like a mushroom

Sorry I haven't been on here for so long, have been extremely busy and any spare minutes I've had I've been hiding under a mushroom trying to catch my breath.
The school holidays are here so I may be able to at least post a few times over the break, have done lots and have lots of photos to share just need to get them out of the camera and sort them.

Happy Birthday Callan

my first born Callan is no longer a teenager, he turned 20 today, little did I know that a talented cutie was lurking in the bushes

it's hard work growing up

Happy Birthday my darling

view from my room

on one of the chat lists I'm on they have been talking about the view from their sewing rooms, I have a purpose built (still not big enough) green shed in the back yard and my view is to the back of the house across one of our many frog ponds.
In this part of the garden we have a coffee tree which has beautifully scented flowers on it just prior to fruiting that wafts into the studio.

the very noisy and very productive frog pond

We've had a pair of Doves nest in this tree for many years, often sitting on eggs, this past sitting was when we had the last big wind storms and I think the eggs were left unattended as we didn't see them for a few days, I always talked to them each time I went past as they were only a couple of feet up from eye level.
One night just recently Tim was out the back and said he heard rustlings in the tree and next morning on looking in the nest discovered it was full of half eaten coffee beans, a few nights later he spotted a rat like creature in the tree but as yet hasn't been able to work out exactly what it is.
The Doves have been hanging around confused about what has become of their nest.

This year there has been a bumper crop of cherries on the tree so over the christmas break Tim decided to harvest the coffee beans and have a go again at roasting them, so here's Tim and Callan extracting the beans from the coffee bean cherries

we will keep you posted on the coffee production and on more creature spottings

xmas update

first of all a late Merry Christmas to everyone, these were some yummy mini Christmas puds from a party last year, didn't put the tree up this year as there was no room so this is the best I can do for a little bit of festivity.

As you may have read I've been in a de clutter frenzy (snails pace frenzy) and had been slowly attacking a corner that housed a lowboy cupboard that was full of quilts in varying stages of completion and stuff and for some silly reason decided that Christmas eve was the appropriate time for it to come out and go to it's new home and boy did I create a monster, everything came out of the corner, lounge was up ended and vacuumed to within an inch of it's life, venetians cleaned and the floor scrubbed, cupboard was taken out the front ready for Anna to come and collect.
I now have a book case in it's place and finally somewhere for all of my books to go that have been in piles on the floor and other surfaces, once all the books are in there I'll take a photo.
Now this started Tim on a cleaning frenzy and had the boys out on the back verandah scrubbing down the walls and ceiling.

Can everyone pick what this is, besides the obvious that it's an empty basket?
It WAS the odd sock basket - that is no longer.

After 10 years of hibernating under the lowboy cupboard my walking ducks have finally found a home wandering around our front verandah on either side of the front door


and because of the rain Tim wasn't able to work out in the garden after xmas day so the cleaning continued inside, the mouldy bathroom ceiling was scrubbed down and I was even asked if I wanted it painted, the boys rooms were started on and Mackenzies computer has moved into his room out of the dining area so Tim is now working on the dinning table as this area has always been our office, but now the sun is shining again the inside frenzy has slowed down till I get up enough strength to slowly attack the other side of the lounge room then the guys can move a few more things around for me.

Cactus Flower

we have a lot of unusual cacti and succulents around our garden and on our back veranda we have this unusual plant that we've never really know what it is.
It has strange shoots that come off the sides of the leaves.

I took the dog out for a midnight pee a few nights ago and was greeted by this glorious flower, it wasn't there earlier in the day and I didn't even notice it earlier in the evening when I fed the dog directly below it.

so if I hadn't gone out at midnight all I would have seen the next morning was the morning remnants as it only flowers for a very short time in the dead of night.
Isn't it glorious.

I'm so glad I bought the cacti book, it is an Epiphyllum

Assemblages

the last week of Art School was to be clean out our lockers and sort out our stuff ready for assessment but when one of the guys threw out a whole bunch of old silk screens I rescued these 2 small ones and he'd also put out a lot of rusty stuff on the bench,and I lurv rusty stuff and told us to help ourselves, well, what was I suppose to do - help myself of coarse and make ART


so I had to go in on the Wednesday and clean out my locker didn't I

ahhh one day!

not many of you would know but I've had a desire most of my life to own a Bugeye'd Austin Healy Sprite Mk1, my eldest sister Glenice had one in my teens and Nigel, my first boyfriend later bought it, so it has all those wonderful early memories also connected to it.
I have joined the Sprite chat list and there are a few living down this way and every so often they do a club run but I've never been able to get to see them but just a few weeks ago they were doing an afternoon dinner run, meeting at Bulli overlooking the beach, so I was able to catch up with them and get to meet a few of them, the white one actually lives in Dapto probably not even 2 k's away.

So I got to drool and dream of one day, maybe, I'll finally get one of my own to play with.....

there were a couple of MG's there but I suppose we won't hold that against them as they do have Sprites they are restoring at home