Tidying up and another dead bird October 26 & 27 2013

Another solo journey by me, as Justin & the kids were busy in town, and I wanted to tidy up given that we were having our inaugural bus tour next week!

Yep, the bloke that had dropped in last month from Bendigo National Trust has organised a bus tour  to come and tour our house as well as enjoy other Inglewood activities next Sunday.

So, my first self imposed jobs were to clean up the 2 x small upstairs rooms.  One had painting/plastering stuff in it, and the other the old wooden blinds that Ken had taken down from the windows, and never re-attached, and the wallpaper pieces that I wanted to keep and eventually frame for display.  All up, both rooms were quite messy, but this hadn't really concerned us, as we didn't need to use them.

Before shot of small room #2 with blinds and wallpaper scraps

wallpaper scraps and blinds

Well, after numerous trips up and down the stairs (I deposited the blinds in the cellar), and put the painting/plastering stuff back in the scullery, both rooms looked a lot more respectable - apart from the falling off wallpaper, but that's another story. And unfortunately I forgot to take an after shot, oh well

I also discovered 3 x dishes, an old pudding bowl,  an old ceramic blue/white bowl and an ok small white cup?

pudding bowl

blue/white bowl

ok small cup

I also remembered to take a photo of the rugs I had brought up last time, and which were still in the hallway waiting to be found a suitable position

orphan rugs

After this it was out into the garden, as it was a glorious blue sky day.  I was pleased to see that the pear tree that hadn't blossomed and looked "dead-ish" had sprung back to life with some leaves if not blossoms

rejuvenated pear tree

As had the lantana which I had planted 2 weeks ago, with some new growth showing

lazarus lantana

The mystery flower in the front garden bed which I had noticed 2 weeks ago

mystery flower from 2 weeks ago

was identified as a red hot poker (which I'd forgotten I'd planted there)

I was also pleased to see that the Jerusalem artichokes had come up

Jerusalem artichokes

 and that the jasmine which Justin had planted on the garden arch was flowering

Jasmine #1

Jasmine #2

A lily which I had brought up from Glen Iris was also flowering for the first time

Glen Iris Lily

I spied (and ate some ripe strawberries)

not bad for late October

final pickings

The garlic was also looking very vigorous, as was one of my lettuce trees behind it

garlic & lettuce

Although, the self sown tomatoes that I had transplanted  a couple of weeks, had all been snaffled by snails (the garlic chives hadn't been eaten though)

snail ravaged tomtoes, and ignored garlic chives & rosemary

I bought some snail pellets, and transplanted some more tomato plants ( I have lots crowded in one area of the raised bed)

The grass/weeds had also grown rather long.  It was already ankle depth a couple of weeks ago, now it was approaching knee height in places

long grass

Luckily I ran into Gordon down the street, and he said he'd come tomorrow and cut it (and he did)

Gordon cutting the grass 

Cut grass #1 

Cut grass #2 

However to help him out, I went around the brick work ie the perimeters of the fruit and olive trees, mulberry trees and vegie garden with the hand shears.  Yes I know it would have been quicker and easier to use a whipper-snipper, but I'm not really familiar with it, and I'm sure that Justin would say that I was using it wrongly, so I stuck with what I knew - manual shears, more back breaking, more sweat inducing, but less likely to result in a self imposed injury.  The way it helped Gordon was he could then see how close he could bring the mower without going over some hidden bricks.

While shearing around the vegie garden where the grass was particularly thick and long, there was a quick movement and something darted out.  I was somewhat alarmed, remember it was warm and sunny, and snakes were on my mind.  Luckily, it was a cuddly not scaly surprise, I had startled a small brown rabbit less than a metre from where I was cutting the grass.  It bolted off past the mulberry tree, and I obviously didn't see it again.  What surprised me was that I had all of these lovely gourmet lettuces in the vegie garden, plus the rocket, artichokes, raspberries etc - but they didn't appear to have been touched by rabbits.  They must be very self contained, or prefer weeds??

long cereal? grass 

where the rabbit sprang out of

after shot of where the rabbit sprang out
of, with shears to show perspective

after Gordon cut the grass

Other wild life encountered today was on the dead side.  Yep, another dead bird on the front path.  That brings it to 5 dead birds in the garden recently.  Three on the front path (one found by Steven), one high up in the jacaranda tree, and one under an almond tree.  At our Tooronga Rd house we had a problem with dead cats years ago, here it seems to be birds!!  

Dead bird #5

Checking the letter box, I was a little taken aback at at a business card left there. It was from a slate roofer who was presumably touting for business.  I thought surely he could see that the roof was perfect, and didn't need any renovating work, given that we're fixed it up almost 2 years ago. But maybe not, and if not, then maybe he wasn't such an expert slate roofer!

Anyway, I finished up Saturday afternoon after 5pm, and went to relax on the veranda with a well deserved gin and tonic, and some crackers, and the Saturday Age

selfie with G&T

While on the veranda I managed to give myself a variation of the old bamboo under the fingernail torture.  I'd dropped something, and picked it up, and so got a large splinter in my finger.  I managed to pull most of it out, but some remained under my nail.  Doesn't hurt too much, and it will hopefully grow out, bit too hard to get out with tweezers at this stage

splinter accompanied with some Inglewood dirt

Sunday, and although it had started out bright and sunny early in the morning, it soon clouded over to a dull, still day, cool, so I wore my long sleeved work clothes.

This morning I thought I'd tackle the fireplaces and the kitchen wood stove.  I must say that it is very tiresome to clean out 6 x fireplaces and a stove. So I think a new rule is in order if anyone wants a fire - and it's not really cold enough to warrant it,  ie if it's more for show/atmosphere, then they have to clean it out in the morning!  Is that unreasonable?  Or am I scaring off potential guests/company with my bolshie attitude?
Granted some of the fireplaces only had a bit of muck which had fallen down the chimney, not ashes/fire remains, but I still wanted them cleaned out and looking good.

Into the garden again, as I wanted to finish off that bed outside the dining room window.  I was doing this when I received an unexpected visitor.  It was Christine - an old client of mine from years ago

Christine

Christine and her husband had been going for a drive, and she thought she'd drop in on the off chance that I would be there.  I was, it was a great surprise, and lovely to have a catch-up!

Then back to the garden bed, and digging up more bloody buried bricks. And by this stage, although it was still overcast, it had warmed up, and maybe was a bit humid, because the sweat was dripping off me (remember I was in one of my boiler suits). When I told Justin he reminded me that ladies didn't sweat they glowed.  I told him that maybe I wasn't a lady.

dug up bricks

I also discovered a bloody big root running parallel with the blue stone footings, much thicker/bigger than the other root I had chopped outside the dining room bay window.  I uncovered it for a bit, and then thought I would leave the rest for Justin. This is probably what cracked the house!!!!

bloody cracking root

During my digging/clearing I also found what looks like an old picture frame.

found picture frame  with transplanted tomato
plant and lots of snail pellets behind it

By the end this is what I had achieved.  A cleared out area "paved" with old slate roofing tiles.  I had planned to "pave" the whole area with the tiles, but given that I only roughly levelled the ground, the tiles will crack if you stand on them.  Initially I thought that didn't matter, - it could be like slate shingles/shards etc but now I'm re-thinking that, so don't want to break/waste them unnecessarily

new seating area