Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Photo a Day 95 - Trees

Looking through my photos for a tree to feature, it dawned on my that this particular tree has featured a lot in my shots.  Not because it is a particularly lovely tree, but because it makes a nice frame for the sky on the boundary of our farm.

The tree is a Eucalyptus of unknown variety.


Spring day



Autumn fog


Evening

Yellow Sunset



Multi-coloured sunset



Brilliant sunset


Amazing how many different skies we get. No two are ever the same, but the tree is a constant.

Liz Needle  -  linking with "NF's Trees and Bushes"




Photo a Day 94 - last of Autumn

The last Autumn leaves are leaving the trees - and making a mess on the lawns. Just a few shots for Ruby Tuesday before we bid farewell to Autumn - my favourite season.


I spotted this lovely little tree in a local garden as I drove past. The sun was shining through the leaves and the colour as superb.



This one is from my garden - one of my several persimmon trees

Liz Needle  -  linking with "Ruby Tuesday".





Saturday, May 23, 2015

Photo a Day 93 - The Dance




This week's theme of Boys, Gilrs and dances left me at a bit of a loss.  My sepia collection doesn't contain any old "dance" photos, because my mother, coming from a strict German Lutheran family was not allowed to attend dances as a girl. Dancing was considered to be against the beliefs of the church!

Of course as soon as she finished her teacher training and moved away from home, all that stuff went by the by and as a pretty, single female teacher in a country town, she made up for the strictness of her upbringing. But, that's another story.

But the theme did bring to mind my own girlhood and the dances and balls I was able to attend. The first introduction to the attractions of the country dance was often the "Deb Ball" or the "Junior Deb Ball".




Then would come the Country Dances or the Church Dances held monthly - usually each town would hold a monthly dance so there was always a dance to go to somewhere each week.  I remember the best thing about country dances was the amazing supper that the local ladies would put on.

I remember going to church dances with my friends - no one actually went with a boy!  Dolled up to the nines, the girls would seat themselves on one side of the hall and the boys on the other, eying off the opportunities. And how very spruced up the boys looked in their suits and ties and short back and sides haircuts.



If a girl was lucky, she might actually get to dance with a boy, but more often than not she spent her time with a girlfriend, talking about the boys she fancied and hoping that "he " would notice her.




while the boys got on with the more important side of the dance


Occasionally one of the girls would get lucky and meet the boy she would eventually marry.



Simple fun times and lovely memories to look back on.


Liz Needle  -  linking with "Sepia Saturday".



Photo a Day 92 - Critters

Today I am featuring my two favourite critters. "Ollie" my Jack Russell and "Alfie" a Jack Russell X Chihuahua X every stray dog in Lenswood!!


Alfie is looking extremely well groomed here. He has just been clipped. He is normally a scruff.



Ollie is a 6 year old pure bred jack Russell. We got him when he was 4 months old. His previous owners sold him on because he was driving their Rottweiler mad. He rode home on my lap and ever since then I have belonged to him. He likes the rest of the family, but I am his!!! He is handsome, super intelligent, moody, sulky, at times aggressive, takes offence easily, jealous, obsessive  but loyal and loving.





Alfie is the product of a rough hair Jack Russell father and a Chihuahu X Jack Russell mother (we suspect that his father is also the father of his mother! Incest in Lenswood!!).

He is two years old, funny, endearing, loving, cuddly, cute, sweet natured, greedy, omnivorous(and that includes socks, sticks, dish cloths, pper etc) and extremely lacking in intelligence.  But hey, who need brains when you have everyone completely wrapped around your little finger.





And he was the cutest puppy.




Liz Needle  -  linking with "Saturday Critters" and  "Camera Critters".

Photo a Day 91 - Today's Flowers

Not a lot flowering in the garden at the moment apart from camellias, but there are a few flowering plants  still hanging on. I have several varieties of Osteospermum, but this one is my favourite.

Osteospermum is more commonly called African Daisy and hailed originally from South Africa. Today most of the varieties are hybrids as is this one below. They are semi hardy perennials though often treated purely as annuals. I have plants in my garden that have survived several winters and others that have died out at the first sign of cold. However they propogate easily and often self propogate. Probably the one most people are familiar with is the white variety with blue/purple centre. 






This darker one makes a stunning show in full flower.













Liz Needle  -  Linking with "Today's Flowers".





Friday, May 22, 2015

Photo a Day 90 - Green flowers

Just felt a little guilty when I typed the title for this post. My Photo a Day has fallen well behind. Good intentions and all that. I really must try a little harder.

A week or so back I posted some shots of my pretty pink windflowers. Now the petals have fallen and I am left with a sea of green seed pods, but they suit Friday Greens" so here they are.







Then this half opened banksia caught my eye and I couldn't choose which one to use - so I have posted them both for "Floral Friday Fotos" as well.





Liz Needle  -  linking with  "Friday Greens" and "Floral Friday Fotos"






Thursday, May 21, 2015

Photo a Day 89 - Fences

Oh dear, slipped again. Haven't posted for quite a while. No excuse except it's so cold amd miserable that I've been curled up by the fire except when I'm working at school.  Time to catch up. At the moment I am sitting in front of my computer wrapped in a rug while the rest of the family is sitting in front of a cosy wood fire in the lounge.  I am freezing!

Foggy morning the other day and I woke up at dawn and couldn't get back to sleep.  So I rugged up and took my cmera for a walk arounf the garden. I love being out in the garden in the fog.

This shot of the front paddock with the pines in the background looked just right for Tex's "Good Fences" and for "NFs Trees and Bushes





There's a tiny bit of fence in this shot of the dam which is slowly beginning to get a bit of runoff.


And no fence near this Eucalyptus, but I love this old tree. It's slowly losing branches and dying back, but it is pretty ancient and really struggled  before we turned the cow paddock into a garden 40 years ago.


I think this tree merits an entry in NFs Trees and Bushes meme.

Liz Needle  -  linking with "Good Fences"






Sunday, May 03, 2015

Photo a Day 88 - Reflection



I didn't realise when I took this shot that I had captured a reflection - I thought I was taking a duck. However it turned out quite nicely and it seems to suit this meme. I rather like the colour combination here.





Liz Needle  -  linking with "Weekend Reflections".




















Saturday, May 02, 2015

Photo a Day 87 - Green Friday



Our autumn rains have arrived and very quickly everything has turned from dusty brown to sparkling green.

Here is my favourite colour combination again - white and green.





I always have a mental blank about the name of this delightful bulb. It will come to me in the middle of the night. I can't even find it in my gardening boks. Hopefully someone out there in blog land will be able to remind me.

Liz Needle  -  linking with  "Friday Greens"







Photo a Day 86 - Fridays Flowers


The autumn leaves are barely hanging on and soon the trees will look bare and skeletal. I guess we are lucky in Australia that most of our native vegetatian is evergreen, so there is always something vibrant and living in the garden.

At the moment the camellias are just beginning to flower. They are such rewarding shrubs and so hardy up here in the cool climate of our hills. I remember as a child my spinster great-aunts had two camellias growing in their city garden and they were regarded as garden treasures. Their brother (my grandfather) was a horticulturalist and nurseryman and he planted and nurtured them.  I am going back 70 years before all the modern hybrids were available and the camellias were very intolerant of the Adelaide summers. Now they are everywhere. The tanten (aunts) would always give my mother a bunch of camellias as thanks for visiting them.

Here are some of the varieties growing in my garden.


























Such a variety of form and colour. I just love them.



Liz Needle  -  linking with  "Floral Friday Fotos"  and "Todays Flowers".