Lost cat found, Rainy days and a Pink Knit-woven Jacket

I am very happy to report that the cat which had appeared at our doorstep on the last day of April
and our guests took to the Lonsdale RSPCA , belongs to our neighbours two doors up the road from us. They had been away in their caravan in WA and I guess Smokey ,which is its name, wanted some more human company and so wandered down the road to us. So they were able to pick him up from the pound and welcome him back home. He is a hunter my neighbour told us and very hot on rabbits.

Perhaps I could suggest they lend him to my friend at Port Willunga whose garden is over run with rabbits and Council won't do a thing about them.
The rain today is still welcome. We have had over two inches of rain so far and it is still soaking in. The pond is overflowing and the fish are enjoying the fresh algy they can reach with the new water level.

The wet weather of course dislodges all the rodents and they come inside to look for a dry place and something to eat. So we trap them as it isn't very nice to have mouse droppings sitting on the benches and stove. We had a lot of trouble with mouse traps since the good old wooden ones are now no longer made like they were. The ones from China were hopeless I found and the new plastic ones not much better for a while as the spring wasn't strong enough. They are better now but sometimes the mice are so small they actually fit inside the trap and you have to drown them, poor things.

I have been busy designing another Knit-woven jacket.
It took quite a while to get the swatch right.
I am inclined then, to design as I knit-weave on the knitting machine (or knitting loom as the Americans say and I must say it sounds better) and add or subtract colours as I go along.

I had some very interesting rayon ribbon yarn which was used as a contrast and to add some interest to an otherwise boring fabric.

The lighter stripes are my handspun ,hand dyed merino wool which I still had on hand. I don't usually stock much pink yarn
so I ordered the two ply background yarn and the wool/bamboo
eight ply weave-in yarn from the Bendigo Woollen Mills.

I still had some fine cyclamen coloured yarn and I mixed that in too. I like mixing yarn colours as it brings greater interest
to the eyes I find and livens up the whole fabric.
I wanted to do a different closing as well as I loath doing button holes in knitting. So, instead I made separate holes, five stitches
apart and threaded fine cords made from the two ply yarns through on opposite sides and they can be used to tie up
or left as is.

On the back and sides I added godets so as to give more
drape and room as well and to have the jacket sit better
and move better.
It has been a challenge doing this but it seems to have
worked out reasonably well. I hand stitch all my garment pieces
together as I feel they sit better and I have more control over
matching the pieces together.
Now it is waiting for its owner.....

Wildlife in our Garden at Willunga

 What an exciting surprise tonight while we were having our evening drink and sitting in the sitting room as the mosquitoes are so bad outside ... something was knocking on our patio door and I thought "oh,no, not another cat or kitten dumped on us"..but when I switched on the outside light, there was an Echidna, hiding in the potplants, how exciting was that! We had seen one many years ago in the orchard but not since then. For my European readers an Echidna is not a hedgehog.....it is one of the rare animals left in the world. It is a monotreme and lays an egg which takes 23 days to develop when it gets moved to a pouch on the mother's belly and is suckled for two to three months. When the baby develops spines it is moved to a burrow. The mother suckles it for another three or so months. The babe is called a puggle...

It will be lovely if he stays around (Is it a he? or a she?) and eats all the trillion of ants we have here. There are ants nests in the ceiling as the little critters fall out of the pine ceiling at certain times of the year and the Studio has litter made by them at the edges of the skirting boards.
If you are on your knees in the garden weeding or planting things you are immediately chewed on by ants to see if you are a corpse or not and need cleaning up.

 I have been raking up a lot of bark and gum leaves the last week or so ready to burn and I did see an unusual patch which looked as though something had been making a circle in the litter.
I know one year I startled a bearded Dragon hiding under the bark when I was raking up the litter and it looked at me with it's beady eyes in a rather accusing fashion. Sadly we never see the Dragons any more, I think the vineyards have probably destroyed their habitat.

 I found this rather lovely and startling red gum blossom too when  I was raking up yesterday,
such a contrast to the grey and brown leaves and bark and wondered if it may not have been a fairy's substitute for an ostrich feather used in a dance......
It seems a shame to rake up and burn all this litter but we have to prepare for next summer's fire danger season I suppose

This very handsome grey water cover is in our verge. It is where the grey water for the vineyards is piped from.
The water people have made an absolute mess of our verge and it is very difficult to keep it mowed in winter as there are rocks embedded in the top soil now and doesn't do the mower much good....not much good complaining though, authorities don't take the slightest bit of notice.....

Willunga Pastoral Scenes

We spent yesterday afternoon, Sunday the 18th May, looking around Willunga and close by where we live. A friend had sent us an e mail to say there was a free, photographic competition being held in South Australia to get people to see what is interesting in their own piece of deck and the only condition was that the photo was taken between midnight and midnight on Sunday.
We thought how interesting to go and look close by home and see what there is to photograph that might be worthwhile. I suggested we start at the Willunga look out up the hill on the left of the Victor Harbour road.

 When we got there, the trees blocked most of the view of the whole basin which is a bit disappointing. So we moved up the hill and then along to Taylors hill road where we found this interesting ruin. You wonder at all the energy which would have gone into the quarrying and carting the stone up this huge hill and then building the cottage. What dreams were shattered there to leave it so sad and broken.....

 It was actually rather a dull and murky sort of a day and the view across from this cottage showed the distant sea and two huge tankers. Perhaps if you click on the photo you may just be able to pick up the two ships on the silver water near the horizon.
The whole basin is now a mix of golden autumn vines, bare paddocks ready to be seeded as soon as we have more rain and buildings half hidden by trees.

We drove up to the underpass of the Victor Harbor road which gives an interesting view of a gumtree near the Ross Roses Nursery. I am pleased to say they seem to be back in business as we picked up some new roses there last week which we have planted out straight away. I think the roses here do much better when planted from pots in the autumn as they have all winter to get themselves acclimatized ready for our hot and dry summers.

The photo of the Victor main road was taken from the overpass on Malpas road. I was a bit disappointed with that one, as it doesn't show up dramatically at all. But looking East towards Taylors Hill road you can see the rows of olive trees someone planted years ago. Again you will have to click on the photo to see the whole effect better. I often wonder how the people get on harvesting the olives as the site is rather steep.

Finally, while waiting for a dramatic sunset, which didn't happen, I took a photo of the Mount Lofty TV towers we can see from our back gate.
The day being so murky was a bit of a drawback as nothing showed up particularly well. No doubt there are ways and means one can cope with this if one knew ones camera capabilities better than I do. I hope to have some tuition in this in the months to come as the instruction book is so scattered in its information and while the writers know what they are talking about, I do not........
Needless to say, I don't think I will send any photos in.....

Lost Cat and Black Dogs

Dramas invariably happen when someone is staying with you.
Our guests had been over to see friends on Mundoo Island for the day and came back early evening, asking, since when, had we had a blue cat? Well, we don't have a cat because though I like cats, I like little birds about the place better.
We ,or rather I, did not encourage it in and hoped it would go back to where it came from. In the morning, there it was meowing at the glass door when I got up to make the morning cuppa.

 I felt obligated to give it some food of course and gave it a mouse I had caught in the trap.It wolfed it down and so I gave it a bit of mince as well.We went away for the day and when we came back it was there again, waiting. So of course we let it in and that was the end of it. It settled in.I rang the neighbours to see if any of them were boarding a cat but no, no one was. In the morning though, our guests decided since we really didn't want the cat, they would take it to the Vet and see if it was microchipped. It wasn't

so they had to take it all the way to Lonsdale to the RSPCA who would hold it and find a home for it.
I do like black dogs. The one above was saved from a terrible home life by friends whose dogs had died recently and they were ready for another dog. It is taking them quite a while to gain its trust but it is coming along well. It loves the beach and is getting used to having strangers in its home.

The dog above is a black Labrador whose mistress is our neighbour and who brought it over for a visit and  to teach it to lead and sit and have some manners. It is a lovely dog.
The Border Collie on the right was having a wonderful time at Formbe Bay. I was a bit worried it might tumble over the cliff into the sea in its exuberance, they are such active and bright dogs, but no, it stopped when asked to have its photo taken...its master was taking his paddle board down to the beach and the dog followed
I am not sure what it would do when left on the beach while the boss paddled out to catch a wave......

Sunsets in Autumn

 Brian has decided that the book case needs an Autumn clean
and the books need to be in groups of authors. So we have an avalanche of books everywhere. It is interesting how long all this can take because of course we find all sorts of book we haven't seen for ages and they are interesting to dip into. Many days or by now weeks, later it is at last coming together......
The wall hanging in the background is based on a traditional snowflake cross stitch pattern for a tablecloth of fine linen.
So it is a single repeat but done in handspun natural Merino wool on rug canvas which blew it up to this size. I had spun the wool at Hughes Park where I had been allowed to have a few black sheep. This was a great privilege as of course no black wool fibers were allowed to get into the white wool clip and normally all black lambs were slaughtered if they happened to be born into a white flock of ewes.

I consider this my mourning piece as I sat at this whenever I had a spare moment after we moved away from Hughes Park to Williamstown.

We have been having quite a few spectacular
sunsets these last few weeks and the one on the right was some weeks ago now
but the other two were taken only last Wednesday evening.
I was talking to a young couple who have just returned from living in a tiny flat in Tokyo,Japan. They were astounded by the view we have here on the Northern side of the house

It allows a more than generous 180 degree view with the Mt Lofty ranges on the horizon. We can see the TV towers on Mt Lofty and below that of course is the Botanic Park. Not that you can see that........
We have always known we were fortunate in choosing this place twenty three years ago and we do appreciate the ability to take photos from our back fence not having to dodge much in the roof line.

The sun going down reminded me of that wonderful, simple idea of an American Indian tribe , who say each day they work to help Father Sun traverse the heavens . It is a lovely concept to think that during the day you could look up and say to the Sun, Well, there you are, we have helped you to this point and you have helped us plant our crops.....
how can we compare this to the scientific facts we are fed these days, how much simpler and pleasant to think the Sun is our Father rather than know it is a huge burning mass 333.060 times the Earth mass, with a surface temperature of 5500*C and 4.6billion years old( the mind boggles) and it will eventually swallow us up........
Don't forget to click on the photos to enlarge them

Autumn in Mt Lofty Botanic Park

Today was such a lovely autumn day with a cool breeze and a sky so blue with the occasional cloud drifting by.
We decided a look at the changing colours in the Adelaide hills would be a good idea. Packed a couple of sandwiches  and a tetra pack of orange juice (so much easier than thermos of coffee) along with our cameras. The drive to Meadows is always a delight, no matter what season we are in. The tall gums line the road and the light is quite soft giving the impression of a green oasis.

Driving through the hills we were surprised at how few trees had actually changed colour.
When we arrived at Mt Lofty park we were amazed at the number of cars already there. Of course I had forgotten that the school holidays had started last Friday and the place was over run with hyper active children. We found the new steps down to the lake and a picnic table on the edge where we sat to have our lunch.
The children had discovered that they could walk in the mud on the edge of the lake as the water

had receded quite a lot. The boys of the party found it more fun to throw stones and acorns into the lake. The girls had great fun getting the black mud all over their hands and clothes and later when I went to the toilet block, they were trying to wash the mud out of their shoes and socks in the hand basins. Mothers seemed to be very philosophical about it telling the girls the socks were beyond salvation and they may as well dump them in the bin....
no need for frugality there it seemed....

Taking photos was quite a challenge too, as no sooner had I found a lovely framed shot, some child would race into view or jump on the sculpture to have a play. Finally I did get the sculpture which now has a path going past it. Last time we were here it was a slippery slope.
I do love little paths that disappear into unknown lands and the little pagoda like structure seemed a lovely place for sitting and reflecting....children raced past, such undirected energy.....what joy to be alive

Aerial display

 At the bottom of this page is what I wanted to start the blog with, describing what I was watching this morning out of our kitchen window. I then was going to insert the photos I took of the Magpies, which seem to be a bit of a security patrol in this garden. However the computer seems to have its own idea of what it wants to permit.... I didn't want to start all over again.... anyway, the Magpies were also inspecting what a mob of Galahs , which had suddenly descended on the new rose bed and were busily eating whatever they found so attractive back in March. It seemed strange to have

a small group of Galahs , pink and grey ones....or was that grey and pink.....when we had been battling with hundreds upon hundreds of their cousins the Corellas for seemingly weeks.
I am rather fond of the Galah, they are such clowns and when the first autumn rains come they dangle upside down on the nearest wire, spreading their wings to have a good wash under their armpits, you can almost hear them sigh in relief to feel clean again.

 The Magpies though, such officious birds, do like to keep an eye on things and make sure  that all goes to plan and no bird steps out of line....
The Gallahs took the hint and have not been back since , which is a pity as we do enjoy seeing them cavorting around in their lovely colours.

 I have actually knit-woven another origami sleeveless top. It takes quite a bit of thinking it out and then swatching to get a good combination of colours and yarns.The knit-weaving doesn't take so long but the sewing up takes forever as I like to sew it up by hand so as to get the squares to match the way they need to. On the right you see the two lenghts sewn together so as to construct the garment.
So below you see the heap it appears in while I am pinning it together

 It can be quite a challenge to put it all together
correctly as it is easy to sew the wrong edges together and then you have a devil of a job to sort it out again, so I always have a paper copy next to me to refer to.

 On the right are the two nearly finished sleeveless garments
the one on the left is a jacket I still have to do the neckline for
while the right one is just about finished but needs a button on its neckline to  make it complete. This one is also more a tunic as it is designed for a tall person and so half an extra square was added on to give it its length.

A close up of the yarns and weaving used gives some idea of the interesting textures that can result from yarn combinations.

This morning there were at least a dozen Wattle birds giving an aerial display. They were flying up, up in the air most likely having a shower and refreshing their feathers in the very gentle rain which was falling ever so widely spaced on the earth. As I was watching the exuberant display of their flying , a Magpie strutted onto the stage telling them it was not their patch to play on, it was his. They dive bombed him instead. He stood his ground and inspected what they had actually been picking up off the earth. Just then another Magpie appeared and then a third as well. The flying ballet did not exit but carried on and after a while they all disappeared and the space was empty of birds again......