I came up a day earlier by myself and did some more digging - yes another pile of dirt, this one outside the bathroom window
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| pile and hole (under the grass) |
Once again filled in a hole which the plumber had left behind, with the pile that he had left behind, and then distributed the rest of the dirt close by. It reminded me a bit of that old movie - The Great Escape? (Justin will correct me if I'm wrong) where the prisoners of war want to tunnel out of the concentration camp, so devise ingenious pockets in their trousers which they fill with dirt from the tunnels and then release throughout the camp. Of course my way, was without the pockets. I was also on the constant lookout for gold nuggets, and still examine all the bits of quartz I find to see if there might be a golden seam. No such luck as yet. Anyway, I pretty much redistributed this pile, and raked it evenly, although I'm sure that Justin might want to do some final touchups.
Unfortunately, once again I forgot to take the after shot - oh well next time.
Given that we had seen Jill (Old Loddon Wines) when we were up a couple of weeks ago, I went up to the Bendigo Bank to order some wine and rang Mark to see if he wanted some too. I ended up ordering 2 dozen for us and 2 dozen to Mark, as she was selling them at a very good price. She also inquired about our grape growing aspirations. I told her that we didn't get around to it this year, and weren't actually even sure if we were going to proceed, as the garden plans had almost half the garden as "vineyard". Way too much, we were thinking of halving or even quartering the area. I also told Jill that I was thinking of buying up grapes at the market and possibly making wine ourselves this Autumn - to see how we liked it, or not. She then offered to allow us to pick her grapes (as the Vineyard is now closed) and we could make wine from that. How lovely and generous! The traditional picking weekend is the Labour Day weekend in March, so we'll be back with bells on!
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| This could be us... (but isn't pinched this photo from the internet) |
I also had to do a bit of trimming, as the front honeysuckle?? has experienced rampant growth and is extending into the gateway
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| rampant growth looking out |
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| rampant growth looking in |
However, despite this growth, most everything else looks dessicated - the day before it was around 40 degrees celsius, and today (Friday) was pretty hot also. That coupled with not much rain meant that all the remaining cherries on the tree blackened and either dried up, or fell off, the figs and pears had dried leaves, some of the raspberries shrivelled, and even the euphorbias which I though were tough as old boots, dried to a crisp. Had to give all of this a good watering - so hopefully they'll survive.
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| shrivelled pear tree |
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| non edible cherries left |
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| dried raspberries |
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| Browned eurphobias |
However, some of the raspberries were still plump and juicy, so I sampled them. Lovely - home grown raspberries
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| out of focus plump raspberry |
And while I was checking out the raspberries, I discovered the asparagus that I had planted back in Winter. I thought it was a random weed, and was about to pull it out, however it was attached to the corm/root that I had planted. It was thin and spindly looking, and seemed to be ferning up - there was not much of a spear to it at all. Perhaps there'll be more luck next year.
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| spindly asparagus |
The corn continues to climb, as does the lettuce, and artichokes
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| Corn |
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| lettuce "trees" |
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| Artichokes |
I was also pleased to harvest some garlic
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| fresh garlic |
The so called turnip, however, was more leaf than root - and not sure if such a woody thing is actually edible. Justin thought it most amusing
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| turnip |
I also brought a couple of new cookbooks here - part of my birthday present (Readings voucher) from Frank Both books have a country flavour, so I'm looking forward to cooking from them
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| country cookbooks |
And speaking of cooking, I had cooked up a Moroccan beef tagine with preserved lemons to eat with the Karen & Mark tomorrow night. Put it in the slow cooker so that it could just bubble away in the background. (We ended up going to the pub for dinner on Saturday, so I took the tagine home and put it in the freezer for another time)
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| tagine |
And, much to Justin's relief, I bought a new kettle (birthday money from Mum) - as he thought that the old one had a funny smell
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| Fancy new (non smelly) kettle |
The others (Karen, Mark & Zoe, Justin & Madeleine, Fraser was back in Melbourne staying with a friend for the weekend) all came up on Saturday around lunchtime. Karen brought us a delicious antipasto lunch :- ham, salami, chicken, olives, dips, cheeses, pork pies, pate, stuffed baby capsicum, bread rolls etc. We ate outside under the hoop pine.
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| bounteous spread |
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| Karen & Lisa at the table |
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| Karen & Lisa at the table closer up |
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| Justin - not quite ready for the photo |
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| Justin - now ready for the photo |
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| Me- having a drink |
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| me and Zoe, and it's not her beer |
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| Zoe again - and still not her beer |
After lunch we went for a bit of a wander along the main street, as Inglewood was having it's Inglewood Alive festival - with street stalls, bands, wine tasting, tours, motorcycle and vintage car displays etc
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| Bands |
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| street stalls |
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| Motor cycle displays |
Had a look in Aurora Lodge - the Masonic Hall , and was quite impressed with the beauty of the room. We also found out that Mr Tivey had been a "Master" (or whatever the correct Masonic terminology is) of the Lodge.
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| Aurora Lodge #1 |
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| Aurora Lodge #2 |
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| Aurora Lodge #3 :- ceiling leadlight skylights |
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| Aurora Lodge #4 |
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| Aurora Lodge #5 |
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| Aurora Lodge #6 |
Also dropped in at Catherine's postcard/art shop. I'd met her last year when i'd come up for the day with Susan, and had met her a few subsequent times with Justin, but hadn't seen the shop open at all this year. Anyway, she gave us 5 prints that she'd made up of the house. She'd gone and taken a number of photos (yes after the roof had been fixed) and then played around with the exposures/colouring. The prints are a quartet of photos taken at different angles 2 up and 2 mirror image. How thoughtful of her to give us 5 copies. We'll frame them up
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| this way up |
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| the other way up |
Anyway, it was quite hot and muggy, and we didn't really feel like doing any work. The girls scootered off to the pool for a swim, and the rest of us pottered around.
Justin put up an old unframed painting that Frank had given us
Karen and I also decided that we'd go off to the pool for a swim (me at least), leaving Justin & Mark to do whatever. Of course, we missed the girls, as they had decided to come back. Although it was hot, the pool was quite refreshing, but it took a while for me to actually fully submerge, but once I did, I swam a few laps.
Anyway, we were there for about an hour, and came back to a brilliant surprise.
In the time we'd been gone, Justin and Mark had rejuvenated and improved the front path - which had been wrecked by the plumber last year. We were so surprised and impressed that they had managed to do it so well and so quickly. I thought it an improvement on the initial path, as the bricks were now laid saw-tooth fashion as per around the mulberry trees.
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| our marvellous new path |
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| Our marvellous new path - aerial view |
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| the girls posing on our marvellous new path #1 |
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the girls posing on our marvellous new path #2
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The boys were off having a run when we returned, so after all of the showers etc, we didn't really feel like doing any cooking. Yes, I had already made the tagine, but there were still accompaniments to be made, so we went to the pub instead.
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| The girls en route to the pub |
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| Karen, Justin & Mark en route to the pub |
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| One of our favourite photo spots - in front of our house |
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| Zoe en route to the pub |
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| Me - at the pub! |
Big bacon and egg breakfast for the adults on Sunday morning, the girls slept in for hours, and didn't really feel like a cooked breakfast. Good thing we didn't wait for them!
And once again Justin & Mark proved themselves wonder workers - as they concreted over the the front path that had been pulled up by yes you guessed it the plumber. Justin had never concreted before so was very appreciative of Mark's guidance and help
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| getting started |
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| having a think |
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| shovelling |
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| Mixing |
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| Levelling |
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| Voila |
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