Mothers Day Weekend May 11 & 12 2013

Had another lovely weekend here with Mum again - this time celebrating Mother's Day.

We arrived around 11am, and went for a wander and chat around town, and then back home for lunch.


Saw a notice saying that there was going to be a "Glamour Ball" at the Town Hall for the local football and netball teams.  We hoped it wouldn't be too raucous.  I peeked in and took an unfortunately blurry  photo of the set up.  It wasn't too noisy, so we were able to sleep just fine.

Town hall gussied up for the ball

Unfortunately while we were out, or in the back garden, Damien and Nicole (from Kingover) dropped over and left a note.  So this is the 2nd time that we've missed them.  Maybe we should try and drop in on them next time?

Given that last time we'd planted the olives, this time I wanted to put bricks around them, and of course do some much needed watering.  Mum helped with that too.  Didn't do a whole lot more though, as this weekend was for Mum, so we did what she wanted to do.

Bricks around the olives, and Mum watering 

Mum also enjoyed herself reading up on the veranda

on the veranda #1

on the veranda #2

The weather was unseasonably warm, about 25 degrees and sunny, just lovely, however it was quite cold in the house, especially the kitchen.

That said, we had a comforting roaring fire in the dining room on Saturday night.  The fire had been expertly set by Justin when Jan and Peter came up a month or 2 ago  - so it caught very quickly.

roaring fire

And of course, given that it was just Mum and me, we played many games of scrabble.  I blitzed in the first game with a massive score of 517.  I'd never even broken 400 before, so I was very pleased.  Of course having all the high scoring letters and a 7 letter word helped.  I won the 2nd game too, but this one was much closer

scrabble with Mum

And finally on Mother's Day, I "let" Mum win one.  Well actually, she won fair and square.  My excuse was that I had shocking letters.

And so, Mother's Day, we started off with some delicious bread that I had made in the bread maker - a sort of made up concoction :- potato, onion, rosemary and chilli.   It was heavier than normal, I suppose because of the potato.  Very nice though.  And we started late, Mum normally gets up around 7.30, but because it was so quiet, she rose at 8.45.  It didn't worry me, I was snuggled up reading in bed, and so finished the last book in the Stig Larsen Millennium triology. Mum was astonished that it was so late, she initially misread her watch, thinking it was 7.45, not 8.45.

Steve and Denise had mentioned yesterday that the RSL was putting on a Devonshire morning tea, so I went off to investigate.

The RSL was open, and set up with tables and chairs, but no one was around.  I went in and called out, and a bloke came out.  I told him I'd heard that the RSL was putting on a morning tea, and asked whether that was so.  (It reminded me of about 6 months ago when I invited myself to the Kingower end of year Christmas dinner film night).  Anyway, this was open to anyone, for a gold coin donation, so he told me to come back in 1/2 an hour and bring my Mum.

Mum didn't initially want to come, as we'd had a late breakfast already, and the main event for the weekend was the special Mother's Day lunch at the Empire.  But I convinced her that how could she pass up proper country scones, and we could always just only have half a scone each.

Well, we came back around 10.40, and were the only ones there.  Thank goodness we came.  The same bloke was there with apron on.  Turned out he was a local policeman, and had made the scones using of course flour, cream and lemonade.  They were delicious!! Light and high

many scones for us

my 1st scone and cup of tea

Mum enjoying her scone

Robert, the local Lions president was there too, and his wife Colleen came a bit later too. As did a few other people, so we at least had a full table.  But I'm sure that there were some leftover scones.

Ended up having a chat with most of the people there, which is always enjoyable.  Introduced myself to Mick (the policeman) and said that we would join the RSL to support it.  He'll drop the paperwork off at the house.

So after 2 scones each, and a couple of cups of tea, we waddled back home to fill in time before our big lunch.

And a big lunch it was.  The Empire was full, and Mum and I decided on the lamb as opposed to beef option.  A glass of champagne was included in the price, so I went up to the bar to get them.  Enzo being his usual generous self made me take a bottle as opposed to 2 glasses.  Luckily we weren't driving off immediately after lunch.

So, we somehow managed to eat our lamb and vegies, polish off the champagne, and finish off with a pudding with custard.  This time we really did waddle home.  And it was raining!  Or at least spitting when we left, it had been overcast and windy, and the weather bureau had forecast rain for the evening, so we were surprised that it was raining.  That put paid to doing any more work outside, so we sat in the dining room and read the papers.  Very relaxing.   We were pleased that it was raining also, it became a bit heavier, and was good solid rain great for the garden and the farmers.

"Concrete" soil and 9 olive trees

Lovely Autumn weather, still warm enough for t-shirts, but getting cooler at night, and certainly in the mornings.

Justin, Fraser and I were here this time.  Mad had gone to a school camp on the Gippsland Lakes.

The first thing that I saw when we arrived was a small plastic container with dried dill in it and a note. Damien and Nicole had dropped in presumably after I'd left  3 weeks ago.  We'd chatted with them at the Babette's Feast dinner and they said they had dill growing madly at their place, and would bring us some.  Pity we missed them.  The dill was unfortuately a "gonna" I said it was dried, but really it was just plain dead, and a yellowy white colour.

What wasn't dead (surprisngly) were the globe artichokes that I had transplanted out the front.  Both of them had survived.  And there had hardly been any rain.  Steve said 2ml in the last 3 weeks

Sprouting artichoke

The jerusalem artichoke that David had given me wasn't so lucky.  The plant seeemd dead, although I'm hoping that the tubers will sprout new plants in the Spring.

The broccoli is looking vey healthy, And I even cut a few heads to take home.  So were the chilli plants and strawberries

broccoli in my vegie patch

Justin was feeling a little tired, so I suggested reading a book in the hammock.  That was quite well received.

engrossed in Donna Tart's "Little Friend"

pretending not to realise I'm taking a photo

Given our roaring success of yabby catching last time, Fraser and I tried our luck again.   This time we aimed to go prepared.  We had gum boots, chairs, bait, string, gloves, a bucket, and a  knife.  On the short drive to the reservoir we came across a large goanna basking dangerously in the middle of the road.

the kamakaze blue tongue and Fraser's foot for scale

We tried to move it to safety, but it was rather difficult, especially seeing that neither of us actually wanted to pick it up and risk being bitten.  We tried to nudge it along with some bark, but that was largely ineffectual.  It did move a bit, and passing cars gave us all a wide berth, while probaly wondering what we were doing in the middle of the road.

Anyway, got to the reservoir, found some sticks, attached the bait to the string and realised that we had forgotten the net.  We cast out anyway.  I pulled mine in after a couple of minutes, felt a bit of a tug, and actually saw a couple of nippers attached to the meat.  I called out excitedly to Fraser that I had 2, but then they let go...Fraser didn't believe me, said that was my "lying voice".  Ah, that's my curse for frequently telling tall tales, well, at least I knew I was telling the truth, and rushed off home to get the net.  Saw the goanna both ways, and luckily not squashed!

Returned to Fraser and he said he'd seen one too, but sadly those were the last and only yabbies we saw for this expedition.  The wind had increased, and there were small muddy waves/ripples on the reservoir now, making it very hard to see where the lump of bait was when we were pulling it in.  I'm sure that we had a couple more on the string at times, as I had felt a definite lightening of the load, but no luck.  That time we did much better without the net.  Oh well,  this season is practically finished as the butcher boys said that yabbies are available any month with a "r' in it..It's the tail end of April now, and there officially wouldn't be any more until September (but you never know).

Our yabby reservoir

Given our lack of luck, I decided to circumavigate the reservoir by foot. Not surprisingly, it wasn't very big and shrinking due to evaporation, so it didn't take that long.

Fraser decided to meet me at the end by trying to walk across a narrow finger of water.  However, even with gum boots, it looked like he might get wet, so he wisely retreated.

the crossing begins

thinking about turning around

When we returned I gave some selected trees and plants in the front garden a good soaking,as they were looking rather dry.

I also spied a coloured ball near the Storm Lane fence and was very surprised to find the missing easter egg, unfortunately a little the worse for wear.  And not so edible anymore

Fraser with the missing egg

Steve and Denise came around for drinks and nibbles after they closed up in the afternoon, and we then went on down to the pub for dinner.  Outback parma as usual.

You may think that Sunday is traditionally the day of rest, but not for us.  It was olive planting time. But first we had to dig the holes, and it was hard, very hard....

According to the garden plan, the olive trees  are supposed to be planted 2 metres from the fence, and at intervals of 3 metres.  Thus we calculated 9 trees.  We started with shovels, but they almost bounced off the soil, it was that hard.  We then had to up the ante, and Justin got out the heavy guns, or rather the fencing bar, that we'd bought when J and Mark were fixing up the front concrete path.

fencing bar photo from the internet

So, Justin, being his normal perfectionist self, measured out from the fence for each hole and then started off with a cross shape for the hole by ramming the fencing bar into this concrete like dirt, and then trying to pry little clumps of it out.  The loose dirt was then removed with the shovel.  It was a long and tiring process, particularly given that the fencing pole was very heavy

starting off a hole

now he's getting somewhere

We found that it was good to work as a team.  Justin would ram, and I would remove the dirt.  But we also swapped at times.  And we even managed to coax/coerce Fraser from inside to do some manual labour.  Once he got going, he was a gun, and worked quite hard, unfortunately without gloves at times, so he got blisters

Fraser being camera shy

After a few hours, we certainly deserved some lunch (and a beer) so went to the Blue Eucy Cafe (where we'd had the "big breakfast" a few weeks ago).  Cathy makes the pies there, so we sampled them.  They were rather good, but we were sadly beerless as the cafe isn't licensed.

Finished up the holes and planting after lunch, and Fraser and I went pomegranate scrumping (oh yes we knew a place) 

look at our new olive grove (can it be a grove if it's only a line?)

Our olive line from another angle

Last year with Alex's help I was able to lift Fraser up on my shoulders to pick those delectable pomegranates out of arms reach

photo from last year

look at those pomegranates just out of reach....(this year)

However this year, either I had gotten weaker (possible), tireder, (likely - after the ramming/digging) or Fraser had gotten heavier (likely - as he's grown).  Anyway, I squatted down, he sat on my shoulders, and I couldn't budge.  Plan B was that I gave him a leg up via my joined hands.  That worked at least, but was a little precarious.  Luckily no falls.  And we scored ourselves a nice bag of pomegranates

pomegranate spoils