Weekend Reading and Gardening

I'm trying to ignore the Covid situation because it's not getting better. I hope you and your family are staying safe, wearing masks and staying at home as much as you can.  For all those in lockdown, and that's millions of people in Australia, I'm thinking of you and hoping things improve soon.

I made a quick lunch of curried chicken soup during the week. It's delicious and easy.

Later this morning I'll cut this rainbow chard to have for lunch with Osso Bucco.

We had a really cold night last night at 4C but from today onwards, our days and nights will be warmer. That's good news for gardeners and all those who can go out and enjoy the early spring sunshine. We have a very short spring here before the weather turns hot, then hot and humid, so like a lot of you, I'll be in the garden again this weekend trying to do as much as possible before the heat makes it much more difficult to garden AND enjoy it. 

I planted up a couple of elder cuttings in a tall pot to create moveable shade during summer.

Climbing Rose, Pierre De Ronsard, was planted as a bare rooted rose about six weeks ago. It's growing well and even though small, it's already flowering well. Monty Don suggests having five or seven leaders for climbing roses and to grow them flat on a trellis or wall in a fan shape.  So that's what I'm doing.

My backyard garden is the place I go to think deeply and to renew feelings of peace, contentment and happiness. It's a place of great significance for me. And that's why I garden - not only to grow flowers, vegetables and herbs but also to cultivate wellbeing.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend and do things you love with the people who make you smile. It really does make a difference if you can continually make those connections with what makes you happy. Take care out there.  ❤️

🪴🪴🪴

WEEKEND READING

• From mentos in a bottle to playing with rainbows: science experiments children can do at home

• The White Girl author Tony Birch on how to write short stories

• How to make your garden more sustainable

• Turkish breakfast

• Preserving Food from the Garden | Canning and Fermenting

• This is for everyone in lockdown, wherever you are ... Bread, flowers and coffee | Walking around the North Marais to a flower shop in Paris

• Village life in Tatarstan, making Tatar pie and handicrafts Don't forget to turn on subtitles on the cog wheel

• Russian Easter cakes and afternoon tea

• Wildlife Photographer Captures Tiny Garden Frogs Using Flowers as Umbrellas

• Cottage garden ideas: 37 charming ways to create a character-filled outdoor space

• Small vegetable garden ideas: how to grow fruit and veg in any space

Weekend Reading and Gardening

Hello!  How are you? 🙂

The weather started warming up this week so we enjoyed the warmth on the front verandah most mornings with tea and lemon slices.  We had a roof cleaner here during the week. It was an all day job for him as he pressured hosed the roof to remove mould that had started growing. I'm looking forward to the weekend, with another Zoom chat with Donna on Sunday, gardening and sewing the rest of the time. 

In the styrofoam box we have a selection of coloured chard.  The pelargonium cutting from the hairdresser is in the basket.

As promised, here are some gardening photos so you can see the progress in the back garden. It's wild and not the way it will end up but we're still weeding, pruning, moving, planting, sowing seeds and mulching. I'm hoping to have the majority of stage one finished by next weekend, then I'll go into maintenance mode. I still have trays of Cosmos Sensation Picotee, Cosmos Daydream, Candytuft and Cleome to plant out as well as a couple of roses I propagated over winter. I want the garden to be packed with plants so the weeds can't get a look in.

From my seated position yesterday. The plant in the pot is Osteospermum White Lightning and the very meagre harvest is the last of this year's oranges and a small handful of Tommy Toe tomatoes.

This is the second digiplexis I bought with orange flower spikes. I'm not really a friend of the colour but I think it will look okay if I plant it next to the Amistad salvia which is purple. The first digiplexis is a larger plant with a berry coloured flower. It's getting ready to flower now.

Another Osteospermum with lilac and white wallflowers behind them.  This garden has to be weeded on the weekend. 

Here is the digiplexis again with two pots of potatoes, baboon flowers, cleome and other assorted plants in the background.

Sadly, Lulubelle, the blue Australorp in my blog banner, died during the week, she was seven years old. All our girls are old now and won't be replaced when they die. Not all of them are laying but they still give enough eggs for our needs and we can occasionally give eggs to Sunny and Kerry. It will be a sad day when we no longer have chooks in the backyard.

I hope you're staying safe and have been vaccinated. We're 18 months into the Covid crisis now and things haven't improved, they're getting worse. I doubt any of us like what's happening with the isolation, lockdowns, stress and uncertainty but we have to live according to the guidelines that will continue to change.  At the moment, the virus is concentrated in the south/east of Australia - NSW, Victoria and ACT.  I'm sure most of the people in those areas are doing their best but the virus has such a hold and a small group of people continue to break the rules so I think it will be a while before the lockdowns finish.  If you're in NSW, Victoria or ACT, I'm sure I speak for many others by thanking you for what you're doing in staying at home and keeping us all safe. I know it's not easy.  

I hope you enjoy the reading links below. I think there are some very interesting articles this week. I send my warmest wishes to you and your family.

🍓 🍐 🍉 🍋

WEEKEND READING

• A dragonfly: weigher of souls

• Guess who’s coming to dinner? Roadkill placed on ‘sky tables’ to lure rare birds of prey

• How to take the lead in dog walking – and earn unconditional love in return

• What’s it like living with a phenomenal memory and can it be learned?

• Cooking Lunch for Wooden House Builders another look at our friends in Azerbaijan 

• Servants: The True Story of Life Below Stairs

• Summer in the Countryside

• Interoception: the hidden sense that shapes wellbeing

• Will power: preparing for my death has provided me with way more entertainment than is seemly

• Praise, ice-cream and starting young: how to get kids to help around the house

• Cuttlefish remember details of their last meal, study finds

• Bumper crop! 15 easy August gardening tasks – for flowery, fruitful days ahead

• Beat the heat! 40 ace ice lollies to make now – from honey parfait to piña colada

Weekend Reading

It's been a busy week here the highlight of which was a face-to-face talk this morning with Grandma Donna on Zoom. It makes such a difference when you can see the person you're talking to online. We have a lot in common and with only a year's difference in age, our experiences are very similar. Of course, we've know each other online for a few years but the talk we had today showed us both that we should take the time for regular chats in the future. We'll meet up again soon because we've only just scratched the surface with this first meeting and we've both got a lot of questions.

Gracie had her birthday on Tuesday, she was five years old.

Earlier in the week Hanno and I finished making a new bromeliad garden just off the front verandah. It looks good and will improve even more when the plants fill out a bit. We used the bromeliads we already had here and which have been multiplying for a few years in pots. Hanno used old recycled logs to create the garden borders and the only cost was the purchase of some pine bark chips we'll use as mulch.  All up, the garden cost us $24.

I finished the Kurringai Council, Willoughby Council and North Sydney Council workshops on Wednesday with a talk about budgeting and debt reduction. It's heartening knowing some Councils are getting this type of information out to their residents.  

I still haven't taken photos of the back garden, I promise I'll have them for you next week.

Our food in the past week included lamb chops, guacamole, vegetable frittata, savoury mince (a la 1952), salmon fillets and potato salad. I made a blood orange butter cake too that stayed fresh for days which we had for dessert and morning teas Next week will be all gardening for me with no appointments or commitments, and as I'll be as free as a bird, I'll take a few food (and garden) photos for you.

The Delta variant of Covid is claiming more lives here in Australia, mainly in NSW.  We're out of lockdown in Queensland now but NSW and Melbourne are still restricted. If you're currently in isolation or lockdown, thank you for doing what we all need you to do. It's only by following the government guidelines and doing what we know is right that we'll survive this lethal virus. Take care and stay safe every time you go out.  Thanks for visiting me here today.  xx

🐌  🍄  🐓

WEEKEND READING

• The house that can withstand a cyclone: how traditional dwellings are making a comeback in Vanuatu
• ‘If you talk, you live well’: the remote Sardinian village with eight centenarians
• Pompeii’s fast food joint unearthed in 2019 opens to public
• Why this week's IPCC report is such a hot topic
• Cloth masks or surgical masks? Either way, you'll be wearing one for 'years to come'
• Bubble Bread
• Great North Road: cycling the old route from London to Edinburgh
• Raid the pantry: why now is the perfect time to reassess your store cupboard
• A new start after 60: ‘I handed in my notice – and opened my dream bookshop’
• A Guide to Developing a Deep Reading Habit
• Tropical edible garden in Tennessee
• Constance Spry and the Fashion for Flowers review – everyday beauty in full bloom
• Pores for thought: how sweat reveals our every secret, from what we’ve eaten to whether we’re on drugs
• Different Cultures Define Happiness Differently

Weekend Reading and Preserving

I haven't spent much time online reading this week so todays post is going to be quite short. Hanno and I have been busy creating a bromeliad garden off the front verandah. We finished the planting yesterday afternoon but I haven't taken any photos yet. I'll remember to include the photos next week. I've also spent a lot of time in the back cottage garden. Out there, the roses are starting to bloom, the digiplexis is has sent up its first flower spike, my first poppies are blooming and slowly but surely, plants are growing and becoming more colourful. Again, I'll have photos next week.

I always grow mint in a pot in the bush house. Coming up to spring is the best time to do this kind of drying because the herbs are full of oils and will regrow fast. If this isn't happening where you live now, just give it a couple of weeks.  The harvested mint gave us just under a cup of dried mint. This is what we have left.

I picked all the mint I had growing to dry for tea, and surprise! you can see I've taken photos. Hanno drinks herbal tea every night and this is what he's drinking now. Drying herbs is a very easy process and going into spring when many herbs start growing again, is the best time to pick them for drying. Just pick your selected herbs, wash them to remove any dust or bugs, and dry them on a tea towel. When all the water is gone, spread them on a tray in your oven and dry with a low heat.  They're stored in a sealed glass jar, just make sure they're totally dehydrated because if the leaves still have a small amount of moisture in them, after a while, they'll could go mouldy in the jar.

We're still in lockdown here but it might be lifted on Sunday afternoon. Sydney is still locked down and regional towns are caught up in it now too. With almost 300 new cases a day there for the past few days, the lockdown will carry on in New South Wales for a while yet.  And in Melbourne their sixth lockdown!  They have been in lockdown more than any of us. I feel really sad for the high school children getting ready for their end of year exams. Their schooling has been interrupted all year and with so much importance placed on year 12 exams, the schools and parents are doing what they can to get them through. I send my best wishes to all year 11 and 12 students and the hope that next year will be much better for you.

This is all I could manage this week, it's been very busy and I'm tired now, too tired to finish this off properly.  My apologies. I'm just about to go out to clean and organise the front verandah and get rid of all the leaves from recent winds and the spilt soil from yesterday's planting.  I'll have photos for you next week. When the verandah is clean, I'm going to relax for the rest of the weekend and plan what's ahead next week.

Thank you for your visits here and on my IG page. I hope you're healthy and staying safe. The world is very unpredictable right now and the safest place for all of us is in our homes with out families. I send love and hugs to you wherever you are.  xx

WEEKEND READING

• Avoiding recipe regret: how to record and revive your family recipes
• Genetic secret to age women start menopause discovered
• ‘Gripping escapism’: 17 podcasts to distract you from the coronavirus
• Grandma's lost recipes
• Simone Biles more than earned the right to win a medal for herself
• A trip to Sheffield’s John Lewis was the most intense childhood treat. I’ll mourn its passing I don't know this English shop but I have some British ancestry and it feels familiar, like our old Australian shops - Mark Foys, Anthony Horden and Sons, and all the little corner shops that no longer exist. I get it. 
• How to save summer fruits to enjoy later in the year
• Environmental impact of bottled water ‘up to 3,500 times greater than tap water’