Springish type equinox!

Hello to all in the blogosphere and may your day be going splendidly or your night time as well. I’m currently getting my bones into gear to start attempting to tackle the protecting of my fruit futures from the dreaded fruit fly invasion. Oh how I hate and abhor those little tiny flies just doing what comes naturally.

See that little fruit fly on my rosemary bush? The flowers have only just come out on my ancient apricot and they’re already rubbing there legs with glee!

Here’s a close up of the nasty little aphids I discovered on my double grafted nectarine tree yesterday. As its only small at the present I was successful in spraying them with Pyrethrum till they were dead. They haven’t spread to the new growth on my other fruit trees yet but I’m going to keep my eyes peeled.

This is my newish Trevatt Apricot just coming into flower.

This is the gorgeous blossom of my Satsuma plum. The tree is thick with it this year. It was severely affected by aphids last year and has come back beautifully this year thankfully.

These blossoms belong to my Santa Rosa plum which sits next door to my Satsuma plum. It is also nicely covering the whole tree this year 🙂

These blossoms belong to my old Apricot which I always think is going to die any year now but keeps surprising me. This year I shall get fruit without maggots in it, I’m determined. Nylon bags are at the ready to go on!

These are my blueberries just starting to get into flower and fruit stage. Cannot wait for these little purple beauties to arrive in force.

Here is a little millipede climbing up our newly painted garage wall the other day. Amazing little critters and such an ancient little fossil creature still alive today 🙂

This is my lovely Princess Lavender. The bees adore it as do I. I need to purchase lots more of these little plants or maybe just take some cuttings from these and get them growing.

This is one of the Kookaburras (a member of the Kingfisher family) that live and hunt about our house. Very adept hunters.

Here it is eyeing Jason and the camera off.

I end this short springish blog off with a few photos of the delectable and always amusing Molly who is forever telling us what we should be doing for her.

I’m just waiting for a call to come through guys. Can you answer it for me?

Hmmm what shall I do now? I’m in the mood for some ripping about in the sunshine.

Well, this is fun! Now I’m up here what can I see, apart from my human taking my best angle in this photo?

The morning has been SO exhausting that I must immediately lie down right here on this nice warm newspaper you don’t need to be reading 😉

Have a lovely day/night wherever you may be fellow bloggers.

Down time.

Hello folks 🙂
I’ve been busy filling in for a workmate whilst she has a well earned holiday away from the laboratory. Here’s a little of what I’ve been doing in my down time.

Making Orange and poppy seed muffins.

These were a very easy recipe that used oil and buttermilk that gave them a very nice crumb texture. They were meant to come with a cream cheese frosting but I felt it would detract from the lovely citrusy flavour and the poppy seeds would give you a teeny euphoric lift anyways 😉
I made a yummy Garlic prawn risotto for our tea last night and it made so much that we will be eating leftovers for tea tonight.

I also spent most of the afternoon making a whole big pot of delicious golden chicken stock which I’m about to pack into individual freezer bags for future recipes.

Our house is pretty much finished being externally renovated excepting the last few coats of paint and wood oiling and the lights being put in. The carpenters came and cleared away all the wood pieces and planks they’d left behind and I was able to get in and weed a part of my garden that I hadn’t been able to safely get to for most of the year. Still have a bit to go there but it’s looking better. I have to move a pear that is dormant at the moment, from where it is to a spot up a terraced section of the garden where I can also plant another pear to help pollination. I wondered why I never got any pears till I learnt that pears need two to produce fruit. Talk about a naive gardener 😛 I feel spring in the air. The sun is just that little bit warmer and it’s rising in the sky just that little bit earlier in the mornings 🙂
Here’s a picture of my newest acquisition in the pet stakes. He doesn’t make a lot of noise thankfully. I won’t be getting neighbours hammering on my doors saying he wakes them up early in the mornings 😉

I haven’t really thought of a name for him yet. The little metal kitty that was my mums is looking a wee bit terrified of him judging by the look on his face.
Here is a photo taken in a large shopping centre in Perth recently whilst I was on a mission for some child friendly gifts. The things you can do with Lego is amazing 🙂

I will leave you with a final photo of our favourite little French restaurant Lavender Cottage. It is where Jason and I go on our date nights and sometimes, if we have days off together we get to go there for one of Elis soufflecinnos! Magnificent cappuccinos with and inch of creamy froth on top 🙂

Have a wonderful life and, in the words of our dearly departed Robin Williams (as Mork, from Ork), Nanoo, Nanoo!

Visiting old haunts.

Yesterday, Friday the 30th August, I took myself out of the house for a drive over to my old home town of Denmark (Western Australia).  I had a wee touch of cabin fever and needed to get out and see the world. The first place I went to was the beach and I took photos of the sand bar opening. It is opened most years around mid to late August when flooding of farmers fields and rivers leads to this bridging of the sand to alleviate the flooding of Wilsons Inlet. You can see the lovely green sea water pushing in to regenerate and oxygenate the inlet. Thousands/millions of baby snapper and adult fish that have been breeding and growing in the inlet congregate around the sand bar waiting for it’s opening so they can head off to the ocean for whatever it is they do out there (have wild parties and wake up in strange unusual places?) 😀

Here is another angle of the bar opening taken looking back into the inlet.

You can see the old Denmark surf club building perched to the left of the shot. The way the bar has opened, it has torn away most of the beach and dug out a huge big trench along the front of the club rooms.

The little black dots you can see here just out from the mouth of the bar opening are a bunch of dedicated surfers that wait eagerly each year for the bars opening to make full use of the new big waves that form here. Myself, I would be wearing wetsuits that don’t make you look like a seal as some pretty big old sharks like to congregate here waiting for the fish escaping from the inlet :O

In years gone by, I would come over to Denmark and take my Mum out for a meal. Just the two of us usually. Sometimes we’d be joined by my daughters and sometimes by my partner but more often than not, it would be me and Mum. Now she’s been dead these past 2 years, I haven’t gone back to one of our favorite restaurants for a long time. Yesterday, I plucked up the courage to go it alone and I had a most wonderful meal even if I did feel at odds with my memories. I had a wonderful bowl of Mrs Jones Gnocchi served with a basil and cream pesto, sundried tomatoes and parmesan cheese. Such a heartwarming and delicious meal of little fat, fluffy potatoey morsels in a rich sauce with some lovely crisp potato skins on top.

Sorry it’s a bit blurry. My phone camera was salivating apparently 😀 I also had a yummy cappuccino to help me on my way.

I also lashed out and bought a “Trevatt” apricot tree and 3 potted Winter Lace Lavender plants that have bees buzzing about them already! I’m not allowed to plant out the Apricot till new year the garden guy said as he had just transplanted it into the big garden bag so it can grow new roots. I just soaked it in a good fish emulsion (Seasol) as soon as I got it back to Albany and the plants are looking mighty fine this morning. I’m hoping this apricot will be producing very soon and can be well established by the time my poor old other apricot finally dies.

 

The above group of pictures shows a few of my fruit trees, in order the Satsuma Plum and the double grafted Yellow and White Nectarine and my gorgeous blue Iris that are flowering or attempting to 😀

I leave you with another springish like flower that curiously likes to grow around the base of certain rose bushes in pots. I call it Bubbles Pussycatus 😀

See you all in the Spring!