Western Australian bush

Time is flying by here in Western Australia.  As always, it is a joy to come home to the farm and the region where I grew up.  Besides spending lovely time with Mum and helping her with various chores, I've been bush walking with my brother.  We spent a number of hours on Sunday walking through bushland adjacent to the farm to look for more orchids.  As earlier in the year it was extremely dry, the orchids are few and far between and combined with it being a bit early for the peak flowering season, we didn't see as many as we were hoping to.

Here are a few photos of what we did find and also some other lovely (to me anyway) bush scenes.

A little patch of Donkey orchids.

Possibly a Candy orchid.

A lousy photo of an orchid yet to be identified.

Clown orchid.

Typical bush land where the orchids are found.

Green Spider orchid.

  

A Snail orchid.

A Quongdong shrub in fruit.

 Information on the Quongdong can be found here.

I'm hoping to go for another exploratory walk on Friday to see what else I can find.  I have more photos to share but will wait until I get back to Melbourne where I can use my normal laptop and the process of blogging is easier.

Anne  xx

Just off the road

Today Mum and I went to a local town to shop for groceries and had a little nosh up at the local cafe.  We had our healthy stuff followed by the unhealthy stuff, profiteroles. YUM.

Looking just a bit too satisfied I think.  All photos taken on my phone.

When we were not too far from home we stopped to look at some Wattle growing along side the road.  Just opposite the farm is a patch of virgin bush which often has wild flowers growing in spring. 

 

 We also saw this flowering prickly plant which I haven't identified.  It was the bright red colour that caught my eye from a distance, the tubular flowers are quite lovely.

Further along I also spied some Donkey Orchids.  These photos aren't particularly good but I'll be going back for a walk soon with my camera to get some better shots.

These pretty blue flowers were growing on the road edge.

I'm hoping my bush walking/exploring might give me an opportunity to take some nice photos of the flora in the area.  I'm certainly enjoying the sights and sounds of rural Western Australia again. There is a full moon tonight and the magpies have been singing their little hearts out.  Just beautiful.

Anne  xx

Nature journaling

I though I'd try my hand at a few pages of journaling about nature.  I used found images, commercially made stamps, home made stamps, sketching from found images and lettering.

The home made stamp images are in the top middle and right hand side of the page.

 This Sunday I leave Melbourne for a two week visit to see my lovely mum in Western Australia.  I will hopefully have some nice country images to share with you.

Anne  xx

A little baking, animal watching and creativity

I love it when I find a super easy recipe that's delicious.  I made this Easy Lemon Slice yesterday and it's delicious with a cuppa.  The recipe can be found here.  I would add a little more lemon juice to the icing as it's quite stiff.

 

I came across this DVD in the local library "The Ocean's Supermum", a natural history documentary about the Australian sea lion.  It was beautiful and I can tell you, sea lion pups are incredibly cute.

In rather disheartening news, our protest about the McDonalds

development in Tecoma appears to have failed.  During the past week about 50 police were deployed one morning at 4a.m. to secure the site and stop any protesters entering.  The police presence was in addition to security working on behalf of McDonalds.  There is nothing more distressing and intimidating than to see police dressed in semi riot gear.  For goodness sake, what were they expecting.  We are a peaceful community protesting a development by a multinational foreign corporation taking over our beautiful part of the world.   Buildings standing in the way of the development have since been demolished. 

On going for my daily walk with Sophie I discoverd the footpath I usually walk on along Burwood highway was/is closed to pedestrians.  Police and security staff were positioned along the footpath and I was told it was closed for safety reasons.  I think not.  If it was that dangerous, nobody would have been standing there at all, more rigid barriers would have been put in place rather than the thin timber fencing that is currently in use.  To continue my usual route I had to cross two roads with pedestrian lights which is safe.  I then had to walk on the other side of Burwood highway and cross over this busy road without the safety of pedestrian lights.  I was assured by the security guard I would be assisted across the road by the police but no such help was forth coming.  High school and primary school students use this footpath as a safe way to walk home.  I saw today that the footpath has now been totally closed off and boarded over.

We feel totally gutted as a community, we feel sick and disappointed that the only voice that is heard anymore is the one that has the money.  We feel betrayed, bullied and intimidated, our faith in democracy challenged.  Thank you to each and everyone of you who has taken an interest in this story and supported our cause.  Thank you for helping shout out loud that we don't like or agree with what is/has been done.

In bid to calm my distress after my walk, I decided a little creativity was in order.  Over the past year or so I've been collecting free postcards from the local library which advertise all manner of things from cultural performance, education, awareness of social issues and the work of artists.  I based these collage pages loosely on colour themes.

I intend hanging these in a new creative space coming soon to our backyard.  :)

In other creative endeavors, I've entered the world of journaling, a totally new way of creative expression for me and I love it.  There are no rules, even better.  I've started by cutting out images from magazines and going from there.  The brain storming that was going on while doing this was so much fun.  Here are two pages I've completed, I think.

The two pages look better seen together.  I know these first two are quite basic but as I learn more about this genre and learn new techniques, I'm sure they will become more interesting.

The pages currently being worked on.

 

 This is my preferred page so far.  I've lots more work to do on these two pages incorporating stamped and hand drawn images.  I used light water colour washes on the pages before adding other elements.  The flowers in the vase above are an image from a magazine and I've used a black fine line pen to highlight different areas.  It's always a big risk to put your artwork out there.  I hope I haven't bored you all to tears.

 Melbourne is currently experiencing it's worst winters day this year with rain and lots of it, cold and extreme wind, the type that turns you umbrella inside out.  Wishing you all a lovely weekend and better weather than what we are having today.

Anne  xx

Winter flowers and backyard activities

There are many lovely hellebores flowering in the garden but they don't take to kindly to being put in a vase so I decided to float some in a glass bowl instead

Lovely camellias in flower.

Welcome colour inside.

Back yard preparations continue for our new project.  We had to dig out some soil to level the site and I assisted by raking.

While we were digging and raking we discovered many earthworms in the soil, always an encouraging sign.  Someone else in the neighbourhood, a beautiful kookaburra took a great interest and came down to investigate.  Hubby feeding him an earthworm.

 He didn't mind a stroke either.

Flying down for another earthworm.

 Such a gorgeous face.

 He didn't mind me stroking him either.  Such a wonderful treat and special moment on a Saturday afternoon getting up close and personal to one of Australia's iconic birds.

Anne  xx