What's on the Playlist

Serenading me in the paddock this week:

 The Fab 5 - "Elbow". You can listen to them soft, you can listen to them loud (which is better) - they have a terrific sound. Check out 'Grounds for Divorce' live at Abbey Road here:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdmwHljfN4Q

 "Amy Lavere" - she's so cute and even cuter with her great big double bass. Then she sings the cutest little songs like 'KILLING HIM.'

Check out Amy on the Jools Holland show here:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5gu3D3AFKc

I've also been playing the wonderful 'Raising Sand' by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. But did you know that they also covered Led Zepplin here and there?

Check out a terrific cover of When the Levee Breaks here:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPlvU1hKb0E


When you've done that, you will surely want to check out Black Dog:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lgzs6pT26KI

Digging Holes

Thought I might have a day off weeding and do something FUN! Fun, that is, that involves a mattock and a shovel. It's got to rain soon and the little rain water tank down at 'La studio' will overflow. Last year, the overflow washed under the building - most unsatisfactory. 

So I purchased 9 meters of down pipe and started digging a trench. Fortunately I didn't have to dig too deep as there will be decking and gravel added to the area soonish to give more protection to the underground pipes. The main thing with the trench is to make sure it goes down hill so that the water will run out nicely. 

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth

Pretty normal sort of a day here. Weeding then some weeding, then the Responsible Adult came home so I cooked up some eggs and bacon for her. Then weeding, then pruning ready to take down to the revegetation area tomorrow. BUT THEN ......... an email from Big Sis suggesting I may be incorrect in respect to how long we have been at the paddock. 

What's on the Kindle - Pat Barker

After a hard day in the Paddock, there's nothing like settling down with a glass of read and a good book. At the cubby house, we prefer electronic readers to paper. A few years ago, I decided to read all Booker Prize winning books. A task that has turned out to have expanded greatly. For example, after reading Salman Rushdie's brilliant 'Midnight's Children', I got sidetracked into reading everything he wrote - some more than once. And after hearing the pommy author David Mitchell on Radio National, I decided to expand to all short listed and long listed books. Then proceeded to read all David Mitchell's works. 

Rest and Be Thankful

Across the road there is a driveway bordered by some rather nice Azalea's which has a sign - "Rest and Be Thankful". Sounded like a good idea to me and for the first few months after we had moved to the paddock I did a fair bit of that. My day was get the kiddies up to the school bus (the top of our driveway), rest and be thankful, pick the kiddies up from the school bus.

 One day, a man wandered down that driveway and introduced himself. Turned out to be gardening guru Colin Campbell. We had the first of many brief chats about this, that and the other and it was always a delight to bump into Colin - it was a bit like seeing an echidna or a particularly nice water dragon. He was a real charmer and blended in with the natural world extremely well.

Colin was one of those sorts of people you just imagine always being there and it was a real shock when he died last week. Even though my meetings with Colin were brief, I will miss not seeing him.

Rest in Peace, Colin - I'm thankful I met you

Yellow Faced Whip Snake

About a year ago, the Responsible Adult started to tell me stories of seeing pink snakes around the vege patch. All sorts of snakes visit the paddock - pythons, tree snakes, black, brown, tiger, whip - and they are all welcome. Perhaps not the browns and tigers so much but generally I can outrun them. Anyway, I had never seen a pink snake so my immediate reaction was to check the Cognac (The Responsible Adult and her girlfriend have been known to knock back a few) But the Cognac levels were OK so I have been waiting to see these pink snakes.

As the weather starts to warm, so does the libido of male snakes. So as I was around the vege patch the other day, two "pink" snakes did the horizontal limbo. 

Yellow Faced Whip Snake

 After playing a fair bit of kiss-chasey, our lovers settled down to the business of making baby snakes which allowed plenty of time for a few happy snaps to mark the occasion. Getting a really good photo allowed me to positively identify these crazy kids as a particular type of whip snake that we haven't had before. 

If you want to know more about these, go here:

 http://australianmuseum.net.au/Yellow-faced-Whip-Snake

Non Weeding

6 years ago - similar to the area I'm working now. See what it looks like today at the end of this blog.

I'm still weeding. 'Bravo, my Prince -what commitment!' you say. Well, while there is no doubt that Paddock workers will never, ever finish weeding forever, there are ways to greatly reduce the numbers of weeds. Weeding should only happen in areas where you want something else to grow. Otherwise, mow, pave or build a chook house in that area.

Really Rough Mulch - weeds

The great gardener Peter Cundall was once asked if grass clippings were OK to mulch plants. His reply was that any mulch is better than no mulch. 

Rough Mulch - mainly Bougainvillea

Mulch protects against weed regrowth while breaking down and feeding the soil around the plants you want to grow.  

Musical weeding

Always on the lookout for new tunes to pop onto the ipod. Sometimes it's nice to have people singing songs while weeding the paddock. So here's a couple you may like to try.

 Coco Rosie are two sisters who make lovely music and are sufficiently weird to appeal to both paddock workers and responsible adults. Try their song Lemonade here:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu3EcAHdHlE

Or perhaps you would like to check out some Swedish electronic sounds. Fever Ray (the cute Sheila on the left) is part of an electronic duo The Knife. Try them out here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBAzlNJonO8 

And after a hard day in the paddock, what could be better than that ancient Welsh knight, Sir Tom. His latest album is great. Check him out on the Graham Norton show here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ri8EugNgFxM 

Weeding Tools

Here's my handy weeding tools. I call them Wills and Harry. Wills is a sturdy Hoe, good for chipping out shallow rooted weeds. Harry is some sort of home made blunt instrument, good for whacking things hard.

Weeding Again

Just to prove that I do actually weed down in the paddock, I thought I might do a before and after shot. When I first cleaned up the edge of the dam a couple of years ago, there was nothing but weeds, so the whole lot came out. Then the volunteer sedge grasses started turning up. But, they are easily smothered and killed by weeds. So a couple of times a year I go down and pull out the weeds. The grasses are now expanding nicely.

T Lobsang Rampa

Wow! Finished stage one of the spring paddock weeding. Time to go and do some other fun projects like digging holes for a break. To keep me company, I decided to catch up on some podcasts. One of my subscriptions is the lovely BBC 'Play of the Week'

Marmalade

Part of my winter ritual is the annual making of the marmalade using the trusty wood stove. My method is pretty simple and has resulted in prize winning marmalades. First, cut up some fruit. We grow oranges, lemons, cumquart, grapefruit and of course there's Harry the hybrid.

Volunteers

Amazingly, plants can grow all by themselves without needing our help. You probably know this because mainly they are weeds which come up by the thousands in the paddock. But it ain't always weeds. In our part of the world, plants that you might like that come up all by themselves are called volunteers.

Shalimar the Clown

Weeding, weeding, weeding. Such fun - not. On the Ipod at the moment is 'Shalimar the Clown' by Salman Rushdie. I have read this twice and now am on my second listening. You may gather that I quite like it. In fact I think it is fab-o. 

A number of Indian authors base their work around partition and it is obvious from these works that partition was devastating at the time and remains an unresolved problem. 

Weeding Tools

Well there you go. Weren't expecting an Ipod, were you. It's late winter and the Prince has been weeding roughly 4 hours a day for the last 20 days. About 10 more days and it'll be done. Believe it or not, hand weeding can become rather boring and it is easy to drift off to some more interesting task. Having someone tell me a story while in the paddock, I can become absorbed and just keep working.

A lot of content is free. I subscribe to a number of podcasts through the Itunes store. Itunes automatically gets these for me when I start it up - all at no cost. Our library also lends audio books which you can listen to on your trusty Ipod. 

I bought the leather case that clips onto my belt at a market in Bowen. 

For boring jobs like weeding, you can't go past this most useful tool.

Rainbow Lorikeet

I was about to write a post on weeding - which has been going on for about 20 days - when this bloke turned up just outside the cubby house. Usually these parrots hang around in gangs or at least pairs, terrorising local flowering flowers and yelling at each other. Not sure why this one was on his own, but I hope he finds a nice lorikeet friend to hang around with.

Signs of Spring

One of our first signs of spring is the grapevine coming back to life. The grapevine is a wonderful plant to have in the paddock with only one problem. The grapevine is a bit like a James Bond villain - it wants to take over the world. Paddock workers need to tend to it on an almost daily basis cutting back new growth so the plant is forced to put its energy into growing fruit. Our grapevine has become shaded by surrounding plants in recent years so there is a plan (somewhere) to build a new arbor in a sunny spot. It just needs time, money and effort.

Sweet Potato Curry

Here's a couple of freshly dug up sweet potato's to make a quick vege curry. (In case you're wondering, only one has been peeled.) When dealing with home grown produce, it's easier to just follow your instincts rather than trying to follow a recipe with specific quantities. So I just cubed up the sweet potato's along with an old potato that was just laying around.