Djeran - Seasonal changes, and a catch up

 GARDEN

It has been pretty obvious that we have slid towards Djeran -the local Noongar season which we would think of as Autumn. Nights are getting cooler -down to around 18C, and we have had one significant rain event. When you have a summer drought as long as we have each year, the first decent rains are very welcome. As soon as the dust is washed off the leaves, and the ground softens with moisture, all sorts of plants emerge from their summer half-hibernation and begin to get leaves growing. My water tanks were pretty low, but the 1500 litre was full after a night of rain, and the 3000 litre is about three quarters full. 

The shade sails and other shade structures are coming down, as I work my way around the garden. 

I have been harvesting limes, quinces and pomegranates. There is a pot of quinces on the stove right now, slowly turning pink and perfuming the house with fragrance. Our newish apple tree has tiny apples on it.

There is a lot of basil, which means that we are making batches of pesto and freezing them for later use.

Autumn is a time for sowing seeds and taking cuttings. I am watching with interest my experiments with duranta and curry leaf tree cuttings, and have sown calendulas for the bees. 

 FOOD

Inspired by the podcast "Eat drink  cheap, I have been getting used to making sausages, using the fancy attachments I got for my Kenwood Chef for Christmas. This time I had sausage casings, so that took the process up a notch or two. 

CAT

Dora has returned to her favourite spot on the table in front of the window in my sewing room. It is too hot here in the summer, but with the cooler weather she likes to watch the birds come to the bird bath in the garden. She is still holding her own as a teenage cat, with the help of a bit of vetinary medicine. One day I was delegated with the task of taking her for a checkup. Somehow she must have picked up a vibe, because when I needed to load her into the cat carrier, we found her hiding in the depths of an inaccessible part of the storage cabinet under DD's bed, and would not come out. DH has more success at this than I do, so he took her a week later, after we barracaded her into a room with fewer hiding spaces. 

QUILTS

While the weather holds, I have used the outdoor table to pin two quilts together. This one was made with scrap fabric printed with all kinds of music motifs. It is now pinned together and waiting for me to start the free motion quilting on it.

The other is a scrappy which I have now given to the WAQA Community Quilts group for donation to refuges and such facilities. I am grateful for this "potato chip block" design -it was so easy that the quilt came together really easily. I cut up a lot of scraps from previous projects into either 2.5 inch squares, which I will use later, or these 2.5 inch by 4.5 inch rectangles. The tidiness of the quilting room is an added bonus. 

DH and I had a lovely day travelling to Harvey in the south west, about an hour and a half from here, to attend the Quilt and Craft show this month. As usual, the quilts were very fine -here is just one example. We love to have lunch in a country cafe where they still remember how to make a decent salad sandwich with all the fillings, and then go and enjoy the craft show for a gold coin donation entry fee. 

The label below tells us who made it and how. 

VINTAGE SEWING MACHINE

I have added a new-to-me sewing machine to the fleet of vintage sewing machines. Read about it here.

Vintage sewing machines are repairable and serviceable by ordinary people -there are no computer mother boards to fail. I love the sound of them and the feel of them when I sew. The extra bonus is the feeling of empowerment when I solve minor technical problems with a pair of tweezers, a drop of oil or a minor cleaning. 

MUSIC

Well  I think we have bragging rights on this one, for sure. This month, we had a wonderful afternoon with the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, when they played our son Ben's composition Karinup fanfare. Listen here  

This blog is my record of our simple life -but it is so nice if others visit it too.Thanks for reading.