Companion planting

I sorta thought companion planting was a bit like old fibs, but I saw a good example this week of something that really appears to work 100%. 

Previous seasons I've grown my tomatoes amongst a massive amount of basil, like, tons of basil.  At one point, my basil was 6" tall, ahh it was great.  This time however, with the Green Zebras, I'm growing them in a pot next to the house instead of the veggie garden - so no basil any where near them. 

For the first time, I've found my tomato bush covered in white flies.  I've controled them a bit with some organic pest oil, but I did some reading and apparently basil helps keep white flies away!  So, one would assume I've never had them on my tomatoes before because of all the basil I usually grow next to the tomatoes.  Nice little discovery.  One I will definitely remember.

This week I love...

Laying on a blanket every afternoon in the breeze, looking up at the trees bending and the clouds rolling by with the family.  Its a great way to unwind after a long day.

 

 

Oogling over the ever-growing veggies.. My green zebras are really coming along, and I've got tiny baby lovelies sprouting too (crenshaw melons, lemon cucumber, and yellow bullhorn capsicums). The black russian is growing too, I love watching things grow, sniffing leaves and looking at the fine detail in plants.. I like the 'hairs' on tomato stems!

Oh the inventiveness

Saxon found a microphone in a box under the house this week, and he's been harping on about not having a stand for it.   I've been pretty amused really because 1) it's never had a stand, and 2) I have no idea where he's seen a mic and stand haha!!   Actually, in regards to number 2, I do remember showing him The Living End live on youtube HAHA.



Well, anyway, oh the inventiveness, when one is without a microphone stand, one simply MAKES one.   Right?

I was SO impressed by his inventiveness, he thought of threading the cord through the hook hole on the broom stick and everything.

Oscar the strong

Guess what!  Oscar has his first tooth coming through ALREADY!  Amazing!  He's getting close to being 5 months old, early compared to Nina and Saxon.. He's such a strong boy too (hence, "Oscar the strong").  Did I mention he could lift his own head up from the day he was born?  Totally strong hey, none of our other kids could do that either : D  Crazy ; )

He's starting to crawl sort of too, not text-book style crawling, but he can basically get around anywhere in the lounge room.. he's growing so fast, soon he'll be a big boy.  Its amazing how you loose track of time, and things just happen, and then you notice all at once!

This arfternoon I love...

The tree top views in the cool spring breeze

The smmmmmell of the afternoon's mango pickings.. ahhh...

What a nice Sunday arvo, bye bye weekend, alas, I'll miss thee.

A real treat

Ohhhh yeahhhhhhh.  We just had a real treat, David picked up this beauty on the way back in to the country last week:

Zacapa XO! It's been so long that I've wanted to try it.. my only regret is forgetting to bring in the Zacapa Centenario to compare them side by side. What a perfect way to finish a Friday afternoon though, sipping on a lovely Zacapa on ice. 

mmmmm..... classic rum, delicious from start to finish and after. 

Growing heirlooms and a variety of fruit n veg

I like growing different things in the garden, its not just interesting though, I really feel like its the right thing to do.  People tend to not want to grow fruit and veg if its a strange colour or shape, but I love it.

Some things I have are perfectly normal - common varieties of brocoli, leek and onion.  The interesting ones I do have though are purple haze carrots, bulls heart beetroot, red aztec corn, yellow bullhorn capsicums, black russian tomatoes, merveille des quatre saison lettuce (all of which are heirlooms), and some other 'different' things like green zebra tomatoes, crenshaw melons, lemon yellow zuchini.. and um, I think that's it.  Some of those I've only just sowed this week, exciting really.

Molly from a blog I read had a great blog post on diversity,  .. it really articulates why it feels good to grow heirlooms and less common varieties.  I can't believe so many varieties of things like corn for example have been lost forever.. its a real shame really.  Read the post and you'll know why I like growing heirlooms!  (apart from the fact that they're much more interesting!)

Speaking of the corn though, I had a SLIGHTLY more sucessfull cob this week.. I'm not sure what the go is really.  I might contact 4seasonsseeds and ask them.  See; the red corn is well, supposed to be red, but the cob I picked this week seemed perfectly ripe, and it had only the tiniest fleck of red.  Its all a bit confusing really. As well as that the cobs aren't forming properly.  The hopi blue corn I have doesn't even germinate at all.. hrmm.. I should talk to 4seasons shouldn't I?

The Green Zebras are absolutely owning, the vine is full of babies, I'm watching them every day, waiting for the blush of yellow that means they're starting to ripen.  Apparently they'll be slightly yellowish, which will make the green stripes more pronounced.. I have some bigger ones (bit bigger than golf balls), but here's a shot of some smaller ones..  noyce ay?

The mervielle des quatre saison lettuce is a cool one, the life of some of them are coming to an end, look at them towering up to flower, rad hey!!  I've liked having fresh lettuce in the garden but I imagine it won't last much longer with the hot weather on it's way.

Time to try melons now though, this week I sowed (among other things) some crenshaw melons.. I've never even seen them before so that's gonna be interesting.  Anyone out there ever tried em? If so what are they like?

I have some UFOs... and some memories too!

The neighbour has some awesome fruit trees, some of which hang over the fence a bit.  I don't often see her and when I do, I always forget to ask her what one of them is.  (remember ages ago I found out one of the trees was a Pecan nut tree?!).  Anyway, I'm not sure what this one is.  Its an Unidentified Fruiting Object.  HAHA!

Anyone got any ideas? The tree has thrown most of them on the ground already, but when they ripen they turn red I think.

I had some nice produce this week, onions, beets and carrots.  Made a lovely pasta and for the first time in a while I had enough to give some away!  Ohh, and best of all, my Green Zebras are really close, they're growing very nicely and quite quickly!  Turns out they don't seem to have Blossum End Rot, like I thought the other week - some of them just have little leathery scuff marks on them, which I think is from me putting exclusion bags on them and scratching them when they were tiny lil' babies??

Not much else is happening, we're slowly starting to get the odd drop of rain here, finally, so that's been awesome.  Knitting has been fairly slow, work has been ultra busy, and I haven't been on the computer for non-work purposes much at all : (  Not long 'till the end of the year now though hey.

I was looking around the computer the other night and found some OLD photos.. which was interesting.. Stuff I took when I was 17 or younger.  It's nice to stumble on old thing like that.. have a gawk..

This was my fav spot when I was younger to watch the sunset:

I remember this day, we had an amazing tropical thunder/lighting storm.. at sunset.  It was amazing.  A friend and I ran all around the streets in it:

I remember taking this from the backyard, I thought the clouds were amazing that day, the entire sky was like this:

Nice hey.. : )

Ohwell!

I knew it! Remember how none of the red aztec corn I sowed in winter turned out?  Except one.  Well, the single cob I've been watching on that one sickly remaining stem of corn turns out to be a mega mutated dud. HAHA

How hilarious!

I reckon though, that the new germinations this week and the other seeds I sowed at the end of winter will be much more successful... here's to hoping huh!?  hehe

Ma Zebras!!

I've been pouring over my Green Zebra tomatoes, sussing them out every arvo and watching all the little flowers turn into lovely striped baby tomatoes.  Unfortunately though, some of the babies have the first signs of blossom end rot.  (second pic).

 

So, I guess I'll pay more attention to watering properly, then if that doesn't help I'll look at adding some calcium..  Yeah.. That's a reasonable plan.  I hope I don't loose too many, its funny how each type of tomato I grow has its own problem.  Actually, the Roma tomatoes I grew had blossom end rot really bad and I couldn't end up fixing it so I pulled them out.

As a backup I sowed some Black Russians too, it'll be interesting to see how they go.  Looking forward to them very much!

Funny coincidences

ahhh I love it when funny little coincidences happen, or when strangely connected events show themselves.  We just had one here.  Nina was reading her Library book... and she got the card in the back of the book, pulled it out and had a look... To our surprise, who should be written on the card in the book but her Auntie, 14 years ago.

Isn't that funny... 14 years ago, nearly 15.. her Auntie took home the same book, (was the first to take it home actually).. and then, Nina just happens to choose it from ALL the books last week.  I love it!

Nina

My favourite colours!

Oh yeah!! I've started on a new project, sshhh again though, its a secret present for someone.  Want a sneak peak?  Of course you do.  Yes.

mmmm nice purples and blacks and greys .. oh yeah!  Cherry Tree Hill, Caribou Creek.. Its 80% merino, 20% nylon, interesting feel to it.  Expensive as hell (hand dyed etc).. but yeah, very very nice.  It came in a hank and I had to wind it myself, which was surprisingly relaxing, no joke.. winding wool in my hands for an hour - the only crap part was when I got it all knotted up haha.

Here's the start of the secret something:

The sweet smell of being hopeless

Well, its been around 10 months now, and 'the shed' still isn't finished - I'm just not the building kind of bloke (in terms of skills), and its been hard to get motivated too!!  The frame is pretty much done though, its just the sheeting and doors etc that I still have to get around to.

Anyway, this weekend, the frame came in handy indeed.  Very handy.  It was a great help for picking mangoes!!!!!  I was able to get up on the frame, as well as standing on a ladder next to it (or in between it all) made me feel a lot safer.. so yep.  I got a nice little haul of lovely bowens, my hopelessness with the shed really payed off!!  MmMmmmMmmmm mangoes.  hahaha!

Splits!

I was sussing out some of my purple haze carrots, Saxon loves a fresh carrot - and I found that one of them had a split top!  So I pulled it out.. its still a good carrot, ready to eat... I just shaved the split part off.

Not sure what causes the splitting, but I'll go through some books to find out :)  Maybe it was just a bit dry around the topsoil? or?  Idunno ay.

Anyway, time to kick back n have (more) Friday rums!!

Beebee, my bat made me late for work!

Aw man, we found a baby fruit bat this morning, attached to its dead mother, in the dogs pen.  Not sure if the dogs had anything to do with it or not - the baby was still well and truly alive though, squawking its most adorable squeak, crawling over its mother..  Man bats are so cute, adorable and amazing animals.

I put it in a box, with its mother's body.. the vet wouldn't take it though, and he told me to take it to the EPA (environmental protection agency).. and then they wouldn't take it either.. but, luckily they called around all the wildlife carers for me, and apparently a bloke is gonna come and pick it up from me today.

I've got it here with me at work, the lil thing.  I hope this guy shows up, I hate the thought of that little baby wanting its mother's milk ...... and not getting it.  Sigh.  Hurry up Mr. Wildlife man and come and rescue the poor thing.

Oh, good, he just called me, he's coming now.. bye bye beebee.  (Wish I got a better photo, it's hiding under its mother's wings..)

Rain, oh the rain

It finally rained.  Apparently we've only had 4mm, but it felt like way more.  I guess its just been so long since its rained.  The kids had a great time, look at them!  Oscar's first rain shower too : )

How cute is that huh? Hilarious.

Kez and I were standing at the front door watching it as the rain continued during the night.  It was funny, because after we'd been standing there for a while I noticed that other people in the street were doing the same thing, you could see the light coming out front doors, people peeking out, or just standing there like we were.. hehe.

It reminds me of an old memory actually, I was about 8 years old.  It hadn't rained for ages, and suddenly, (during an average old school day), rain clouds had come over without anyone noticing - the rain came down hard out of no where, and a couple of girls in the classroom leapt from their chairs and ran to the class room windows yelling "RAIN!?" "RAIN!!!!".  Of course, they got in to trouble for interrupting the class HAHA, but I did share their excitement.

It was great to have some rain yesterday, lets hope it keeps up.

Off, off, and AWAY

Yesterday arvo I gather up all the beanies/caps/hats that I've made for charity, and posted them off off and away.

They're all going to find a home with some kids in an orphanage in Vietnam, in the higher regions (north west Vietnam) where the winter has a bit of a bite.  My Dad is in the region now and he bought lots of dolls and stuff for them (and a bike too I think), so that was nice hehe.

I'll never see them again.. bye bye beanies!  I hope they warm some heads well, I'm sure they will.  It was tons and tons of fun making all this stuff.  The one on the top left was the first thing I ever made.  : )

Cognac is a rum wannabe

Kez and I went out for dinner on Friday night, for the first time in a year or two, who knows.  Man its been a long time since we've done something with just the two of us.  The dinner was great and it was a nice and relaxing sit and talk (and EAT!!!!) hehe.  It seems sort of impossible to find the time for this sort of thing when you've got kids, but its really important to make it happen.  We should try to organise something more often I think.. I wonder what most other people do, how they fit in time as a couple when kids take up so much time (I love that time too though) hehe.

I tried cognac for the first time ever while we had dessert, I've been wanting to try it for ages.  It came out in this massive warmed glass, so the cognac was warmed too.

Upon sipping I was pleasantly surprised, it was really nice.  BUT.  It was sooooo similar to so many nice rums I've had, in fact, it was well under the bar that most of those rums have set.  I'm thinking, the cognac tasted similar to a light/dry style rum, what they call agricole, like Flor de Cana from Nicaragua.

It had something slightly different to a rum though, something that a rum doesn't quite have, I couldn't put my taste buds on it but it wasn't enough to make the cognac remarkable or special (or better than a fine rum) in any way.

Both drinks are thought to have been made, similar to how they are now, from the 17th century - I wonder which came first.  I bet Rum did, and cognac was a wanna-be for europeans who lived in places too cold to grow sugar cane!!  HAHAHA.. rum owns you cognac.  Pfft cognac!

Nifty knit

This weekend I just finished the wallet / man purse I made for my friend.  HAHA! It's cool hey!!!?  While not ultra-practical its rather nifty I reckon.

Its got two little pockets on the inside, big enough to fit ID cards etc, and some half folded notes, then a flap to just button over to hold it all in.  hehe.  Like the colours?

Its so smooth too, the yarn is 40% angora (rabbit), then 40% wool and 20% somethingorrather.  The rabbit makes it the smoothest yarn I've ever touched!  Man its smooth!!  SOFT!  Awesome.

Busy weeks

Well well, isn't it strange how everything seems to speed up and get busier towards the end of the year.  So much happens during the week, the weekends seem full, and its simply non stop.  I haven't really been up to much lately, work is really busy and home life is busy too.  I haven't had time for looking at sunsets, or staring at the trees and sky.

I've been doing little creative projects bit by bit, actually, earlier this week I finished another beanie for charity, this time I learnt some intarsia knitting and worked with two colours.  Simple, but, I like it, it turned out nice.

I'll be sending the hats off next week.  As it turned out I missed the shipment that took donations to Afghanistan, so, my Dad found an orphanage in Vietnam, in the high grounds where it gets quite chilly in the winters.  I'll send them there and they can go to the children : )

Speaking of creative projects though, I bought the most awesome wool this week, can't wait to see it, its my favourite colour, PURPLE!  (with black) oh yeah.  What shall I make?  Well, its a secret, shh, can't tell, xmas present for someone.

There's so many places to buy nice wool from, I got it from yarnomat, who sell basically just sock yarn I think!  No, I'm not making socks. heh.

The coolest thing I got from the veggie garden this week is a massive onion, ohh yeah.  It's been drying out on the window sill all week, and I'll chop it up and throw it in to a dinner this weekend no doubt!  Plenty more onions there almost ready to pick too ; )  Love it.

Well, better wrap it up, it was nice thinking and typing for a moment.

I've been amusing myself

I had a little pick around in the garden, and found a fair few baby veg ready for picking!!  I couldn't help but amuse myself with arranging the "produce".. hah.

Fires are nasty

The outskirts of town are on fire, its fairly close but I don't think we're in any harm.  We all feel sorry for the people who's houses are burning, and also for all the lovely little creatures that are dying or loosing their homes too.

Thanks to all the fire people, including my bro in law whos in the rural fire brigade, he's been called in to town to help.  I just saw on the news that some horses didn't make it out of the paddock on cooper st.. poor things.

 

Early corn seems to be failing

The aztec red corn I sowed a bit too early in the season has really turned out to be a dud.  I took some pictures yesterday of this cob, which looked right to pick.  The silk was completely dead at the end, and the leaves surrounding the cob had also started to die and dry out.  However!  Inside it was almost ALL silks, with a tiny unformed cob at the bottom.

I'm not sure why its happening.  The only idea I have is that I just basically sowed them too early in the season.. their overall appearance seems pretty stunted, thin stems, thin leaves, not healthy looking leaves I think..

I have one that I sowed much later, the stem on it is twice as thick, the leaves are twice as wide, much greener and I'm hoping that it will produce some good cobs.  Time will tell.  I'll sow more corn later today too, I've soaked seeds overnight.

Another thing I'm not sure about is the fact that I haven't been able to germinate ANY of my hopi blue corn .. not sure why.  Hrmmmm.. I guess I'll just keep trying until I run out of the seeds I bought.  heh.

I made a belt!

Woho! Another little knitting project done, a self invented belt for Kez!  She said she needed one one day, and I was like "AYYEE I'll knit one!" .. So I did!


It was a lot of fun actually, making it up as I went, I've added every stitch type I know - rib, seed, mesh (the hardest!), basket weave, stocking, ... etc.. of course most of that is just a different combo of purl and knit, but the mesh one is a full on pain in the arse (far right of the pic with it on the floor).

 
Anyway, I'm really chuffed with it, looks sweet ay! (oh yes, she loves it too)

Lady beetles and more

Its so cool, I've never seen so many kids of lady beetles in my veggie garden before, so I took some photos of them!  I have some yellow ones (which snuck off before I got the camera), orange ones with all sorts of different patterns, and even a black one which was rather shy!

I like this one, it has little swirly things that remind me of a musical note.

Here's the sneaky black one, hiding from me.

They are cute little things aren't they, they really like the corn, I think they eat some of the corn ear worm larvae and stuff, which is good for me!

My corn crop hasn't done much yet hey, the ones to the left are the ones I sowed too early, they're spindly and the cobs are full of silk and almost nothing else, I'm not sure why, could it be a pollination thing or is it just because I sowed them too early?  I dunno.. I mean look at the leaves, the one on the right, sowed recently, is way thicker and greener... hrmm..

The green zebra tomatoes are on their way, yes!  I've got lovely little flower buds all over the bush, which mind you is still REALLY small, should I pick all the flowers off to encourage a bigger bush before it fruits or will a bit of fruiting now be fine?

The second bed I did some time back too has finally started to take off a bit, with the warmer weather I suppose.. the onions, beets and carrots are the winners of the race, with the leek broc and lettuce being pretty slow (but still going okay).  Saxon is really excited and wants to pick the carrots every day, I keep saying "ohhh not yet mate, not yet, give them another month yet ay?" hehe.

The other cool thing is the onions I planted at the start of winter are starting to get ready for eating!  Soon these lovelies will be in my kitchen, then, in my pan, then, in my TUMMY. mmmm.

On the bad side of things, I saw a few fruit flies down there and mango season is coming on too, I better get the old fruit fly stuff out again I think  : s  the buggers.

The man-purse is shaping up

I thought I'd be a clever chap, and invent a pattern for a man purse.  A knitted wallet.  For my friend in Brisy.

This is one of the folds for the inner-pockets.. some decorative stitches, most of which have mistakes but WHO CARES!  It's cool.  I have a stack of colours too.. Like my very sophisticated technical schematics on the left? And my lovely grubby Al (remember your chemistry?) mac keyboard?

"I'm inventing mostly" (wallace and gromit) haha.

It's been a while..

I was just thinking, its been a while since a good bush walk.  There's nothing like a stroll in the bush, early mornings or cool afternoons.  I suppose the only problem currently is that some of the slopes are loose and crumbly from the long-term dry weather, and slippery with dead leaves that the trees can't keep anymore for lack of moisture around the place.

I'm looking forward to the weather getting wetter, if it does, and hopefully when things are nice and green going up for a few mountain coffees.  Ahhh the smell and sippage of a fine brew on the edge, ahhh its wonderful.

So close to rain..

It hasn't rained here for 186 days, its sooo dry. Everyone was really excited this afternoon, it looked like we were sure to get a decent storm!  Ohhh, the breeze, the smell of it and the feel of it was perfect.  I was getting very keen indeed. I love watching storms roll in, it would have to be one of my favourite things to do - and one that sadly I haven't done near enough.  I've got great memories of watching storms come in, with people or by myself over the years, the light changes, the smells on the air are beautiful, and the sounds of thunder is glorious, its one of the best earthly smells I can think of actually..

Anyway, I'm sad to say that the storm (I took a pic - above), the first storm that we 'could' have had for a long time, went around the town, and we got a mere 0.4mm of "rain".  ZERO point FOUR!  NO FAIR! GIVE ME A STORM!  I think I have storm withdrawal symptoms.. There's so much to love about storms.

A brown in the dunny

Ha, we were wondering why the toilet was closed today, as it turns out there was a good sized Eastern Brown in there.  Yes, the snake, I'm not talking about any other sort of brown.  I would have liked to have had a gawk but it all happened before I knew about it, I'm really glad they didn't kill it.

How bad would it be though, if you went to the dunny and didn't notice it, and got hit with a bite while you were taking a leak!  CRIKEY!!!

Ya know, it probably came in to work because a lot of the nearby bushlands are being "developed". DAMN YOU DEVELOPERS, robbing animals of their homes, same with the big owl we had here, no doubt.  Plus all the fires around here lately, the land about my work is black like toast.  Ah well, anyway, this one will go to a better home by the look of it.

..and the buttons?

Woho! Seriously finished now, shoulder grafted, and buttons on!

Like the buttons I picked?  Man.. that was fun.

It was really fun button shopping.. ummm, never been button shopping before actually.. anyway, I wanted nice polished wood ones but after ages of searching, through a very limited stock in the shop I went to, I found these silver ones.  Glad I picked em.. : )  I got that shoulder grafted, its a bit messy but overall I'm ultra happy how this has turned out!

The vest that was too cute.

Ah c'est fini!  The vest!  I've finished making the vest for Oscar, but.  BUT.  BUT......

it.

is.

WAY.

TOO.

SMALL!

Okay okay, so I HAVEN'T 100% finished it, it still needs button (and the inner should needs grafting, BUT, that's as good as finished, right?).  He won't even be able to wear it, how hilarious, hahaha, all that time and love to make it and he'll never wear it.  Ah well!  Some baby in the world will enjoy it, I'm not sure what to do with it now... hang on to it so family and friends can use it?  Save it for a friend when a friend has a baby? Put it in my stash of knits for charity?

Its an awesome vest, man I love it.. sob sob. hehe.  The good news is, I started a bigger one and Kez has been helping me knit it up so that it can be ready by next week.  A communal knit, I like it, hehe.  We've dubbed it the Lamington Vest, cuz the yarn is this cute chocolate brown with flecks of white.  hehe.

Today I'm gonna nip out to the shops and get some more wool too, with hot weather coming on its all going cheap, real cheap, love it.  I'm gonna knit my friend a man purse to say thanks for having me and driving me to the airport in Brissy last week.  I'm also gonna just try and make it up on the go, no patterns, so that will be interesting!!!  hehe.  Very interesting.. It could be disasterous!!  Hrm, that would make a nice thank you gift, a mangled tangled totally stuffed up man purse.  HA!

Ah well, enough babble, I must be off, post haste, to buy wool.  Au revoir!

Holidays rule

Ahhhh, I'm back.  I love holidays!  I want more!!  haha.  We just spent a week up north in a beach front cabin.  It was a lovely spot and we had a great time.

The coolest things were:

The beach at night under the full moon, ahh what a beautiful sight. Here's the night on its way:

The kangaroos and wildlife everywhere, the kids really thought it was fabulous.  Saxon is pretending to be a kangaroo here, hopping around .. haha!

The mountains!  "Mountains Gandalf MOUNTAINS... I want to see mountains again".. I have a 'thing' for mountains, love them.  We did a short (2.6km I think) walk up the hills, along the ridge to another hill, and down on to the beach to walk back around, it was a nice walk.. When we did it the dust from the recent sand storms was still around, look at the view, you couldn't distinguish the horizon in some parts.. heh.

The sound of the ocean, especially at night, is so relaxing.  Sort of like the sound of a running river, not sure which I like more, hrmm I'll have to ponder that.  Anyway, it was a nice week, its lovely to have an escape from the day to day life.

Back to work with me on Monday, the main thing I'm looking forward to is a decent coffee!! HAHA!  And seeing my office pals of course. hah.

I was pretty happy to find my veggies still alive and well, after a dry week alone without me to love them.  I'll have a chat about my garden some time during the coming week, my tomato bush told me that it was a bit upset I hadn't mentioned it lately...  yeah.

heh.

The music

Last week I went to the first music festival I've been to in many years!  I'm blown away by how much fun it all is, I'd nearly forgotten!

I love the vibe, no one is shy, everyone is (usually) really happy, friendly and having a great time.  I love the music, but not just the music itself, I love what it does to the body n soul so to speak.  I love the feeling in my chest when the sound vibrates my bones, and of course, I do indeed like slurping rum in a crowd all day!

This concert had an awesome .. um.. feature (for lack of a better word).  Yep.  For every used tin you bring back (drink cans etc), you get $1 off your next drink.  Serious, how awesome is that.  My friend and I felt like high school students on scab duty again (where you have to pick up rubbish for getting in to trouble).  We went around, and very joyously picked up used cans that people had just left on the ground!  MWAHAHA!!  Yes, we reaped the benefits I can assure you, our drinks were cheap ALL day/night.

It was so much fun!  Little Birdy was great, Shihad was awesome, I really enjoyed The Butterfly Effect too, never heard them before so I might have to look them up now!

Late at night, the most surreal thing happened.  The second damn dust storm rolled on in over Brisbane!!  RRRR!!  The Living End had to finish up early because of it, which was a REAL shame.  I took some photos as people were leaving.. it was really eery, you couldn't even see the city's buildings because of all the dust.  It was good to see The Living End anyway, even if it was only half a set, I haven't seen them for years and years, and when I got home I splurged and bought some old school tunes of theirs on iTunes hehe. 

Anyway, it was a wonderful, fun, awesome, exciting time, I loved it.  I'll have to try and make more time for this sort of thing here and there.

Gardening away

Ahh I haven't thought about my gardening enough lately.  I say 'thought', which also means 'typed' which also means 'blogged'... since I basically just type away as I think, which is no doubt very evident by my current rambling.

One shame is that my computer's card reader is bust, so I have no way until I buy another one of getting photos off my camera (yep, I also lost the camera's cable! ha!).  I'd really like to take pics of my lovely baby tomato bush, green zebra, its really shooting up now.  Saxon and I check on it most days, touch the leaves and smell our hands hehe.  I'm glad I shifted it to a more sunny spot and I really can't wait to see the green and yellow striped tomatoes!  How awesome.

My corn is interesting.  It has cobs on most stems but they're taking a long time to form.  I can't remember how long it took last time.  Anyway, the first cob I had, I actually pulled it off because the silks were all brown - as it turned out the silk filled almost the entire 'cob' (what's a better word, are they called Ears? or something?), and the corn cob itself was this pitiful finger-sized unformed ... mutant cob! Idunno.  I've sowed more, and the others are doing well it 'seems'.. I guess I'll just have to wait and watch the cobs that are coming on now and be more careful for when I pick them.  Another bummer is that I noticed (from where I placed seeds) that none of the blue corn germinated, none.  All the germinations are the aztec red.. : s   oh well, either way I'll be happy if I can get some funky corn at the end!

The second bed I made a few months back is doing okay now, finally after a bit of "harmless ph alteration" (wallace and grommit reference, remember when Wallace goes ' oh its just a bit of harmless brain alteration' hehe.) ANYWAY, yes, after that and a bit of decent fertilising, everything seems to be coming through now..  I've got purple and white onions, all about 3" tall now, Leek, about 4-5" tall, bulls heart beetroot and purple haze carrots, plus some broc, ... Its all coming together and I'm watching it rubbing my hands together greedily hehe.  "Come to me my precious veg!"

ahh sigh.  I've been wanting to do so many things around the yard lately, but, time seems to scramble away on me.  Well, that's only half of it, I'm really just a bit worn out too, its all go go go with three lovely kidies now.  I'm smiling about it, but it makes ya tired thats for sure.  I need to make Saxon a sand-pit, and buy him a new rake (the dogs chewed the other one).. Why can't I just go and do this, get it done!  I'll have to double my efforts I think.  Obviously this weekend is out since I'm away overnight, and next week I'm going on a little voyage.. perhaps the weekend after I can at least buy some nice brick edging for a start.. I dunno!

Another thing I wanna do is buy a nice big pot and some soil, and get some black russian tomatoes going.. I've just been too tired and time-poor to do that too : ) heh.  Oh dear, this is turning in to a sooky post!  Turn it around!  Okay I'm good now.  If I grow Black Russians as well as Green Zebras in my yard, will they cross pollinate I wonder?  I don't know much about that sorta stuff.. It'd be cool though if they did hehe.  I'm lucky in that the nice bloke behind us has a rack of hives, native australian bees, so any sort of pollination at home is really good : )

Anyway I better wrap it up, hopefully I can sort out the camera stuff and get going with my photos again, I had posting without photos, they say much more than typed words : )

Damn the dust!

Well, like almost the entire eastern side of Australia I've experienced my first ever dust storm.  Nice.  Not.  It seemed exciting, until it actually came haha!  It wasn't really a storm as such, or like the crazy dust storms you see in documentaries, but it was sort of like living inside of a vacuum cleaner bag (sooo dusty you could taste it!)  blerh!

It looked so innocent too, at sunset, this slightly dirty skyline, I was looking at it thinking "ahhh this won't be that bad at all... pfft!".  Anyway, damnit, we couldn't stop it from coming inside, by the end of the night everyone's eyes were all stinging and it felt a bit suffocating having dust in all your airways.

I didn't manage to get any pics, it didn't really come over the town until it got dark.. the local newspaper had a good one though. I'd place it in my post but the newspaper is a bit crazy about people using their pics, so I better not!

Suppose I can't complain too much, other places copped it way worse than my little city.  The sat photos from NASA were pretty awesome, I'll go search for some!

Ohh nice, this is a NASA sat pic of it all coming up in to my state..

I hope there's no more of it to come, I'm tripping to Brisbane for the day this Saturday, and it'd be a shame if my flights got cancelled.  heh.

Awesome tunes.

Ah man, I had a little iTunes frenzy lastnight.  Got some songs I've been wanting to capture for years.  I do that.. I want something for a long time, and never buy it, then one day I randomly splash out and buy buy buy.  HA!

I got some of The Cranberries, and some classic Don McLean.. Vincent is such a beautiful song.  la la laaaaaahhh, damnit, I'll have it stuck in my head all week no doubt.  I found a live version on youtube.

Why the hell I didn't go see Don McLean when he came to my town a few years ago I don't know.. If I had someone next to me right now I'd tell them to slap me!  Ahhhh well ..

Making a vest

I'm taking a break from my knitting for charity, to make Oscar a vest for my sister in laws wedding.  It'll be very cute (of course).  I'm pleased with the progress so far, and I love colour and feel of this wool (Havana, 100% Australian Alpaca).

The pattern is free, the only thing I'm doing different is I'm making the whole front panel a 3x3 basket weave texture instead of stocking stitch.. seriously, how cute is this gonna be when its done, wish I was faster cuz I can't wait 'till its finished!

The cool things I've learnt from this pattern is

• If you just slip the first stitch on to the other needle when you start a new row, instead of knitting it, you end up with really nice neat edges!
• Making simple little button holes is as easy as just knitting two stitches together then passing your yarn over.. that's it.. easy!

To me..

She has the most beautiful face in the WHOLE WORLD!!

Even when her mouth is full of corn flakes!!  That's ma girl!

And, the funniest thing she did this week,
was make a pretend 'her' in her bed!

How cute, I love it how they do ultra cute things like this.

You did what to my tomatoes?

A friend sent me this, rather comical research article on growing .. tomatoes.

Originally published: Sep 3, 2009

By Jim Dawson
Inside Science News Service

In what might be the ultimate pursuit of the perfect vegetable, researchers at Finland's University of Kuopio have discovered that a mixture of human urine and wood ash has the same benefit for tomato plants as traditional fertilizers, producing 4.2 times more fruit than non-fertilized plants.

While the wood ash helps reduce the acidity of soils, tomatoes grown just using urine as the fertilizer did just as well as synthetic fertilizers.

"The results suggest that urine with [or] without wood ash can be used as a substitute for mineral fertilizer to increase the yields of tomato without posing any microbial or chemical risks," said the study, which appears in the current issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

The findings from the study have "important implications," the scientists said, because "they may contribute to the development of positive attitudes about the use of urine and ash as fertilizer as a way to both increase crop yield and reduce water pollution." 

Now.. I already put wood ash on my garden, but, should I start peeing on it too now?  HAHA!!!

Seriously though.. interesting.. saves money, a rather honorable way of recycling minerals from the body... AND gives you better veggie produce.. hrmm!!  Heh heh

The smell of jasmin-like arabica

I've been watching the flower buds on my coffee trees this week, growing slowly, and this morning they finally opened up.  They have the most amazing smell, like night jasmin and frangipani mixed together - absolutely divine!

This flowering seems to have attracted more Great Carpenter Bees, last few seasons I've only ever had one at a time but today there were 3 or 4 together, what a noise it was, they're so huge and so loud, I HAD to take some photos : )  The cute HUGE bees.

Ahhhh.. yep.  I also dug out my old withering cherry tomato bush today, and I've cleaned that part of the garden bed right up so its ready for sowing some more corn seeds : )  I'll take pics at one point soon.

Click for close ups, go on!

This weekend should be fairly busy, but I'm looking forward to just chilling out this arvo maybe with a rum (or a few huh?) heh.

A bientot!

My poor lil caps

Hrmmmm.. My capsicum bushes seem to be struck by mites or something similar again.. the leaves are curling and yellowing etc.. and in the last 48 hours nearly every cap I had going (which wasn't many anyway) suddenly ripened!


Bit of a shame really, they're all mega small, glorious colour though.. hopefully they taste nice, I'm making pizza again tonight so we'll soon find out huh!

Not sure what to do about the caps.. I wonder if they're not producing well because of their sickness, or if they're just pass their prime, I've had them since before summer (winter just ended). Or both.

My plan of attack is to give the bushes a spray with eco-oil or neem oil, and see how that goes.. I might get some new seeds to grow some new varieties for the coming summer anyway! mm chocolate coloured would be good, and yellow I think! It's a plan!

Thought for the day

Well.. I'm really tired today, did some reading in my tea break at work, and the most interesting part of the book was.....

As scientific understanding has grown, so our world has become dehumanised. Man feels himself isolated in the cosmos, because he is no longer involved in nature and has lost his emotional "unconscious identity" with natural phenomena. These have slowly lost their symbolic implications. Thunder is no longer the voice of an angry god, nor is lightning his avenging missile. No river contains a spirit, no tree is the life principle of a man, no snake the embodiment of wisdom, no mountain cave the home of a great demon. No voices now speak to man from stones, plants, and animals, nor does he speak to them believing they can hear. His contact with nature has gone, and with it has gone the profound emotional energy that this symbolic connection supplied.

And.. I even drew a picture to go with it hehe..

I name him, the Tree Man!!!
He's half man, half tree!! .... hrm.. interesting.

More beanies!

I've just finished knitting up the second beanie for my donation stash!! I tried out a textured border for the first time, where you pearl two stitches together then wrap your thread around the needle to create a new stitch - the result is a pretty gappy um, thing!! So technical aren't I? HAHA. Anyway, you can have a gawk in the pic at the border : ) Nina was a bit sooky and didn't want her photo taken heh heh heh.


So, next I might actually try something different... ummmm.. not sure what... Maybe I could do a scarf or two and learn some new stitches like sugar cube, mesh, or basket weave... hmmm.. or I could try to do some socks to learn how to shape better? hmmmm dunno!!

Anyway, that's enough knitting for me this weekend!

The garden grows

Movement at the station finally, my veggies seem to be having a little growth spurt at last.

My green zebra tomato is reaching for the sky, it seems to be on a slant so I think it really needs to be shifted.. its leaning towards the source of sunlight - maybe this arvo I'll shift the really heavy pot to the north west corner of the house instead of the western side. Yeah! Lookin forward to this one, big time, can't wait to have awesome green stripy tomatoes.


My corns are cruising too, which is rather awesome, I've got the first cobs coming on and I'm trying to figure out HOW on earth I can stop ear worms this time. Last corn crop I had ear worms in every cob, man it sucked. I don't really know how to stop them, I've tied the first cob off with an exclusion bag but I'm worried that: 1, it'll be no use; and 2, that maybe I shouldn't be bagging it off, does the silk need to be fancy free for bees to share their love with or?? I dunno much about the technicalities of growing corn : ) Anyway, I hope those bloody ear worms bugger off!!! I can't wait to have my fav Moroccan spiced flan with red and blue corn!


I've got quite a few babies that are growing too, the second garden bed is still really slow, its improving though, thanks to a PH adjustment and some fertiliser.. The broc and the leeks are doing the best it seems ; )

Last but not least, I pulled the last of my first beetroot crop, haha, and look at this one!

Freaky to the max

I'm half way through taking the nappies off the clothes line, and look what's on one of them!!!


Is it not the most freaky bloody insect you've ever seen!!!!!? AHHH!! haha. Its like something out of a sci-fi movie.. eww.. man it looks so gross.. I wonder why we find insects so gross.. strange really. I mean leeches and such are another thing all together (I have a 'thing' with leeches), but... surely this creature is harmless. hehe.. still, its damn freaky!

One of those shake-ya-head moments...

Far out. Serious! WHAT! ..(insert swear words here) oh well.. smile and laugh.. Sound familiar?

I just had one those moments, big time. I've started exercising again, and I'm really enjoying it. I go up to the oval in my lunch break (and just eat at my desk later), up there I jog a couple of laps, walk around a fair bit, do a few sprints, and a few sets of push ups and sit ups.

Today I'd done all the above, and was thinking "ahhh well I might as well head back.." - but then.. an idea came to me, like an inner challenge. I thought "I should time myself on a 100 meter sprint!".. okay.. the thought alone was so daunting - I used to run it in around 12 seconds when I was younger - but now, especially after already doing some jogs, runs and walks, and not being 'that' fit (not to mention now in my late 20s), I suddenly felt very nervous.

It took a lot of courage, more than I expected really.. I mean.. its just a sprint, right? - I didn't expect that I'd run like I used to, but I sat at the start line and psyched myself up to it gradually.. got my timer ready.... . . sat.. looked.. .. thought.. looked.. sat.. then..

Off I went. I gave it every damn shred of energy, every last primitive urge, every single muscle fiber wanted to stop but I forced them all to shut up and keep sprinting. I got the timer going as soon as I took off, and as I came to the finish line absolutely buggered I pressed the timer off, slowed down and plopped myself down in the grass and went to look at my time.

It was then that I noticed.. the shock, the horror. THE FFFFFFF'ing thing! I'd missed the timer's off button and instead pressed a button to play music, so away the timer went, 22seconds, 23seconds.. and I turned it off. What a bloody let down. All that getting pumped up to test myself on something I hadn't done for probably more than 10 years and I stuffed it up. So I sat there, had a pitiful chuckle, and left the music playing on the dizzy walk back to work hehe.