Day 20 - Raindrops

The rain came last night. I love the rain. I love the way the raindrops pool in the nasturtium leaves. This nasturtium is incredible. The leaves are the size of dinner plates!

Head over to The Byron Life to some great pics & links to others joining in A Photo a Day in August

here & not forgotten

School holidays are here and many projects have been ahappening o' here. Renovating eldest son's room...whilst he takes over my sewing retreat...driving up & down the Hume Hwy emptying out hubby's grandparents house in Wangaratta & finding great treasures...sitting at North Melb pool for swimming lessons...forgetting that we have a computer...making jelly...bucketing water on plants to try to keep them alive...lieing on the concrete floor with the fan on to stay cool...painting toe nails...late nights...catching up with friends
School will be back soon... life will return to normal...whether we like it or not

living boxes

skip shopper had this great idea of reusing recycling to make growing boxes to give away for chrissy pressies. Mixed lettuce, rocket & coriander seeds that are just starting to sprout (and they did survive the great downpour on Friday).

John (son) had this beautiful idea at the park of a "stick star", so we now have a new gorgeous decoration to add to our collection. We just wound string around the sticks adding one at a time & hung it with fishing wire.

...and Mum handed me down our old christmas lights that don't work - but look gorgeous all the same, so I have to keep them & one day I'll work out how to fix them, in the meantime, they just make great decorations.

triptych

Suddenly realised how close we are to Christmas & have potted up these hanging baskets to look pretty on the day as we are hosting. They have oregano, thyme (always need more of that), basil seeds, and marigolds to keep the bugs away & to eat the petals! Made an ugly wall, well, just not so ugly!

make bunches while the rain falls

I looooove fresh herbs and absolutely love to cook with them, however oregano is one that is best dried. Now is the time that it is gows tall so I like to cut bunches of the stems before they get too "leggy".

I gather about 10 stems which works out to be about right a good amount of dried oregano for a single use.

then tie them up with the string that I used from the last bunch (just loosen the knot)

And hang them to dry until I need to crunch them over the pot of bubbling pasta sauce....soup...bolognese...mmmm

Time to go sew...

the grass is greener

I do get very distracted at times by my garden and I know that it is not very big (inner city chick), but I have packed a lot into a small block and I love to get down to ground level and pluck the weeds and check the vegies and admire the fruit trees. I am always amazed at the vast amounts of time that I can pass whilst out there. Being passionate about indigenous plants (which are local plants to the area) and productive plants, I have been spending a lot of time admiring my indigenous lawn as it comes into seed. The seed is feeding the bare patches and also feeding the poor hungry birds with the proper foods that they should be eating. Ok, I do spend a lot of time crawling around plucking out grasses that shouldn't be there, but I am winning the battle. The grass is green and the birds are fed! Joy.

Tomatoes are in. With basil. Good. Corn and bean and cucumber all planted. Good. Everything else is going to seed. Great! Herbs gone beserk. Fantastic.

Figs fruiting. Beautiful - love the shade of the leaves.

Passionfruit flowers. Aren't they GORGEOUS!!! I can't wait for the fruit to be tipped over yoghurt. I love it. Must remember to stick some more compost around the roots.

Nectarine...I do love them, however, feel a little ambivalent due to the fruit fly outbreak on it last year. Here's hoping we get to eat them this year.

mmm, packham pears. Delicious

Really happy that the grapevine cuttings have taken off - even the one that looked like it was dead, and then after 2 weeks of bucketing....reserection

I am constantly amazed at what will continue to grow without watering or with just buckets of water from inside. We water only once every 3 months or so because we are basically too lazy to get out of bed & remember when it is our turn to water, so it really is just up to our garden to survive!

As you can see, it is very easy to get distracted, and I really am only scratching the surface here. Too much to look at. Who would think that I have a market to get ready for...

and another thing

Have just joined Veg About, not exactly sure what this entails other than popping some more posts on about what I'm doing in my garden as well as in my play room.... Hey check out what the other creative half gets up to when he's let loose...hmmm

lazy weekends

Phew! Love a long weekend. Time to play in the garden, hang out in the hammock, play with the kids, renovate the bathroom, hang the odd door, make a few reversable hats and brooches and sit back and relax. Thank goodness it's back to school and work today!

spring time in my vases

It all started with some grapevine cuttings from Matt's Pa's place when we visited him in Wangaratta. Very special as they actually are from Matt's great grandfather's vines & the story goes that he got them from someone else up the Murray before that... Now, as we have just farewelled Cliff to the final part of his journey of life (God speed Cliff, you were a lovely man & I really enjoyed our conversations about many things, especially the garden) they are ready with roots to go in the ground.

Then there were some nectarine cuttings that now have taken root (nectarine tree anyone?) and then I liked the look of the fig cuttings.

What do you have in your vases?

Winter retreat

I love a good fire in winter at least once to sit around, get warm, toast marshmallows & drink hot choc & just 'cause we live in the inner city doesn't mean we can't do it. We use our old copper & fill it up with Matt's off cuts from the shed, stuff from round the garden, the boys call Granny from down the road & woosh!

I also took the time to get covered in ash & pull out the non-indigenous (local native) lawn grass that was trying to choke my indigenous lawn & proceeded to do an intensive planting from the clumps that were being choked. Any guesses how many tiny plants? It's like guessing the number of jellybeans in the jar. To me it felt like 1000. All I can hope is that it will form a nice thick mat.

The great thing about this lawn will be that once it is completely established, it will need no water (that's right - NO WATER), and will survive the drought, you can choose to mow or not to mow as it will not grow too tall, and the seed eating birds absolutely love it! You cannot get better than that. No dust bowl in summer & green all year around. Oh, and did I mention that it is soft? Oh, ok, I am a just a little bit passionate about the indigenous planty thing....

Gold, Pure Gold

It all began on a very rainy morning last Thursday in one of those terrible indoor playcentres last week.
I hate those places because:
a) you have to pay
b) they are noisy
c) the food is crap
d) the coffee is crap.
I love them because when it rains in Melbourne and you have a preschooler:
a) it is freezing and they still want to run around & they DO drive you nuts in the house
b) you can catch up with your own friends & they can knit or crotchet (yes, I am still obeying the osteopaths orders & twiddling my thumbs)
c) you can drink crap coffee & be warm & talk.
So it is this conundrum of Love/Hate that led me to this place in the pouring rain & also the fact that it is essential to my mental health to meet with my friends on Thursday morning as it is what I call my "Thursday Therapy Session". For those of you who are not as fortunate as I to have a weekly therapy session with like minded people, this may well be an eye opener for you. You may feel that you have been missing out on many things in life. We do solve many of lifes little problems, and sometimes, the bigger ones.
Some of the topics that were discussed and worked through were: music lessons, interview techniques, returning to work availabilities, sporting parent responsibilities, annoying babysitters, partners input into domesticities, tall story telling 4.5yr old children, until we got down to the real nitty gritty topic that is probably the most important...what to have for tea tonight. Let's face it. We are all sick and tired of thinking of another single meal to make & if someone else can think of one for us, then all the better. Finally someone said Osso Bucco and it was finalised for me and Ange, but it did somehow got us onto a funny conversation about the Gold in the freezer. It went a little something like this.
M: I don't ever label anything that goes into my freezer, because I always think that I will remember what it was, but then I forget, so then we have to have a "freezer-surprise week" which hopefully doesn't mean apple crumble for dinner.
A: I always make chicken stock and then put it in the freezer and leave it there. It stays there too long and I think that it is too good for the family
M: It's like gold, pure gold. Actually, I think I probably have some in the freezer from last year.
A: Too good for the family
M: Waiting for someone to have a baby so you can make them a soup
On the way home, Ange & I saw each other at the butcher buying the osso bucco, and the bones for the chicken stock...pure gold for the freezer...just waiting for the baby to come. Maybe I'll make a rissotto for the family this week. Or maybe just chuck the whole lot into a casserole! Surely that is not wasting such good stock - or is it? After the boys walked in the door after school & asked what smelt so good, it would be mean not to let them have the stock...

Stephanies Recipe (adapted)
bag of chicken bones
tops of 3 leeks
2 carrots
2 sticks celery
2 bay leaves
2 sprigs parsley
12 peppercorns
2 sprigs thyme
Bring to the boil, simmer for 4 hours, strain allow to cool, skim off fat & use within 2/3 days or freeze (but please DO use).




Oh, and it I did find that ice-cream container of stock from last year that doesn't have a date on it. Not sure whether to chuck it... I have made a promise to myself that I will from now on label all food going into the freezer. (note that beautiful tower of fresh frozen stock).





I really must go & sweep up all of those nectarine leaves that came off the tree in that storm on Friday & pop them in the compost. Please, please never put your green waste in your normal bin. It is much better for the environment for it to disposed of by the council with the green waste rather than being put with landfill and becoming part of the problem. I know that my council does a free monthly pick up of green waste, so if you don't have a compost bin, either start one up or check with your council. We only get one chance at this earth!