Nerada Teabags and recycling......

 For many years now I have been using Nerada leaf tea because it is grown in Australia and I love the taste. I make a large pot of tea first thing in the morning and drink it out of my little Japanese mug which was made by a visiting Japanese potter in Victor Harbour back in the 1980ies. Very often the sun isn't even up so I see the morning light arrive in all its golden splendor while writing my journal....so this is a real ritual for me. During the day though, I use Nerada teabags and started drying them and emptying them to get the lovely fabric which results.

The photo above shows how I process them.
I especially like the Rooibos and Vanilla teabags as they finish up with a lovely antique look about them. The Camomile teabags don't dry so well and are inclined to clump, so they tear when you try to empty them.
I started experimenting with them and using them either bonded onto recycled cotton sheeting or bonding them onto interfacing which gives them more stability to use under a sewing machine or for hand embroidery.

The photo above shows the background of the teabags and I digitally printed it with a photo of a vine moth. As we live among vineyards in the Willunga area we get some interesting insects on our verandah. Not only insects but a variety of wild life like an echidna knocking on our glass door thinking no doubt it might like to come in and watch television with us.....
I did some machine stitching on this piece before a friend framed it for me to make it look like a museum display case.
Remember you can click on the photos to get a better look at the detail of the pieces.
The wall hanging on the left is 74cmx140cm and I did with climate change in mind calling it "Water". I did quite a bit of research for this to find out how much water animals drink to stay alive. The teabags were also drawn upon and named for the month of the year. The roundels are again digitally printed photos of our Magpies which love to congregate at the birdbath and generally muck around.

I used a verse from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as translated by Edward Fitzgerald about flinging your garment into the Fire of Spring.....
The photo on the right shows how the teabags lend themselves to kimono shapes. At the time I created this I was also trying my hand at Haikus, those delightfully short pieces in which you are meant to say something very profound .Those I actually made into a booklet but these on the right I had framed and called The Japanese Connection. So this photo is before framing.

The teabags also made wonderful tent shapes and it was interesting finding out about various early man made shelters and dwellings.
This booklet is on one of my earlier blogs should you be interested to see the whole thing.
The booklets are made up of three mini quilts and then bound with covers using my machine knitting pieces which are made with a mixture of fine yarns and different colours. The little base player sits there to hold the book cover open so as to take photos.

I have included a photo of the Kimonos and Haikus booklet as well. On the Kimonos I used both machine stitching but also hand stitching as I just love colonial knots..... they are a very satisfying stitch to do especially with a mix of embroidery floss or fine knitting yarns in the needle ......
I hope I have given you some ideas of how to use the teabags, the dried tea leaves are great to put on your pot plants.....
It is autumn here and we are longing for rain, the native trees too are looking stressed for lack of water....
Perhaps it will rain soon...............

Praying Mantis, the Micro-Bat Box & Monitor

 We had an amazing visitor in December , just near Christmas. It was a Praying Mantis which had landed on the door post of the patio.
I believe they are voracious insect hunters so it was good to have it in our area. I have no idea where it normally lives and hunts as this is the first one I have seen here.I was looking for facts about this insect for South Australia and came up with the Latin name of Orthodera Novaezealandiae but whether this is correct or not I do not know.

I do know their sex life is most peculiar as the female will bite the head off her mate which continues to copulate with her.....I ask you, how weird can that be...
Here at last is a photo of the Micro-bat box we nailed to the rafter of the shed. The difficulty with this is, that you have no idea if it is being used as there is no lid to lift. It has to climb into the space via a small horizontal opening in the bottom of the box. Shining a torch up into it may give us a clue.

The man who monitors the Micro bats in the Aldinga scrub, very kindly came and installed two monitors last Wednesday to see what activity there may be at our place and also to identify the little bats by the sounds it emits as it flies about.
He told me that the little creatures can travel as far as 25km to feed which is astounding for such a little bat. It is no bigger than a house mouse really. So it is all rather exciting and we look forward to seeing the results in a few days time.

On New Years Day we had to harvest the apricots as, though they seemed still firm, they were starting to deteriorate near the stone.It was a good crop this year as you can see by the large bucket full, last year we had exactly "one" which we shared with each other.....
So this year I was able to not only make jam but also some apricot paste which is similar to quince paste but I don't think is quite as good.
Besides that I stewed some and they are in the deep freeze ready for winter breakfasts or puddings even.....apricot cobbler with cream....

The nectarines have just started today so I have picked two buckets and given one to my sister in law this afternoon as I can't cope with such a large amount. I will stew some but dry most of them as they are lovely dried and the flavour is very intense, it makes my mouth water to think of them.....They don't make very good jam for some reason which is a shame. The other draw back is that they ripen all at once so they have to be picked straight away.
The picture at the bottom here is one of my two little boys when we were at Hughes Park and had orphan lambs to nurture into full grown sheep.
This would be in about 1966 and while Gordon is holding it , Gregory seems somewhat put out by this......Just above Gordon's head in the distance you can see the meat shed and killing yard.....Those were the days.....

More Wildlife at Willunga: Micro-Bat.....

Well, we arrived home early last evening after being at a birthday party....and I was stone cold sober as I am the driver these days and had been on aqua pura all evening ..... and here we had a micro bat flitting around our rooms..... We have no idea how they get into the house except perhaps by the brick half circular wall which goes up to a high ceiling and may not be perfectly sealed. How to get them out is always a problem so we are inclined to let him fly about and hopefully find it in the morning hanging behind a curtain somewhere.

 Only this morning when I got up early, I found him next to Brian's chair and I thought it was dead. But when I went to push a piece of sturdy paper under it, I noticed it was moving its head. So I got my gloves and carted it out, grabbing my camera on the way. It isn't easy manoeuvring a camera trying to get the right focus while holding a bat. So the gloved hand photo is out of focus but I thought it would give you the idea of how small the bats are. On the left you can see his delicate little feet and some of the cobwebs (shame on me) it collected up high in the ceiling.

 The other exciting bit of news is that we have some visiting Kookaburras. They were flying through on Sunday morning but yesterday they inspected our pond and studied the waterlilies in great detail. There are some goldfish left still under neath them as the White faced Heron has not got them all yet....and when I was removing the scum off one end of the pond, low and behold... froglets and tadpoles so the scum has been left for them...
I was able to get this photo through the music room window.

 On the right is our new ( or is it my) acquisition.
In a moment of madness I accepted a friend's offer of what she calls, her Trevi Fountain. She has sold up and is moving closer to Adelaide and the fountain was not suitable for the new place.
It really is not suitable for ours either as we have what I fondly call a "Wild Garden" meaning things get done in there when they get done and litter of the Lemon scented Gum lies about till it gets too much and we rake it up and mulch it. Since we have a friend who helps us each week

with all the heavy work and is extremely good at trimming things that look decidedly out of control, he also helped bring the fountain from Pt Willunga over to here and assembled it beautifully. In the end though, he did have to have one of his willing sons come over to lift the main structure on its pedestal as that was beyond me altogether. It won't be a fountain of course as it would take masses of water and so it has succulents in its basins instead.
By the way, I put the little micro bat in the open shed on some bark...I have also bought a Micro-Bat Box which will be installed soon....

More Wildlife at Willunga

It seems I have to alter the way I write this blog for reasons unknown....oh, the ways of the internet....
It has taken me a while to sort this out and so here is the latest of our Wildlife in our garden.
Mr Hare (or was it Mrs?) was lazily loping around our back garden a week or so ago. They are extremely shy (as would you be, hunted by vignerons who object to you chewing through their drip lines) so it was fortunate I was able to sneak round the corner without opening the laundry door and get two photos. The moment he heard the click of the camera he was off and running.....
While I had the camera out I took some more photos of the vegie garden, The peas have done so well this cool and wet winter that we have not had to buy any green vege at all.It probably helps too that now I am able to water with rainwater from the tank.
We also have broad beans now and silverbeet  and Swiss chard which is very pretty as well as good eating.
The photo of the spring vines was taken some weeks ago now. They are shiraz grapevines and belong to the next door neighbour. They look so delicate at that stage and you wonder where they get the energy from after the rough harvesting they have endured in Autumn when they look so battered and bruised.
Because the weather has been damp some days, the fumigating machines have been very busy in the vines keeping the downy mildew and other nasties at bay. It seems a constant battle for them but if they don't spray the sulphur, they would have no grapes to harvest.
The Dutch irises were very blue and contrasted wonderfully with the succulent plant also flowering at the same time.
The photo with the tall,straight gum tree is the view from my studio window.
It can be very inspirational looking out on this at times when I am stuck for ideas to go on with for my stitched art works. It was a seedling we decided to keep as the Holm oak had refused to grow there. Holm oaks can be very slow to get going but grow into magnificent shade trees.
The arum lilies are considered a weed now as they can spread along waterways, but I don't think they will cause much harm in front of the studio window.
The Holm oaks in front of our kitchen windows are flowering prolifically and the bees are there in droves....this is so exciting to have such numbers of bees as they have been sparse for several seasons and perhaps, just perhaps our zuchinis will be fertilized and so will our Queensland blue pumpkins and I may yet realize my dream of pumpkin vines covering the front yard and pumpkins in such numbers as to be embarrassing and so lots to give away and share......

Tawney Frogmouth,Nests, Frogs and Memento Mori

We have had some pretty wild and wet weather this August and after one of the more ferocious wind squalls I found a Magpies nest on the ground the next morning.
What amazed us was the materials the birds had gathered to make their nest. It had binder twine, some green garden tie wire and of all things, a piece of cyclone fencing wire....how innovative can you get, here are birds taking advantage of modern materials and we are still mostly building brick,on brick.....

A week ago now I heard the first frog croaking in the night.
They have been so silent we thought perhaps they had left our pond or,horrors of horrors, something had eaten them all....
So it was with joy to hear at least one frog but now there are three at least and hopefully more, croaking not quite as a chorus but still at least as duets. The white faced Heron stands at the edge still, not having quite managed to eat all the goldfish but now I strongly suspect, he is listening to the frogs as well.
Nature will take its course I guess and the frogs will learn to hide themselves among the slate pieces lining the pond.
This morning while pouring my early morning cup of tea, there was a Wood duck, a male with his handsome chestnut head and calling to his mate in that peculiar sound, like a cat meouwing .
We had them years ago before our trees had become large.
They have nested in the old Sugargum at the gate and it is disconcerting to see the young ducklings drop out of the nest from a great height, bouncing like little rubber balls......

The other noteworthy thing is that the Tawney Frogmouth is sitting on the nest again, this is the third year in a row they are using the same nest. He started on the 21st of this month.....
The Ash tree is just starting to sprout and I remember last year he sat all through the most horrendous weather then, to hatch his two chicks.
He too, of course eats frogs so again I hope the frogs know how to hide at night as well.....

On Monday, while putting the wood on the patio,
I found this desiccated frog on the bricks....
I have put it in with the Wattle bird scull and feet which I found in the front garden some moths ago....I keep them in an old chocolate box next to the other Memento Mori .... a raven's scull....what is this fascination with skeletal things at the moment.....is it my age? or is it just that I marvel at the complexity of created bodies.....

More Wildlife at Willunga

There was a little bat hanging on the sun blind of the small studio window this afternoon.I think it maybe a micro-bat.....
It was there last weekend when our visitors were looking at my small textile art works and I did take some photos of it when it fell down on the tarpaulin covering the rain water pump.
But this afternoon I was able to get the camera before it got away. So there it is, hanging upside down with its big ears showing up quite well.
Remember to click on the photo to get a better look.

The photo of the Sulphur Crested Cockatoo was taken a month or so ago when he and his mates were very intent on decimating our walnut crop, it was not amused when I made violent attempts to shift them, as you can see by its open beak and its raised crest.....I told them this was not their native food at all and they could go and eat gum nuts etc and prune gumtrees elsewhere....they flew off.... screaming obsceneties

The photo on the left is of an unusual moth which was sitting on the patio window screen one morning.
You can see the reflection of me taking the photo
 which makes it quite interesting.
The Willy Wagtails are making the patio their territory and early in the morning they mooch around on the bricks picking up insects of the night.......They too, can become quite vocal if things are not to their liking.....

Three Blind Mice and Winter Roses

This week we seem to be inundated with little rodents. The clam traps I had been using were failing to go off and I seem to be feeding the dear little things with peanut paste by the spoonful. So set out to buy new traps but they no longer seem to sell the clam types. So bought some expensive plastic ones from the hardware store and they too were ineffective, or so I thought at the time and tossed one out in the bin. Then bought some of the good old wooden ones like we had in days gone by, only to find that the first one fell apart as I tried to set it and the other three proved ineffective as well.

 The little blighters were eating the bait out of the nylon stocking it was wrapped in even though I had tied it on as well....I watched one doing so this morning as I was writing my journal and drinking the early mug of tea, its little hands delicately unwrapping the nylon....
so decide to give the other new plastic trap another go and Bingo! it worked this time. So hastily dived into the recycle bin to recover the one I had thrown out in frustration....Above are the three caught in a matter of minutes and since then have caught four more......

The seasons are so weird now, there are roses still blooming in our garden despite the fact it is winter and the gumtrees are shading the rose garden. One is Apricot nectar and the other is Fire and Ice, very similar to Double Delight.
The vegie patch is not doing very well except for the garlic which is very enthusiastic and have two solid rows of green spikes. The rhubarb is very demanding and thinks it needs a drink almost every other day. At least the broadbeans are doing well.....

The pomegranates look quite beautiful with their green background but I don't seem to use them much at all as I am not sure how to work with them. I did strain the juice out of them the other day and used it on my muesli, they are supposed to be very healthy for you.
The Sulphur Crested Cockatoos were visiting a few weeks ago and eying off our walnuts. We had quite a good crop this year and I had to chase them away a few times so I harvested them as quickly as I could. We do have a lot of birds visiting but I rather fear the Noisy Minors are taking over and we don't see the greenies at all now or the blackbirds either and the willy wagtail was chased off the patio too a few days ago....I may have to take drastic actions on them soon......