A Cornucopia!

In total contrast to the previous week this past week has been very busy.  

Starting with a trip to a local farmer to collect 1/2 a pig, Deb and Robert had the other half.  It is so good to be able to directly support local business by cutting out the middle man.  Plus being able to ask for exactly what cuts of meat suit your needs AND get to talk to the man himself.  It left me with the feeling that although short these animals lead happy lives.

Early morning sun on the Padthaway vineyards

Autumn is almost over and the countryside looks stunning, I've never seen vines with their beautiful Autumn coats on before.  From the remaining green through gold to deep brown, it completely changes the look of the place.

In contrast Banksias, Gravellias and some Eucalyptus are now bursting into very colourful flower.  Much to the delight of nectar eating beasties which includes the bees meaning the pollinating season lasts longer here... hooray.  As soon as I can I will be planting Gravellias near the veggie patch having already put in three types of Banksia.

Gravellia, don't know which one though.

Banksia flower just beginning to open.

We popped down to Mount Gambier on some errands and went along to have a look at a touring exhibition of models made up from Leonardo De Vinci drawings.  These were machines and ideas which he mostly never saw in 3D.  I knew he was a genius but never before really appreciated just how many of his inventions we actually use today.  It's also struck me that I no longer think it's so much of a deal travelling an hour to the next largest town.

No news yet on the planning permission being granted which we hope will happen sooner rather than later.  But we took Dora out for a drive mainly to visit the people making one of our rainwater tanks. We headed off through the Padthaway Wine region (Lindemans, Jacobs Creek and Stonehaven to name a few wine houses) towards Keith and Bordertown both towns we've driven through before but never properly visited.  

I was surprised to see just how big the thing is and we're planning on eventually having 3 this size. The first one will be partially buried, the soil from the hole will be used to help to level the house site.  This should be ready by the end of May.

Both towns are on the quite side.  Bordertown is quite pretty with an amazing craft shop and a really good information centre.  Keith is smaller but some how seemed busier.

Keith's claim to fame is this Landrover on a pole!

Keith's butchers shop!

On our way home we popped in to visit the people who had previously given us a ton of grapefruit, which I had made the Marmalade out of. We gave them a jar which hardly seems a fair exchange, by the time we left with another ton of the gorgeous fruit we also felt like we have made a couple of friends.

Sunset in Padthaway

Quickly followed by a stunning and very bright full moon.

A cats cradle!

We didn't really go far this week but none the less it has flown past...  It has been a really lovely week, weather wise cool cloudy starts to the day followed by the gentle warmth of the Autumn sun.  When pegging out the washing first thing in the morning I've noticed the clothes steaming bringing flash backs of past Autumns.  And there has been that gorgeous fresh air smell to them when I've brought the dry clothes in later in the day.  Not long now till the official start of winter.

The sun is rising about 7 am giving us a civilised chance to watch the misty dawns and it's dark by about 5.30 these days.  A good excuse for yummy comfort food, soups, slow cooked stews and the like.

The birds are taking it in turns at the moment to herald the dawn.  Just recently we've been woken up by Laughing Magpies, Lorikeets, Crows and Kookaburras, amazing sounds and surprisingly loud.  Who needs an alarm clock it is much nicer being woken up by the birds. Every day more flowers burst out on the neighbours Red Cap Gum.  The Wattle birds have been feeding on the nectar and at last they have been found by the Lorikeets.

Eucalyptus Erythrocorys or Red Cap Gum

Rick has been working on Dora fitting her up with new rear shock absorbers making her ready for our next adventure.  Meanwhile I've been doing the 'normal chores', gardening, having another go at spinning.... oh and learning how not to rewind a skein of yarn.

I remember as a child Mum and Gran getting me to sit still (they must have bribed me) and helping them rewind the skeins of yarn into balls ready for knitting.  What I'd completely forgotten was the trick of draping the yarn around a fairly stationery object prior to cutting the ties.  Clearly over excited about the beautiful skein of alpaca I made a start and very quickly realised I'd got the biggest cats-cradle ever to sort out. Wrapping the yarn around feet propped up on the coffee table is not the go. It's taken 4 days but I have at last got it into 4 decent size balls ready to knit up... phew... hopefully I will never do that again.

The beans at the block had got worse so out they came, in their place I've sown another bush bean and some Barlotti beans.  Hopefully these will do better than the last lot.  Everything else is just romping away, very exciting and hopefully not that much longer before I can start harvesting.... something....

It took me at least an hour to set up the spinning wheel. Starting with practising getting the treadle going at a steady speed, 'row row row the boat' is apparently a good rhythm to treadle to.  That 'mastered' I set the tensions and spent quite a lot of time getting the wool to feed onto the bobbin.  At long last I did it... very exciting for me at least and once it's all going smoothly it is very soothing to do. Rick arrived home and very kindly straightened the wheel/bobbin up before we knew it the maidens had moved, bobbin was on the floor and the belt off the wheel... whoops.... oh well it is good to have the practice!  I will hopefully get quicker each time I do it.

Morning and sunset in the beautiful Padthaway wine district just 45 minutes drive from us.

Bits of this and that.....

We have heard (on the grape vine) that we have permission from the local council to install a septic tank!  Fantastic news and a bit of a necessity but really not much use without the house.... hay ho!  So after a brief flutter of excitement we are back to patiently waiting.

We would be very lucky if we manage to get the house finished to be able to live in it before the end of the year so with that in mind we have decided to renew our rental lease for another 6 months.  At the same time the renewal arrived for us to sign we also received notice that the owners are putting this place on the market!  Fingers (and anything else spare) crossed please for everything to happen with perfect timing.  Which I guess it always does anyway but at times just doesn't feel like it!

More excitement when we at last had some decent rain - hoorah - we have at last got a full rain water tank and have started drinking our own water.  It still sounds funny to hear the radio presenter inviting anyone who was listening to let them know how many mls they'd got.  Something which I cannot imagine happening in the UK.

Without going on too much about the gorgeous climate here the rain doesn't seem to last for very long before the sun comes out again, though of course this will probably change as winter arrives.  Most of the veggies seem to like it the tomatoes in the rented house garden are ripening (at last) and the cherry toms at the block are now flowering.  I'm still amazed everytime I see them.  All veggies are doing really well expect the poor old beans they have turned an interesting shade of yellow and appear to have stopped growing though some of them do have flowers.  Having consulted various oracles I made a yummy (for plants that is) solution of dissolved chook poo and applied that to the whole bed.

The weekend arrived along with a really cold damp miserable day, ok not cold compared to the UK but there was a very lazy wind which felt like it was cutting straight through you. And the start of the famous Naracoorte Swap Meet, Rick and I attended with money burning holes in our pockets excited about the possible bargains we'd find.  Many hours later and trips to and fro to load the car up we felt we had exhausted all the possible bargains and ourselves.  My favourites are the small raised veggie bed for $5 and a 1940/50s solid copper sterilising unit, in which once we'd got the lid off we found a very old Salter weighing scale. Oh and a very old housewives medical advice book, it's brilliant with pictures which fold out and all sorts of suggested cures for worms, dropsy etc etc.  It even has a section offering advice on how to be a good wife, apparently if the advice is not heeded you'd never make it to heaven!  We picked up many other things along the way all of which we hope will be of use.... perhaps one day.

                             

I've at last joined the local spinning and weaving group, a really lovely group of very patient ladies.  It was great fun and I've at last started to spin something which (for the poor sighted) might be mistaken for yarn.  The two most experienced ladies have told me my wheel needs a lot more TLC before it will work properly and they are currently looking for someone who has the time to help me fix it up.  Also the Alpaca fleece I'd been given to practice with was cut much too short to be of any use.  I left the group with a borrowed wheel and a large bag of sheeps wool to comb and spin and a huge amount of enthusiasm that perhaps one day I might be able to master spinning.

I think I may have mentioned before how beautiful Autumn in Naracoorte is, I have even managed to find a small pile of leaves to scrunch through.... not realising before hand that I'd missed doing that. In contrast none of the native trees loose their leaves, instead some shed their bark leaving beautiful smooth almost ghost like trunks.  And some have come into flower, much to the delight of all the nectar eating birds and insects.  The buds, flowers and eventual seed pod vary enormously and I think look stunning.

Abantiades latipennis

Or Pindi Moth to you and I......

is also known as a Swift Moth or a Ghost Moth and is most likely the moth that emerged from the huge chrysalis we found on the ground.

The caterpillars can burrow down anything from 25 cm to 60 cm and live on tree roots underground for up to 18 months possibly longer.  When they emerge these huge adult moths have no mouth parts and will live no more than a week.  The female 'lays' her eggs scattering some 10,000 during flight, the larvae then hatch and start to burrow to begin their subterranean lives.

This is the one Rick found a few months ago and very kindly put on my hand... I have to say it quite took my breath away at the time.

Some rusty rattlers....

Lots seems to have happened this week, from trying to rescue wildlife to attending The Rusty Rattlers event at a local race course.  Rusty Rattlers are a group of old farm machinery enthusiasts, they collect and eventually restore tractors, stationery engines and well any old farm machinery.  Once a year, over a weekend, they invite anyone who has an old tractor to take part in a tractor trek which involves 3 hours of driving around quite country roads... can you imagine this happening in the UK!  Followed on the Sunday with a tractor pull, also on offer a sausage sizzle, car boot and  a quilters and spinners shed.  The later was (not surprisingly) very inspiring, beautiful hand made items for sale, along with locally spun alpaca wool, all of which made it very difficult for me to leave the shed once I was in there. The ladies were also offering a chance to have a go at spinning... well how could I resist and anyway I think it would have been rude to refuse.  They were very patient and in the end I think I managed to produce quite a fine looking fairly smooth thin dread lock!

This has inspired me to get my act together, dust off the wheel and make contact with the local spinning and weaving group... more on that to follow shortly.

Back to the real rusty rattlers,  All of these tractors and dozers had a go at pulling a sledge loaded with weights. 

It took me quite a while to work out what was going on so I'm hoping that pictures may explain better than words.

As Wallace would say 'It was a grand day out' and so nice to sit in the sun, listening to all these old engines and the oily smells that go with them.  I bet when these were new no one could have even imagined the comforts that would come with our modern farm machinery, GPS, air-conditioned cabs complete with radios, amazing.

On our way home I was amazed to see a stubble burn, something which has been banned in the UK for a very long time.  But here at the end of the fire season some farmers still carry on the age old tradition of clearing the land.

And so to the block........

Our beautiful Nerines have started to make an appearance... well there have been two lots of flowers and now the leaves are on their way.  So hopefully this time next year the block will have them coming up all over the place.

I've spent some time with my Veg Bed, weeding, encouraging the veggies to grow and sitting on the bench beside it.  I noticed quite a lot of aphids and a lonely ladybird doing its best to reduce the numbers and decided these lovely predators needed a shelter.

So cut the ends off of one small water bottle, cut some bamboo to a slightly smaller length, drilled them out and firmly stuffed what was left of the bottle with them.  Wired the whole thing to one of the posts... now fingers crossed the ladybirds will find it an attractive DesRes.

It was while sitting on the bench I noticed (well it is very hard to ignore the loud squawk) three Sulpher Crested Cockatoos drinking from the nearby water trough.  One of them was very fluffed up and and quiet and seemed to be being looked after by the other two.  A little while later I noticed they were feeding the fluffed up one.
                           

But something was not quite right, it seemed a little on the large size to be a youngster.  After a call to the vets and with instructions to bring it in Rick donned the heavy duty leather gauntlet gloves, armed with a sack and a box slowly made his way to the poorly one.  It was by this time on it's own and seemed very vulnerable on the ground.  Without much bother Rick first covered it with the sack (great way to quieten birds) and then very gently put it in the box.

The vet said they'd keep an eye on it over night and if it fared well they would hand it over to a rescue group who would nurture it back to health and then release it back into the wild.  Sadly it got worse and they had to put it down.

I find it quite remarkable that the bond between these cockatoos is so strong they try and look after their sick ones.

Life is always a circle and nature is always in balance......

The next day I stumbled across these very strange looking things, I first thought they were some sort of native plant and asked Rick if he'd ever seen anything like it.  As it turned out they were what was left of the chrysalis of a very large moth... we think it is a Lunar Moth but we're not certain. 

And then I spotted these three basking in the Autumn sun and thought they'd be a great way to finish this week.