Cubes & costumes

Going green?

In case you didn't know, it's book week in schools and public libraries, all over Australia. It's an opportunity to celebrate all things, books! At Peter's school it was dress-up day, today. Where you could choose to be a favourite character from a book, or just what inspires you.

No-man's Land

What's caught your eye, Mr Kookaburra?

No-man's Land. An enigma, really. Kind of like how we're approaching the middle of August. How did that happen? Thank goodness, I've socked away some early Christmas gifts, got onto some clothes mending, and food fermenting. All good stuff! But I've also been avoiding this space too. More than real-life, demanding my energy. I've had moments I wanted to blog, but simply couldn't. I think I know why.

Simply July

 A bouquet

July comes after the hump of mid year. That means the shortest days of winter are behind us in Australia. So there's much to look forward to, in the coming Spring. July is when I usually receive flowers from my husband, because it's my birthday. Forty-five, this year. The mid year, of my mid life. It sounds so formal, when put like that. For me, it's really an opportunity to reflect on the fact, I've HAD this long.

See, I almost drowned when I was younger - somewhere between seven and nine.

Game changer

Momentary pause - Willy-Wagtail

I promised to share some news, David and I have been sitting on, for some time. It's part of the reason, I chose to shut down my property website, too. A series of events took place, which were innocuous at the time - but soon gathered momentum. Until they demanded nothing short of some life changing decisions.

Part 2 - Resilient Surprises

A fruitful exercise

So the drought broke in late Spring. However, there wasn't enough rainfall, over a 12 month period, to stop the death of several of our fruit trees. For the most part, they have to cope on natural rainfall. Thankfully, the Lazarus Mulberry, came back from the dead, as I described earlier. Yet there were a couple of pair trees, which not only managed to survive the drought - they bore fruit for the first time in a decade, since planted.

Resilient Surprises

Early Autum (March 27) the rain came too late

RIP mulberry tree, down in the main gully. I thought of all the places you would thrive, it's where all the water flowed. You grew faithfully, like a weed, for many years. But we were about to learn something new in this landscape together. When it doesn't rain for months on end, then summer comes and we miss our usual rainfall too - well, the gully doesn't capture water. At all.

Fluff 'n Stuff

The three clucker'teers!

There's nothing like motivating the building schedule, than having baby chicks, waiting in the wings. Sorry, an obvious pun. But our chicken coop should be ready for these three, to eventually migrate into. Even if renovations have just barely begun.