Birthday lunch @ the Currant Shed

 On Saturday, 20th of July, we went to the Currant Shed to celebrate Brian's birthday.
It was a very cold and wet day and what better to do than to lunch at a pleasant restaurant in a lovely setting. We first went to this location many years ago when it was just a picnic ground and you could get a great bottle of merlot to go with the food you brought yourself. The then owners, started the Currant Shed and were serving great lunches. We loved the lovely lime trees all looking like little umbrellas against the backdrop of vines.

For a while it seemed to drop off and we didn't go back for some time. At the beginning of the year we ventured forth again  and found things much improved. So Brian requested to go there for his birthday this time.
We were greeted by a personable young lass who looked after us very well.
We chose "filtered water" ( a nice way of saying tap water which is fine!) and a good bottle of red.
Then we decided to have one of the share platters and thought the pork cubes on a quince aioli sounded interesting and ordered that. It arrived promptly and we ate the first bits before realizing I wanted to take photos. So as you see above there

four bits left. They had a very interesting crispy fried herb as garnish which no one seemed to be able to name, but it was peppery and very very nice and went well with the delicious tender pork belly cubes.I can't say that the quince aioli tasted much of quince but it was lovely and creamy all the same.
So that was a good start to the meal.
The wine was great too, although we had not come across it before. There seem to be a lot of small private wineries in our area, but I must admit we seem to stay with the wines from the wineries  we know and enjoy at home with our evening meal. So it is good to try something different when we eat out.

For the main course Brian choose the snapper fillet on a bed of Jerusalem artichokes with greens. It looked delicious and Brian certainly enjoyed it. As I know what Jerusalem artichokes do to me, I declined that dish and chose the pork instead.
It was beautifully presented and a joy to eat.
The pork skin was so fine I wonder how the chef achieved the fineness and delicate structure of it.
The pork was succulent and the rolls of sour red cabbage nicely countered  the overall richness of  the dish. The mashed potato was scrumptious.
We never spoke a word while we were concentrating on our food!!                                    We managed to finish the bottle of red and then had a coffee, as dessert would have been overkill!        It was a lovely way to celebrate another birthday as each year now is a precious thing!!

The Black Ducks and other Wildlife

We were delighted on Monday morning to see the pair of Black Duck back on our little pond. They seem to come here every year around this time and we watch their antics from our kitchen window. I was so pleased to get a shot of them displaying to each other by showing their green flashes on the under wings.After all this energetic splooshing about in the water they have an attempt at creating a duckling. She just about drowns in the process as it all takes place in the water. After all that excitement they go into furious splashing and cleaning mode and then sit apart, no doubt pondering how they are going to provide a home for these eggs they will produce.

We always hope they will nest here somewhere under the low shrubs but till now they have not done so. I took the photo on the right from the verandah as they didn't worry when I opened the door, they just look surprised.
That same morning we had a large white egret land next to the pond, viewing our large school of goldfish. As I came to the other window to get a better photo of it, it spotted my movement and flew off.It has not been back unfortunately.
We get the white faced heron quite regularly and they seem to nest in the sugar gum by the gate.

When I went for my walk late yesterday afternoon, I noticed that the few remaining almond trees have started to blossom. What wasn't farmland in the eighties, were almond groves and of course Willunga became the center of the Almond blossom festival. They still hold it and it will be on again next weekend. Most of the almond growers pulled their trees out and planted vineyards during the early nineties or olive groves a few years later. A lot of the almond growers went to the Riverland and created large groves there as the water was available then. I'm not sure what has happened about water there now, since the terrible drought just past.

Just past the Almond trees is the neglected vineyard which seems to have great attraction for the mob of kangaroos. They would not let me approach very closely though, so it is not a very clear photo, but you can see they are kangaroos.
If you click on the photo it is enlarged.
We have had some of them in our paddock in times past but the feed in the vineyard is abundant so they need not look further and also obviously there are no pruners or machines to worry them.

There was a lone magpie on a post preening itself when I walked back towards the house.Very often there are a half a dozen or so sitting about but not this time. There used to be a lot of Ibis in amongst the vines as well but they seem to have gone elsewhere too.They would have done a lot of good I imagine by eating all the crickets and other insects that attack vines.I do remember seeing a White faced Heron pick up a mouse and making a meal of it one summer when we had a mouse plague here in the nineties.
The Willunga hills in the background are green and the trees are really showing up now. It is not easy these days to take a photo without some man made object in the back ground, phone towers seem to have crept in without too much protest.Some years ago it was proposed one of those towers would be built at the end of our road, but my neighbour organised a protest rally and we all dutifully voted against it and it did not go through.

So I did take a photo of our Sugar Gum showing all the electricity wires and the huge poles marching off down towards Aldinga. It would be great if all those things could be put underground now. One day it will happen no doubt!!
By the way, the foxes which plague my neighbour so much, didn't get my two chooks when the dead willow tree fell onto the chookyard fence and made a huge gap for a fox to get through. Our sharefarmer, bless him, chainsawed the tree and put the fence back up for us.
The Tawnys are sitting in the pepper tree these days......

Walking the Road in Winter

When we first came to live here on this road,twenty two years ago, there was very little traffic. You'd be lucky to see a car once in a while and walking was a real pleasure.
This week I have started walking the road again as my foot is just about back to normal and walking is good for you, we are told!
My little Nikon coolpix L1 is my constant companion on these walks as it is light and does a pretty good job for what I want to photograph mostly.
On the right as I walk out on our track, the jonquils, which were a gift from a friend some years ago now, are flowering so well with the wonderful rains we have had so far. As I turn left

towards Willunga, a little way up the road is this small clump of large eucalyptus. These were a few of the trees allowed to remain, I imagine while someone established a nursery nearby. The nursery went through the hoop years later and then the inevitable vines were planted instead.
We used to walk through all that area for many years but slowly it had a house built on it at the far end and a Trespassers sign put up and that was the shortcut to Willunga finished sadly....
We also used to walk to the sewage pond (now euphemistically called "wetlands") and see all

 different species of duck including musk duck, shoveller duck and the pretty teal ducks and at times swans as well.
Now this has been sealed off like a prison camp with a  high fence and dire warnings should you attempt to climb the ten feet high fence topped with barb wire.....
Anyway I digress. One of the trees a little further up the road
is a sugar gum (E Cladocalyx) which stands lonely and tall in the middle of another vineyard, a remnant of a line of sugar gums which seem to have been planted in the days when this was all farmland and sugar gums were sometimes coppiced for fire wood and fence posts.
As I walked along here yesterday,cars were whizzing past at the rate of knots. Of course the road is sealed now while it was just a dirt road years ago and in a wet winter like we are having, the road could be under water and you'd wonder if you'd get home without getting bogged!!

As I got closer to the little creek that runs under the road and past the lone gum, the wood ducks were busy wondering if they should move off or stay. They seem pretty used to traffic and a number have already been killed by cars not slowing down for them. They let me take a few photos of them before going off mee-owing like cats. They are nesting in the hollow of a dead gumtree and it will be disconcerting to see the ducklings come tumbling down from a great height when they are ready to leave the nest.You would think they would all be killed to drop from such a tall tree.

 In the photo on the right, amongst the tangle of vines, is a kangaroo, I only noticed him when I downloaded this!!Sometimes there is a family of six or eight kangaroos in this particular vineyard.
The original owner of the vineyard used to have it looking so trim and well cared for, but his heirs and successors seem not to have the same passion for the place and it is looking very sad these days.

On the opposite side of the road the vines have been machine pruned and then trimmed perfectly by a team of pruners.The wet weather we are having at present will put plenty of water at sub soil level and prepare the water supply for the coming possible dry summer and hopefully a great vintage of dry reds.
So I walked back along the road for home and find the light has changed and our huge sugar gum at the gate looking wonderfully photogenic once more!!

Lunch in July for the Craftgroup

 This was just a stunning winters day like South Australia can turn on at times.I picked up two friends for them to have a ride in my new  Subaru. Sunny and calm, the drive down to Victor Harbor was full of delight with paddocks green and stock looking in wonderful condition.
We noticed a lot of Alpacas in various places and wondered if they may replace sheep.Surely not!
As you come to the top of the hill, before descending into the town of Victor Harbor, there is this lovely vista of Encounter Bay and the Bluff at the far end.

Under this Bluff is the restaurant we were heading for. It used to be the old Whalers Inn, but it has been revamped into a more casual  place to cater for a more relaxed and child friendly holiday crowd. The views are stunning as the photo above shows and the tables inside are attractively set with proper crisp, white cloths and real, not paper! napkins...these each have a shell on top and it gives a delightfully nautical feel to the whole place.We did wonder what the rings on the shells meant, were they like tree rings and told of their age?

The staff were very helpful and friendly to the point where one of them said they could ring one of our members who was late and perhaps lost? But no, they arrived at that point and so we were able to order our food and wine.With the exception of one, who was not impressed with the gnocci, we all thought the food beautifully presented and delicious to eat. The wine too, was excellent. I enjoyed my Thai flavored salad very much and a friends chips were so delicious ( chips are the indicator of a brilliant cook to my mind!) we kept pinching them across the table and finally someone thought we better order an extra bowl of them so our friend was left in peace.

After a spell we ordered coffee and some of a firmer resolve (after all it was a day out) ordered deserts. They too were beautifully presented and equally delicious I believe......
The menu is amazingly well priced , especially the deserts, I would go back next time and perhaps have an entree and pudding, as they did look wonderful.
It was good too, that we could pay individually so there was no having to pull out a calculator and have a fight over who had what and who had the more expensive items.

One of the patrons at the next table offered to take a photo of us all at the table, which she did and we are all looking suitably happy and relaxed. We wandered off to look at the scenery and one member thought she would have liked to have got into the sandpit and had a play with all the kettles and saucepans in it.....we tried to encourage her but in the end she wouldn't do so!

One last shot of the kniphoffias in flower with Seal Island in the background and we all drove off. I took my friends to the look out on the Bluff above the restaurant and we saw Petrel Cove before going home via the Inman Valley road, right into Sawpit road and left onto the Hindmarsh Valley road and so home down the Old Willunga Hill, twisty as it is, it gives wonderful views across the Willunga Basin to McLarenVale.
Who could ask for a better day?

Woohoo!, woohoo!, my new Subaru!!

It was such a wet day here in Willunga this morning and nothing could be done in the garden as we had planned. So after lunch we thought to give our new Subaru XV a real try out by driving to Cape Jervis via Yankalilla , Normanville, Delamere and Rapid bay. It was pretty exciting to have all the bells and whistles to observe while going along and air conditioning keeping us at a constant comfortable temperature. Plenty of power too, it leaped up hills, cornered fabulously and I am thrilled to bits.
We arrived at Cape Jervis just as the ferry was steaming towards the landing.The cloud formations were very impressive and Kangaroo Island was a bit hazy in the distance.It is amazing

how such a large ferry can manouver in such a small space. Although the sea did not appear too rough, the ferry was certainly rolling.having watched it unload we decided on the way back to call in at Wirrina, a holiday resort Brian once had shares in. It is lovely country there but who would want to live there? We drove to the Marina which is looking pretty sad. There were quite a few yachts moored there but all the buildings are empty and up for sale.

The cloud formations were amazing this afternoon, but strangely we hardly had any rain on our travels. We thought to get a coffee at Normanville beach kiosk but that sadly was closed.

I took a photo of the happy fish having a conversation with the lamp post. This is new since we were there a few months ago now.
In the 1930ies Harry used to ride his big black horse from Yankalilla where he lived, to Normanville to attend the dances they put on for the young people.

I have taken yet another photo of the Tawny Frogmouth on the vine which I have started to prune on the days they are not there. This one was here again this morning and so I couldn't prune the vine for fear of upsetting them. This one was out of the rain but the other two sit at the far end and one of them was in the rain. You feel like picking it up and putting it under shelter out of the rain, but that would not work.