Monday, September 28, 2020

Two weeks of activity!

 

We had our 6 year old grandson stay with us last weekend for two nights! As a result we had a great time, with lots of fun things to do, except blogging...which took a back seat for things like a visit to the local aquarium where we saw sharks and stingrays and all sorts of things! We had a busy time -he made an aquarium out of a plastic box and some paper, we made a 'insect hotel' for the garden out of sticks and things Pa left him in his workshop (Pa was away) and we played lots of games. There was a 'out after dark' trip with torches to our local playground- spooky! We cooked honey joys and ate some of them. His aunty is now the favourite as she has Minecraft on her computer! 


We have been having hot days and rainy days -perfect weather for the garden. We did need to test the automatic watering system one day when it was 31C -my veggies were a bit stressed! I am planting seeds for summer. There are lots of spring flowers in the front garden. My neighbour commented on how much she is enjoying it as she drives by each day. Mind you, the neighbour on the other side has much better roses than we do, but I am hopeful the ones I moved to the back will come into their own as summer comes closer and they settle into their new places. Every morning I go out to check, and rejoice in each new leaf and stem. 


Here is a before and after of the garden around my birdbath. On the left is when I installed the new base in May this year. The right is now. I am trying to fill up the garden, with the aim of eventually having no bare soil at all. There are signs like this around my garden -when the kids lived interstate, we used to make up a small patch of garden for one of them and add their name to a sign, as a point of connection for our video calls. Now they are home the little guy (3) thought the garden needed a sign that said "Nanna's garden" so Pa made one! 


My DH did a great job of making a new frame for a tired and broken second hand oval mirror I spotted on an online site. He had to make the structure to hold it up and attach it to the back of his chest of drawers which went from this (left)  to this (now right) . I am very proud of him -it took quite a bit of design to get it right. 



Some Useful Links from my browsing

I had a couple of scam calls today. This one was pretty easy to spot, but it is harder sometimes to see the truth these days, when so many people are working hard to sell delusions. I found this article helpful about what to do if you are worried about your friends and the stuff they share. 

As summer is coming up -read about shading your house and keeping cool here . For anyone in the northern hemisphere, you will need to swap our 'north' for your 'south'. 

The earth will help heal itself.
This is a great story of hope about regenerative agriculture.
I count Charles Massey's book "The call of the reed warbler" one of the great books of the world! 

Thanks for visiting my blog - and leave a comment if you like! 


2 comments:

Meg said...

Your garden looks so colourful! I've been planting up a garden, underneath my house's East-facing rotunda, with bromeliads that my neighbour, mother-in-law and colleagues have given me. This area is incredibly difficult to garden in as it is partially shaded from shrubs that grow around rotunda's edge, receives no natural rainfall as it's covered by rotunda floor and the soil is lacking in organic matter. I've tried other plants in this area before but decided free plants only so that if they don't make it, I won't have wasted any money. I have hope though as these bromeliads seem pretty hardy and capture water in their centres. MegXx

earthmotherwithin said...

Bromeliads are a great idea! I have one of those trouble spots Meg- and they might be worth a try!