More wintry skies and the little plovers are back.

I am having problems with a ligament in my repaired knee apparently. Went to the dr yesterday and there appears to be nothing wrong with the knee but it is probably the ligament that is giving me the burning sensation. Not all that easy to live with but I am still walking and trying to get things done around the house. More pansies went into a pot this morning and when we walked the little plovers are back on the beach, to my mind a bit early but then I may be wrong. There were five of them but they scuttle up the beach so quickly it was hard to focus on them. double click the last photos and you may get a better view. I love these little birds. The skies over the sea have been wonderful but the big seas have made the beach difficult to walk on with all the sea weed that has come ashore. Still it is winter so what can you expect. What I would like to expect is rain, we seem to have days with little wind, grey grey days and the washing wont dry, and not because it has rained, the fire is going flat out too. I like winter mostly but would love to see the sun.

Making simple dolls and walks on the wild side

I have nearly finished dressing these little dolls, all because it is Raggedy Annes 100th birthday. I had fun trying out different body shapes. Yesterday we went walking over at Pt Elliot and in the middle photo if you double click to enlarge it you may see a kyak and some surfers by this huge rock, every so often a surfer would take an enormous wave over these rocks looked terribly dangerous to me and it is quite a way out. This morning there were still large waves around by Petrels and the sand was on the move, whether it was going in or out I am not sure. Apparently there has been a huge low to the south between South Africa and Western Australia, nestled right next to the Antarctic and although the weather here has been relatively windless there are huge waves coming up from the south. Wild and wonderful. I am having a lot of pain from my now almost 2 year old knee replacement, cant see my GP until the 13th of next month to start something, anything to see what the problem is. Perhaps I will take to drink!!

Love winter skies

I love these skies, this is this mornings walk between showers. I didnt think we would get one but it cleared for about half an hour. I like the shots over the sand dunes. It then rained for most of the day, not terribly heavy but we have had about 8 mm last night and so far today. I need comfortable rubber boots. double click to enlarge.

Odd weather

In our walks we have had calm seas and sunshine one day, wild weather the next with huge seas and everything in between. A lot of kelp washed up on the beaches. This morning it was beautiful, now we have had a change and its cold, wet and low cloud. Not a lot of wind although we had that early this morning. We have been amazingly dry for June but are slowly catching up to our average. I moved pots around yesterday and then ached but went to the nursery this morning and came home with a couple of the lovely coloured ornamental kale, just hope the caterpillas dont find them. Pictures when the sun comes out again. We had taken a couple of trees by the back door whose roots had gone miles under the cement and made a mess so this is what I had aimed to put in their place. I am out in the cold here where my laptop is but I will go back and stuff another doll body, yes I am making a couple of dolls in honor of Raggedy Anne's 100th birthday. A nice thing to play with on a wet afternoon. Then I am off to make a fish pie for dinner Yes Virginia it is Oscar that we lost, he was a bit older than your Nikko.

A few days walks and a bit of stitchery

Sorry this is another collage but I havent felt 100% over the last few days, I hit my shoulder accidently and that has put things back a bit. We have managed to walk most days but today. I tend to think that shopping is a walk! Probably not true but it takes longer and I am pretty tired after it all. Yesterday was cold and wild and windy on the cliffs. We managed a walk on the beach the day before but its not easy getting the tide right and finding our way through the sea weed that is collecting n the beach. John wasnt feeling well the day before so we had a short walk along the bike track near the mouth of the Inman River and I managed to photograph this lovely little male blue wren. Here at home they seem to not stay still for as long or let me get quite so close at the moment. New neighbours who have cats and wander, he was pretty old, A kitten in January 2000 and here they have a habit of just going away somewhere to die and not tell you that it is going to happen, even if he was a mostly indoor cat. I feel sad and miss him but he has certainly been losing weight and being very fussy about his food. I think he has made his own decision.

First whales for the season

Very blurry photos as I forgot to take my camera and these are from Johns phone. He missed the best bits, flukes and tails but if you double click on the photos you may get some idea. Others were obviously aware of them as we went to do one of our usual walks along the cliffs near Petrels and suddenly John said, there is a whale out there. There were two as we saw two blows in quick succession and far more flukes etc than I have ever seen before. The whales were also a lot closer in than when they are over near Pt Elliot.So a bit of excitement to brighten a very dull and overcast day.

Collage of yesterdays walk

I dont seem to have had a lot of time to blog, and yet I dont think I have done a lot. Part of the problem being that I get tired and sit and sew or read in between trying to get house work and cooking done. Trips to Adelaide or else where dont help. The clouds were magnificent yesterday, but still no rain and remarkably warm for this time of the year. double click to enlarge the collage photos. John has gone down with a wog of some kind, never a good thing for him as they tend to go to his chest, but as he said, he has been out in the real world! I have only walked on beaches or cliffs or gone shopping. I think the weather on the whole hasnt helped as I am aching, I think we have an unusually high high pressure which might be the culprit. It is supposed to rain today but so far hasnt looked much like it. Not a very interesting blog to read! I am trying to get a raggedy anne doll done for when I go up to Mambray Creek next month as it is her 100th birthday and this is a Christmas in July for the doll club I am a member of up there. In doing that I cleaned up all my patterns and sorted a corner of my really messy work room. Actually in the tidying and cleaning out of cupboards I seem to have made more mess. Hope every one has had a good week end and an interesting week.

A walk and 2 seals

There has but a lot of controversy about our local seals, properly they are called New Zealand fur seals, but are native to this area. Sealers wreaked havok at the early part of the last century and there were very few left and I only remember seeing them in this area probably 10 to 12 years ago and then they were a novelty. Now they are rather a menace, they are said to eat the penguins, they have gone into the Coorong where they eat the fish and birds and now they are 100 km from the sea at Murray Bridge in the river where they disrupted the water skiiing championships and one was killed to a huge hullabaloo. I rather like seals but this is another case of a native animal out of control and the powers that be cant bring themselves to cull them. We walked around the base of the Bluff this morning and there were two in the little bay we used to dive in when the children were small, a large one and this smaller one just below the road by the rocks. In some places Koalas are breeding too freely and starving themselves out of areas as they eat all the gum leaves. We have far too many kangaroos also eating out good farming land and making an awful mess of both themselves and any ones car that hits them and the big white cockatoos, and corellas, never seen in this area until about 7 years ago, now a menace eating our dairy calves food and scaring them away and making an awful mess of our fruit trees. I know we are also an overabundant species but where next?

Orchids and a late flowering easter cactus

It has been terribly windy today, we have been doing some cleaning get up, getting rid of some old plants outside and I have been cleaning out a cupboard in the bedroom. So now we are both aching and tired. At the same time we brought in some orchids from the shade house. Two early flowering native dendrobium crosses, the spidery ones, another cattle a and a red flowered combining. My easter cactus is in lovely flower too. There is not much out in the garden so these pots are a joy.

Walks

Our walk along the cliffs near Petrel's Cove today was interesting. the sand has really gone, what is normally a lovely, but dangerous sandy beach is all rock, Depps beach further along has some sand but there are rocks exposed that I have never seen before. Some with very interesting shapes. Double click to enlarge. The shag was a few days ago when we walked along the beach near Kent Reserve. On this mornings walk we also saw a large seal bobbing around, and also a 2 meter shark who was surfing along a wave, there were surfers out too but they dont seem to take much notice of sharks unless they get bitten. At first I thought it was a dolphin who love to surf in on waves but we both realised it was very shark shaped and didnt come up for air. No photos unfortunately as my little camera wasnt quick enough. A lovely but tiring morning, the sun was out and if it wasnt for the fact that for some reason my knee didnt much like me so I got slower and slower getting back to the car. I am now doing some hand sewing and watching the football. What a lazy person.

I've been a bad blogger

I am not sure what photos have come up, there have been a few problems in the computer area. It has been very wet, cold and windy and when it is like that we often lose access. I have made up a sort of hexagon, but it may have too many sides, there is another that might be better but not finished yet, this is part of Dale's delight for her online e mag I had this piece of bonded and embossed paper kicking around and used it. Hand stitched the edges and now to sort out a bit more decoration. Nice to do by the fire, which looks a bit washed out for some reason in the photo. We had a delightful long walk yesterday before the weather changed, this morning it was shopping, a day early but up to Adelaide for haircuts tomorrow, I am way over due and will be glad to have a tidy up.