Jamie's Birthday

A week in Bendigo on the Mainland for me this past week. Not very often do l ever get on a plane ( I hate flying!!!) But my nephew's 18th birthday seemed like a good reason to board a plane and catch up with all my little nephew and nieces! Jamie, Tabi, India and Meadow. What a great bunch!

And my sister's cats! Of course!

AND my little brother who flew down from Sydney.

So we laid a party table!

Complete with balloons!

Jamie got lots of lovely presents!

A birthday cake

And a party with his best friends. Such a lovely group of young adults.

A really fun week..........

 

 

Poor Wallaby..

A bit nippy this morning. l think we got down to nearly minus one. A beautiful heavy frost until the sun hit the house later on in the morning.........Beautiful...............but...................

Definitely the end of my Salvias!!

We have had a sad little visitor these past few days. A small wallaby who is obviously not very well. He is hanging around the house and in particular the duck pen where he spends all day sitting next to the wheat bowl .Much to Bruce's disgust! He is a bit scared of him so just stands as near as he dares and hisses!!!

NOT happy!!!!

I'd say this little fellow as toxoplasmosis. A neurological disease that eventually kills any wallaby who gets it. The most obvious signs are lack of fear of humans and daylight . This ones displays signs of both so we tolerate him around the place as the poor little thing won't last much longer.

We put the duck's wheat inside their water bowl as it deters (slightly) the 40,000 sparrows that try to come down and steal it every day! This little fellow has worked that out and despite the freezing temperature dips his paws into the water for his morning feed.

Poor little bugger....

Such a contrast to this....warm, spoilt, well fed.................

Lilli doesn't know how lucky she is.......

Wine and Woodsmoke

A perfect mild Winter's Day today.

Ideal for raking up MORE Walnut leaves ..................The tree is almost bare finally!. Maybe a few more wheel barrows worth left? We took advantage of the lovely mild day to have a small fire to get rid of some of the leaves. There is only SO much you can compost after all!!

It took a while to get going......

With a bit of real smoke signal smoke !

Mr and Mrs Bruce came along to see what was going on! They were quite fascinated!

 

After a small wine break the fire finally heated up and burnt beautifully.

 

Sort of!

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm maybe there WAS more smoke than fire.............

But it was fun anyway!

 

And very pretty!

Officially into Winter

Three days into June. Not many leaves left on the trees. No longer having to mow the lawn.........Yep, l think Winter has arrived! The mornings are misty as the fog creeps up our rivulet from down by the Huon River . It's always beautiful and has me reaching for my camera again and again and again!

l always expect to see a headless horseman come out of the gloom around this tree....

It's been fascinating watching my pond go full circle to the place it is today. A year ago exactly it was a construction site! .

Even now as everything dies away around it , it still is a lovely peaceful place

 

The feed in the paddocks drop off so hay becomes the number one food source for this little gang. Sweet Georgie almost invisible between the two white boys!

And a great score from the one and only Margate Train! This amazing solid cast iron gate........ That fits EXACTLY into the doorway of the courtyard! We love it!

It needs a good sand to get the old flaky paint off.............

 And some hinges welded on as it was possibly part of an old fence.

But it looks great and once it's painted (probably matt black) it will be a real asset to this space

.Great find me!!!!!

Great Dixter

Talking of Great Dixter yesterday had me trawling through photos today of this beautiful garden. The owner Christopher Lloyd has since passed away but the passion and vision he had for the garden still stands today. Now under the stewardship of Fergus Garrett and the Great Dixter Charitable Trust, Great Dixter is an historic house, a garden, a centre of education, and a place of pilgrimage for horticulturists from across the world.

And it is my absolute favourite garden!

l just LOVE all his crazy colour.....

l can do this!!!!

The man himself.

Mind you, my garden could look like this if l had 10 gardeners in it every day!!

Just stunning!

No white flowers in THIS garden!!

And there are those pots again!!! Just look at that house!!!

Such an inspiration!