OH FOR A SHOTGUN!

All year the little pump down the bore in the olive grove works away filling the tank to irrigate the olive grove.  A lot of time is taken to prune, weed and mulch under trees and slash between the rows.  Seventy trees are carefully watched and nurtured and then.......   this time of year in come the Twenty-Eights, so named because of their call.  This very colourful green bird is an absolute pest and delights in ringbarking trees, snipping off the tops of the grape vines and stripping the olive trees and fruit trees of fruit.  Some people in the district resort to a shot gun, but we wrap the trees in white netting and they look like little ghosts up on the hill.

The last image is the fig tree.  It is loaded with fruit which will ripen in January.  You can just see 2 of the olive trees wrapped up in the background.  This is the best crop we have had of olives, so we have selected the best 12 trees and netted them and hope the birds will be happy to destroy the other 50!  I am experimenting with the fig tree, trying to keep it low to the ground.  I cut out the middle stem when it was small and am trying to train the branches to grow horizontally.  At the moment I have the longest branch weighed down with a coke bottle full of water.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw an orchard of citrus fruit where they had gone over the complete orchard with a hedge trimmer to keep the trees at a manageable height.  I will be doing this with my trees next year.  This year I pruned them to size, but they are growing vigourously now and cutting the tops off may be the answer.

Everything is an experiment.  I don't really know how much water the trees need, and they rely totally on irrigation through to next April/May.  It is just "wait and see" and if it doesn't work this year, make changes next year.

FRUITS OF DECEMBER

The raised garden beds are again flourishing. The only fertilizer I use is from the worm farm and I never seem to have pests in abundance.  Firstly I have never grown cucumber before and had no idea they were vines like pumpkins.  The cucumbers seem to move very quickly from flower to fruit.

and hide successfully under the large leaves. My basil was struggling, but one dose of worm wiz solved that and now looks very healthy. Usually I would pull capsicum out at the end of summer, but at the beginning of this year, I left one capsicum plant in. It looked so sad over winter, but has flowered and now has 3 green capsicums. Two new capsicum plants have also been added to this garden, but they just have tiny flowers so I will look forward to seeing them next month.  One silly broadbean plant resprouted as I was pulling out the large plants in spring, so I left it there and now have this late crop in summer.



The strawberries are much bigger than last year and lilac flowers are on the chives and eggplant.  The cherry tomatoes have produced a wonderful crop, especially considering they self seeded from last year's plants.  The little cos lettuce are begging to be harvested as well as one flowery one left over from spring.

  Up in the olive grove the little avocado trees are still holding onto about 15 fruit despite some unexpected hail and very expected strong easterly winds.

So what do you do with all this homegrown produce?  Typical Aussie bbq?



LLAMA FUN

Every weekend we take the llamas for a walk after their breakfast.  We started just using the halters and leads and then progressed to putting a beach towel on their backs.  A friend made some frames for backpacks so now when we go walking, we almost look the part.  The backpacks will be the next step.

Everything went well when we tied Udo to Donnegal, but when we put Donny at the rear, Udo was having none of it (didn't want the other boy near his rear end), so sat down.  The only way to get him up again was to take Donny's lead off his frame.

This morning when we were going out the gate for this walk, Bill was in front with Donny.  Just as he was going through the gate in front of me, I saw what initially looked like a lump of poo stuck on his upper thigh next to his scrotum (on Donny that is).  But it was the wrong colour, so I went in for an inspection.

Needless to say he was not all that keen on my holding his tail up and peering in, but what I was looking at was a bloated tick.

Knowing I would not be allowed to get too close, I squirted  a couple of syringes of methylated spirits to dampen down the tick and then kitchen tongs 5 minutes later  - all the while holding up his tail and with much dancing around.  (On a cat or dog I would have used tweezers, but with a boy this size, a larger implement was needed.)  My boy was also not keen on kitchen tongs advancing on this area either – clicking and pulling!  It took about 10 goes to actually latch on and get the monster off – she wasn’t coming easily.

 However you can see the result in the images above – on extraction, the tick became deflated as the blood ran onto the tongs.  I then soaked a rag in water and actually got my hand in there to try to get rid of the metho.  All in all, he (Donny that is) took it really well and didn’t kick me at all – I was in the firing line so to speak.

I had a couple of his favourite dead wandoo leaves in my pocket which he gladly devoured so I think the memory of the experience was short lived.

12 MONTHS ON.....

It is one week off the 12 month anniversay of the start of this blog.  It was set up by my son Reece who lives in Germany so that he could follow my adventures here on the land.  I decided to write this without reference to any other person, so for this short time - I joined the ME generation.  That's right - it is all about me and the growth which has occurred here at EdgeOfHeaven as nature took its course.

Statistics show that readers came from the United States, Malaysia, Peru, Russia, the United Kingdom, Canada, China, India, Austria, the Netherlands, Estonia and this week Montenegro. One reader I did not have is my husband Bill, without whom my adventure here on the land would not have been possible.  Although his heart (and half of every week) is in the city with creature comforts like the cinema, theatre, restaurants and manicured golf courses, he has enabled my dream to evolve here on my "Edge of Heaven".  So thank you Bill and I hope you enjoy my adventure when you read it.

I think it is appropriate to finish the year with quotes which mean something to me and encourage me to live this life.

“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
― Mark Twain

“Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is life, fight for it.”
― Mother Teresa

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

“Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

The Voice

There is a voice inside of you
That whispers all day long,
"I feel this is right for me,
I know that this is wrong."
No teacher, preacher, parent, friend
Or wise man can decide
What's right for you--just listen to
The voice that speaks inside.”
― Shel Silverstein

“You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching,
Love like you'll never be hurt,
Sing like there's nobody listening,
And live like it's heaven on earth.”
― William W. Purkey

And the last one is for you Bill

“Without You"

"Not nothing
without you
but not the same.
Not nothing
without you
but perhaps less.
Not nothing
but less
and less.
Perhaps not nothing
without you
but not much more.”
― Erich Fried

BOOTY TIME

Wonderful alpaca booties with blue suri curls

TOMATO TIME

Last year I let some of the tomatoes decompose in the vegetable tanks.  There were at least 4 varieties and this year a new crop of cherry tomatoes appeared naturally.  I left a couple where they sprouted and then transferred about another 6 plants into another garden.  Any others were pulled out.  As the tanks are raised I let some of the tomatoes grow down towards the ground.

A pumpkin vine also appeared of its own accord and is now firmly established and no doubt will wind itself around the top of its raised garden bed - last pic.

AND THEN THERE'S MORE.....

Selling a few items has encouraged another flourish of felting - first a hand dyed pink tissue silk with cirlces and raised bobbles of white merino (birthday present), next a multicoloured merino felted with silk inserts (work in progress shown above) and finally an extremely light silk shawl made of tissue silk and silk lap which has been embellished with coloured silk yarn.

LATEST FELTED SCARF

Latest scarf - can be worn with pattern showing or on reverse side just showing the effect of felting the wool onto the silk.  See detail below.



BLOSSOMS TO FRUIT, but will they stay on the trees?

Finally the last couple of months' work in the olive grove has been completed - pruning, weeding, fertilizing, mulching, spraying, slashing and initial netting.  Rain this year has been in abundance, so it is only now that the irrigation will become important.  It has been a most unusual November with some rain, and very strangely the temperature has remained around 11 to 25 degrees.  As a result all the different trees in the olive grove are looking a picture of good health..... ie until our annyoying native birds called 'twenty-eights' start their destructive practices.  In its second year, the almond tree has produced 2 almonds, now firmly netted from our feathery enemies.

 



Images are of a young kalamata olive, a macadamia, a fig tree, baby grapefruit, a cab sav vine, a small avocado tree and baby avocados.  Other olive trees are seen in the background of most images.