Waiting for the Bride

I am waiting for the bride

Her bouquet's await.

I am quite honoured to be involved in such an important day.

My market flowers are attracting a bit of attention

This is wedding 2

It is a tight time for flowers, August, just after the worst frosts in years

These are little bunches for the tables.

Lucky for some hardy Salvia's, wall flowers, violets, stocks and happy wanderer

also my fill flowers are rocket. Who needs gypsophilla when you have got rocket.

Nice result if I do say so myself.

I have been trying to drink in the colours and forms of the flowers and

have decided if I was to lose my eyesight this would be one of the things I would miss the most.

That's not going to happen!

I was always fascinated with Turner whose blurry paintings were quite famous.

It made sense when I learned of his eye sight issues.

Cataract is such a blurry word!

I noticed the other day that my eyesight was not what it used to be.

For some unknown reason I covered  my left eye

I was shocked by what I saw

or

didn't see as the case may be

I have tried to recreate the blurry world of my left eye

It is actually worse than this, and, it surprises me that with both eyes open

I can nearly see this well

I have noticed that my concentration is limited without bright reading light.

Taking photos has been hard lately and now I know why.

I saw an optometrist who confirmed a milky cataract and

booked me an appointment with an eye surgeon for Monday morning.

Lets hope the diagnosis does not develop into something more sinister.

There was an eye health awareness advertisement on TV last night.

The campaign was known as Juleye.

Oh no, no more news print?

There is talk that printed newspapers are fast becoming a thing of the past.

With the high take up rate of people reading their news on line,

and declining hard copy sales, it does make economic sense,

however

My entire garden has been flood proofed using the humble newspaper.

I needed to raise the ground level and I had limited dirt so I

concentrated all available dirt on the circles and the ground in between was

paved with large bricks of newsprint, resulting in instant lift of ground level.

I then cover the newsprint bricks with leaf litter raked from my forest.

It takes 12 wheel barrows full to completely cover around one circle.

This all breaks down perfectly and I have taken to creating thin newsprint pavers to go over the paths for a second round again raising the ground level.

Flood proofing is relative to the severity of the flood, I have used the 1992 flood levels as my guide.

 This little balloon crew member needed a nap before tea

Stella thought it was a great idea

Dirk (Balloonatic) did a tether at the Farmers market.

This is his tethering envelope, quite stunning and a crowd pleaser.

I  got to watch the inflation from the market stall.

Now it is just back to normal, feet on the ground and back to the regular grind.

Oh well it was fun and exciting while it lasted.

Until next time!

OMG minus 3

What kind of crazy sport is this?

Early mornings in the middle of winter!

Beautiful

Spectacular

Breath taking

(that's the cold air)

Can you see the man on the crown line here?

Stunning

Exhilarating

Exhausting

 Challenging

A most exciting week was had by all!

Great flying weather, coldest mornings for 20 years or more.

Thank you Blitz family for sharing this crazy sport with us!



Sweat box sculpture

Last week I was involved in an unusual exhibition

Unique to this area I believe

Sweat box art has to be constructed from the old wooden

boxes that were used to carry dried fruit to the packing sheds

I was most excited to sell my piece to an artist whom I admire

(which made it more exciting)

I hadn't photographed it before delivery to the gallery and

I forgot to take my camera to the exhibition opening.

I did remember to take the camera when I went to collect it

after the show but it had sold and was gone.

I had to take this picture in the back yard of the new owner.

I did need a memento of the piece.

Ballooning at the lake

Early morning start

5.30am  from Mildura to get to 6am briefing

Flying from the Werrimul school oval at first light.

Not frosty this morning.

We are the last balloon to leave the ground

Dirk is flying solo and we are ready to retrieve

"Bifrost" is the orange, green and maroon balloon.

The paddocks out here are big open fields that have been sown to wheat.

There has been very little rain out this way and it is hard to see the crop.

The landing was a little fast and Dirk draged his way to a halt.

He waited for us to find him so we could help him pack up the balloon 

It looks a bit more hectic from this angle.

Isn't the paddock dry.

Dirk thought it was a fallow paddock and was upset he had landed on a crop.

Not too much damage done. Not too much crop to damage.