A Mouthful Of Fur

It's been a chilly week so the fire has been merrily burning every day.  Neo is in heaven.  Here he is in a heat-filled coma on the top of the bookshelf where all the warm air congregates.

Occasionally he seeks his heat source from me, and he has no regard whatsoever regarding the position of his arse or whether I can see what I am doing.  His coat is thick and luxurious now, keeping him warm.

The roos enjoy the odd bit of sunshine, congregating on the grass beyond the orchard, where they are protected from the cold wind.  They all posed prettily for me.

 Hello Lucy and Rabbit.

Now the clouds have built up there are moments of beauty as the sun fights to burst through, sending rays from heaven.

You can just see a glint of sun on Wilsons Inlet off in the distance, with the Denmark hills behind that.

I'm surprised how many flowers are still in my garden, considering how cold it's getting.  All very pretty and the little birds enjoy it.  This is the back garden just outside the back door.

And this is the front garden alongside the chookyard.

And here are the chooks and ducks.

The creek is still being glorious, gently and happily toodling on its way.  We have yet to have really heavy, continuous rain so I still don't know if it will be washed away, but there is plenty of room in the creek for water to build up so I shall remain confident.

This is walking from the bottom of the creek up.

And back down the creek again.

And from the start of my digging upstream down to the created little islands.  It will look even better when the plants and grass grow back.

On a final note, let it be know that my second sock is 2/3rds knitted! :-)

Hydrologist Me

You know how I spent weeks and weeks digging out all the accumulated sand and silt in the lower end of the creek?  It was hard work but I really enjoyed it, planning how to persuade it to meander prettily and get water to hopefully sit in pools before escaping to the neighbour's property.  Every day we've been walking along the creek, waiting waiting waiting for it to start running.  Well, after 50 mm of rain over the last two days, we went for a walk in the freezing cold this morning, and I cocked my head, was that the sound of trickling water I could hear?  Yes it was, at last!
This is the uppermost section I dug out.

 Then down to branching sections, trying to make islands.

 Then it carries on down to Helga's bridge.  The water is revolving and muddy but it usually clears up nicely in a couple of days.

This pool although looking small and inconspicuous, is actually over half a metre deep.  OMG I am so happy to have pools!

There is plenty of room under Helga's bridge now as I deepened the creekbed and raised the bridge onto a higher bank, so hopefully the bridge wont float away this year. :-)

 Another new meandering channel.  It must have run this way years and years ago, as I found the creek bed when I was digging, it's obvious when you hit the old creek bed as it is hard and a bit stony, rather than all the soft sand that has built up over it over the years.

This is the lowest part of the creek, I dug out a big shallow pool to hold water before it overflows and goes off to the neighbours place. 

The little birds are very interested in what's happened, here we have a couple of robins checking out the ponds, maybe looking for insects.

Although the new banks are still largely just dirt, there is the start of grass regrowing and the obligatory weeds, plus little groups of teeny tiny fungi at the base of the old trees.  I am so happy!!!

On a totally irrelevant note, I am filled with knitting pride, I've finished my first sock, AND it fits!!  It's really warm and really comfortable and currently I am walking around with just that one sock on, one warm foot, one cold foot ha ha.  And number two sock is already on the needles, go me!

It Looks Like A Sock

As the coolness of winter approaches, the little birds take advantage of the occasional sunny  afternoon and scurry around gobbling up bugs, and in the evening the many many frogs that now call my garden home compete with their serenading until there is a cacophony of croaking.  Neo is enjoying the warmth of the house now we are back in fire season, and is still being a big mooshbag, draping himself over me for cuddles.

 My sock knitting progresses, I've managed to turn the corner of the heel with it still looking like a sock, so I think I'm doing it right.  I feel more confident now I've bought a mini circular needle to knit with, rather than the four needles, which were scary and fell out on occasion.

 Steve is tinkering with wood in the shed once again, trying some new techniques for making a box.  For the lid he's recessed a piece of beautifully grained sheoak into a jarrah frame, and inset some tiny pieces of a paler wood into the edges.  It really is quite beautiful.

 We took ourselves into town for lunch at the historic Earl Of Spencer inn.

 I like their decor, particularly the fake telephone box in the corner, it has a mirror set into it.

 We both tucked in to their famous Beef and Guinness pie, yum.

 Then, as we'd heard there was a big swell, we drove out to The Gap again.  Here is another shot of the new platform.  The water is probably 20 metres below this.

 But when there's a good swell, it whooshes up and out of the crevasse, very exciting to watch and hear.

 Standing on the platform, beautiful waterfalls cascade down the rocks as the swell subsides.

 We drove further on to see what was happening at The Salmon Holes.  It looked deceptively calm, but that big flat rock at the front is where the waves unexpectedly surge, plucking unsuspecting fishermen to their doom.  There are gazillion warning signs about the dangers of fishing on that rock, but there are still people who do it, and sadly some are no longer around to tell the tale.  It's a beautiful place though and thankfully no-one was fishing there on that day.

 Along Frenchman Bay Road is a paddock, and someone has been creating this interesting little garden using an old car wreck.  I love it and had to stop and take a photo.

 We've been living it up lately, we also popped into Boston Brewery last week for a spot of lunch.  Wonderful as always. 

 Last Saturday I spent the day at the Ocean Beach Surf Club in Denmark with the embroidery girls from our group, the Albany night group and the Denmark group, for our annual Stitches By The Sea workshop day.  It's always nice to get together with the other groups, we all stitch a small project and are well looked after by the host group, the Denmark girls this time, with homemade soups, sandwiches and slices.  And the view from the balcony over the beach is just wonderful.  It was a fun day.  :-)

There's not a lot to say on the home front.  It's tidy up for winter time.  We've been burning garden rubbish and will be starting more pruning soon.  I've been out of action for a while now with a hip problem, but with physio and a couple of cortisone injections (with freaking BIG needles!!) into the joints, I'm hoping things will improve quickly as I want to get back into the garden. 

 There are still loads of galahs around, I counted about forty the other day.  We do so enjoy seeing them,  I find them very comical.

Puddles And Spuddles

I am recently home from a quick visit to Perth for a few days.  It was nice to catch up with kids, grandkids and parents, as well as a visit with my old Willetton cross stitch buddies for a few hours.  Steve stayed home and tended the animals, and Neo expressed his displeasure at my leaving him by hiding behind the bed when I got home.  It didn't last long and he's been a big ball of sookiness ever since.  :-)

 The most important piece of information to come from my Perth visit was to find out what my granddaughters had named the ducks.  Riley named the white headed duck 'Puddles' (with Sparkles a close second), while Stevie went for rhyming and decided the black headed duck should be known as 'Spuddles'.  :-)
Here are all the feathered ladies out and about and another shot of Spuddles enjoying a float around in her little bath.  I must keep an eye out at the tip for a unwanted clam shell paddling pool thingy, I reckon that would be perfect for them, doesn't hold too much water but is a bit bigger, but would be easy to tip up and empty each day.

Steve stripped the last of the apples and persimmons off the fruit trees, which meant that the nets could finally come off until spring.  It may not seem so but the trees have all put on a good amount of growth.  When the leaves finish falling we'll do some pruning.

This is a Fuyu persimmon cut in half, aren't they beautiful!  And so lovely and sweet.  I can't really describe their taste, although Paul thought there was a hint of rockmelon flavour.  They are really crisp and juicy, can't wait for a bigger crop next year :-)

Steve has us all prepared for winter, with piles of chopped wood ready for the wood fire.  It's suddenly got rather cold, with the wind bringing a bracing chill factor on top of that.  The fire has been burning for the last week, and Neo is in warm pussycat bliss.

Yesterday I finally downed my spade, I have finished digging out the lower end of the creek.  Now we wait expectantly for it to start running and see what happens....

 Here are two of our four legged neighbours, it's so nice having them next door to say hello to.

Do you remember scrawny little Rabbit who was just venturing out of Lucy's pouch in March?  She's grown hasn't she!  Little cutie pie, and she is an independent joey now, no longer allowed in the pouch, instead popping her head inside for a nurse every now and then.

I am having another go at knitting.  I suck at knitting and usually fling any efforts into the darkest corner of the cupboard.  However, I really really want to knit myself some socks.  So, after some hours on the internet, studying the fine art of using five double ended needles, I am underway.  Slow as a tortoise, but it will be interesting to see if anything vaguely sock-shape comes out of it!

We dressed up like grownups the other night, took ourselves into town, had a glass of wine and some dinner at Due South, then spent a very pleasant evening watching a performance by Celtic Thunder at the Albany Entertainment Centre.  Thanks for the tickets for our birthdays mum and dad, it was a great idea! xx

Last week we drove down Frenchman Bay Road to see the newly opened upgrade to The Gap viewing area.  A new, wide path from the footpath took us to a specky new viewing platform that hangs right over The Gap and the ferocious seas below.  Even though it sticks out further it felt very sturdy and safe, not nerve wracking at all.

The new path also extended to a viewing platform of The Natural Bridge, another beautiful icon on our coastline.

It's sort of pointless trying to photograph the depth and grandeur of The Gap and the power of the water, it always looks pitiful in photos I take.  But I did anyway.

Information signs have been added here and there about the construction.  We think they've done a really good job.