Feathers, Fruit and the Autumn Harvest

Flocks of birds have helped themselves to our vegie patch this summer.  They trade us exquisite feathers to find on garden strolls.  So many feathers.

 The beans were spared and we have now eaten all the beans anyone would care to, no matter how delicious and sexy they are. These bush beans grew beside towering corn plants, the cobs of which we are now harvesting and gleefully consuming, they don't always make it inside to be cooked. Each summer corn seems like such trouble, they are huge, take up much space, need side pruning, require heavy feeding and mulching, take an age to ripen, and are water hungry.  Come Autumn and those first juicy sweet bites of golden yellow, all is forgiven.

A mystery plant turned up amongst my corn and I was unsure what sister had mixed herself into the bean/corn equation. Finally they are ripe and the heavenly scent revealed them to be some type of rockmelon, only three melons but they grew without fuss and taste delicious, quite the rockstars. I am saving this mystery seed for another year.

Thursday I was filled with riveting conversation. "Gosh its windy!" "that wind is really strong", "that's a fierce storm out there". If there was a prize for stating the self evident I would have won it. It was the kind of day the weather could not be ignored as gale force winds buffeted against the window, threatening to take us to OZ. We had some big branches down, a few corn casualties and a leaning tower of mulberry.  We got off lightly compared to some Victorian towns, I just love the voice over on this video taken in Mulwala, so very Australian.

The branches lying around are a boon to our dog who like to pounce and attack them, dragging them with a gleeful trot and shredding gum leaves all over the yard.

Better gum leaves than pumpkins. I keep finding my pumpkins detached from the vine a little prematurely.  It seems Zef has a penchant for playing tug of war with the vine. The pumpkins certainly have a unique appearance this year, some sporting Freddy Kruger like slashes. I cooked a few smaller ones up recently and they were still tasty, if a little dwarfed in size.

Note the spud and onion box below (a lovely hand me down from nanna and pa), these two vegetables should never be put together as the onions encourage the potatoes to sprout, a serious problem when you have lots of potatoes.

Purple Sapphires, Purple Congos, King Edwards, Kipfflers and Dutch Creams. 

A healthier Autumn Easter egg hunt.

 I am a laggard with some things (like blog posting of late). This is my attempt at making the orange peel and vinegar cleaner that I've been watching everyone else make for years. Ridiculously simple.

 We have a tiny cumquat in a pot, this summer it grew enough cumquats to not do much with, but just before they all turned off waiting for me, I managed to make one delicious jar of my favourite marmalade. I am so excited the cumquats are the thin skinned extra juicy variety, that makes a wonderfully sweet and tangy marmalade, I will definitely give that bush some more love.

The nectarines were attacked by birds, they even got inside the nets, but the few that were left were so heavenly scented and sweet they were too good to waste, we cut away the bird pecked fruit and ate the remainder, savouring each mouthful. As we say every year, next year we will get those nets on early.

Cucumbers and zucchinis are filling my crisper with shades of green, pickles and chutney are on my to do list.

This year we have eaten a lot of grated raw zucchini mixed with herbs chilli, parmesan and olive oil on pasta, it is less soggy and sweeter than the cooked variety.

Tonight we had bruschetta with tomato and basil, so good. For the recipe visit Christine's blog
Slow Living Essentials, I was far too busy enjoying it to take a photo.

 In the evening gazing inside at us from outdoors are praying mantis  It seem a particularly favourable year for these fascinating and garden friendly bugs, they are hunting the moths and insects that are attracted to our house lights, they are awesome to watch, such speed and ferocity.

Unfortunately I forgot to turn the lights off at our house tonight.  I have been a supporter of Earth Hour since it began but somehow it slipped my mind, probably due to the deliciousness of that bruschetta and having one child away at Cubs camp, perhaps we will do a belated hour another night.

Watching and Waiting

Saturday was so rainy, the wet stuff just kept falling. The ground is lovely and sodden again, the garden is thriving. Little one instructs - "Mummy take a picture of the rain, it's a dark day mummy".

 

We've been watching these grow in their sandwich bag for the last few weeks, it's amazing how self sufficient they are.

And so the zuchinni glut begins - the little one and I planted these last week and they are starting to emerge.  I think we have 5 plants, which I know will produce a lot of zuchinni, I have missed them over winter but will probably drive every one nuts with them come summer.

 Middle one was playing with our latest op shop find - snake pick up sticks when a discovery was made.

 The little Bowerbird was in love.

  

We have been watching and waiting for something to happen with our cocoon for weeks. I went to give the cocoon a spray of water, as I'd read it was good to keep them moist, gazing at the cocoon thinking it didn't look right, and then I saw a flutter. We have finally reared a butterfly, even if it is the undesirable variety, it was pretty exciting. It flew around our house all day after the little one accidentally released it in her excitement, and is now in an unknown location.

Still watching and feeding aphids to our baby praying mantis, think there is only one left now. Big Bowerbird spied a mature one in the garden today.


So much to watch grow around our house in Spring.


Playing along with 1000 Homes of Happiness - The Playlist, middle one is quite enamoured with this linky and wants to know what the weekend theme is. He rushed to Google it on Friday night. Usually glad to rise to the challenge, he was too busy playing to plant a seed for me.

All Creatures Great and Small

The big kids climbed a mountain with their dad today, mum had the sniffles so she and little Bowerbird stayed behind. The big Bowerbird kids are great walkers and did an excellent job hiking up Mount Macedon, it helped that they had the company of friends to spur them along.  My lovely vegie group friends now have a once a month walk added to  our list of things to do together, I was sorry to miss the first walk although did a little bit of the start and shared the BBQ at the end.  The wild flowers are amazing this year, perhaps the wet winter, kind spring? In just a few short metres we saw Bearded Orchids, Milk Maids, Yam Daisies, Chocolate Lilies, Sun Orchids, Waxlip Orchids, Sundews, Paper Daisies...... I could keep rambling - shame I forgot the camera.


The big kids were feeling pretty exhausted by the afternoon and were after some TV time, but I managed to distract them with this activity.

A day at the races - take 3 beetles and four snails, draw two circles, watch and see what happens.

The beetles played dead for ages, as did one snail. One beetle disappeared down a crack, only to return later on. Little one kept putting obstacles in their way and they had to navigate the mass of fallen Wisteria blooms. Was pretty funny when a snail hitched a ride on a beetle.  Middle one told me that two of the snails were mating when they teamed up, I said I didn't think so and he offered to go and get the book from his library that talks of such things.

 

A great relaxing afternoon activity!  Middle Bowerbird won both races with his champion snail and beetle.

 I remembered to pick some flowers from my garden today, such a joy on the kitchen table. I just love poppies, each plant is a little mystery until those curiously shaped buds unfurl.

 We have some tiny new friends at our house.

A few months ago my friend gave me a bag of acorns for a seed/art project I am working on.  These seeds were placed in a big glass jar and put on display last week.  Little eyes were peering at our huge seed display when one pointed out that our jar had little critters in it.  At first I thought they were stick insects but they are actually baby Praying Mantis.  the eggs had stayed dormant in their acorn in a brown paper bag through the cooler months and had only emerged with the warmer weather - much to our surprise and delight.

image source http://www.raymondcostello.com/html/praying_mantis.html

These tiny guys are better than television, they are stalking aphids and sussing each other out, they can be cannibalistic so we are finding them new homes to separate them, in the mean time we squeal whenever they get close to each other.

Sadly we had room in our terrarium as this little caterpillar had passed away, we've been watching him for the last couple of weeks. 

 

 This is the face the little one pulls when she doesn't get her way.  She didn't want to let go of her little pet but I was worried he might have been getting too much love. I saw the exact same caterpillar today on the same plant I found this one on - a native bush pea that it blends in beautifully with.

Joining in with   follow the link for more great play ideas.