Sun's out, Smoke's in

Today is a nice sunny day, (sort of) Friend helping to lay the 2 tonnes of crushed rock for our long driveway. Me digging out agapanthus and replacing with azaleas. Neighbour starting burn off....Uh oh! 
 Why, oh why, do people still need to burn off in this day and age of composting and council green waste pick up? I have severe asthma, these neighbours NEVER let me know they are about to burn off, ( I have asked nicely and given them my phone number in case they are too lazy to walk to the house) and besides, who likes their house, clothes and furniture stinking of wet grass smoke? 
 So no more work today outdoors! Mutter, mutter, mutter.........

The smoke coming up the hill into my house. Taken on the back deck of my place. Below neighbour's property starts just behind the caravan. Cough cough splutter choke.....

Below neighbour burning off. Taken through my cat's enclosure on my back deck.

 Off now to get away from the smoke to go bargain shopping for some bits I can do up and sell! Woohoo!

Raining again! Gah!

Hey! What gives with this crazy Aussie weather? I mean, come ON already! Yesterday I was pottering around and trying to get the garden ready for Phase 2,978 of the plan, thinking, 'Oooooh, I CAN have my gorgeous roses and fruit trees, too!' and daydreamed of sitting under an apricot tree with the scent of roses wafting past my nostrils:.....Aaaaaaaaah. Heaven! Then today, TODAY! The thunder boomed loudly, the dog scurried under my desk, the rain started like as if we had moved to the Tropics. I then put back my gardening gloves and hat, sat down and thought, "Well, I DO live in Melbourne; the city of 4 seasons in one day....but this is ridiculous!" Record rainfall and it had to be the year I feel able to do all these renovations in one hit! Oh well...........

  So instead of getting much done outdoors in preparation of the hot summer we are due to have, I decided to fiddle with the banner on my blog. I reckon it looks ok, but I am only learning, so give me a kind-hearted break. 
 Then after having a nice hot cup of tea and thinking of what else I can do that doesn't involve me getting drenched, I got to thinking of all the gorgeous sunsets we get here in Healesville. I am of the mind set that I will never miss a sunset! No matter what is going on, I will stop and watch and admire nature's farewell of the day. I'd like to share some of my photos I have taken over the years of some gorgeous sunsets with you.  I hope you like them!

  Cheerio for now!

Time to show you my 'projects'

Ok the moment you have all been waiting for! Ok, maybe not. It's just that it's been cold, miserable, raining, thunder, lightning, very very frightening all week. Supposed to be Spring! So I haven't been very enthused about laying the vinyl tiles in the bathroom. With little light in there and so cold, I just couldn't be bothered. So now I shall bore you or excite you with some items I am doing up. Some will be for sale and some to stay in the hovel, I mean, home. Tee hee hee.
 Some before and after shots of my handiwork!

The 'op shop' special. There are two identical.

 

 

In her new 'outfit'!The pics really don't do the piece justice. I wish I had somewhere nice where I could show these off to take photos. 

 

I even added some 'dings' to where it would be likely someone used their thumb to open the drawer.

Please ignore the mess! The old Wertheim sewing table I bought on ebay. The dog was not part of the purchase! Had her for nearly 7 years and she follows me everywhere!

Looking much prettier with a fresh coat of paint and black wax. The base is a dark green but will be sprayed black once the weather is nice again.

Detail of the top. Lovely aged look. It already had some great wear on such a new pine top. The black wax brings it out beautifully I think!

  I do have some more projects I am doing and will endeavour to show you soon. The light is really poor this week to show them off nicely. Plus, I am still getting used to my new camera, too!
  
Someone gave me a huge bag of red chillies and I am making Sweet Chilli Sauce, so I'd best get it off the boil before it turns into sweet sticky stove top! 

Till next time!
Maria

Oh my aching bones!

Well, today was a glorious sunny day here in Healesville. 20c feels like summer is on its way! Having said that, I had to do some maintainence work in the garden to get my summer crops in and make sure the Aussie garden I am creating will cope with the heat we will no doubt get. Already this week after heavy rains, in only a few days the garden is dry. Water restrictions have been down graded from Stage 3 to Stage 2. This is due to the drought of 18 years finally breaking and filling up most of the cities dams to near capacity or in the case of our local reservoir, overflowing for 12 months. The rains we had this year were incredible!        

Maroondah Dam June 2008 This was winter!

Maroondah Dam February 2011 This is our summer. Big difference!

This means we can now hand water with a trigger nozzle at any time. This is great, but I still use the old fashioned bucket of rain water and an old tin cup to water in my seedlings till they have established. I have a drip system running through the main vegie patch and hope to connect that up to the rain water tank we have up the hill to gravity feed the drip system. I HATE using tap water for a couple of reasons. One; why should I have to pay for something that falls out of the sky, and two; most tap water has chemicals in it which only make the plants not thrive very well.

 I ripped out a lomandra longifolia today and potted up the individual corms. They had nice long strappy leaves. Whilst it is a lovely drought tolerant plant and the birds love to hide in it, it was blocking the new blueberry bush I planted. I will sell on the pots for $2 each. The soil came from the dig out we did a year ago from an old embankment. The worms have been doing a great job and now the soil is excellent! The pots I already had. So this is a good way to help reimburse some costs to get on with the jobs!

  So I hauled the soil back into the retaining wall and planted another blueberry plant (Sunshine Blue) I did a ton of that yesterday as well. Talk about a great abdominal workout! So nice to be able to reuse the same soil which now is a gorgeous pile of loamy soil instead of the heavy clay it was a year ago. Lots of rotting vegetation in it and the worms have created a masterpiece! I should be stuffing my face with a ton of blueberries next season!
  Tomorrow I hope to put in the other section of the drip system, continue putting dirt into the new vegie patch and plant out some tomatoes. That's after all the other work I have to do!
 
  

Bedroom door saga

I decided some time ago to replace the boring old plain core door to my bedroom and install something with a bit of character. I searched high and low for a door to fit. 75.5 cms wide x 2010 cms tall x 30cms deep . Easy you would think? NO! The standard Aussie door can be between 82 to 87 cms wide. Height is usually 2040cms. I went on a treasure hunt, scouring old 2nd hand dealers stores, searching demolition sites, checking on ebay regularly, but to no avail. Gah! Obviously who ever had done the renovation before me had a lot to answer for! 
  Many older houses had odd sized doors. That was perfectly ok with me. Having spent fruitless hours searching though, I came to the conclusion that either the door space needed to be widened and given some extra height or I would simply undress in the evenings for all and sundry to admire. After giving this some more thought, I do believe my polar bear suntan would be too much for poor innocent eyes, so the widening and heightening began!
  Alas! Yet again, more problems. The door jamb was made with left over odd bits of skirting board and hard against my teen son's bedroom. The fact there is barely any support in the wall above my door space made it impossible to open this up for a newer door. It was also discovered that the whole door jamb is out by 8mms! (almost an inch) It appears that the previous renovator was either drunk or had astigmatism. How the hell could it be so glaringly out? It was time for ME to get drunk!
  Eventually I bit the bullet and bought an older Californian Bungalow style door. I would prefer something a bit more individual but this will do for now. Amazingly enough it was cheaper than I expected to pay. Only $50. (Believe me in Melbourne, Australia this is cheap!) It was painted a dark almost black that is taking me forever to paint strip. It has many bumps and scrapes but it has character. Poor old thing needs a reason for living and my home is it. I will probably keep the side into my bedroom in the original wood and just clear coat it. The outer side I am umming and ahhing to paint in white. 
 We can't change immediately the original door frame and to do so would only invite disaster of the shrieking of this redhead kind. So for now, the new/old door is shaved and primped to fit. No lock or handle was supplied, so temporarily it will just have to suffice with a newer handle I bought a long time ago. 

Poor old girl needing a new outfit.