A Frosty Obsession

June brought endless still days, blue skies, clear nights and frost. The mornings were bracing but as soon as those first rays of sunlight hit the ground, the scene was enchanting. It's fascinating to look at the way the ice forms, what patterns it makes on different leaves. Each morning the spectacle drew me out to find out what delights nature had served up.

I am amazed at how resilient plants are to being frozen and thawed. Some things suffer, but much holds on, most of my vegie patch growth has slowed to a snail pace, even with the suns rays, the days are short and the soil cold. I am longing for the lettuce to be ready to harvest, the supermarket variety is so limp and lifeless. Seeds are still germinating and standing proud - broad beans, peas, rockette and radishes have emerged despite the hostile conditions. The potatoes seem the least happy with the turn of weather, their leaves now tattered and browned, although many are making a valiant effort to keep going. I've given everything a spray with liquid seaweed, which is meant to help plants build good cell structure and protect them from Jack Frost.

The poor middle Bowerbird has not been well, with the biting cold air his asthma has flared up and taken a long time to settle down. Lots of days at home reading Harry Potter and folding origami instead of smashing puddles and enjoying the sparkles. We do get frost intermittently at or house but I cannot remember a winter where we have had so many days in a row of it.

 

Autumn, Leaves, Ribbons, Petals, Pizza and Junior Landcare

A nasty bug is attacking our maple tree, marring the beautiful Autumn leaves.  It is the first time this has happened, I think I might give the tree some mulch and food, and see if a bit of love will help it build its defences. Anyone know what it might/mite be?

The little Bowerbird and I have been playing with ribbon and leaves, threading an Autumn garland to hang inside. 

Suddenly there was an urgent gathering of rose petals, she was very proud of her ingenious idea to thread them onto a stick to make a rose petal tree.  Such studious concentration.

  

We made caterpillars out of Iris berries.

   

 Then spun sycamore seeds, watching them flutter like helicopters without pilots in the sky.

Today we had a wonderful Junior Landcare session making wood fired pizzas with produce we had grown in our school garden. After some bitterly cold days the sun came out and the children picnicked on hot pizzas amongst the Autumn leaves.  The Grade sixes teamed up with their prep buddies and we cooked up 70 small pizzas (note for future reference - 3kg of cheese, 2kg of shredded ham and 3 bottles of tomato passata is about the right amount for this many pizzas).  We added from our school garden - tomatoes, zuchinni, spring onions, chives, basil, thyme, and oregano.  We also fried up some thin slices of potato and Jerusalem Artichoke to snack on whilst the pizzas were cooking.


There was some left over cheese and meat and chopped vegetables which was going to go to the school chickens but instead came home and fed our family a delicious dinner - I made 4 pizzas - there's even some for lunch tomorrow. I'm always the one taking home the leftovers - I hate seeing things wasted.  

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