Winter - time to prepare for warmer weather.

Bossiaea rupicola in bloom (with bees!)

Bossiaea rupicola is in bloom at the moment and when the kids are day-napping and I'm working away on my own making fire breaks I can often hear the sound of the bees (euro and native) going about collecting pollen from the blood red flowers.  How lovely that that's how quiet it is up here!

Bruce (Wagner) whom I like to think of as the unofficial mayor of Mt French baled me up at the servo a few weeks ago and asked if I was keen to be involved in a burn-off of the mountain. YES! Super keen.  I was excited because I have been really wanting to do some burning off but Benji and I have no idea how to go about a controlled burn.  

"Oh great!  Yes! I really want to do a burn off, but we have no idea..."

"Yeah, I know youse don't."

Thanks Bruce (!) Ha.  

Anyway, the idea is he (as head of the Mt French Rural Fire Brigade and owner of half the mountain and "Unofficial Mayor") and the National Parks guys are going to tell us when the weather conditions are right and we'll burn off the entire block.  So I have to be prepared for when that day comes.

So I have been (with the help of Grammy on many occasions) slowly working away at putting little firebreaks in.  This is to protect the big piles of timber we have about the place (from when the house pad was cleared) so that we can continue to use the timber for building stuff and for firewood.  We've also been working on clearing some areas of the dead wood to try to minimise the fuel available if a bushfire did happen.  It feels good to feel so connected to the land and seasons.  The other good thing about the firebreaks is I am going to turn them into a continuous bush track for the kids (and us adults) to walk/run/ride/play on.

I'm also using winter as a time to prepare as many garden beds as possible so that come spring time I can go crazy with planting!

Winter sadly is NOT the time for trying to get a lawn going.  We had VERY limited success with our first efforts.  It seems Zoysia doesn't like cool weather and although it sprouted it stayed only a few millimetres tall and sort of died off (ooohhhhh GOD to think of the water we WASTED!!!! Not to mention the work in preparing the soil!)   HOWEVER! Benj did a little googling and got some 'Rhizomatous Tall Fescue" which seems to not mind the cooler weather... and I can scarcely believe it but we've got a lawn coming on!!!!!! OH YEAH!

Firebreak - a good excuse to make lovely little walking trails in the bush!

Clearing out the dead wood.

Green fuzz!!!!!

Awh my baby lawn!

 A new garden bed.  Most of the shrubs were existing natives.

The same garden bed viewed from another angle.  Most of the introduced plants are donated off shoots from Mama's garden.

One of the good things about Scott Bennie dragging his heels on finishing the outdoor shower is that he happened to be doing the slab for it while I was building (another) set of stone steps.  He had spare cement left over and gave it to me to use.  It is SOOOO much easier with cement.  It has inspired me to get some more cement to finish them off.  Won't it be lovely when the little rosemary plants grow up a bit more?!

Winter is also good for growing kale.

It's not really the season for basil, but these little guys popped up of their own accord from the seeds of a potted plant that 'bolted' in the summer - so I moved them to a sunny spot and they seem to be doing ok (when Molly isn't lying on them!).

My grapevine has new shoots - I hope he makes it and one day covers our pergola.

Yet another use for rocks (and rosemary).

Garden bed preparation - watch this space.

 Winter crops cauliflower, brussel sprouts and kale.

Going native!!!

Discovered a really cool website by gardener, Angus Stewart, all about growing natives.  I get so excited every time I browse through it.

And so I searched until I found a native plants nursery.  I definitely need a day trip to this place this Spring!



And just because... here is a photo of my lovelies taken at the Boonah show a few weeks ago:

Stand back, appreciate and marmalade it.

Recently, after planting a row of lillipillies as a screen for our massive water tank I told Sebastian: "The most important part of finishing off a job is to stand back and appreciate and marvel at it."
He knitted his confused, little eyebrows together and asked: "Appreciate and marmalade it?!"

Anyway, I've been beavering away at heap of little projects around the place... a lot of the time things go unfinished because Petra wakes up, or Sebastian needs me to make a bmx jump, or we are off adventuring in the bush, or catching up with Boonah life... but slowly things are coming together.  SLOWLY!

The garden is taking longer than I would like (patience is not a virtue of mine) and I have decided after a few minor failures (sad citrus, poor pomegranate, goodbye vera etc) and after doing a bit of reading that it is better to establish good beds with fertile soil even if it takes a while of having NOTHING at all growing.... so I am just doing some mega building-up-the-garden-bed-with-mushroom-compost-horse-poo-gypsum-home-made-compost-and-worm-castings-etc action in preparation for spring.


Ps I would just like to marmalade the fact that I have planted over 35 trees so far....many more to come!


Here are a few (non-chronological) photos (more to follow over the next week hopefully) of things around the place over the past couple of bog-neglected months...


Speaking of progress... look who is standing, not quite walking yet!

Leon's (the builder's) idea: the kids' handprints in the new slab for the outdoor shower.  And as Leon said "Oh my word how cute is that?!" 

Rock removal team.

Steps from the olive grove up to the house.

The woodshed floor is done... just needs a roof!

One of my lillipilly screens... this one to hide the polytunnel.

A trip to the nursery!

On the weekend we took a trip out to one of the local nurseries, Wharkuroogma,  and bought a carful of plants... enough to keep us busy for the next couple of weeks.  We didn't have to spend too much and it feels like we have heeaps of plants to put in.  Very exciting. As I type I am awaiting a load of soil to help give my new guys a good start in life!

We bought:
- three grapevines for the patios;
- lilipillies to create a screening hedge;
- Cuphea (C. hyssopifolia) for ground cover around the pool;
- Alternanthera ("Purple splash") ditto;
- Evolvulus ("Blue eyes") ditto;
- Photinia - because I love the deep red colour of the new foliage... don't know where I'll put it yet;
- Olive trees - a couple of varieties for the olive grove

Around the pool:  cupheas, alternantheras, evolvuluses and some little red salvias  (sourced from the side of the road about 1k down the road!)

Helping mummy spread the sugarcane mulch.

Building a dam... just a toy one!

Poppy would be proud.  I came home from a swim to find Grammy and Sebastian out the back building a miniature dam in the run-off water from the recent rain.  We spent the morning getting clay and rocks and sticks for our construction.  (It's possible Grammy and I has as much or more fun than Budi!) There is even a bridge and parkland with seat for stick people. 

Mud-reinforced bridge.

Stick people enjoying the sunshine.

Sourcing vegetation.

Site Engineer.

Parklands.

Be patient! Gardening progress is slow going!

I’m trying to be patient… but sometimes I get frustrated with my (lack of) progress in the garden.  I want grass!!!!  I want trees!!! I want flowers!!! I want vegetables!!!!  (Calm down you lunatic… be patient…)

So the lawn:
We’ve started laying grass seed in the flat lawn-to-be area surrounding the house.  It’s an arduous process.  First flatten out the sandy soil bed by raking, scraping and spreading; then roughen the surface again with the rake; apply fertiliser; spread the seed with the little seed whizzing device; re-rake; scatter sugarcane mulch; water, erect (belatedly in the case of the first two sections of lawn) temporary fencing to keep the dogs and kids out!
We’ve divided the lawn into relatively manageable sections.  Unfortunately the first two sections were almost washed away by a huge downpour of rain (which caused quite a lot of flash flooding in and around town)… so they are looking VVVVVEEEERRRRYYY patchy. Most of the topsoil and grass seed is presumably somewhere down the mountainside.  I was just about ready to can our first effort and start again, but Benji persisted in watering. (much to my dismay because it pained me to think we were wasting water on what may not even be there!) Low and behold we do have a little green stubble forming, albeit a baldy, patchy, irregular growth. (Oh and that whole scenario speaks volumes about Benji’s and my nature.)  Anyway… we shall wait for lawn… and hope the cold weather doesn’t hit too hard just yet so our little seeds can grow!!!

Trees…  A couple of lilypillies are in (from Mt Ninderry Court!), as is an olive tree (out near the pool) a pomegranate, a cherry guava (the fruits of which Molly keeps eating before we get a chance to pick them!!! - I must build a fence around that tree), a handful of citrus (birthday pressies from mum and Gilsy last year) and two Brazilian cherry trees (grown from seeds, picked by Grammy and Sebastian around the corner from our old house in Mara Place!!!)

Flowers… So far most have come from mum’s and Faye’s place… a few from Mara Place… and even some from the side of the road (salvias I collected whilst out walking/running… and frangipani pruning mum collected from some guy she saw out in his garden whilst driving back from Brisbane!)

Veges… Well the poly tunnel is up.  It was poorly planned and a bit dodgily executed and very ugly… but it’s fully enclosed and so serves its purpose in protecting our veggies.  Benji and I put in star pickets and pushed the poly pipe over those to act as the ‘ribs’, then attached the netting… which was pretty fiddly so it was all just about done when we realised a shrub was in the way…
“Ah just leave it we’ll sort it out later.” says Benji.
“Later?!! What later?! It’ll never get done!!!  I’ll just grab the mattock and do it now.” I say.
Swing-dig; swing-dig; swing-kkkrrrccchhhhewwwwkkkk.  Pause.  Stare at Benji’s horror struck face as he stares back at mine.  Explosion of laughter. Nice work dickhead. Bloody big hole in the netting. Suture my disaster with dental floss.
(P.s. I already have plans for a large fenced area to increase our vege production area!)

And tomorrow... hopefully we are finally going to the nursery to buy plants! Hurrah!!!


--ooOoo--

Molly!  Get away from those cherry guavas!  (Yes we changed her name to Molly... Spotty just didn't suit her!!)

A line of citrus along the bank...

Driveway garden... 

New driveway... only moments after it was laid a massive downpour hit Mount French... it's a wonder it didn't end up down the bottom of the mountain... but it held together perfectly!  Nice work Jo!

Garden out near the back patio.  That's the "poly tunnel" in the background.

Benji had to dig a trench into my garden to drain water away from one of the areas we are trying to get to grow lawn!

Benji - working hard out in the rain!

Poly tunnel

The Right Dog at the Right Time

It has been over four years since Roadie has been gone.  During those dogless years we tried a few times to get a new dog, but it never worked out, just never felt right.  I was too emotional and missing Roadie too much, or the dogs were lunatics, or I was dealing with a brand-new, newborn baby, or I was STILL missing Roadie too much, or we were having another baby or moving house. 
 

Four days ago our neighbour rocked up with a couple of mongrel pups in the backseat of her cigarette-smoke-filled-sedan...  on her way to the pound to have them euthanaised.   

“I heard you might be interested in a pup.” 

They were two females, with dappled black, blue and brown spots.  Covered in fleas, pot-bellied (so probably full of worms too), scrawny and filthy.  One lively, friendly little thing, one timid stand-off-ish.  According to the neighbour they were Smithfield Cattle-dog cross Maremmas.  The Maremma thing is doubtful, more likely Kelpie but whatever, they were mongrel cattle dog looking things – just my type. 

“What will daddy say if we keep one Sebastian?” 

I reached out and picked up the little timid one and there was no hesitation on my part - she was staying with us.   

So what did daddy say to my bouncing, joyful self on his arrival home from work?  

“Huh.  I guess it was inevitable.”  Is all.   (And he smiled wryly at his overly enthusiastic partner.) 

Polish Joe was more excited. (!) He had come up with a load of soil for us and I showed him what I’d done.  “Ahh so a good friend for Sebastian.  I bring you a cage.”  He was down the mountain and back up again in no time, with another load of soil and a cage for us to keep the pup in at night. 

I heard him from inside calling out to Sebastian.   

“Hey! Sebastian!    .... You got a new dog?!” 

“Yes.” 

“Whattaya call him?” 

“Spotty.” 

“Righto.” And he was off again roaring down the hill in his big truck. 

And there we were.  A dog family again.  And even though her name is awful  (chosen by Sebastian who WILL NOT let us change it), and even though she will never be as special to me as Roadie was, she’s a lovely little thing and beautiful with the kids and I think she’s going to be a bloody good dog. 

And so I piled the kids and the dog into the car for a trip to town.  We needed to buy dog food, worming treatment, flea-treatment, vaccinations, dog shampoo and a new collar!