Achievemen for the Week

 The week started off with the man who re-did our driveway, digging the foundation of our new rose garden. He also brought in a load of garden compost and soil to put in its place. When our gardener came yesterday, he put back some of the overburden (minus the weed roots!) and then dug it all over. What amazes me always,is, how nowadays, a man with a little machine can accomplish in half an hour what would have taken us days to do with a spade.The two potted roses in front "Fire and Ice" & "Ian Thorpe"will be planted as soon as the watering system is in.

I will never buy a potted rose again unless I can plant it out straight away as you are stuck with watering and feeding by hand all over the summer.
The pump man came on Tuesday to repair the badly leaking rainwater pump. We rely on rainwater for hot water and showers and miss it badly if it isn't working properly. The tanks are getting very low now, the rain we have had hardly registered. Wednesday my piano friend came and we played De Fesch Sonata and Vivaldi Sonata III. Before lunch Brian and I went to see our GP for him to give Brian his last injection  and being in an injecting mode he also gave us both our flu' shot. Late afternoon my computer friend came to check the health of my laptop which had refused to start properly. He showed me a video of a cuttlefish he had filmed while scuba diving at Rapid Bay. It was fascinating as the creature changes color and texture of the skin to blend in with its surroundings when it felt threatened.How marvellous nature is.

The slightly cooler weather has brought up the Candelabra Lillies , their impressive heads on tall elegant stems. I noticed the Paintbrush lillies have started to appear too. Everything else is hanging out for a decent rain. We had an English visitor here yesterday who was most impressed with our diversity of gum trees and amazed at the huge cracks we now have in the soil.It is lovely to have some one genuinely interested in ones wild garden. Have started gathering the walnuts which are splitting out of their husks.It will be good when they are all harvested as the Corellas and sulphur crested Cockatoos are keen to beat me to them. There were hundreds of them this afternoon and took a photo of them in the Sugargum.
We will all be pleased when they migrate to their winter breeding grounds where ever that is, as their noise is deafening and no one is prepared to cull them.A thousand of them breeding will double their numbers again and they are not really native to this area. They are tearing up all the ovals and playing fields eating the grass roots and doing untold damage to trees as well.