Goodbye, Winter!

As I begin to type this final Winter Wednesday post for 2011, Winter has exactly 58 minutes left in South Australia. Woo! Winter Wednesdays were started by Hazel as a sort of support group for people to help them find something positive about Winter each week. Last week, Hazel confessed that she herself doesn't like Winter much, and so she's not posting anything for the last one, but I'll do one anyway to say thank you, Hazel! I still can't say that I enjoyed Winter, as such, but I tried to find something good every week and each Wednesday did seem to roll around each week awfully quickly and Winter flew past, in the end.

The other day, on a whim, SP and I went to the Mount Lofty Botanic Gardens. I had totally forgotten about the magnolias, but as we drove around the curves to the car park I saw something quite amazing out of the window. I totally forgot that I'd meant to show SP the ducks, and we went looking at the flowers instead.


SP launched in with that special kind of determination toddlers have, which is how we found that the entire area under those wonderful red bushes is basically a swamp. Not just muddy, but gooey, stinky, and with a scum layer of algae growing over the top. Perfect for SP, not so great for Mama when she sinks in up to her ankles trying to get the toddler out before she is covered from head to toe.


But the magnolias, oh my Gods, the magnolias! Never in my life have I seen a display such as this. Thousands up thousands upon thousands of the lovely things. Gobsmacked, really, mud and all.

From buds...



To blooms...



Is there any flower more beautiful? More luminous? And they come in Winter, as it gives it's dying gasp, flings its arms wide and surrenders to Spring.

If you're in Adelaide, or nearby, I highly recommend you come up to the Gardens and have a look, and soon! Before they're all gone. Otherwise you'll have to wait a whole other year before this comes again.

Happy Spring xx

Late night shopping

Sometimes I think I shouldn't be left unsupervised late at night, because when it's quiet except for the TV, and the babe's finally in bed, and everyone else is out I start browsing on my favourite websites and adding things to the cart as a bit of a memory aid. I try to decide if I'd rather have a tomato currant mix, or just some Wild Sweetie tomatoes, or if I should get scarlet runner beans and painted ladies, or just settle for one, and then the next thing I know I've clicked 'checkout' and bought the lot...

(click to enlarge)


Some of it's for now, and some bought for next year (like the crimson flowered broad beans), and I like to think of it as stocking up but really I'm just buying Hope in little paper packets. Like drugs, only legal.

Chef D must despair of me sometimes.

I forgot to title this one.

With the warm weather has come a blossoming of activity at our little house. We've been painting our window frames with their undercoats and putting them up. And I really mean 'we' this time, even I wielded a paintbrush for one of them, and SP had the most fabulous time painting with water all over the patio. People are coming next week (I think) to put in the glass for the windows and our big doors too. Yet another thing I didn't know about building: not all windows come with glass automatically (like baths aren't sold with plug fittings, who knew?! Honest to God, I really thought that they came together!)


Aaaand... the sparkies have made their first visit to do the pre-wiring bits and pieces.


I LOVE how quickly the two of them managed this part. It took them six hours, including tea-breaks, to wire up our entire little house as much as it needs to be at this stage. Fantastic! Now we have loops of cables around everywhere.


What's one nifty green trick we got them to do for us? We asked them for a remote switch in what's going to be our TV room/library, so when we turn off the lights at night we can turn of the TV and stereo at the same time with side by side switches on the wall, just to help eliminate the 'hassle factor' and so we remember to do it each night. Easy peasy!

It's really starting to look more like a little house now, and like we might actually get to move back in one day!

Do you recognise that child?

That's right, that's my very own Small Person, gracing the 'Dear Essence' pages of the ABA's Essence magazine. Some months ago I read an article in Essence which struck me so deeply I felt compelled to write a letter in response to it and send it in, something I've never done before to any kind of publication.

Now, I must say that I'm not particularly evangelical about breastfeeding. Feeding Emi was difficult for a very long time, and often still is for a variety of reasons I won't bore you with, and quite often I feel more of a martyr to breastfeeding rather than a supporter of it. Nevertheless, I have pushed on because I knew I would feel more guilty if I stopped - what would be worse? The guilt from not enjoying something you are supposed to, or the guilt from giving up? - so here we are nearly 18 months on. Anyway, we go down, we go up, we go back down again, and then my letter gets published and we go back up again, and so on although for how much longer I couldn't say.

So here was what I wrote - to save you from squinting at the screen to read the photo! - in all it's uber-formal glory:

Kim Lock’s article, ‘Breastfeeding to sleep,’ came at the perfect time; I read it less than two hours after hearing my first negative comment about breastfeeding toddlers. Imagine if this negative person learnt our 15-month-old daughter, Emi, sleeps in our bed as well! Sometimes, when you parent in a way that is outside the norm, it can be difficult not to feel you might be doing things the wrong way. Like Kim’s child, Emi is ‘wakeful.’ I have been told many times that I need to be ‘doing something’ to put a stop to her waking, and I need to resist the feelings of inadequacy; this is particularly difficult when we have had a long night and been woken 6, 7, 8, or more times, and I have found myself feeding her back to sleep for the majority of those wakings. It was refreshing and reassuring to read Kim’s story, to know that other people parent the way we do, and that it’s OK and normal. I will never regret having our girl in between us in bed at night, and even though I would dearly love an uninterrupted night of sleep, I love having her there curled up safe and warm beside me. I know it is the best place for her to be.

I'm quite chuffed; I'm officially published!

This is very deliberately not a mama-blog, however since I've digressed from that today indulge me while I show you my new idea for something fun for SP.

The other day the fitted sheet on our bed ripped straight down the middle. Muttering to myself, I washed it anyway and wondered what I could do with all the fabric that was still OK. I hung it over a clothes rack and my girl ran underneath and we played peekaboo through the folds, and then it came to me: I'll make an indoor cubby house with it! I'm not sure how yet, and I think I'll need to dig through the rest of my stash to find extra fabric, and I'm tossing up between a teepee-type cubby or a more traditional house shape, but I think it should be fun and SP will love the extra hidey-hole.

12 days until Spring!

Let there be light!

I was all set to write up this week's Winter Wednesday post, and then I realised it was, in fact, Tuesday, so I shall save some of my ideas lest I peak too soon! Probably just as well, I went through the photos I took today and there were 88 to chose from out of the garden alone, so this means that you won't have to suffer through so many of them.

I searched and searched to find an original photo of our backyard. I was sure there was one somewhere, and then finally I came across this one which happens to have been taken almost exactly a year ago. Look how tiny our little girl was! Behind, looming overhead at the right is just a fraction of the pine tree, which I named the Robber King.


The best photos are probably on my boy's camera, which is back at our house, so I have borrowed the following photos from Jungle Bros Treescapes's Facebook page, as they took a pretty good series of photos as they took down the Robber King. That pine tree was the biggest one they've ever had to remove, so they were keen for the publicity for their website.

Here's the tree still in one piece as the tree removal guys arrive on Doomsday (shot taken from our neighbour's driveway.)


Limbs beginning to thin (notice the small tree lopper near the top).


Looking distinctly different now. First shot taken from our neighbour's yard looking down towards our yard, that's our red roof in the background, second from the driveway looking back in the other direction. Play 'Spot the Tree Loppers,' it's like Where's Wally.



Robber King looking quite sheepish at this point.


Top lopped off completely now.


It's crunch time. Sorry, old man, it's time to go and begin a new life as pine mulch in dozens of other gardens.


The long-awaited after-shot. Our yard is going to love all the extra light and water it will get now (back to my own photos now)


Our view to be looking from the inside of our extension, through our new big sliding doors, out to the building site I like to call my garden.


And last but never least, my boy and my girl, one year on from the original photo:


***

15 days to Spring!

Welcome home

'Welcome home.' Some plants seem to say that, like these little 'Tete a Tete' miniature daffodils I planted in Autumn by the front gate.


And these, beaming away from the other side of the yard, 'hello!' (and glimpsed behind, top left, late-Winter's obligatory hot-pink camellias.)


Those daffodils are planted underneath what was the only tree in the front garden (until I got our there with my shovel), a lovely thorny ornamental plum which has just burst into flower. Light flowers and dark stems: beautiful!


Last year this tree gave us half a dozen delicious cherry-sized and coloured fruit in Summer. If we're lucky she may treat us to the same again this year.


Now, this photo doesn't look like much... yet. It's a progress shot of my front garden, because there's quite a lot going on, quietly, softly, underneath the surface and building in the stems.


Out there by the path is the carmine flash of my new Lechenaultia formosa 'Scarlett O'Hara. Can you spot it? Three pavers from the top? Maybe if you zoom in...


There's purple asparagus, tentatively poking it's nose through the soil, so tiny and slender to begin with. I had a hunch that the frothy fronds of asparagus would look good against the roses, which is why I have three different varieties planted out there now.


Speaking of roses, barely had I finished pruning them than they are gathering steam, ready to go in Spring (17 days to go!)


And just because I like this photo, here's my Hardenbergia violacea 'Happy Wanderer,' the confused ground cover that aspires to be a shrub!


Most things in my front garden are a bit shabby right now, a bit scruffy, it's been a long Winter after all, but you can tell everything out there is just waiting to go, to burst into flowers and fruitfulness and foliage, just as soon as it gets just a wee bit warmer and a lot more mild.

Getting carried away

I spotted these 'windowsill greenhouses' from Jiffy at the hardware store. They were kind of cheap, about $8 per kit, and came with 12 peat pellets each, so I figured, why not? And I bought two kits and a packet of 36 peat pellet refills.

(Picture borrowed from here)

I have recently discovered the wealth of seeds that can be bought from various people on Ebay, and I had bought some black and white hollyhocks that I wanted to try to grow and I thought this looked like a good setup to try them out. I also had some red and yellow giant sunflowers, which I'm ridiculously excited about growing all along the back fence.

You fill the trays about 2/3rds with warm water and the pellets swell up to 6 times their original size or so in less than 15 minutes.

Then you part the cloth covering (if it hasn't done it already by itself) and sow your seeds in the dimple. Hollyhocks apparently like light to germinate so I just popped them on top and smudged a little of the peat over the top.


I filled one of my trays with sunflowers, and the other with hollyhocks then stood back and admired them.


But I wanted more, more! It was kind of fun, adding water and watching the pellets grow.
I rifled through the plastics cupboard and found some plastic takeaway containers and other more sturdy clear plastic tubs I thought would be suitable. I had all those extra pellets to use up after all.

The pellets do tend to float around at first, when they start to soak up the water you can poke them back down again.


I got creative with some cling film, and had an inspired idea about sowing strawberry seeds in a strawberry tub (with the holes sealed over for now, so they don't leak water all over the window sill). I even put labels with the date on them! (You may remember that is a gardening resolution of mine: to label things properly.)

That was last night, and I had such a good time doing it that I went back to the store today and bought two more windowsill propagators. I hope this works well, and I haven't put all my faith in these flimsy plastic containers for nothing. They make an impressive pile when all together... (for photo purposes only. They're lined up all along the kitchen window sills for the time being. I don't know what MIL is going to think when she sees it, but she's away at the moment so I can put my seeds where I like.)


The timing is right, though, to get the vegetable seeds sown in time for planting out in Spring. I haven't had a lot of success with sowing seeds so far, only peas, beans and corn have ever done well. I went through the container with my seeds - my Packets of Promise - to see what else I had. In addition to the hollyhocks, sunflowers and strawberries, I've also sown butternut pumpkin, 'lemon' cucumbers, 'Tigger' mini melons, Thai green eggplants, Black Russian tomatoes, bok choy, sweet capsicums, 'Minnesota' mini rock melons and roselle. I didn't actually buy a lot of those: remember how I mentioned Ebay for seeds? Well, when I bought my hollyhocks recently the seller accidentally sent me my seeds in one envelope, and someone else's seed order in another. Oops! I contacted them to let them know, and they said just to keep them if I wanted to and, of course, I wasn't about to say no to free seeds!

If this works well I'll be half set for Spring. Fingers crossed.

Mellow yellow: Winter Wednesday #11

Today is Winter Wednesday #11, as begun by Hazel, and so I stopped off by the side of the road on the way home to say hello to some old friends.

The wattles in this area started blooming weeks ago, but one in particular caught my attention: Acacia myrtifolia (myrtle wattle). She's a small shrubby plant with a profusion of lemon-yellow lopsided blooms.


Her leaves are just as pretty as her flowers, and it's those strong leaf margins that make her easy to recognise. I'm going to plant her in my front garden soon.


Overhead, alongside, and underneath and, well, everywhere really, is our golden emblem: Acacia pycnantha (golden wattle). He's looking a little bedraggled today, his fluffy pompoms reduced to limp balls by all the rain we've had in the last couple of days.


I found a lot of Hakea rostrata, the beaked hakea, with it's filamentous white flowers. You should look at the fruit shape to identify hakeas, but I didn't and am relying on the fact that this one has especially long leaves compared to the other local hakeas.


Pultenaea daphnoides is gearing up for a spectacular, if brief, spring show. Ah, my large-leafed bush-pea, I'm sorry I disliked you so much when I was writing half my thesis about you. It wasn't you, it was me. I was just miserable then but I'm over it now and I have realised that you are really quite nice and I am looking forward to your display in a few weeks time.


Pterostylis sp (greenhood orchid), my most favourite orchid in the world! I think he is Pterostylis nutans, the nodding greenhood, because he doesn't have any pixie ears sticking out the top like most of his relatives. We have these for sale at work, and I have been resisting buying one but I think it's only a matter of time before I cave in and get one.


And nearby, a teeny-tiny maroon-coloured orchid cousin, one of the Acianthus species, possibly the mayfly orchid.


And another tiny favourite of mine, the little Drosera macrantha (climbing sundew) twinkling in the filtered sunlight.


Something else a muted yellow? Creamy candles! Also known as Stackhousia monogyna.


A pop, a flash of vermilion, and yet another favourite prickly plant of mine: Astroloma conostephoides, the flame heath. I think I just love the name As-tro-lo-ma. I asked at work if they ever had it for sale and all I got was laughter! Apparently it's very, very hard to propagate, which seems strange for a little plant you see everywhere in the hills. I guess nature still keeps some secrets from us.


Dear hot pink Grevillea lavandulacea, did you know you are the only grevillea native to the Adelaide Hills?


And the last of my local friends is some sort of rush, or reed, or something. I have no idea what this one is, but it's pretty cool in my opinion, its flowers arranged like beads on a string.


So next time you're driving along and you see what looks like it might be a decent bit of bushland, stop by the side of the road and have a look, there's all sorts of stuff in there and around about now, winter's end, it becomes especially special.


***

The other day I mentioned we had some good news, well, good news for us but very bad news indeed for the giant pine tree which hangs over our yard. Well, we've had permission from the council to remove it and got onto it straight away and off he goes! About halfway up is a guy dangling off a branch with nothing more than a yellow fluorescent visibility jacket and a couple of ropes to secure him as he chainsaws off the limbs (the tree's limbs, not his own, I trust!) The tree is so big they'll be back tomorrow to continue the job, and might even need a third day. Good thing it's a fixed price! What a difference it's going to make, the sunlight is going to flood into our yard after this, great news for my vegetable garden and fruit trees.