when cameras go mad

My little camera has thrown a wobbly but it did it very well. I like the effect but I am glad the photos weren't important. This will be my last entry for the year, Big changes tomorrow as I am heading back to the real world. Don't know how long I will be there. I will have to readjust. I have become used to being here and I will miss my garden.
Tonight I am going across to the club to see the old year out and the new year in. Will have to be a good girl as I am driving.

life keeps getting better

Left home at 6.30 this morning as pillion on a Truimph Rocket III.   Cruised out to Manangatang where we picked up Will on his Truimph then onto Piangil, Toolybuc then Balranald where we stopped for a break.  Made it back home again just as the day was beginning to warm up.  The early morning was a perfect morning, cool and still.  The sun still low on the horizon showed mist rising from the open paddocks.  Our departure from Manangatang was delayed by the grain train as it manouvered its way into the siding.  Then as we left Balranald we passed a camel drawn buggy with a camel walking beside.  What a perfect day. 

home grown bok choy

Have to show off my first real meal with home grown bok choy. Lamb stew.

And it was delicious.

can life get much better than this

Relaxing in the cool of the evening on the back verandah, feet up, glass of good wine, watching my garden grow.

it's grapetime

covered grapevines

oops cover your eyes, naked vines

crop is looking magnificent.  a while before picking though

a vineyard of covered grapevines on the murray valley highway

you know you're doing a good job when...

busy bee

...the person that you are working with tells porkies to get you fired. You know you’re doing an even better job when you say to the boss 'just out of interest show me where I went wrong' and he can’t find anything to show you. Then you say do you want me to come in tomorrow and he says yes. You smile and say that means I will be working with (man who told porkies to get you fired) and he has an even bigger grin on his face and he says yes.

dashing through the bush

I know Christmas has come and gone but it is still December so I figure I am still in the festive season.   Just a few k's out of town on the Murray Valley Highway, love it.

the wheelbarrow

zucchini plant

tomato plant to the left and bok choy right

And no I wasn't too lazy to move the wheelbarrow.   It is there to try to get a comparison for size.   The zucchini plants are huge and they are starting to produce.   The first zucchini on each bush didn't get any bigger than a short cigar but the subsequent one are looking great.   Maybe a day or two and I might get enough for a feed.   Have already started using the rocket and the bok choy are still a bit small but very usable.  

belsar island

Belsar Island is like a graveyard for dead trees.   I don't know what has caused all the largest trees on that part of the island to die.   Maybe it was the drought but there is also a real beauty in the landscape.  The River Track that I followed traversed through k after k of dead trees.  Sometimes there were mini forests of naked branches and trunks still reaching skyward.  The young trees in stark contrast looked like survivors with the huge old trees littered among them just eerie bare limbs outlined against a brilliant blue sky.

carrot weed

My carrots with the offending carrot weed laying in state beside them.

I was amazed by how much my carrots had grown and in particular a patch down at the end of the row was twice as high as the rest and not only that but some seeds must have washed down into the water chanel and those carrots were flourishing as well.
But as I am finding in gardening I have a lot to learn and in a bit of deja vu it turned out that what was actually flourishing was carrot weed.   But...but... how can you tell the difference I stuttered to my brother.  I don't know,...but have a good look.   I peered down at my carrots.   All I could see were carrots.  I can't tell the differnce.  He pulled a tiny carrot out of the ground.   Try that.   I removed what grit I could and nibbled.   Tastes like a carrot.   He pulled another plant, this one looked hairy on the root.  Try that.  Yuck that's horrible I grimmaced.  That's the carrot weed.    I looked closer.   The leaf looked exactly the same but the carrot weed seemed fluffier (don't know if that is a gardening term but it is the one I am using) I was totally perplexed.  And take a look where it comes out of the ground.  Oh yes I can see a bit of a difference.   I looked again.   Ahhh the carrot is a brighter green - just.   Now the difference was plain.  I ripped out the carrot weed, glad to be rid of them.   The poor carrots at the end of the row had struggled to survive and were smaller than the rest.  Good thing I hadn't decided to thin the carrots out and remove all of the smaller plants!
There is so much more to gardening than just planting.

christmas evening

I sat watching TV as Christmas Day became Christmas Evening.  It was hot and muggy and the only cooling I had on was the overhead fan.  Earlier in the evening I decided to make a night of it at my cousins farm.   A lot of the rellies had already gathered there for lunch and were staying over til the next day.   It would be a good opportunity to catch up with everyone.  I grabbed the bottle of red wine jumped into the car and headed towards the bridge.   I glanced down at my petrol gauge as I passed the closed petrol station.  It was just on the red.   Damn.   Surely one petrol station would be open.   I pulled into the caravan park but their bowser was turned off.   I did condemplate seeing if the car would make it there and back but then thought better of it.   I then headed for home deflated.   Now the lightening flashed and the thunder rumbled in great rolls over the river.   Willow hid under my chair her ears flattened against her head.  The phone rang.  It was Danny from Western Australia.   I picked up the phone and headed out to the back verandah.  Willow bravely followed me.   She did not want to be left alone.  As I sat down in the one of the green plastic chairs a startled frog who had  been using the chair lept across onto the empty chair.   I apologised for my rudeness and with Willow once again hiding under my chair we sat together in the cool evening air, listened to the thunder and watched the rain pour down.

christmas

It Christmas Day.  I stayed in Robinvale to have Christmas lunch with mum in hospital.

dawn raid

good lady bettle

bad pumpkin bettle

These are pumpkin beetles and on closer inspection the only way they really resemble lady bugs is their bright colour and spots. Iam just going to have to accept the fact that occasionally I will have to wear my reading glasses while doing the gardening.
This morning I launched a dawn raid (well it was close to dawn anyway) and my mission was amazingly successful.   Two beetles got away from me.   That I have found is another way to tell they are not lady bugs, the pumpkin beetle moves a lot faster than the ladies.  This afternoon I was back to the zucchini patch and found two pumkin beetles.   One got away but then as I was about to leave two little ones landed.  These were accordingly erradicated but now it looks like they have stepped up the battle by sending in a second offensive.

ladybug haven

Three pumpkin bettles and one lady bug.

The ladybugs love the zucchini. I was gently throwing them over the fence (ha ha like they are not going to fly straight back over) because someone told me once they did a lot of damage to plants. Mum said they were good to have in the garden so I looked it up.
Answer. The lady bugs live nearly completly on Aphids which are the badies in the garden. So the lady bugs are good for the garden. There is quite a large colony on my zucchini plants and as you can see they are multiplying at a great rate. So I will leave them be but I do wonder what they eat if there are no aphids. Or are there aphids on my zucchini and I just don't know it.
P.S.
In my happiness at finding a colony of good bugs in my garden I assumed that the other lady bug type bugs with the elongated bodies where juvenile lady bugs but I was terribly mistaken.   They are in fact pumpkin bugs and they are the badies of the garden.  Tonight was the first time that I had seen the pumpkin bug so hopefully I can erradicate them before they become a problem.

I am now on 'mission pumpkin beetle' and the last man standing wins. 

a warm bath

It was a very warm day.   The puddle just to the edge of the footpath was shallow and clean.   The little sparrow spent several minutes bobbing and splashing.  The puddle being shallow would have been very warm as it was in the sun.   He was soon joined by several other sparrows but they just wanted to run around in the water getting their feet wet.
I couldn't resist taking a photo but unfortunately all I had on me was my little instamatic and no reading glasses.  I didn't want to get too close and scare him off so this photo is the best of a bad lot.

dew drops

For the first time this morning I noticed the dew drops outlining the pumpkin leaves. As I watered the garden the sunlight caught the dew drops making them sparkle. There is more to a vegie garden than just growing vegetables. There are new pleasures for me everyday. Sometimes it is a plant flowering for the first time or the first fruits or seeing them evolve from tiny plants or seeds, or something unexpected like these dew drops.  Mostly it is my haven. 

pac orange

Just out of Monak NSW this hungry looking pac orange looks like it is on the prowl just waiting, waiting, waiting.

weeds

My garden is going crazy. Everything is growing, including the weeds and over the past couple of days since it rained I haven't had enough time to get out into the garden. I only have a couple of days till I go home for Christmas. I started this garden to give me something to do but now it is like I have to find time to spend in the garden. Don't get me wrong. I love my garden and I am very proud of it. I just wish the weeds wouldn't grow so fast.  Though come to think of it the plants seem to be growing faster than the weeds so maybe I shouldn't complain.   I would have more to complain about if nothing was growing.

helpless female

I stopped for petrol before heading back home from a day out in Mildura. The bowsers that I needed for the right hand side of the car were all in use so I decided to go to the left side of the car and bring the hose across the boot of the car. I parked and got out, realized that I was too far away from the bowser, got back in, started the car, pulled forward, reversed back again, got out and was still further out than I really wanted to be. I was trying to decide whether to have another go at getting closer when a guy from the service station who had been cleaning at one of the other bowsers came across.
Here let me he offered and picked up the petrol hose. Oh thank you. I looked around as I opened the petrol cap, everyone else seemed to be filling their own tanks. I felt a little awkward. You’d never guess that I drive a truck I waffled needlessly. He smiled at me as he finished filling my tank and hung up the hose. Thanks I said again. Now all you have to do is just pop inside and pay for it. Oh what your not going to pay for it as well? I asked feeling a little more relaxed. His good deed done he walked back to his job cleaning at the bowser.

I like to think of him as a good Samaritan but maybe a blonde (yes I was blonde at the time) in a little orange car reversing around petrol bowsers was just too much stress for this man to handle.

let it rain

Had 128 points of rain overnight and through the morning. That is 45 millimeters in the new scale. A lot of rain in a short time. Didn't need to water the garden tonight and everything is looking terrific. The three tomato plants in the row however were all flattened. I straightened them up and packed the dirt around them a bit more so hopefully they will still be good tomorrow.

all wrapped up

Now that the gift wrapping has started it is finally starting to feel more like Christmas.

river life

majestic river gums

the incredible root system of the trees on the river bank

always amazes me how they survive

billabong drying up after the floods

carp discarded after a fishing trip

this appeared to be a mushroom about the size and look of a half deflated soccer ball

baby zucchini

 zucchini

capsicum flower

Can you believe it.   Already.   I have baby zucchini on my plants or rather looks like they are going to be.  They were planted on the 24th which was about three weeks ago.  Also my capsicum are flowering as well.  Don't know if the first set of flowers will set but will be fun finding out.