Hot, hot, hot.......

That's not an advertisement for a new product but a comment on the weather over here, in the Central West Plains of NSW, Australia, the last fortnight.

Temperature has broken local records at 45.8 deg Celcius. Thankfully the newly installed solar power system has saved us a small fortune as the air-conditioners have been in operation 24 hours a day, unlike previous years, as even the lowest night temperatures have been 24C or more. We had a hen die last week from heat stress. Ice containers cooling the water, wet patches on the ground where they can sit under the trees, and even shallow dishes to stand in didn't help on the day when the winds were hot and brisk. Two days before that one of our hens hatched 6 chickens in 44C heat! One died the next day, but it had a difficult hatch and was possibly blind so it may have been kinder that it did die, even though we took over the care and did our best for it.

Even the outside dog has been encouraged to come inside. She's 14 now so she feels the temperature changes more keenly.

 

Of course the cat is mostly inside as he "owns" the place....hahahaha....

The temperature dropped to 38C over the weekend but the humidity rose so the weather was still difficult to endure. I will definitely be glad when Autumn weather arrives with cooling breezes and the possibility of rain.

Mulching and deep watering infrequently has kept the  few vegetables and fruit trees alive, though my little Emperor mandarin has dropped all it's fruit. The lemon and the lime tree haven't flowered this year, but as they too are small, I'd rather the energy go into strengthening the tree than into fruit. The worms are still producing their type of fertiliser and I'm grateful for it as the compost isn't breaking down very quickly in this dry hot weather. Photo is about 2 litres of worm juice that I gather once a week.

I participated in a Christmas card swap last year, in a forum I am a member of, and received cards from 2 members in England. I should have posted these earlier, but it doesn't alter the fact that they are beautiful cards, and much work has gone into the making of them. Thanks again, Sarah and Josey.

Sarah's card

Josey's card

My card to Josey

Cheers,

Robyn Louise XO

Life, the Universe and Everything

Thanks to the author Douglas Adams for the title to this post.

It seems as if 2018 overwhelmed me as I haven't had so few posts in a year since 2016, when my life was in a spin due to odd working hours, finance problems, bad landlords and an offer I couldn't refuse. Previously 2015/16 was my longest break from blog posting (199 days) but I've exceeded it this time by not blogging for 323 days in a row.

Life during 2018 was busy but, to me, confusing and sometimes depressing.
The universe seemed to conspire to interrupt my progress to advance with the pursuits I was most interested in.

There were more doctor's appointments and looking for employment.  I attended 3 courses during that period, for employment searching purposes, that kept me occupied and I had to attend 120 hours of unpaid on-the-job training, part of which was attended while I had to assist PC with his recovery from a major operation in the second half of the year.

Two of my pets died (RIP Krakatoa and Maddy Cat). I also gained another - Welcome Fibonacci, aka Wild Man, Furball or Trip Hazard!

Mad Cat or Maddy

Fibonacci being a Wild Man.

The yard and vegetable garden cleanup continued. Craftroom activities ceased due to lack of time and weather irregularities, where it was too hot/too cold to use the room. Bills rolled in and money rolled out. Any plans I made seemed to be unstarted, interrupted or came to a stop. It was a time of circling and repetitions that seemed to go nowhere.

November/December brought about a serious decline in the mental health of my Mum, who needed to be admitted to an aged care home. Five days after I arrived home from this my Step-Dad had a heart attack and is still in hospital.

With the coming of 2019 I have a new job waiting for me, the craftroom has just been upgraded with the addition of reverse cycle air-conditioning, solar electricity panels are being installed in early January and PC is well. I can only hope my Step-Dad recovers and continues to live whilever Mum is alive as she will be lost without him.

Wishing you all a new beginning for 2019, if you need it, and hoping your "everything" happens how you would like it to.

Cheers,
Robyn Louise XO

Third time lucky…..

….I think so!

Lol, we had such a fun day! Due to a few miscalculations and not having my craftroom properly set up the dress wouldn’t have been finished in time so we went shopping this morning and I bought myself a gorgeous dress for practically nothing.

I changed my surname again yesterday afternoon, (9^th January 2017) at 5pm when I married PC at the local courthouse, with our adult children in attendance.

We had written our own marriage affirmations for the ceremony and the registrar said the statements, before and after our affirmations, which made it official. All of us then had dinner at a local restaurant and we had a lovely evening.

Cheers!

RobynLouise

Re.......

Resigning, repacking, removing, resettling, readjusting, rearranging, recharging and a few other words beginning with that prefix.

This year has been the only year since I began blogging that has less than 5 posts for the year and my first blogging year began 4 days before that year’s end. Abysmal blogging effort but I couldn't find the mental energy to write about anything and I like to write as well as I can. OCD?.....maybe.

Next year, 2017 , is a new beginning in many ways and a repeat of activities I enjoy in other ways. This time there is someone to share current activities and make new experiences together. He’ll be popping up in photos in this blog.

Mentioning photos reminds me that I need to download some for future posts as a “before and after” comparison. In the meantime my readers can view our house, weeds and all, in the blog header J.

Cheers,

RobynLouise xo

2015 - A new beginning

Hoping everyone had a good Christmas and great New Year celebrations!

I visited my parents over Christmas, thanks to the kind financial support of my online friends, and I'm glad I did, as my step-dad's health has worsened since I last saw him 14 months ago. If he doesn't see next Christmas I won't be too sad though as I have been lucky to have him live till 82 and been blessed with his presence in my life for 40 of those years. Lessons I learned from him will never fade and I'm glad Mum met him and invited him into our lives. He still looks after Mum and does most of the shopping and cooking so I'm not sure what will happen when he's no longer there. Guess we'll jump that log when we come to it instead of worrying in advance how big it might be.

NYE wasn't celebrated by me, but I certainly heard the pub clientele next door having a good time till about 2am New Year's Day! I decided it was a good night to turn on the aircon and the fan and read a book while consuming chocolate cake. No alcohol was drunk as I figured I'd sleep well enough without it after the late night, hahahaha....

Now that I have a bit of a routine with work and what I do around the house I feel more settled so I'm thinking of joining in a group or going to the pool regularly and I'll be doing my crafty things again as that keeps my brain active and also relaxes me.

About time I began exploring the local area too, though I'm sure with mostly 36-42 degree celcius heat in the offing it's possibly not a good time of year for that!

I'm off shortly to do some grocery shopping and use their aircon to stay cool on this 41C day. One way of saving my electricity and the ensuing bill :D.

Cheers,
Robyn xo

Nearly back in the saddle...

Well, sometimes things go arse up on you when you least expect it. Sometimes it's meant to happen that way as it gives you a new appreciation of life when it feels like you've been given another serve of what your horse did previously.

I've had an interesting 5 months where I've travelled from the north coast to the Riverina of NSW and settled into a rental house.

For the first 2 months I lived out of various places - pubs, youth hostels, my car. As I wasn't disabled, dependent on drugs, a recently separated mother and had no intention of staying in the Sydney area the Dept of Housing didn't want to know me. I was homeless unless you count sleeping in a car you own, in a council park by a river when you have used all available funds and are waiting on the next unemployment payment,  a kind of home. I was back in the area I grew up in so the river and surrounds were familiar. Being homeless turned out to be a new experience though. Homeless doesn't mean hopeless, stupid or poor. Some of us are just a bit broke sometimes :P.

I'm now back in the town I lived in 25 years ago....where I bought my first house, where I started raising my eldest 2 kids. It's a bit bigger now but the people are still just as friendly and the countryside looks much the same.

My cast is off, I'm doing physiotherapy and I should be able to ride my horse, hopefully, at the end of March. I was fortunate enough to be able to bring my best friends, the horses, dog and cat with me. Can't wait to throw a saddle on my horse, take the dog and go for a ride then have a hot shower afterwards and curl up in bed with a book and my cat. It's not quite the same without riding the horse.

Cheers,
Robyn

An Upside of Autumn

I've always loved Autumn, nearly as much as I love Spring. Both seasons are full of bright colours, but for different reasons. One of Autumn's bright colours is the yummy orange of home grown pumpkin. I had some JAP, also known as Kent, pumpkins germinate in my compost pile so I transplanted them to the paddock and they thrived. Technically JAP's are squash and are supposedly evolved from the Japanese squash  cucurbita moschata but there's also a story of them originally sprouting on a USA farmer's property and when he was asked what they were he replied "Just Another Pumpkin" and they've been known by the acronym ever since. Nice little story. However, I'm not politically correct and if we do have the Japanese to thank for this versatile vegetable I have no problem with honouring them for it's origin by call it a JAP or Japanese pumpkin as it's my favourite :D.

Whatever the origins they are very popular in Australia and are used for everything from soups to pies, as a roast vegetable and in various types of bread.  I've harvested 10 but I gave the two smallest ones to my parents and there's at least another dozen maturing on the vines. There's a 20c piece on one of the pumpkins at the back to give an idea of size. The cut one is the first of the harvest after a few weeks of drying off. I've already made a big pot of pumpkin soup and there's a roasted pumpkin and lentil salad I want to try as well as 2 different types of pie and of course some pumpkin scones. It wouldn't be Australia without pumpkin scones!

I always save the seeds as what better way to keep producing them than to save seeds acclimatised to the growing conditions here.

Hoping that southern hemisphere people are looking forward to lots of warm tasty pumpkin treats as the weather becomes colder.

Cheers,
Robyn xo

Autumn gardening and a gorgeous girl

The equinox was yesterday and I may have left it too late to do much in the garden except tidy up and tend what I have. 

I didn't realise asparagus had fruit until I saw these on the plants. Another thing to see if I can grow from seed and research the pros/cons of it. 

Today I finished removing the old bean vines and twined the seed grown cucumber plants that I started under them up the old gate. The furthest and nearest plants have begun flowering. I'll have to remember to buy more cane mulch.

Turned that compost pile at the top right of the cucumber photo and discovered my timing was correct as I found an "employee" under it. That means it was becoming too cool to compost effectively.

If you look closely at the left end of the worm you will notice a lighter coloured band near it's end. This is my future crop of free workers as this is the egg sac. 

I still haven't figured out which end is which with worms yet so I'm not sure how "ripe" this egg is or which end it is supposed to slip off.

Discovered some beans on my vine today that weren't there last time! 

Purple climbers are sneaky as they start maturing their produce half way down the plant or at the bottom so if you don't keep checking there are  beans there before you know it.





I was giving my asparagus a quick search for any last minute spears before I leave them over winter when I found this cheeky little bugger - "Here chookies". 

I'll be able to have one more feed of spears before winter I think. Then it will be time to add some mulch and let the asparagus die back before trimming them up for next season.  It's about time I checked the pH levels again too so I can add whatever is necessary to keep future vegetables happy :).

I'd just like to finish this post with a photo of my youngest daughter who is entered in the Teen Showgirl quest at the local Agricultural Show tonight. Her Dad has to take her as she says I make her too nervous. They'll be home in a couple of hours and I'll find out the results. 
*Fingers crossed*

Cheers,

Robyn xo

On My Mind....Spring is coming

A few things that have happened in the last week or so to let me know that Spring is nearly here. Lucy Goose's first eggs, the Jonquils in flower, blossoms on the peach tree (and a bee!) and mother hen with her baker's dozen of chicks.

Happy Spring to those south of the equator :D.



Cheers,

Robyn

Sunrise, Sunset

I wasn't going to have 'old' layouts on here but I'm a sucker for sunrises and sunsets and I did a recent layout on a sunrise as part of a Winter 'likes' challenge so I thought it wouldn't look right without posting the sunset as well. The sunset photo was taken in Summer 2009 and the sunrise, obviously, in Winter 2010. However, no artist will ever match what nature achieves every day :).