Friday, March 11, 2011

Garden Expo

I'm excited! Tomorrow we're off to the Gardening Australia Expo at the showgrounds!
I'm  little bit bummed though that my hardworking D will be at work for Saturday afternoon and all of Sunday and the public holiday Monday: Pooh! We're going to have to get up and get going tomorrow pretty quickly, none of the usual faffing about that we do. I'd go without him on another day if I could, but he has to come along, you see, to help me carry my shopping!

[Little edit: OK, not going today now, but with MIL tomorrow or Monday when we do not need to rush!]


Thursday, March 10, 2011

Sweet little Sturt Pea update.

Do you remember back in January that I bought a packet of Sturt's Desert Peas off of Ebay?
Well look at them now!


OK, granted, they're still pretty small but very cute and healthy.
I have since learnt that they hate having their roots disturbed so I think I should have planted them in something like Jiffy Pots, or the DIY version of rolled newspaper, or old toilet paper rolls, but I have lots more seeds left so I might try that for Peas Mark 2 soon.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

WIP #2

This one is not strictly a WIP, but more an extension on a previous project. 
You see, when I was pregnant with SP I made a knitted blanket. Actually that's not quite true. I'd already started the blanket well before being pregnant, but once she was on her way I found the impetus to actually finish it. Anyway, having not had much to do with babies before I made this lovely woolen blanket -multi coloured - which was a perfect newborn/bassinet size. 


Now I have a one year old child and we're heading into winter and I have realised it needs to be much, much bigger to fit her cot. So, long story short, I've bought a heap of wool so I can enlarge it. I got carried away, of course. I set my budget at $40 and spent $55, but all those jewel colours were too pretty to resist. 


Knitting is not my forte - I am limited to squares and rectangles - but I enjoy it nonetheless, and I am looking forward to spending these autumn evenings click, click, clicking away and making the pretty little blanket into a pretty, bigger blanket.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

The nature strip takeover continued.

Today I finally, finally, got the chance to plant my native babies into the nature strip out the front. To set the scene: the Weather Bureau is predicting that we here in Adelaide will have the average rainfall for March over these few days (beginning last night, we dreamt to the sound of it drumming on the room and spattering off the gum trees). This morning SP had her swimming lesson with D (how very suburban of us) and I took the opportunity to get digging out the front. It was drizzling a little when I started, and the rain continued alternating between heavier and lighter, spotting and spotting, grey and misty. The cars splashed past me, and I probably got a few sideways looks as I got wetter, and wetter and wetter. No doubt my neighbours thought I was odd (Honey, that girl next door, the one that never wears shoes, is even weirder than we thought), but I was having a brilliant time: scraping away the dolomite layer with my mattock; cutting into the slippery clay; adding the peat and compost mix and stirring it all about with a hand fork. There is something sublime about playing in the mud and the leaves like that.

Anyway, here are the babies ready to go with their peat and compost bedding;

and here they wait in the mist while I dig their beds;

down the western end of the nature strip the water runs off the path and over the gravel. I chose this spot to put the Common Rush as it prefers boggy ground;

and now they have been all snuggled into their holes with a little basin around each to hold the water.

Later on I'll add a row(?) of Tussock Grasses along the path to tie in a little with the planting along the fence;

Species List:
Correa 'Dusky Bells'
Poa poiformis (coastal tussock grass)
Eremophila 'Rottnest Emu Bush' (red flowered form)
Eremophila maculata compacta (red flowered form)
Eremophila 'Kalbarri Carpet'
Melaleuca fulgens 'CF Payne'
Grevillea lavendulacea (Victor Harbour form)
Juncus ursitatus (Common Rush)

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Quickie

I took a risk today. No idea if it would work or not, but I pressed the 'export' button on my old 'Mimosa Dreaming' blog, and then attempted to import it into this one to make it 'one glorious whole' (Red Dwarf, anyone?), and you know what? I think it worked!
I've been reading some of my old chatter about travels; much of it is slightly embarrassing (and, my Gods, my spelling is atrocious and I have been industriously fixing it!), but if you're interested in some of the places we've been in South East Asia go for a browse and have a read :-)

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Dust and dust and dust

'"How do you know that the sky is falling, Chicken Little?" asked Henny Penny.
"I saw it with my eyes, I heard it with my ears, and a bit of it fell on my head," said Chicken Little.' (source

The old roof insulation is OUT! A messy, dirty, dusty job, which I was glad to leave to the boys. 
It gave our house a weird, other-world quality, light streaming in silver and shiny to our bedroom. Did we really sleep in here a mere fortnight ago?

 



The dust in the sunlight sparked and glittered like fairy dust. 


SP and I inspected the damage (sorry, 'progress') half way through,

 

and then left the boys to continue on,


 

(we left the cleanup to them too)


 Our Site Supervisor deemed it a job well done.


Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Demolition Derby



Our renovation has begun properly now. What a difference a few days can make!
FIL has started with the inside of the house. He's a very tidy renovator, my FIL, leaving everything sorted into neat piles in the shed and on the concrete patio.




 He started with the bathroom, gutting it completely and removing the wall between it and our bedroom. This new enlarged space, which faces west over the valley with a view of the treetops, will be the new master bedroom. 

View from bedroom through to old bathroom
 The exposed floorboards are original 1950's (oak? maybe?) and unfinished.

Bedroom floor
 We're going to polish them in the hallway and future TV/Library room and I'm trying to convince D that we should polish them in the bedrooms as well because they are too lovely not to. Carpet is boring.

View down hallway to old bathroom


And I love the mistake in the manhole cover! Do you see it? This place is revealing itself to me, layer by layer.

Even the bathroom ceiling has gone. The sunlight shines orange through the terracotta tiles.


Then onto the kitchen which is to be the bathroom.
Now you see it.


Now you don't.


So there you go! Next up: removal of the old ceiling insulation.