Winter Color

 Thankfully we have Azalea and I had heaps of them prior to the drought and large ones to boot.  Now a solitary one or two and some tiny ones just beginning to grow.

 But good and faithful Camellias are coming back from the drought years and are full of cheer.  I love this bush before it begins to get covered with open and falling blooms. I sometimes try to float them inside in a glass bowl but a certain furry four foot tikes to toss out flowers to drink the water.

It is hardly worth the effort.

The one is taken from my neighbor's side ...he is not a gardener and gets a fabulous view coming out of his front door of what comes over the edge of the high fence.

And being the narrow side of the house of course they sneak over the fence to find the sun.

Sneaky brats.

I think the sun was somewhat in the way as I tried to take the bush.

These very often do not open fully but the bush is recovering after coming close to death in the drought years.

This is one of those camellia that I should know the name of and I think we have had it in most of our gardens.

When I lived with my Mother at Lakes Entrance after my Father's death........I had been given a compassionate transfer up there when they had just moved and he was given 3 months to live.  I arrived in July having been told in May and he died in September.  Mum and I bought half the block next door with the couple of the other side.....we thought they were a lovely couple and we devastated years later to hear he had raced off with someone else. One would have thought he was old enough to have some brains but there is no age limit on stupidity.  But we had extra land which was lovely as it was very high above the town and there was a lovely camellia nursery over in Bruthen that we used to visit.  And I know this is one that we had there.  It certainly developed my love of camellias azalea and rhododendron and magnolias.
I was eying off dogwood in a catalog today........something that has never worked but it is not super expensive......gardenexpress.  has a lot to tempt me. Pity I cannot purchase the block next door and the oval behind me.

I have not yet killed my amazing birthday present.

I must absorb the name one day.

The weeping mulberry is looking suitably sad.



And I have a love affair with penstimons also.

The purple blue one is declining to flower at present.

Magnolias are also bare with some jonquils poking up underneath.....lots of Dutch Iris to come there also.

Mt Fuji flowering cherry has to have at least two spots in my garden and this one on the front side fence gets by far the best cover. 

The one at the back is much younger.
I am so proud of this one which I grew from a sapling and it actually flowered...not this current year but the year before.  Maybe some potash needs to be tossed around.

The New Terrine

Are there some cooking and household items you have always hankered for.......?  One if mine was a terrine and when I sadly saw yet another close down sale in a kitchen wares shop I saw this lovely piece of my hearts desire for half price.

I was looking for shoes but who was I to resist a terrine and further more to use it for a friend's birthday dinner.

 I googled the recipe and found a Taste recipe for a Farmhouse Terrine and only managed to add pistachios which I felt was rather restrained.

And while a fraction bland for my taste it was a great first effort.

Wonder how long it will be before I use it again.

I longed for years for a cutlery canteen  and Moggie 3 found one in a CATalog some years back and I love using it but hate putting the cutlery away.....so when I have young helpers to put it out and away for me I feel very spoiled to have it and be using it.

I also made a couple of Macadamia tarts to prove I could still do something.

Also managed two sponges.........it was glad I achieved something that weekend as this one I spent without a voice and become increasingly unwell........had to pull out of going to a Big Band Concert today and speaking tomorrow and feel that my only outing this week may well be to the Doctor dear.

I even sent my kind friend home with all my shopping on Friday.  I had bought shortcrust pastry, chicken tenderloins and leeks for a chicken pie and also sent home Karo syrup and macadamia nuts for her to try out the above effort......but my worst cheek was to send her off with chicken mince, pork mince, beef mince, tins of tomato, packets of lasagna sheets some soy cheese I had found and the big new lasagna dish which came back on Sunday for lunch with the family and another couple.  I managed to get some rolls on the way home from church and provided a jug of mixed juice and a bowl of mixed fruits ...blueberries, a mango tropical mix and some lychees.

I did not even score the dishes..........and we made banana and almond slivers muffins to end the meal.  We being the first two home from Church.  My keen 11 yr old cook and I.  She wanted to cook and who am I to discourage a girl from cooking!

SCATTERDAYS X

Scatterday X

This week was going to be the letter X but that is such a hard one I will give you a choice.
Now the categories are # hidden #famous # alive and # crosses in quilts.

So what is the choice you say?  Well if you don't like X you can find a photo for each letter of your name (similar to an acrostic).


WITH A GREAT AMOUNT OF GOOGLE CHEATING.........HERE I GO!.

 HIDDEN
An X-ray machine lets doctors take pictures of the bones inside your body. X-rays are a special kind of light which go through all of your body except your bones and other hard parts of your body, so the bones show up as white on the X-ray and the muscle in between shows black.

In other words it shows up what is hidden.
I hate to even dream how many of these I have had taken over the course of my life.  I had an enormous heap in the walk in wardrobe until my last cat, discovered to have cancer after I discovered she had been wetting on my collection which ended up tossed swiftly out on the front porch the night they were discovered. it was Exscrutable to smell. 
 Yes I know that is not a word but I am being creative!!

FAMOUS
Xerox is a company famous for copiers

Xerox

Photo by Seth Anderson

Xerox is a company who make photocopiers and printers, among other things. Their photocopiers were so widespread at one stage that the word Xerox was used to mean any photocopier, or any photocopied piece of paper.

 ALIVE

Xenophobia

Photo by John Martinez Pavliga

Someone is xenophobic if they have an irrational fear of people who are different to them, such as strangers or foreigners.
I suspect this is something alive if you suffer from it.

CROSSES IN QUILTS
With apologies to cb handmade









where or where did originality go?

I think the bulbs are now all in the ground or in pots

And some such as Dutch Iris are growing to be quite tall.
Others are beginning to peep through the tops of pots and in the garden beds.

   I will never understand why I cannot put pictures where I want them....But they have floated here and there and at least they are not in straight up and down rows!!

Look closely amongst the pansies and violas and you will see little green shoots on their way up and out.


I read that you cut back the leaves of Hellebore's at the beginning of Autumn...I made it at the end, but oh how it cleaned up the bed and made it so much easier to weed out violets and wandering jew that had overtaken the bed....gave space to plant bulbs and see the lovely new plant below.

 And the joys of Winter as Autumn slowly lets go and the leaves fly down in wind drifts.