Veges verdant and vigorous

Looking across the vege patch: zucchini (which are now producing), lettuce, tomato

Our corn...a bit straggly but they are OK..with bok choy and rocket self sown emerging between and around the corn stalks

We should get loads of tomatoes this year and the lebo cucumber has started producing as well

Giving the place a make-over

We've been busy slapping on litres of paint on anything that stands still for the past few weeks and I'll be doing a fair bit over the next week I have on leave. Here I am painting over the painted stencilled inlays in the bricked ends of the house. I'm hoping some curse isn't activated after covering the doves of peace.

We finished painting the entry area on Sunday. Still to paint the seat a funky purple colour. Hopefully this week.

And the inlays now looking a little more contemporary. Kind of. Shane emerging in the early morning to start taming the creek area. The garden here is just on 12 months old now.

Red

Last month it was the jacaranda that were showing off and this month it's the poinciana and flame trees. Maybe it's been the dry spring, but this year the flame trees in particular have been amazingly vibrant. The pic above was taken at Steve's school in Ballina (Southern Cross High) while the pic below is of a flame tree at the uni. The poinciana will continue flowering for a couple of months.

Pretty nice, hey.

Tender Centre#2

OK, so I don't quite know what happens to us when we go a'tendering, but we do seem to become capital T Tenderers. Here's what we put bids on on Friday:

Telescope MISSED OUT
Lawn Mower HIGHEST BIDDER BUT UNDER RESERVE - WAITING ON OUTCOME
Brush Cutter MISSED OUT
Bike Trousers BOUGHT
Old fashioned antique look carpet cleaner MISSED OUT
Church pew HIGHEST BIDDER BUT UNDER RESERVE - WAITING ON OUTCOME
Chair AS ABOVE
Wooden seat MISSED OUT
Outdoor bird cage MISSED OUT

I'll let you know how we get on on Sunday night.

Tomorrow is Tender Centre Friday

Woo hoo. Not only is it my last day at work for a week, but it's also Tender Centre Friday. It's just like ebay except you walk around all the junk, trying to scratch out a few dusty pearls from all the swine. I wonder what we might bid on tomorrow? Have we been out of civilization for too long do you think?

Getting a make over

So, here's the south-facing verandah and pavillion after it's new colour scheme. Much bolder and more vibrant than previously.

And the entry garden is looking fantastic now too, after a nice mulching and new path installed.

Compare that with the banner photo...we've come a long way in 12 months, I think.

Vin and David

It's 5.24am and I've just returned from taking Vin and David to Kyogle station where they caugt the 4.22XPT to Brisbane. They are heading up to Coolum later today. They were excellent workers and we've progressed the painting of the exterior of the house quite a bit. Here is David aka 'Michealangelo' doing what he has grown to love.

David in particular seemed to be relaxed about working in his jocks. Who were we to impose some kind of draconian dress rule? Steve and Dave before they remove the Balinese 'prison mirror' so Steve could paint the wall.

Vin also decided to ditch his usual clothes yesterday. Here he is after a cupboard we were shifting from the entry deck crumbled apart. Vin was begining to get a reputation for breaking things: first the lawn mower, then the brush cutter and now this cupboard. 'Stay away from the TV, Vin. oh and the dish washer and the computer...'

The boys' final soaking in the spa after a hard day's work.

And off they head in the middle of the night to Brisbane and then Coollum. Catchya again, guys.

A weird wildlife afternoon

As we were driving home yesterday afternoon, about 5 minutes from the turnoff to our place, we noticed a carpet python on the road. My eyes had drifted from the road to the paddocks on the right hand side, so I had to swerve a little to avoid hitting it. I pulled up and ran back to it with the intention of encouraging it back off the road when it lunged at me with mouth wide. And it was then I noticed it was bleeding from the mouth. %$*& I must have hit it after all. So I caught it and Steve drove the rest of the way home while I held the python with its bleeding mouth in a woolies green bag.
And what did we see sliding across the road just over our bridge - another carpet python! Two in 5 minutes is damned good going! This one was fine and we stopped the car and waited until it had disappeared into the bush. Once home I range WIRES who told me they would ring back later once they had contacted their reptile person. In the meantime I placed the python in a cupboard we have on the front deck. It had settled down by this stage and was no longer bleeding. It had no visible signs of injury and wasn't behaving as if it was hurt.
Then Vin came out to say he thought he could see dingoes on our paddock opposite the house. So out we went and there was a pack of four, maybe five dogs, and some looked like they might have had some dingo in them. They looked like they were hunting and it was a weird feeling to see this mob of large predators on the hunt. They were unlikely to be pet dogs going for a romp with their mates, these guys looked like they were mean and tough and lived in the bush. We put the chain on the chookery last night.
I didn't ever get a call back from WIRES so this morning I checked the python out. It seemed fine, was coiled up in a relaxed python way, was not bleeding, had a clean tongue, so I released it near our creek. Go well, python, and stay away from roads. No sign of the dogs or any dead wallabies.

Border Ranges National Park

I took David and Vin up to Nimbin for a look yesterday afternoon and once they had checked out the drug dealings in the main street and had a beer at the pub, we then headed for the Border Ranges National Park, which as its name suggests, straddles the NSW/QLD border. It's wonderful to live only 25 minutes south of this park. I first visited it last year when I took Piglet for a drive through and more recently we had a quick visit with Glen and Andy. Steve stayed at home working (as he d0es) while the boys and I headed on a splendid two hour stroll through the rainforest and antarctic beech forest. Here they are posed in front of what maybe a 2000 year olf beech tree - Vin (bottom), Dave (top).

The flame trees are putting on amazingly vibrant display at the moment and we walked under occasional huge trees along the walk. They are starting to lose their flowers now so the leaf litter was bedazzled by these beautiful blobs of red.

Tree fern

David at front, Vin at rear. Vin found a large native snail shell that had been broken into by a noisy pitta. He was most impressed.

The walk was beautiful and you really did feel like you were in some primordial, sub-tropical rainforest, which is not surprising because we were!

Mud daubing wasps

Photo: Alastair Ross, Google Images
For the next couple of months we shall be discovering the little mud capsules constructed from the muddy spit of mud dauber wasps. They build them everywhere - on the insides of car doors, under cusions we have on the day bed, even inside shoes that are left outside. I stuck one of my hooves in a shoe yesterday and felt lots of crumbly, gritty stuff and on extraction, found six of these little muddy cocoons inside. As I scraped them out several broke and they were full of small, paralysed spiders, as this phot shows. I'd forgotten that this wasp searches for and then paralyses soiders which it places inside the cocoon so that when wasp junior hatches it has a fresh supply of food to last it until it emerges from its mud wrap as a new wasp. Its the first time that I had actually seen this in the flesh myself. There must be a very large number of small, nervous spiders at our place at the moment!

Friday night at Cawongla Store

We occasionally head 5 minutes up the road to Cawongla Store in the village called, not surprisingly, Cawongla, which is Koori for peaceful place. The store stays open on Friday nights for dining in (wood fired pizzas) so we took our latest Help_X workers, Vin, on the left, and David, on the right, from France, up for a meal.
They have been very busy putting in new paths, mulching, lawn mowing and painting. I shall post some painting shots up in the next few days.

A new path through the front of house garden

The native garden we have at the entry to the house is bisected by what used to be a very average looking weed infested, compacted earth track that lead from the main path towards the front door entry area and the south facing pavillion. So, nigh on 12 months after we created this garden, we decided it was time for a track make-over. Shane kindly prepared the path by weeding and breaking up the soil and better defining the edges.

And this is the finished track courtsy of 10 paving blocks, lots of bush mulch and the hard work and creativity of our Help_X slaves, oops workers, David and Vincent from France. Excellent job, they did, don't you think?

Steve prepares for painting

We are preparing to paint the exterior of the house which should make a very big difference to its look. Gabe began the process by painting some of the verandah railings and we are hoping that the two French boys, Dav and Vincent, who arrive on Wednesday, will be able to paint the decking and other railings of the verandahs. We've decided on a colour for the exterior of the house so they may also begin painting the house (depending on their verandah painting skills, of course). Oh and Steve can be seen high pressure hosing (one of his favourite activities) the scum and muck off the veranda roof and decking. "A clean surface is a paintable surface..."

Update: creek and fruit

The recent rains have been wonderful for our thirsty plantings but of course the extra rainfall and warm temperatures and sunshine have been a boon for the weeds and grass as well. Spent a few hours mowing down by the creek. This side of Julia's Little Creek is under control...

This side is outta control....

The pears are starting to become more pear like, but they seem to be fairly slow growing, while...

the mangoes are really starting to take form and some are even showing a little bit of blush..I'm hoping we manage to save a few for xmas from the fruit-loving birds and flying foxes.

Meet Teriaki and Sushi

Meet Teriyaki, our cock Japanese bantam. We were at The Channon Market this morning admiring the poulty stall when our friends Matt and Stewart, well particularly Matt, convinced me that what our lives needed to be totally fulfilled was this sweet pair of bantams. The more I looked at the proud little rooster with his demure girlfriend, the more I knew he was right. So once Steve had acquiesced, I handed over the $25.00 and these two became ours.

This is Sushi, being a little shy in front of the camera.

Sushi with Teriyaki in the background. Our chookery has an internal compound which can be used fro separating or quarantining so we've put the two banties in here for a few days until the other girls get used to them. Lordie did the girls cackle and crow in a very concerned manner when they saw their new friends. The girls can go on a bit at times.

Just some pics of the place taken early morning

Fallen jacaranda blossoms carpetting the front entry

The sun emerging from over the Billen Cliffs through a foggy morning

The Billens emerging from the foggy mist just before 7am

More purple blissnes

The recent rains have re-freshed the ground, the plants, the look and feel of the place

The country impulse to 'tidy up'/RIP tree

This is a tree growing along the road to our place, about 300 metres below our gate. Part of it (the now disappeared part of it in fact) had died but it gave the road character and it's weathered, gnarly look was something I liked. When we came home last Thursday we discovered to our surprise that part of the tree had been removed leaving quite an ungly scar and disfigured tree. While we were down taking a closer look, Peter, our ruddy-faced neighbour from across the road arrived breathless on his super duper ride on mower (Pete like's his boy-toys). Anyway, according to Pete, this acacia was f***en worthless and dangerous and needed to come down. Besides, they only live 8 or 9 f***en years. Yeah right, Pete, this tree with a circumference abh (that's at breast height - yep that's how you measure the circumference of a tree) easily of 50cm is a mere 9 years old...Pete spends much of his or his workers' time 'tidying up' his property, getting of rid of 'all the f***en rubbish'. That's right, Pete, the rubbish where the families of brown quail, red backed wrens, bandicoots and lordie forbid, pythons, hang out. I'm annoyed with myself for not telling him to leave the tree were it is - it's not his tree for christ's sake anyway..but of course all he would have to do is invoke the 'it could fall on my fence and take it down' excuse and he'd have permission to remove the offensive plant in no time at all. So far the tree (or what is left of it) is still intact.
Post Script: The neighbour has done his work and removed the tree. RIP tree.

onehungrychef

for anyone interested in food and cooking, this blog is for you www.onehungrychef.com It's written by an American chef now working in Sydney and it's wondreful.

Also, if you've seen the film Julie and Julia, Julie's actual blog, the one on which the movie is based can be read at http://blogs.salon.com