Native orchids

Not terribly good photos but if you enlarge they may be better. The blue is a blue sun orchid and the other is a donkey orchid. No time to look for their names, they keep changing them any way.
We are packed and I have the house ready for the sitter and we are almost packed.
May or may not be able to post but I think I can read stuff.
B e prepared for a zillion photos when I get home in late October.

Waitpinga and Parsons Beach

We have had such rough weather for the last few days and the surf report was for at least 4 meter waves down here so this afternoon John and I went to see what it all looked like.
Normally this is a favorite walking spot but I am still being careful of my knee and the walk down is a few hundred feet.
First this is a treacherous bit of coast, people have drowned been taken by sharks and as this fellow was, a big sea came in and took him from the rocks as he was fishing.
I think just by looking at these photos you will get some idea of how treacherous it is, but the surfers love it for all that.
It is in national park so the surrounding scrub is always interesting.
The first few photos were facing the east and the last ones facing west, so two gorgeous and untamed bits of beach within 20 minutes of home.
I took more photos and they may go up tomorrow as I am house cleaning, the suitcase is sort of packed, there seems to be a Govt warning for Aussies going to Germany, all this excitement is probably not good for us but who cares. If your time is up your time is up!
I quite like this quote by Luc de Clapiers
"To achieve great things
we must live as though we were
never going to die."

Oscar and some Rosella Parrots

Bother I meant to load these the other way around.
I walked out last night and there was a rosella, one of the older lovely red ones at the bird feeder, I dont have much luck taking bird photos but these were sort of ok.
Then this morning I walked out, we had had torrential rain all night and the sun was out and Oscar was outside and sitting in the sun for a few minutes, he doesnt like the wet.
My geranium maderense is still flowering madly, I love this plant, it is a biennial and flowers in its second year, seeds just enough and then dies off.
The Japanese wisteria is just beginning to flower by the bedroom door at the top of the flowering prunus.
I am trying to sort out clothes and put things in mt suitcase and then take them out, I have no idea what the weather is going to do to me.
I dont want to take too much but then I need something for a few different occasions.

Around Ashbourne South Australia

While driving back from visiting a friend at Ashbourne and after lunch I stopped by the side of the road on the short cut I take and took some photos. This is red gum country and quite different to our area although at the most about 3/4 of an hours drive away.
There was a bit of sun shining on the distant hill, the yellow may be a fine crop of dandelion but it looked pretty and then a wonderful crop of I think triticale growing in a paddock by the road, I havnt seen crops like this in this area for ages.
Looking back along the dirt road where there was a ford but I think they lifted the road and put a pipe under it so it is now not a worry if it rains going along this road.
The next two were taken off the Ashbourne road and shows the new spring leaves on the trees just showing up, this area has good deep soils too and is used for orchards and vegetables, although the big white cockatoos became such a menace that my friends pulled out their orchard, a shame as we used to have fun coming over to pick apples and pears and they looked beautiful when in full flower.
An overcast misty sort of day and now we are having possible snow for cast for the higher ranges tomorrow, we do get snow but only very occasionally. I must say today is wet and windy and cold and it was not easy finding a park to do my morning shopping.
I might add that they are re doing our shopping center and every time I go there seem to be less parking spaces available, I will be so glad when it has finished and hope it will before the massive increas in the number of summer tourists.

Lino cut owl

This little owl was printed onto rusted fabric using black acrylic paint mixed with textile medium and then hand sewn. I have put him onto a piece of black felt.
We went to Adelaide yesterday, John had a meeting in the hills so I dropped him off and then went down to see my mother who was fine.
Going through the hills everything looks wonderful, all the dams are full and the grass is about knee high, I havent seen it like that for a few years.
Today I had lunch with a friend about 3/4 hour away from us and as I drove over through the back roads there were crops up to the top of the fences already and looking magnificent.
So I have been pretty busy and with only a few days before we leave I am feeling a bit as though I am running out of time.
I wonder of this quote by Napoleon Bonaparte has any significence? Probably not but here it is.
"My downfall raises me
to great heights."

After the rain

Well its not quite after the rain as it is raining again at the moment, and cold. Typical Spring but this year so much nicer with rain and not like last year when everything stopped at the end of August, it makes for a very long summer.
I walked this morning before it got wet and took some of these photos, the first two in the garden and then along the old road, reflections in puddles and a blurry blue wren, they are on the move the whole time and are impossible to get close to with my little camera.
I sort of wish I had a larger camera but then again I dont want the weight and I like something I can tuck into my pocket.
I am off to make a chicken pie for dinner, we are eating our way through the freezer so I can defrost it before we go so we are eating all sorts of odd things and there seems a lot of chicken in there and John is not very partial to it so I have to disguise it.
To nights quote is by Aristotle

"The roots of education are bitter,
but the fruit is sweet."

Silage making

It has rained heavily for a lot of the day here so thank goodness these paddocks were finished on Friday night when I took these photos, well it was late afternoon as you can see by the shadows.
These are in slightly the wrong order, first one showing the still to be picked up grass as is the last one but looking across and down the valley and then them on the stack and finally the third photo in of the grass being put into the truck, it is interesting to see them all driving along at a reasonable speed.
We used to put them into plastic covered rolls, then into long plastic tubes and now we are back to making a stack, things go around in circles, but I think it is more cost efficient these days to do this.
I suppose this seems strange to those in the northern hemisphere that we make our silage in early Spring, but there would be nothing left if we did it in autumn.
We make very little if any hay these days, it is better to buy it in with all the right levels of sustenance for the cows already done by some one else.
So much has changed on the farm, and so many more little paddocks so we get the most out of the grown feed, I am glad I dont go out feeding the ponies these days, far too many gates to open.
We were lucky today as we had very little wind while other parts of the state were almost blown away, nor did we have the bad thunderstorms but when it rained, it really came down and it was so dark, luckily the power only went on and off a couple of times.
Other areas were not so lucky and I believe lots of trees are down and a lot of damage. We seem to have had a lot more wind than normal this year, but at least with it has come the rain.

" Worries go down better with soup than without"

A Jewish proverb.