Tineke rose and long necked turtle

We have had a peculiar Spring into Summer this year. The weather has stayed cool and very often there has been misty rain, not really doing any good to the soil but keeping the plants damp.It must have and still is, driving the vignerons up the wall because they have had to keep on spraying to prevent downy mildew. We hear them going up and down the rows of vines with their spraying machines whining away for hours on end.

The "Tineke" rose bush has been flowering with very impressive blooms because of the cooler weather. I discovered my namesake rose twenty years ago when we first started our garden here.
There was a woman at the Aldinga market selling these bare rooted roses which she had received as payment for her work!! So naturally I had to buy one....
It has lovely single roses which cut and keep well for sometimes two weeks. If I cut the rose bud it will slowly unfurl into a a beautiful huge flower.
The Bonica rose as a standard has looked fabulous too.

Last week when we were enjoying our evening drink on the front verandah, we suddenly spotted this long necked turtle wandering in the front garden amongst the ox tongue thistles. I got my camera to photograph it but it heard me coming of course and so hid its head around under its shell. It is peculiar to this turtle that it folds its neck and head under its carapace rather then withdrawing it like the other of its tribe do. I did not pick it up as they squirt you with some vile smelling liquid if you do.Remember to click on the photo to get a better look at it, the press esc to go back to normal.

Three mornings ago when I got up early to make my ritual pot of tea, there were some ibis doing an emu parade. I assume they are finding crickets to eat or some other insects. They are very aware of the clicking of the camera and moved off quite smartly when they heard me despite the fact I had sneaked up on them behind the fig tree.
They must do an awful lot of good in the paddocks and in amongst the vineyards by keeping the insect population down. The white faced Heron has been around again too but they are not reducing the goldfish population in our pond.....

Wildlife and Fire wood

We seem to have a kangaroo wandering through not just the hay paddock but also sauntering past the Studio front windows in the morning.
Tonight he was in the hay paddock and I went out to make sure he wasn't looking at my strawberry patch in the old wheelbarrow. I spoke to him and he wasn't the least bit interested in what I had to say. In fact I wondered if he could actually see me I got so close to him. I don't mind one of them but I will not be amused if he brings along all his other relations which live up the road a bit.

The bronze wing pigeon is still hanging around and has a mate booming away in the distance.
I find them a curious bird as they land quite a way from the pond and then walk in for their drink. That takes quite a while too as he wants to make sure there is no danger lurking behind the rocks. The colours in their wings are so lovely
and this time he displayed them for me to capture it on the photo.The crested pigeon is also considered a kind of bronze wing.

 The Tawny frogmouths  were in the vines again the other day but since then I haven't seen them
not even in the Pepper tree which they frequent .
The Murray Magpies are nesting again, sitting on a new batch of eggs in the same nest. The Willy wagtails seem to have stopped breeding. One year they had four batches of young but Dad decided they ought to all leave home and started attacking the youngster which wouldn't leave.I think in the end it died sadly.

We have finished carting the wood Anton cut up for us from that half a tree that came down in the ferocious winds last week. It looks a respectable heap and will dry out in the sun ready for next winter. It is all stacked by the chook yard.
I miss my chooks but won't get any more till I have a better chookshed as the present one is too hard to keep clean and isn't very hygienic.
Perhaps it can be a project when everything else has been caught up with......

Adelaide Surprises

We drove into North Adelaide this morning for Brian to see his eye specialist for a six monthly check up for the pressures in his eyes.We couldn't park in the Specialists car park and finished up as usual in the next street. There is a lane which goes between the houses and goes through to Melbourne street. I usually wander off to look at buildings when Brian goes in to have his tests which can take well over an hour or even two. Once or twice have finished up in St Peter's Cathedral which I admire very much. This time though I went across the parklands and found all sorts of treasures and interesting things to look at.
I found this rather poignant memorial to a young man who lost his life so needlessly. You wonder what went wrong , did he use a more modern gun powder instead of black powder?
Did he perhaps not put in enough gun powder or too much?It reminded me of a headstone in the Penwortham Cemetery which had a stone saying the young man died due to a melancholy accident.

From the Naval Memorial garden I could see the spires of St Peter's Cathedral with the Jackaranda tree in the foreground.
The Jackaranda trees all over Adelaide were flowering prolifically and looking just beautiful.
It was a stunning day today weather wise and the park lands are still green. It may have been the Adelaide University cricket grounds I saw where quite a few birds were having a wonderful time under the sprinklers and a man was busy mowing. I wandered over to see the interesting grandstand and took a photo of it.Brian tells me he played hockey on some of the playing fields there when he was a young man and was knocked unconscious by a hockey ball during one game. I was amazed at the huge grounds there are there, we are so lucky that Light made sure Adelaide was surrounded by parklands.

I found the George Fife Angas Memorial and was somewhat nonplussed by the Black Angel holding a palmfrond.
When I looked up the Statues of Adelaide on the web, it had a very good rundown on this memorial. It appears there was quite a controversy about the proposed memorial because the Workers Union didn't think Angas was such a fantastic employer and had not paid his workers all that well....
Well, what was new, most of the pastoralists worked their employees hard and paid as little as they could get away with in those days.
If you want to know more about these statues you can look them up on the net.Someone had stated that they thought the Black Angel, well, they said dark woman with feathers....
was incongruous to the overall memorial and so it seems to me also.

Just to the west of the Angas memorial is the bronze created by Robert Hannaford of
Simpson and his Donkey of Gallipoli and WW1
fame. It is fronted by a large bed of white and red petunias which is very effective.
I read Hannaford as being quoted that bronzes will outlast anything else on the planet, art wise that is, paintings and other works of art would be utterly destroyed by some  world disaster.....
It is a stunning piece of art and how lucky we are to have such artists in South Australia.

Walking further along to the Torrens bridge and down the bike path along the river, which, by the way was looking full and quite good, I was met by numerous girls on bikes in large groups.
All exams must be finished as they all greeted me cheerily as they rode past. Were they all wearing orange for the 25th November ? or was  my re-call faulty, perhaps it was red they were all wearing, whatever... they were a happy lot.
Looking back along the path I could see the bridge with the looming flying saucers above it which of course is our new construction for the Adelaide oval...we must move with the times....

The city council has certainly landscaped all along the river Torrens and it was all looking just gorgeous. The agapanthus were flowering and with the roses looked wonderful against the bridge near the Adelaide Zoo. There were a lot of people either walking or biking along all the paths with others just sitting on the grass in the shade of trees. How different life is here in this peaceful city to so many other cities overseas in turmoil and savagery amongst their own citizens.

I had been walking past various fibre art pieces placed at intervals along the river. One was a long felted piece running from the top bank to the river with a hole in it to allow for a tree.
So I photographed this crayon art piece running up the steps to the path which eventually took me back to the University playing fields.
I love stone walls and steps that may or may not, lead to some other interesting place...
By the time I got back to the street where we were parked it took me quite some time to find the lane leading to Melbourne street and the specialists rooms to wait for Brian.
Only a little wait while I read some ancient magazine ( why do waiting rooms always have such old magazines? you'd think the fees they charge they could run to more up to date stuff ?) Brian got a good report and needs to come back in six months time.....

Storm Damage in the Garden

Last night we had the most horrendously strong winds, they lasted all night , roared and twisted and were still blowing when I got up this morning. When my sister rang me at 7 am it was calm in Adelaide but it was still blowing strongly here.
When I went out to put some stuff in the recycle bin , I noticed half a tree had been twisted off the main trunk and fallen across our track, onto the bottle brush tree which was flattened as a result.Luckily we were still able to use the other part of the drive to get out.

What to do when our chainsaw would have been too small to cope with this huge limb.
Our share farmer would be too busy at this haymaking time to call on and the Home Assist people don't do chainsawing.
I decided to contact our friend who used to do gardening for us but is now busy building rammed earth houses with a local firm. I thought perhaps he may know of a local or have a friend who would tackle this huge limb.

So I texted him ( oh, the joy of mobile phones...)
and he replied that he was actually off work for a few days, waiting for the next house to be built in a fortnights time. He was willing to come around and cut up the tree; what a relief to have him come around and have a coffee first  with my musical friends who had also just arrived.
He was telling us over coffee how he fishes for sand whiting at Aldinga reef and uses the live bait of tiny crustacians he pumps out of the sand first.

After coffee we left him to it and we went into the studio to play our Teleman and Bach pieces to the background music of the chainsaw....We thought we might tackle a new piece of music next time, we hadn't played together since late September.
He did a great job and as the photos below show, we will have a good start for our next winter fire wood.

It has left a very bare patch in that corner now and I am wondering what to plant now as the Agonis didn't like it there and died and really the bottle brush had been struggling too.
I would love to plant a Holm Oak but they take so long to grow....
Perhaps it may be better to plant the Winpara Gem Grevillia, they do seem to do well here once you get them going.
I have carted three barrow loads of the smaller pieces and stacked them near the fowl yard where they will get plenty of sun and wind to dry them out ready for the winter fires. Only it has hardly dented the number still to be carted....

The poor tree has this great gaping wound now but I hope it will
not worry it too much and it will heal itself.
I noticed the vineyard row next to the fence and the trees are not doing too well. The neighbours did cut a trench and lined it with plastic but I think gumtrees exude a kind of deterrent to discourage other plants from invading their territory.

There is still a bit more to be sawed up but his chainsaw was blunt at this stage and he needed to go home to sharpen it. He will come back tomorrow and do some other garden jobs for us before he goes on a bit of a holiday and then back to work.
We will continue to cart wood for the next few days ....and prune back the roses which have flowered prolifically this season and pull more weeds and strike cuttings .....the list goes on, never a dull moment

Return of the Tawny Frogmouths & other Hatchlings

What a surprise yesterday morning to look out and see the Tawny Frogmouths had again taken up residence in our patio vine since it grew its spring foliage . I had seen them in the pepper tree last week under which we have the bales of hay for mulch and where we go quite frequently. They looked somewhat surprised too, I think, as of course we use that door onto the patio a lot. In and out most of the day to do gardening which is naturally in full swing now with mulching and watering as well.The photo on the left taken from the position of the door shows the birds looking surprised and the next photo taken from outside the vine shows they are telling us " we are not here".

I love the way they stick their beaks up in the air pretending we can't see them.
As there are only two, I am not sure if these are the parents or a parent and a young one. Remember the young one fledged onto the rotary hoist end of September ?
They were not here this morning so I guess they felt they would get a better day's rest back in the pepper tree.

The other bird which nested in the vine was a Greeny, or the White-plumed honey eater. It is a beautifully woven nest of grasses and tied to the vine branches. While it was sitting on eggs it seemed to cope alright with the traffic going on underneath it. When we had family to stay so there were more people, the birds would come in to feed the young via a different route and where they thought we couldn't see them.

The photo on the right shows the Willy wagtail nest with its young in the Ash tree.They only hatched two this time. The parents have been very busy feeding them so a lot of insects have been eliminated .Some one remarked today that they think the Blackbirds have actually slotted into the ground insect control area as not many native birds fulfill that niche.

The photo on the left you will have to click on and hopefully see the Greeny chick in its nest. If not you can treat it as a "Spot the Bird" game.
The chicks fledged and that was it, they have disappeared never to return home!

I got some nice shots of the Bronze wing pigeon at the pond the other day.It is being kept company by a Blackbird sitting on the jug. Do click on the photo as the colours on the wings are just lovely. It sits and "Booms" away in the mornings and I have been wondering if it is nesting in the pale blue eremophila just up the lane between the trees.

Altar Bistro Craft Lunch

Yesterday, Thursday 17th, was our craft group meeting. We usually meet at someone's house but we decided to go out to lunch instead.
Last time we went out to lunch together, we went to eat@the whalers in Victor Harbor which we all enjoyed. This time though, it was suggested we go to a local place to eat and one of our members suggested the Altar Bistro.
The building the Altar Bistro is in, has been many things but it was originally built as the Primitive Methodist Chapel and was opened on the Sabbath April 1868.

The outside still has that lovely, honest look of a little country church and once inside the feeling has been kept, by simple table settings with clean lines and great proper, tablecloths and napkins.
Chairs with backs that are actually comfortable to sit back in.
We loved how the owners have converted a doorway by making it into a wine and magazine display area all out of the old fashioned kerosine tins. In the depression of course these
tins were treasured and converted and used for all manner of things....talk about recycling.
We all arrived at about 12.30pm and caught up with each others news. We browsed through the wine list and decided on another local, the Minko Pinot Grigio.
I was fortunate enough to be taken to the Yarra valley last week while we were staying in Melbourne and I tasted a very good Pinot Grigio there. It was lovely and clean and crisp almost like my favorite Clare Valley Queltaler riesling which I grew up with.

The Minko Pino Grigio was a little on the sweet side .
We ordered our meal and then had to wait quite a while which was alright as we were not in any hurry and at least too, you know the food is being properly prepared and not just zapped in a microwave.
The cheese platter looks intriguing written up on the blackboard, it would be a lovely thing to have if you wanted to sit and sip wine all afternoon.....

I had ordered an entree, the House smoked Duck breast on a Celeriac Remoulade,and a Confit of Duckleg& Pistachio Croquette . It arrived looking scrumptious , the breast a delicate pink still and the croquette crisp on the outside and melt in the mouth inside...it was absolutely delicious and well worth the wait.
My neighbour had ordered a mains, the Slow braised Sticky Veal Belly on shallot port jam with Anna potato , wilted spinach and veal jus.
It looked great and she enjoyed it very much though she thought perhaps a little less salt may have been better.

My other neighbour had ordered the pan seared Flathead, scallop, lemon puree, home dried vine tomatoes& green bean salad. It was gluten free and she too, enjoyed her meal and said she would come back again. Unfortunately, I had ordered the triple cooked hand cut chips with Murray River Pink salt, not that they were not great, but it left me no room for the very well priced deserts that were on offer!! We finished up with coffees and a general consensus we would all come here again.All meals were very well priced indeed....

One of the patrons in the restaurant offered to take a photo of us all as I was busy taking photos, against all protests by my craft friends, but it left me out... a good thing some people may think
Anyway, here we all are ...
I intend to bring Brian here fairly soon, even next week...and why not?
I know we have Fino here in Willunga and Au Pear and about another seven other eating places, but I think that Altar Bistro will give them all a run for their money......we highly recommend them

St Kilda Botanical Gardens

Last Thursday we caught the tram on Glenferrie Road and went all the way on it to St Kilda.
It was an overcast sort of a day and we had brought along some wet weather gear just in case it rained.
It started to drizzle a bit just as we got off the tram and crossed over to the Luna Park side of the road.
We wandered along all the quaint little shops there and saw all the lovely food stuff these shops display and smelt the coffee as it was being brewed.

We came to the end of the street and noticed a sign saying  "St Kilda Botanical Gardens".
So we crossed the road to go and see what these gardens might be. We walked along Blessington street till we came to what looked like a very modest entrance. The Garden gate was open so we walked in and were quite intrigued to see some historic glasshouses.Walking in a bit further there was a lake with some ducks on it and then the Conservatory with pigeons all around. The moment I took my camera out they all flew up to the Conservatory facade to pose.
We looked through there and then walked across to the giant chess board. There are also benches around here so you can bring your own chessmen and have a game of chess.

By this stage unfortunately the drizzle was getting heavier but we persevered and took photos of some very interesting plants one of which is pictured here and I can't recall its name!!
It was on the edge of the rose garden which is the largest rose garden which pays tribute to the rosarian Alister Clark.
It is a beautifully laid out rose garden but as it is too early in the season there were not many roses flowering.
We think there were some Apricot Nectar in flower but they were not marked so they could well have been some other name.
It may be worth mentioning here that the St Kilda Botanical Gardens were created back in 1859 when the Council set aside 16 acres for the purpose of creating these Botanical Gardens. Baron von Mueller who was Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, contributed several hundred plants and

trees and quite a few of the larger trees including the huge Moreton Bay trees are still in place.

We walked around the rose garden admiring its lay out and the lush green grass surrounding all the beds. It has been a wet season here too, in Melbourne and this would contribute to the overall fresh look of the gardens. It will be a delight to see this with all the roses in full bloom in a week or twos time. I hope many people will visit it then.

Who ever is looking after this garden is doing a great job and there were several men doing maintenance while we were there. I hope the council makes a generous allowance for this garden as many people would use this place as a refuge from the hectic pace that Melbourne and St Kilda seem to have.
The gazebo is just so pretty with its deep pink climbing rose and little blue ground cover.
By this stage the rain was settling in quite steadily and so we had to forgo looking for the interesting front gates which was a shame.

We hurried past the artist Albert Tucker's house and back onto the street with the little restaurants. Unfortunately we picked one which left a lot to be desired , the food was pretentiously named and not very nice to eat and the wine was outrageously priced.
However, seeing the Botanic Gardens made up for our disappointment in food.
We caught the tram back to where we were staying and hope we have convinced our family there to go and visit St Kilda again in the near future.

Victorian Family Gathering & Further Adventures

We flew over to Melbourne last Thursday late afternoon and were picked up from the airport by car and driven to Hawthorn where we would be staying with Brian's family.
There was a lot of preparation going on for Brenton's sixtieth birthday party on the Saturday.
On Friday we went with our host's  young son to firstly "Readings" which is a fabulous book store on Glenferrie road and then he took us to a quaint little Japanese lunch place where we had the most amazingly delicious food at a ridiculously low price. It is geared towards all the Swinburne uni students who live in digs close by.

 The new BBQ, which is standing like an alien creature in the back yard, was in full swing early in the morning as the charcoal has to be at a certain stage of heat for the meat to cook very slowly. It appears that a lot of men are now taking an extreme interest in cooking with their chosen BBQ's When we went up the street early Saturday morning to get some last minute boerewors from the butcher, the talk turned to lamb ribs and lamb shanks. I mentioned that we used to feed all that to our working sheepdogs, but that there were occasions when I would bone the ribs ( which were mutton in my day and home killed I might add) and put on a great stuffing on the resulting flap, roll it up and tie it with string, cook it slowly in the woodstove oven for dinner.

The father of the butcher was standing outside with a flatplate BBQ and was grilling various sausages for passersby to try.
What a great way to advertise their very good meat and other wares on busy Glenferrie road....I am interested too in getting a new BBQ as the one we have has deteriorated badly and there are some very interesting units available. I do like cooking outside and it is also a good way to have friends over for an uncomplicated lunch now daylight saving is here again.
I also love curved paths, and the one leading up to the front door here is very attractive. It is a lovely Villa style house and is beautifully kept. There is an old farmhouse around the corner on Lidyard street which was built in the 1860ies or there abouts ,  so this is an old area.

Yesterday we were taken to see the Melbourne Hills. We stopped at an interesting secondhand book store first and then drove through the Yarra valley where we just had to stop at a couple of wineries and sample their wares.
St Huberts were first and I liked their Pinot Noir but wouldn't buy any as we have enough luggage as it is.
We then went to " Oakridge  " who have just finished building their new premisses.The photo on the right is taken out of their tasting room window, just a stunning outlook. They only have a small acreage of vines there and seem to buy most of their grapes ,as does St Huberts, from local grape growers. I especially liked their Pinot Grigio which tasted flinty and dry with lovely citrussy overtones.

 We then drove to Healesville to the pub there as it had been recommended by several people for their food. I chose the quail which was on special and was absolutely to die for, hardly any bones and grilled to perfection.The men both had the fish and chips and of course I had to taste Brian's chips. They, too were lovely and very like the wonderful chips that "Eat @ the Whalers"do in Victor Harbor.
I wondered if CJ Dennis may have frequented the pub as he lived in Toolangi which isn't far up the road.

When we came out of the pub and walked towards the car, there was a juvenile Echidna snuggling up to the tyer of the next car. As he was inclined to want to cross the busy road it was decided he better be picked up and carted to safety. They are prickly customers of course and hard to pick up as they want to bury themselves in the ground so are amazingly strong. However he was wrapped in a towel and carefully carted to a creek nearby well away from the road....
We drove home via the hills and went through Kingslake which suffered so badly in the fires.
Getting back to Melbourne you realize what a huge,busy city it is.......

Tawny Chick Fledged Today

I came out to the studio early this morning and there were Dad Tawny and his youngster sitting on the Hills Hoist, not quite whizzing around in the wind but certainly moving a bit with these ferocious winds we are having at present. So, did it jump and glide or was it pushed  ,we will never know. It just shows that there is only one chick and not two, as I had so fondly imagined.

They were not perturbed by me taking the photos but the Murray Magpie, almost directly overhead in the gumtree , was not amused.

 Yesterday morning the black ducks were back, looking very attractive amongst the plants. I took the photo through the kitchen window and they were a bit perturbed by the flash that went off, so didn't stay for long. I have always hoped they would nest and breed here but so far they haven't done so.

 The White faced Heron has been stalking around as it has a young too and our goldfish seem to be on their menu. I am not fussed about that as there seem to be about forty of them now and of course they don't give the frogs a chance to breed up. I read an article which said this man had masses of tadpoles in his pool and he no longer used any chemicals as the tadpoles kept the pool clear, so it would be worth a try. I once had raised some tadpoles and when I thought they were big enough, let them go and watched in horror as the goldfish swallowed the lot!!

The Murray Magpie did stay on it's nest this morning and so got them in the frame but in my haste I didn't center them very well. Just remember to click on the photos to have a clearer picture and hit the escape button to go back to normal.
I am supposed to be cleaning up the house but could not resist letting everyone know the Tawny has fledged.......
This is early evening now and I just want to comment on the fact that the winds were so awkward and ferocious this afternoon that the adult bird had gone from the washing line and only the chick was left wobling on the edge of the spokes. I went out again an hour later and put a small upright log ready to put the chick on. I could not see it anywhere on the ground but at last saw it back up in the ashtree with one of the adults sitting against it...Whew, what a relief, I had been so afraid we had lost it!!