Archive for the 'From The Garden' Category
It’s been a funny old week. I’m feeling a bit off-kilter. I’m not 100% certain what a kilter is, nor do I know whether I’d like to be on one, but for the moment, I’m definitely off.
I did fully intend to write up a review of my lovely Sling bag made at Sewjourn, for Nikki’s Review Round-Up Competition. Somehow that deadline slid out the window while I was distracted by kilters, but get yourself over there and vote for a winner anyway, won’t you?
In lieu of that, and of anything else of substance for the blog this week – please accept an offering from last week:
Anticipation:
Installation:
Sandpit is Go!:
My Dad built, and then he and Dermot installed, this long-anticipated addition to the backyard.
The weather even came to the party with a couple of brilliant days earlier this week (I love this Winter-with-a-promise-of-Spring time of year so much). So the kids got to hang out and build sandcastles as much as they liked.
Well. Two of them liked. Mr Fifteen-and-a-half-months-and-I can-climb-out-of-my-cot-now seems to have some kind of bizarre sand-phobia! We’re working on it.
July 30 2010 | Family and From The Garden and The Kids | 3 Comments »
This is our resident blue-tongue lizard. Isn’t she a stunner? (We think it’s a female – the female’s tale is narrower than the male’s, apparently). She’s been hanging out in the gap between our driveway and the neighbours’ property, but we’ve seen her popping up from time to time, hopefully to eat some of the less welcome garden residents. Blue-tongues eat slugs, snails and the like. Useful really, so I hope she stays around for a while.
I’ve been doing a bit of blue-tongue ‘research’ (aka Googling), and this site says breeding season is between September and November. We could have babies in a few months! We’ll have to keep an eye on her. (And hope next door’s cat doesn’t!)
Blogtoberfest Day 4
October 04 2009 | From The Garden | No Comments »
…Spring!
I seem to have been AWOL again. Oh well. You know. Same old stuff. Actually, these past couple of weeks, I’ve been pretty busy. And somewhat social. How unusual! It must be the Springing of the weather, I think. I love the changes as Winter gives way to Spring. Each year, I get all aquiver at the first sight of a blooming Magnolia! The warmer weather over the last couple of weeks has seen us out in the garden – tidying up a little, making plans, moving fruit trees to make room for a new shed… even a little harvesting – check out our first (ever) broccoli:
We are so proud!
Someone else has been discovering a love for the great outdoors:
The littlest one quite likes going adventuring (seen here amongst our lovely broad beans). She frequently starts the day off by requesting ‘shoes-on-and-off-we-go’ (okay, not in words, exactly, but you get the idea). I’m not a terribly good morning person, so our walks usually have to wait until a bit later, but we’ve been having a good time exploring the world, and she does like to ‘help’ in the garden. By help, I mean ‘eat worms’. (So far not successfully, but not for want of trying!)
We did another bit of adventuring, too, and discovered a wonderful playground a few suburbs over, where I spent some time trying to take photographs of kids who refused to look at me:
Or sit still for more than two seconds:
(That’s my lovely sister-in-law and her little boy in the midground there.)
What else? Well, Marita came to visit us last week, and we spent a lovely hour or so playing show-and-tell over coffee. That brings the total number of online stitchy friends I have met to four, and so far not an axe-wielding maniac among them! Actually, bizarrely enough, Marita and I had already met, briefly. We’re both part of the Melbourne Freecycle group, and a month or two back, she came over to pick up some miscellaneous needlework magazines I was getting rid of. It was funny to realise the prior connection, and it’s nice to know someone local, not halfway across the universe like those other Melbourne stitchers I know!
Speaking of stitching, I have been doing verrrry little. I started ‘A Simple Life’, by Elizabeth’s Designs. I also signed up for another exchange. I know, I know, I promised myself I wasn’t going to. But somehow it ‘just happened’! I’m going to be making some kind of ‘small’ for somebody, as part of an exchange on the Rotation Stitchers’ BB. Not sure what yet, but ideas are forming. Must get a move on that.
Also, I’ve discovered that knitting is not as completely beyond me as I always thought it was. I have been doing a little bit of here-and-there practice and learning, and I think I’m kind of getting there. Enough to be ready to start my first bona-fide non-scarf garment, anyway. I’ll let you know how it goes… say in about a year or two!
August 22 2007 | Family and From The Garden and General Ramblings | 3 Comments »
Moods around here are very much improved following two days of steady rain. The drought (and it still is, despite the rain) has been very depressing on so many levels, and watching our garden wilt and die has not been fun. The ground is actually wet now, and I’m beginning to feel the mild stirrings of inspiration to plant for winter crops. We’ve never yet managed to have a winter vegetable garden – I think it’s because planting needs to be done while the weather is still sweltering, then tending/harvesting needs doing in the misery of late autumn/winter. Blah. But we’ll see. It would be nice to have soup vegetables at the very least.
Speaking of harvesting, we have managed to keep a few things going… on Saturday I picked beetroot, cucumber, cherry tomatoes and leeks. Then last night we had pesto on spaghetti, courtesy of our own basil and garlic. Yum. (We also opened wine, it was terribly civilised around here after the small people were finally in bed 
)
Other delicious produce from the weekend:
Niamh was very accommodating with her naps, and I got quite a bit done, replenishing a few colours of my sale floss and dyeing some fabric for myself and others. There is one monstrously ugly piece of fabric hiding in that pile though… not sure what I’ll do with it yet. If you think you could use a fat quarter of Belfast that kind of looks like army-camo, drop me a line (OtherHalf was more generous and said it looked ‘kind of foresty’. Yes. Like camo!).
Other people were busy on the weekend too… we found out this morning that my mother and stepfather snuck out and got married yesterday… finally legal after nineteen years together! Congratulations you two 
!
January 22 2007 | Dyeworks and Family and From The Garden and Other Craft | 11 Comments »
Looks lonely, doesn’t it? Following ‘the bird incident‘, we netted our strawberries… only to then come face to ugly face with an infestation of slaters. Who apparently lurve strawberries almost as much as Finn. Grrrr. I’m beginning to feel the same way about organic gardening as I do about natural birth. It’s all good in theory, but when it comes down to the crunch, gimme the drugs! It’s a struggle, and I’m not sure I have the energy to keep it up this year. Birds are eating or destroying seeds and seedlings almost as fast as we can get them in, and when the birds can’t get them, you can be sure something else can.
Very occasionally, we get to profit from our efforts. If I’m quick, I get to eat some fresh peas before Finn gobbles the lot. Or a strawberry (I had to place this one safely out of reach to get a photograph for you 
).
This time tomorrow (or slightly earlier, in fact), I hope to be kicking back in a spa bath with a glass of champagne (just the one, mind you… still breastfeeding)! We’re going away for the weekend to celebrate our sixth wedding anniversary. It’s not quite as romantic as it sounds though, since we’re taking the kids, and we’re just going to my mum’s ‘spare house’ (it’s kind of their holiday house, but it’s only 15 minutes away from their actual home!) Regardless, it should be fun, and most importantly, there’s no internet access, no land-line, and not even any mobile coverage (for our particular carrier anyway). Bliss!
So I’ll see you on the other side of the weekend. Have a wonderful one
November 09 2006 | Family and From The Garden and The Kids | 9 Comments »
It’s 7am. I am half dressed, have already been spit-upon twice… no, three times this morning, Niamh woke up several times again last night, and I made the mistake of weighing myself this morning. Yesterday was the day I didn’t get out of my pyjamas until 5pm. (I knew there’d eventually be one of those – one could wonder why I bothered changing at all once it got that late – I certainly do!) This ’4-month sleep regression’, if that is what it is, is kicking my butt. Tell me, how is it fair to regress from something you were never actually any good at? I was just starting to think maybe I was doing okay, even though Niamh was mostly still getting up twice a night. I was starting to handle it. Now? Not so much.
All of that, though, is not the main cause of this morning’s irritation. This is the big one…
A BIRD HAS STOLEN THE FIRST RIPENED STRAWBERRY FROM MY GARDEN!
Buggeration, that just really ticks me off. Now I have to go and find nets or something to put over the plants. What’s really annoying is the darn bird didn’t even bother to finish the fruit – it left a manky chewed up half-a-berry still hanging off the plant. I had planned on letting Finn pick that strawberry today. Lucky I didn’t tell him about it, hey?
October 13 2006 | Family and From The Garden and The Kids | 4 Comments »
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