So That Was June.......

Hello girls, how are you enjoying July?

Is it cold and foggy in your neck of the woods, or is the sun shining and the garden full of beautiful blooms?

Well, we're into the second month of Winter here.

There's still plenty of wood in the shed, so all is good.

I've been enjoying some lovely damp, grey days, they make this Pluviophile smile.......

Seeing posts here and on Facebook about Summery gardens in the Northern Hemisphere gave me some wonderful inspiration, so I stitched up a 

'Summer Posy'

We celebrated "World Knit In Public Day" recently and a post on our community Facebook page bought out a group of like minded women......and a few others!!

We met in a local cafe and over coffee and yarn we stitched and chatted, laughed and shared skills and

'Yack 'n Yarn'

 was born....

 I felt a couple of vintage cloths and a basket of wool and vintage needles were necessary to 'prettify' the table.

I got absolutely no stitching done,I was teaching a friend how to crochet.

That's my  ball of sock wool with 4 needles sticking out of it in the foreground......next time.

Friend and talented knitter Julie, not only knitted this gorgeous cardy, but she also spun the wool and if I remember correctly I don't think she used a pattern either.

Anyway, she is one clever lady and it's good to have someone with her experience in our little fledgling group.

So if you are in the area and feel like a Yack or a Yarn, we will be meeting on the 4th Sunday morning of the month in a local cafe and would love you to pop in......

If I ever needed some knitting inspiration I wouldn't have to look far.

These gorgeous Eastern Rosellas visit my property daily and on a foggy, grey morning, the certainly brightened up the view.

Loving the oak leaves still hanging on to these trees and the golden, coppery colours......

This pic was taken last Saturday, a damp Wintery day.

I  rugged up and headed up to our new block to take some pics.

The Manchurian pears on the right are still holding on to some leaves.

 It's quite a different micro climate.

 Our Manchurians at home dropped all their leaves weeks ago and there's less than a kilometre between the two.

Hubby has been busy in the vegie garden.
He's cleared all the grass and weeded the beds and added more.
They'll be raised beds, to make gardening easier.
I joke that we are going to be feeding our local community with all the beds he's putting in, but he's got it all planned out and is enjoying making that plan a reality.
If you read my March post, you'll be able to compare the difference and see how much he's done.

Wonderful fairytale,Fly Agaric toadstools which grow under Oak trees......

It's quite exciting when you stumble across them and it became the inspiration for the following stitchery.

I celebrated another birthday last month, so a rather large slice of lemon meringue cheesecake was enjoyed by hubby and myself.

It would've been rude not to share!!

Our Magpie family are quite the characters and this cheeky, young, thing decided to investigate the compost bucket which I was about to empty.

It picked out a few things and scattered them around, while Tigger slept soundly through it all!!

 Robins continue to visit the garden and this beautiful female, made a stunning picture against the blue, blue sky.

I love all the birdlife we see here and feel very privileged that we get to enjoy it.

The last of the green tomatoes were picked a few weeks ago along with the capsicums and I spent the day slicing, dicing and stirring.

By the end of the day there were 25 jars of green tomato pickles sitting on the kitchen bench

The second batch I've ever made and I have to say while they may not have matched the flavour of last years', they came a close second....

I used a couple of recipes  and merged them and added a bit of this and that and of course I was too busy cooking it all to write it down......

So next years batch will be interesting.....

It's so satisfying to turn something that once would've gone over the fence to the cows into produce for the pantry.....

So there's a snapshot of a few happenings in the

 Sweet Birdy Love  household.

While Winter is here, it's about cosy evenings  by the heater and enjoying the weather, whether it be a grey, foggy day or a blue sky and sunshine Winter's day.

I know that all too soon it will be Spring and then Summer and the temps will rise and rise and rise, so I'm not going to complain for one minute about the cold.

 I shall embrace it and run headlong into it wrapped in scarves, jumpers, tights, boots and gloves.

I'll throw another log on the heater and cook up some wonderful one pot meals in the kitchen.

 Snuggle under the doona and enjoy each and every day.

Righto, I'm off to bed, it's later here and I've taken way longer to do this post than I expected.

Thanks for dropping by for a catchup.

Always lovely to hear from you.....

Claire Xx

Autumn Adventures

'SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,	5
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,	10
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.' John Keats A perfect description of Autumn and I am so enjoying it at the moment. Beautiful, misty mornings, cool evenings, it's time to think about getting cosy and hunkering down against the coming cold weather. Our wood shed is choc a block, I have put the doona on the bed and filled the freezer with nourishing soups made from home grown vegies.

While it may be heading towards Winter here, my FB news feed and blogs are full of beautiful Spring images from the UK & USA.

Of course it inspires me and comes out in my stitcheries.

A sprinkle of rain and a sunny day, have mushies popping up here and there in our paddocks.

After spending Good Friday out and about, I had to light the wood heater when I got home. 

It had been raining and was quite chilly.

The fire warmed the room, but I felt icy fingers of air sneaking under the door and curling around my ankles.

Action stations.......

I needed a new draught stopper to replace the saggy, old ones which were no longer earning their keep.

 An old, grey blanket was used and then I snipped and stitched Autumn treasures onto it......success.

No more chilly draughts....

I had so much fun making this that I think I need to make 2 more for the other doorways.

Look who I spied feeding in the Zinnia patch this afternoon!!

I quietly high tailed it back to the house to grab my camera and hope that he hadn't flown off.

I stood there for a good 30sec. snapping pics as this Eastern Spinebill flitted from flower to flower.

Isn't he amazing?......

Eastern Rosellas are regular visitors to our property and they enjoy the Silver Birch seed heads in the 'Wild Wood'.

Love seeing them here, I just hope the bird life at our new property is as prolific and diverse.....I'm sure it will be..

Monday week ago I picked up two very special visitors from the local airport.

My nieces Jacquie (Middle) and Shelley (RHS) from the UK made a whirlwind visit to Oz where they visited their dads family in Perth for 10 days and then flew across to Victoria to spend a week with me.

Jacquie was born in Albany, W.A. and has been back to Oz for a 3 month visit in 2002. Shelley was born in the UK and has never been out here, so it was extra special to see them both.

They are such lovely girls, funny, animated, friendly, happy, delightful house guests and yes I am a very biased Aunt.....

Nice to have some female company about for a change!

We chatted and laughed, drank lots of cuppas, went adventuring each day and before we knew it we were back at the airport again.

They are now back in Edinburgh having moved there just before their holiday. So, busy unpacking and setting up their new home.

Friday we packed sandwiches muffins and a thermos and headed to Mt. Beauty for a late picnic lunch, but when we arrived we decided to head up the mountain to Falls Creek resort.

We watched the outside temp.gauge drop as we drove higher.

We all had a guess as to what the temp. would be at the summit.....7 deg. I won!!

I had the pleasure of making the cuppas (teapot, tea leaves hot water, etc.) out side the car in the icy wind and rain!!

No complaints, I love a car picnic when it's rainy out and you're inside .......happy childhood memories.

We stopped in at Bogong Village on the way back down.

The water level was pretty low in the lake, so we could walk across to the island.

It reminded me of something out of the Hobbit or

 Lord of the Rings.

Beautiful, Autumn colours.....

We lunched at the Milawa Cheese Factory one day.....

Beautiful food and I just love this 'curtain' of foliage.

How gorgeous is this colour?

While the girls were here, I had my sewing machine and fabric etc. packed away......we needed to use the dining table!!

I did have with drawal symptoms, but had my crocheted granny square blanket to work on.......

By Easter Friday, some embroidery thread and snippets of fabric had found their way onto the coffee table and a little stitchery was taking place.

It's now finished and I so enjoyed a change of stitching pace.

It's been such a busy time with Easter falling while the girls were here.

There were two dinner nights with friends and family and we've just finished eating the leftovers!!

My 2 sisters who both live interstate made the trip down so it was a great family get together.

I showed the girls my little corner of the globe and introduced them to the joy of breakfast and coffee in town on a Saturday morning and the fun of doing the Age newspaper quizz with 'the gang'

They cuddled baby kangaroos and got up close to wombats and wallabies at our local wildlife refuge.

We headed to Bright last Saturday and fought our way through crowds at the markets and bumped into cousins that couldn't make it to lunch.

The last night they were here, we wrapped ourselves up in warm jackets, headed outside and lay down on the driveway to gaze at the stars.

They couldn't get over how many stars they could see.

 They were absolutely gobsmacked and I have to say the stars put on a great show for them.

It's been a very special time, who knows when I will see them again, but Jacquie has a spare bedroom in her flat, so if you don't see another blog post for a couple of months don't be surprised if I suddenly post pics from Scotland!

Righto, the sewing machine is back in it's rightful place....the dining table and I've got lots of ideas that need stitching, so catch ya later.

Claire Xx