BACK IN THE SADDLE…

…and trying to stay on the bucking horse.

Well, let’s start with my header image. About ten years ago several of us were posting daily sketches to each other and this is one of mine. Just water colour on a scrap of paper; I was trying to catch the drama of an approaching storm.

No storm today. But it is windy. [insert as many expletives as you like…I’m too busy planting things]

Mostly, herbs and cuttings that have languished since summer! I don’t want to go overboard as the plan, now very much long-term, is still to go back to NZ. But that’s going to be dictated by the pandemic.

In the meantime…I am sifting through photos and looking at the garden centre offerings because The Great Garden Photo Show and Tell is fast approaching. Yesterday, I popped across to The Inexplicable One’s place, as he’s now hosting this jolly flower fest. I think the expression, “lift your game”, applies particularly to me. le sigh…

Here’s a cat-herb combo, just to get us in the mood…

I’ve been faffing around with this “new” format and it’s doing my head in! I expect I’ll get used to things and will eventually figure out how to write a simple post without inadvertently including weird instructions…

art artist books artists books beach books cats christmas cyclone cyclones fires flood floods flowers food friends garden gardens hats holidays humour koel lists lucky draw memories music mustang mystery pic mystery picture NZ old days orchids owls printmaking prints quiz rain sketchbook exchange sketches snakes snow spiders sporran weather weeds wildlife

EXPERIMENTING…

Just trying to iron out some wrinkles.

So far, so good…

I’ll see if I can upload photos…just go and make a cup of tea.

F’gawdsake don’t hold your breath I don’t want anyone’s demise on my hands!

Stanley inspecting his new crate. 

NO ABJECT APOLOGIES. NO EXCUSES.

I’ll not be like one of those politician chaps who manages to get himself elected, make a right porridge of things and then offer some apologetic Blarney.

No, I shall simply tell the truth. I’m a shiftless slacker.Lazy to my core. (And a bit busy on other fronts.)

So…what’s on the docket that keeps me busy? Well, we are still de-cluttering and trying to get used to the fact that a bed or chair is no longer where my backside remembered.Ouch!

And we’ve had a huge clear-out-the-overgrowth in the garden.Well, that, I must admit, was all down to The Man. Still feeling somewhat shingled, I wasn’t up to much heavy work. * And then we had some unseasonal rain. When you live in an area of seasonal shut-down unexpected rain surprises you. And it surprised some plants, too! Poor things thought they’d take it easy for a while, maybe pop out the odd flower here and there…

Moon cactus Gymnocalycium mihanovichii is a species of cactus from South America. The most popular cultivars are varied mutants which completely lack chlorophyll, exposing the red, orange, or yellow pigmentation. These mutant strains are often grafted onto the hylocereus cactus, and the combined plant is called a “Moon Cactus”. Wikipedia

Even things like the Tithonia, which flowers madly from about May to July has gone totally triffid.

A few months ago our back fence neighbour did his once-in-a-blue-moon weeding and pruning and ripped out yards/metres of my Tecomanthe hillii (Fraser Island Creeper). I’d have preferred it cut with sharp secateurs, but the fellow is not a gardener…

Yesterday, my Man said : “Look at the Fraser Island Creeper! It’s over Rick’s fence again!” And charging up a palm like Phar Lap on steroids…

A Grevillea (not named), apparently in a wager against the Tithonia. Somewhere beyond that jungle is a house…

 

 

Nephila pillipes.….looking much plumper now so I think her boyfriend got what he came for. (And with no sign of him, she probably did, too!)

*And I milked it shamelessly!