Wind Damage – Noooooo!

Yes, this was last year’s little hothouse.

Not looking too good is it?

 

Very sad in fact.

When I pulled it apart I could see the broken plastic connections and a few holes in the cover. So, what to do, could it be repaired? Well, the only way to find out was to sort all the pieces out and have a look in the shed for tape or glue etc. I did find some very, very sticky tape which seemed quite strong, if not pretty, so I sat down at the table and pieced it all together again. M thought I had lost it totally, but I kept saying that if it works I’ve saved us $70!

                                             

Ta Da!

The only problem is that after I had taped and re-erected the frame I discovered that the zip on one side of the cover is broken. But all is not lost, I’m still thinking about that one. Another bonus is that it did give me the chance to pull out all the weeds around the site and the chooks had a lovely time scratching around.

Jan

Sunshine in jars

They’re probably not as yellow as sunshine should be but that’s because I used raw sugar instead of white sugar. I added ginger to the lemon marmalade and cooked it on the stove instead of in the microwave too. M has a “thingy” about micro-waved food. It was probably the easiest marmalade I have ever made, and the quickest.

I plan to give one of the little jars to a friend for her birthday, amongst her other little gifts, so I had to sample some today. I think it was pretty yummy so the jar will go in the bag of goodies after all. And with more lemons on the tree, I’ll be making more.

Jan

Another Use for Chicken Wire

 

British artist Ivan Lovatt creates amazing sculptures with chicken wire

 

And I had trouble putting a double layer on the chook shed – straight!

Jan

Winter – Back with a Vengeance

This little nectarine tree was given to us about eighteen months ago. M’s father grew it from a stone from his tree. This is the first time that we have had blossom on it. There’s only about five blossom but even that is exciting as some people have said that there’s not a lot of luck with fruit from a tree grown from a stone. It’s still very small and as you can see there’s a fair bit of weeding required around its base.

But will it survive this icy Antarctic blast for the next three days? I have been reminded this morning that this happens every year. The days start getting longer, the sun starts to shine and we think about preparing veggie beds for summer.

Then BAM, the weather changes and it’s back to Winter again. I already have blossom on my tiny Santa Rosa plum, three flowers on the wee apricot I planted last year and the pear tree buds are just starting to open. The peach that was planted last year has quite a lot of pink buds – will they all survive these icy gale force winds, rain and hail?

The girls in the chook shed are still giving me three eggs a day, despite the weather and they still all want to come out! NOW! They didn’t get out yesterday because I thought they might blow away and I had to go out to work all day. It’s even colder and blowier (!) today but no, they want out. Maybe later, if it eases.

On another note, the big box of sunshine (see previous post) has been almost used up. A box went to my book group, visiting friends have all left with pockets full and three jars of lemon and ginger marmalade are sitting in my pantry. More on that in the next post……..

Jan (brrrrr

I’m not sure if you can see the hailstones in the photo – but they’re there!

A Box of Sunshine

It wasn’t raining today, in fact it was a lovely sunny day. So I decided that it was time to relieve my tiny lemon tree of its fruit. A lot of the fruit had the powdery black dust on them so I had to wash them, all of them. Then I put them outside to air dry in the sun.

 

Of course the chooks now had wind of the fact that I was outside so a riot began in the chook shed until I let them out. They like the little lemon tree and probably thought that I was being mean to it.

This is the little tree on the right and it is a prolific producer. They are only small usually but quite sweet in a lemony sort of way. We have picked lemons as we have needed them all year but today I did a real harvest as more smaller lemons are still coming.

After all, there’s only so much gin and tonic two people can drink……….

J

Rain again for September

We’ve had about 50mms of rain in the last 48 hours. It’s a “wellies” required for a trip up to the chook shed only to see them looking miserable and bored. There’s a couple of leaks so it’s a bit damp underfoot but not too bad really. We haven’t had the damaging winds that other states have had, yet, nor an earthquake or floods, so I’m feeling pretty lucky if a bit housebound.

But then, I de-cluttered my bedroom yesterday and I’m so pleased with result. There’s more room in the wardrobe and cupboards and I was able to rid my room of the extra wardrobe that I thought I needed. All my “thin” clothes are packed away in my big red suitcase – I WILL FIT INTO THEM AGAIN! I am going to make a concerted effort to lose some weight this year as I really like most of those clothes. I have plans for all the family photo’s currently taking up far too much room on my cupboard. I’m going to take them out of the frames and make one large collage to hang on the wall. But I do like some of the frames too, sigh.

I’ve also got to hang a mirror as the only mirror in here went out with the wardrobe!

The next job is to de-clutter this computer………

J

Holy Snake Batman….

Nevyn recently had a post labelled “Snake Porn” and it was about her catching a couple of pythons in her garden being “very loving” towards each other! I don’t like snakes, I’ve had nightmares about them since I was a small child. If I see one up close it makes me shudder and almost feel sick. I have never touched one but did allow my then seven year old son have one draped around his shoulders on a school trip to somewhere. I did not want to pass on this phobia of mine to my offspring.

So when we were out with our Balinese host family on the second to last day at Puria Tanah Lot temple and this enormous snake was there for the photographing/handling, I stood well back. This is not me either in the photo or taking the photo – I’m somewhere behind a trillion people at the back of the crowd that you can’t see! And that wasn’t far enough away.

So when we wandered down to the beach and saw the sign to visit the cave with the “Sacred Snake” inside, I thought that I might also give it a miss. I could hear women squealing and laughing but resisted the offer to go and look. I envisaged another long, long, fat python.  As it turns out it was a very small black and white striped snake. What amused me to watch was the fellow at the front of the cave counting all his money that the onlookers had “donated” towards a peep at the holy snake. It kind of took the gloss off somehow.

I also resisted paying to go into the cave with the “Holy Spring Water” too. It was actually starting to sound like an episode from Batman.

I think every tourist on Bali was at Puira Tanah Lot that day'; it’s known for its beautiful sunsets over the temple.

 

That was as good as it was going to be as there was so much cloud, so there were quite a few dedicated camera enthusiasts packing up their tripods and disappearing in the dark!

We had decided to visit this temple as it is very significant to the Hindu family that was looking after us and they had not been there for over twenty years. And little baby Komon who is twelve months old had never seen the sea before. There are lots of fish ponds around the villa and he loves to watch the fish but when he saw the sea – wow! It was an absolute delight to see this precious bundle of joy just look and keep looking….. I thought I had a photo of him on the beach but no.

We later all piled into cousin Butu’s car and after one quick stop for some fried bananas arrived back at the villa as the rain started – torrential rain. We still sat outside under the Bale at the side of the pool as naturally it was still hot. Watching the rain dance on the water in the pool, with a cool Bin tang beer in hand, saying goodbye to all the frogs and lizards that had entertained us for two weeks was the best way to spend our last night in Bali

Jan