frangipanis just turned to goo. Our neighbour's paddock was covered in white frost this morning and Steve overheard someone at the Channon Markets today say there had been three inches of frost covering the oval around which the markets are located. But we've been having absolutely beautiful days however...not a skerrick of cloud, great big blue skies and temperatures hovering around 20 degrees. Our friend, Graham, is up visiting us from Newcastle, and he's been enjoying the lovely weather. Piglet is also here, having just completed his first week of nursing prac at St Vincent's Hospital.

One of the best things I have done: The Big Bush Garden

From nothing but some scrappy, very sandy and dusty (and ant-ridden) 'lawn' to this wonderful bush garden in about 2.5 years. After metres upon metres of mulch and planting around 100 or so native plants, the big bush garden gives me endless joy. I walk through it several times a week, just keen to see what's in flower or what has new growth.
We've made little mounds with any soil that we've excavated (when we were digging out the fish pond for example) to create a more 'natural feel' and also incorporated a few logs and large branches to give it a bushyfied look and to add to the habitat value.
The biogeographer in me is a little cross due to the rather haphazard way I approached the species composition - there are rainforest shrubs and trees in amongst woodland and dry forest species such as banksias and grevilleas but the garden seems to be coming together alright.
There are lots of smaller enclosed spaces within the garden that create nice little spots for wallabies to take shelter and by the looks of the churned up mulch, bandicoots now forage in it during the night. I've still not seen any small skinks, and I'm interested seeing how long it takes for them to colonise the garden. Without these small skinks, I doubt that there will be any snakes spending much time there yet.

Seasonal beauty and beastliness

I think I'm much more aware of seasonal change living here at Maryville@Larnook than I was in Newcastle. I know that mid-winter will be enlivened by the orange trumpet vine that bursts into flower right about now, giving some much needed warmth and colour to the dull wintery days. Less attractively,
I also now know that the big scotch thistles begin to fan outwards from the ground like big green crown of thorns starfish from mid-winter onwards, reaching their maximum height and annoyance by August. There are lots of other seasonal cues, too of course. The jacarandas turn a golden colour from about now while the wood ducks have started pairing up or re-pairing up and will soon be tending large clutches of ducklings, most of which, I'm afraid, won't make it past duckling-hood. But that's nature. Raw in tooth and claw.

Some more (hopefully better) bathroom shots

Just a few more pics of the bathroom...hopefully you can get a better view from these...