Thursday's garden work day

I am lucky on Thursday's

My friend Pip comes to work for me

We make plants, sow seeds, pick flowers

Spring has increased the need for help, we are just keeping up

The photo's are all hers today

Mustard

use as lettuce for a hot sandwich

We picked 5 buckets of flowers

They looked stunning all together,

The only problem with a worker that has a camera,

they can and do capture me at work.

Proof that I do get out there....and that it is not yet summer,

I am wearing jeans.

It's been freezing with south winds blowing right through me.

 We still get UV alerts though, it must be that hole in the ozone layer.

I think my scarecrow needs a new outfit

I saw one recently in a movie that swung in the breeze.

Maybe that would actually scare the rabbits.

They are out of control at the moment.

There are little long eared kittens everywhere.

Stella and Skittles enjoy the chase.

They get lucky occasionally.

Especially when they work together as a team

Labradorable

The other morning when I got up,

I couldn't see the black puppy Stella.

She blends very well with Skittles, who is a chocolate Labrador.

I thought to myself, they are labradorable.

Amazing, why hadn't I coined that word before....then just 2 days later

I was reading the Herald Sun and on about pg 15 there was the headline.

Labradorable and a photo.

Did I think of it at the same time as the editor?

Spring has sprung but there was still a frost overnight

Yesterday I had the first ripe mulberry of the season..

There's plenty more to come.

Its a weeping mulberry and the weight of the fruit

puts a lot of strain on the branches.

All the more reason to eat the fruit

as soon as it is dark enough not to be tart.

Yum

I can't see clearly now

I have been absent so long, the look of blogging has changed.

Am I in the right place?

I have been struggling with my diminishing eyesight.

It has come on so fast I am a little bit scared of going blind.

They say that cataract surgery is quite common place....

Not so common that there is no public waiting list.

18 months for the local bloke to do the op for free or

$2000.00

March 2014 or $2000.00

I don't think I can wait that long so I am working on some fundraising.

Just to give you an idea of the deterioration, this is with  both eyes open

This is what happens when the good eye is shut.

Both eyes open

Good eye shut.

I have been making a few things lately but the dog/ black puppy Stella

crunched my camera and broke the LCD screen which makes taking photos even harder.

I think I will have to buy a new one.

Wentworth Show pipe dreams sculpture

Wentworth Show has an innovative sculpture competition every year

The focus is often into turning farming stuff into art

This years theme "Pipe dreams"

any kind of pipe except copper or brass is accepted

Of course I entered alongside my students

and I am pleased to say they all made the deadline.

It took a few days to get all the components cut,

sanded and then painted before they were pop riveted together.

It was daffodil day the day this one came together.

It really has a sense of daffodil.

The other one has a milk bottle top centre and is quite light.

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to grow your own pipes.

There was quite a bunch of them once they came together

They will made a colour splash in the garden without the need for water.

As always the ideas run fast as the deadline approaches.

Dave's work reflects the number of days in an Olympic year

Brooke made hers to fly away 

Tina's work has a fish trap feel to it. 

It is free standing and about as big as me.

Chook bowls

A student gave me a wine ice bucket type bowl for Christmas last year.

I looked at the shape and decided I could see a chook

so I used it as a press mould and this is what happened next.

I think it would hold 2 dozen eggs.

I wasn't convinced that I had achieved what I first imagined

so I tried again.

I still have to glaze this one and am wondering if

I should keep with the brown hen theme or try a white version.

I could get totally fancy and try for a lace wing style.

I will be glazing it today so I will have to make up my mind.

I was surprised to see Stella doing the double decker dog trick with Shelia

They are getting along a lot better lately but

I hadn't thought they were that close.

Given the very cold winter this behaviour has been tolerated by both the big dogs.

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.