todayiamadaisy | Entries tagged with gardens

Finally, I am boosted! I was a little worried because, unlike last week, they hadn't sent me any reminders, but they had me on the list and happily jabbed me, so all's well.

Six more zucchini today.

January

24. If you could switch two movie/book/TV characters, what switch would lead to the most inappropriate movie/book/TV show?
Well, this is just asking for two wildly disparate characters, isn't it? How about Winnie the Pooh and Pennywise the Clown? Sauron and the man covered in saucepans from the Faraway Tree books? Dracula and Anne of Green Gables?

I only have a couple more left on this list of questions that I use for my titles. What will I do next? Will I have to think of things? Heaven forbid.

The old vegetable patch has been left empty and overgrown for a year, so I've been working on clearing and digging it over. I gave it a final dig this morning, then planted out some sunflower seedlings and scattered a "bee mix" of flowering seeds, then covered it all with sugar cane mulch.

Last night I discovered that I've been using the wrong green in the cross stitch I'm doing. Fortunately I hadn't done much of it, but enough that it took me a while to unpick resentfully this morning.

January

9. Would you rather lose the ability to read, or the ability to speak?
Assuming the ability to read also includes the ability to write, I'd still be able to communicate, so that one. But neither, ideally.

This week: I won a prize! We have a bi-monthly (as in, once every two months) all-department Zoom meeting, about sixty people. Since we have been working from home, as a morale-boosting thing, our great-grand-boss created the Wheel of Joy as a way to end the meeting. The Wheel of Joy is an animated roulette wheel (on a PowerPoint) that gives out first, second and third prizes to random staff members. Usually a box of chocolates or a fruit platter (I suspect it depends on where our great-grand-boss, who is buying these prizes with his own money, has been shopping that week). Anyway, this week, I won third prize. Great-grand-boss was obviously feeling generous this meeting, as third prize turned out to be a small package from a local provedore, containing: a box of water crackers, a jar of quince paste, a box of honey popcorn and a chocolate bee. Very timely, given my cheese box is due to arrive on Monday.

In a sign life is returning to normal, this week the local theatre sent out an email announcing their roster of shows for the first six months of the year. Some tickets were still valid from last year, so I can just turn up on the new date; some were postponed and the cancelled tickets were re-issued; some shows were cancelled all together and so my account is in credit. So I've got tickets for five shows this year.

In a sign life is yet to return completely to normal, two days after sorting out those tickets, the theatre called to say the first show, on 19 February, is now cancelled as the performers are in Western Australia and can't cross the state border. Tickets for four shows, then.

Friday Five (on a Sunday)

Would you ever live in an underground house?
The nearest sort of underground house to me would be in Coober Pedy in South Australia (about 1,500 kms away). So sure, yes, I would live in an underground house if I wanted to live in the desert and become an opal miner. (Which seems unlikely.)

( And so on and so forth )

And finally: the last (so far) of my sunset dahlias. (There are two that haven't flowered yet.)

Sundry catch-ups

1. January books read

A light reading month. It was a long book and I was busy doing other stuff.

* Reynard the Fox - Anne Louise Avery (2020) ★ ★ ★ ★
( Read more... )

2. Friday Five: The year so far

1) How is your year going so far?
I can't believe we're one month in already. It's gone by in a blur.

( And so on )

3. Another of my sunset-coloured dahlias

A slightly different shade of pink than the last one.

Autumn, season of mushrooms. Growing up on a farm, that meant every few days, I would be sent out with a bucket and a little knife to collect them. Little me and my two dogs and quite often Great King Louis the cat, traipsing the fields and bringing home the harvest. Flat brown mushrooms and little round pink ones for the bucket, and funny white puffballs that weren't for eating but which emitted a puff of yellow spores when stabbed.

Our paddocks were flat, green and flat and filled with sheep, but when the rain set in some of the sodden ground would sink, leaving solid little fairy hills like stepping stones. Swathes of field would fill with water; deepest in the far swamp paddock, which had wild ducks on it each year, but even the home paddocks had ankle-deep lakes, which I and the dogs would walk around while Louis waded through them like a silver-grey tiger. The dogs were interested in the mushroom-cutting business, crowding round me in case it was something for them, but Louis would stalk off to the boxthorn hedge on the field border to see if there were any rabbits to be found. Unsuccessful, he would come back and mew to be carried home.

No fields in the suburbs, so these days I buy boxes to grow my mushrooms in. My portobello box arrived this week and already there are a handful of tiny white fists pushing their way through the peat.

I skived off knitting for most of this week and managed only two rows, so no cowl photo today. Instead, a bit of local colour. Four doors away from me, the worst house on the street, an old building that hasn't had anyone in it for years, is being knocked down. First they took the windows out; then they took the roof off; then they removed the interior and exterior walls of the top floor, leaving ( just one fitting visible )

When I stopped to take that photo, a woman came out of the house opposite and called across the street to me: "I have a great view of it from my kitchen sink!" And then she went back inside.

"Brian Next Door mowed his front lawn this morning," said my mother, "and then he crossed the driveway and mowed ours too." Well, that was nice of him. "So I gave him a container full of those biscuits." So: lawn mown, and we have a sensible amount of biscuits left. Wins all round.

Brian brought the empty biscuit container back in the evening. Retired gardener that he is, he did his usual wander around the garden to dispense advice. "You'll want to put some Epsom Salts on that lime tree soon. Those nasturtiums are crowding that geranium... What is that?"

What he was looking at were two unattractive potted plants that I rescued from work. Some sort of mystery spiky-leafed mini-tree things growing unevenly. They've been sitting, unloved and dusty, in our front window for the whole year I've been there, getting no direct light and only a little water as the trays they're in kept overflowing. So a month ago I parked my car out the front and dragged the plants out onto the street and drove them home. The next day, I replaced them in the window with a large and realistic fake potted fig. I mean, it's not as beneficial for the office as real greenery, but it's certainly better for the plant.

Anyway, I've now got two large (nearly as tall as me) potted plants at the back door. I repotted them when I brought them home; they were both root bound, poor loves. I've got them under the verandah roof as I don't want to expose them fully to the elements just yet, but they're getting fresh air and daylight and they've both put out some shiny new leaves. It's all going well, then.

So Brian saw them and I told him their sad history and he fixed on the bit about not getting enough water. "What you want to do," he said, "is fill a bucket with water and put the whole pot in it for a day. Here, fill that bucket there and I'll lift the plant for you." He grabbed plant #1 by the trunk and lifted it, thinking it would bring the pot with it. But, newly repotted, it hadn't had a chance to settle, so instead Brian made a most amusing "EURK!" noise when he realised that he'd lifted the poor plant right out of its pot.

"I might go home for a cup of tea and one of those biscuits," he said after patting the plant in firmly.

This evening Brian Next Door came round to talk about the fence. Years after a storm blew down the fence between our houses, we are getting a new one. Then, as he usually does when he finds himself on this side of the boundary, he did a tour of the garden. Until his recent retirement, he was the head gardener at the race course, so he has a professional interest in these things. His professional opinion is that my onions and garlic are ready to come out, my parsley is too tough and should be replaced, and the tomato plants are looking good.

My mother went to her workout group's (rather early) end of year party this afternoon, and came home with a prize she won in a game of Pass The Parcel: a large tin of Roses chocolates. That seems inappropriate for the setting, doesn't it? Tasty, though.

The Japanese national rugby union team is known as the Brave Blossoms. That is just delightful.

The glooms have been descending for a while now, which is unfortunate timing as I'm trying to write a couple of job applications. Not a good time to start thinking that I couldn't possibly manage to do any of the things they are asking for. Anyway. I'll get my act together. In the meantime, I've been writing down words to remind to write about things here. So that's what I'll do.

( Chicken nuggets )

( Coffins )

( Bowl )

( Beagle )

( Cucumbers )

And because it's the first of the month, that just leaves:

February books read

* Two by Two - Nicholas Sparks (2016) ★
( Read more... )

* Death in the Rainy Season - Anna Jaquiery (2015) ★ ★ ★
( Read more... )

* The Strangler Vine - MJ Carter (2014) ★ ★ ★
( Read more... )

* The Winged Histories - Sofia Samatar (2016) ★ ★ ★ ★
( Read more... )

* Magpie Murders - Anthony Horowitz (2016) ★ ★ ★
( Read more... )

I did my tax return a few months ago and received a small refund. Yay!

Last week, I received a revised assessment from the tax office telling me they'd revised my tax for the year based on information from my superannuation (pension) fund, so now I owe them money back.

Today, I received a letter from my superannuation fund, saying oops, we accidentally doubled the amount we reported to the tax office, so you may get a revised assessment. We will amend the information, and they'll fix the assessment, so don't worry about paying.

Only I had already paid, because I am a model citizen. So now I either have to deal with the tax office to get my money back, or wait until I do next year's tax and get it back as part of my refund next July. I'm leaning towards July, because I'll have forgotten about it by then and it will be a delightful surprise.

Other than that, today I ploughed the vegetable patch with a rotary hoe borrowed from my uncle B. So much easier than digging. And so much fun.

The Booker Prize is due to be announced today. Tonight, my time. I started reading the last nominee now, so I've timed it well. My pick for the winner would be Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien. Let's see how prescient I am!

This sandwich is too big, isn't it? I feel vaguely ill just looking at it. It's all out of proportion, and I don't see how you could eat it without dismantling it. Too much filling, not enough bread.

Day 254. Blue buildings, Day 255. Shadows, Day 255a. Ranunculus, Day 256. Stairwell, Day 257. Knitting cotton, Day 258. River bed, Day 258a. Beach, Day 259. Present, Day 260. Lake

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Australian Shepherd
Would a deluge extinguish a smouldering trellis?
Is manual skill advantageous?
Is a shrewd man necessarily admired?
Are newspapers made of iron?
Do books have hands?
Year of Royal Days
A Beauty Betrayed
A Miracle of Love
Crimson Lake

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Salt and corrosion

The infamous old enemies of the crime fighter

Entries tagged with gardens

Australian Shepherd

Would a deluge extinguish a smouldering trellis?

Is manual skill advantageous?

Is a shrewd man necessarily admired?

Are newspapers made of iron?

Do books have hands?

Year of Royal Days

A Beauty Betrayed

A Miracle of Love

Crimson Lake