A little more Koonamore

Our last half-hour of the long six hour journey to Bindi I, the house we were staying at, we got a flat. Not just a flat but a shredded flat tire. As there were plenty of helping hands three of us girls went for a walk to an old ruin up the road.





This is the veranda we slept on for most of the trip. the first night we spent the night under the stars, which was definitely an experience which everyone should have. There was not enough steel bed frames for everyone but thankfully a couple of the guys gave us their's after we spotted a small scorpion near the mattresses we were going to originally sleep on. I can cope with flys, sun and spiders but not poisonous scorpions. lol



When we were out in the reserve measuring quadrats or rabbit warren hunting we would stop for breaks and pull out our little plastic bag from the camping mattresses, due to the many prickle bushes, and sit and eat apples and lolly snakes. It was a funny experience as I could not get use to lifting the fly net before going to take a bite. lol



MnM

Koonamore

I have spent the last seven days in Koonamore six hours from Adelaide. I went as a volenteer with ten other students from Adelaide University. 360 ha of land have been fenced to exclude sheep and rabbits. We did lots of quadrat recording and rabbit checking in the reserve. We were lucky enough to have gone when the Sturt desseret pea was in flower was in flower. these were so beautiful.



This is my fried and i having a break from recording a quadrat. Had to bring little plastic mats as the ground was covered in prickles everywhere!!!!! Our mat, although small, was a must for this kind of job.
Flys were really bad the first few days as was hot so we both learnt to really appriciate the fly nets although we never got use to having to lift the net before being able to eat. lol


This is after a long day. We were up at sunrise, about six, every moring and worked in the field till lunch were we enjoyed salad sandwiches and a nap. then we would be back out there from two till about seven. We always enjoyed coming back to the house for dinner and dessert.



Going to go catch some zzzzzz's as am sure i have missed a few these last few days.lol
MnM

we're back, again

Yes after another very long drought of blogging we are back. uni and school can take up soooo much time and having a computer which likes to take sick days is not helpful either. lol
So we have been able to fit some craft stuff in which included a day at the Quilt and Craft Fair. It was so much fun we bought a Japanese Quilt pattern and have been busy sewing the top pieces these last two days as we are know on holidays till February. Yay!
This is a sneek peek of one of the fabrics for the quilt which is for my bro.


We celebrated this with a trip to Bunnings were we got six punnet seedlings for 99 cents each. We know have four different kinds of tomato, and basil, beetroot, mini pumpkins, gherkins, zucchini, finger eggplant and all at 99 cents. love bunnings. This is my first rose on my Bella Rosa rose given to me for my 18th birthday last year by a friend. Smells gorgeous too.



Have made a long list of things to do over the next couple of months and looking forward to ticking them off the list as they get done. have four sections to it, craft, garden, places to go and other. craft is obviously the longest list. lol

MnM and Little Ma : )

Book making and geology

I had a book making day with a friend the other week. she is an artist and painted this picture which i turned into a book for sketches.


I made two other books that day as well. The pink one is made the same way as the first which is sheets of paper folded in half. i used a hammer and nail to make the hole so all the pages were even. then i threaded a piece of string through three holes so it can wrap around the book a couple of times and then be pulled under those wrapped ones to keep it closed. i used some hand made paper we had made last summer.

This one was made with a fabric cover attached to a piece of cardboard. i then made five inner sections by folding about ten pages of paper in half and when five of those were done sewing them together and to the cover. don't think i have mastered that technique yet as my stitching looks a bit odd. will practice.

i have been looking after a friends house, cat and guide dog the last two weeks while they were in Bali. I must say it is a big change to have a trained and working guide dog compared to a training pup. The guide dog is actually the first we trained and has been working with a wonderful woman who by chance we have become good friends with. i say this because we were training our last dog Heidi in the market on the travelaters when a women asked if we were training and also said her daughter had an RSB Guide dog named V. we were so excited as this was our V. Adelaide is so small. Anyway she is soooooo incredibly patient. she has been coming to uni with me and Wednesdays are a very long day in which i start at eight and finish at five with only a two hour break in the morning. she had to sleep through geology, statistics and biology lectures and pracs. I was so impressed i decided to stop at the park on the way home even though it was starting to rain and get dark. she had lots of fun as she met Willow the very very big and furry dog like the ones which guard sheep.
I also had a geology field trip last weekend. i know it was a crazy thing to do as it was incredibly wet and windy. we went to Hallet Cove and Victor Harbor. we were on the beach at Hallet Cove looking at sedimentary rocks and bedding when the wind really picked up. by the end we were all laughing. enjoyed a hot tea and coffee when we arrived at Toc H camp. There were 91 of us on the trip. was lots of fun and was good to see the real thing instead of looking at lecture notes. we looked at lots of granite in Victor.

Byron Bay Holiday!!!!

Over the holidays i want to visit a friend in Byron Bay. It was the most relaxing and beautiful place which was topped off with the wonderful friends i was with there.
While i was there an art expedition was happening on the shores of the beach. This is the ladder to heaven. + some creative photography. : )



This sculpture is a cube of concrete with a real tree planted on the top to signify the cities of today. I think it is a wonderful view on the world we live in at the moment.



This very large piece of art was one of the very first on the shore. It is the roots of a tree on its side. i think it was carved.



In Byron they have the Thursday farmers market. It was very very wet that day but we really wanted to go so braved it. This is our winnings of that trip. The star fruit was very sweet as it grows really well in NSW. I also got some tumeric in root form. I have never seen it like that before only in powder form sealed in plastic so it was quite a revelation for me.



This is me and my friend at a cafe/restaurant called The Balcony. It has a fantastic atmosphere with lounges along the balcony with lots of comfy cushions and heaters when it is colder. These couches are where people sit with a good book and a hot choc. We ended up sitting there for a while reading Sherlock Holmes mysteries and The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy. It was lovely!



During July the whales are migrating through Byron and the best spot to see them is the Lighthouse. You can see the ocean in three directions with lots of viewing points. This day we went up it was fairly windy and gray skys so the whales did not make an appearance. We had a lovely day though sitting on the grass surrounded by beautiful tropical forest.



We got lots of rain Thursday and Friday was looking cloudy as well. By Saturday the sun made a very bright appearance. It was my second to last day in Byron so we thought we would ride back up to the lighthouse. We stopped at Woolies for supplies and began the uphill ride. We enjoyed a picnic of lamingtons, juice, fruit, chips and blueberry muffins. I was lucky enough to see about sixteen whales that day and three were very close. Some tourists who were on a kayaking lesson when these three whales decided to say hello. They definitely got more than they payed for. We also saw lots of dolphins enjoying the ocean waters. while we were admiring the whales we were robbed by a bush turkey. We had only left the picnic for a second and we over-heard some tourist saying something about a turkey robbing someones picnic. I started to laugh when i turned around and realized it was our fruit it was pinching. We both chased it away but in those few moments it had demolished half a huge green apple. The rest of the day it stalked us but we wised up and kept a careful eye on him. We also played lots of UNO. A great game!



We rode most of the way and walked along a track which looks out onto the sea. lots of beautiful tropical vegetations.

Bits of Beauty

This is a beautiful bumble bee working in our garden.


We had a christening this year and a lovely lunch after with family at Estia Greek cuisine resturant in Henley Beach square here in Adelaide. This is my Aunt on the right and ma on the left. sister ying and yangs. lol



This year we have been getting together with a wonderful group of women. we call it our Thursday group, though we did not make it every week, where we knit, drink herbal tea and chat about lots of stuff! we decided to do a few blankets composed of squares which we have all knitted and donate them to people who need them. This is most of us surrounded by the many blankets which got put together.





This is Goldie and Ma gold leafing some iron tables. Ma picked up the set of three for ten dollars and only the biggest one is missing it's glass. i love this because i can but my books IN the big one and ON the second smaller one which sits underneath it and together they hold my books beautifully near our big window which lets the sun shine bright in the morning.

Welcome back!

Well it certainly has been a very long time since the last blog. Lots has happened in that time. Most of which has been fun. These last few weeks have been holidays before semester two starts again. I spent the day in the garden yesterday. Thinking about it know i should have taken a before image but never expected to do so much and have it look so pretty at the end. I did lots of digging of horse poo into the soil and most of it was not to bad as my rabbit Buddy, who runs free in the back garden, has dug lots of holes there so the soil was very soft.I cleared lots of rubble and dead leaves. i put lots of spare mirrors along the fence and hung some candles. because of the mirrors it looks like there is three candle holders instead of the two. i love illusions!

We picked this table up from Kerb Side Shopping, which is basically recycling peoples unwanted stuff from the kerb during kerb side pick up done once a year in our suburb. since the glass top is missing i decided plants growing through it would be very cool.

I buried this spare pool fence piece so the vine plants can grow up it and also to reduce the wind which can be very strong in that area.

Hugs to all!
MnM :)