June Happenings

Catching up with the second half of June (so far).

We were lucky that the monthly trip with the Field Naturalists Club, which is normally at the beginning of the month, was postponed due to dreadful weather. By the time it was rescheduled we were out of Covid isolation, so could attend.

Highlights of the day included a swan on its nest:

It could be the male or the female, they both incubate their eggs.

A wombat burrow:

We were in the Wombat State Forest, so it was nice to see evidence of wombats, even if we didn't see the actual animals. You can get an idea of the size of the burrow if you notice the field naturalists at the top left of the photo.

Slime moulds!

We saw several different coloured slime moulds. I was pretty excited by that, as I have never seen one before.

This cutie is an Eastern Yellow Robin (Eopsaltria australis):

The main focus of the outing was fungi, and we did see many many different species of them. I'll spare you the photos, though.
 

At home this is happening:

Who knew we needed more shed space?

I finished the Scrappy Mountain Majesties quilt with a blue-grey binding:

It is nice to cross something off my list. Then I took it to the guild's Sit and Sew day on Saturday, but the person who collects the donation quilts was away so it came home with me again. It was my first Sit and Sew day for a long long time. I wore a mask the whole time but no-one else did. We made little hexie rosettes as a gift for a member whose husband has just died. Here's mine:

I may do a couple more before they are collected next month.

My other sewing for the month has been blue bits for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I have not been very productive so far:

Given that I made one of these last year, this is not impressive. I do have the parts for two more hearts nearly ready. I have some squares and triangles prepared for the Scrappy Sprouts blocks, but haven't sewn any of them at all yet. There are a few more days left this month... next month is going to be purple, but I may be sewing blue as well to catch up.

I don't know what Blogger are doing with the comments process. It is frustrating when they keep changing things (seemingly for the worse) without warning or explanation. Some people's blogs still have the normal comment box, and I can easily comment on them. Others have a new process where there are 3 choices, Anonymous, Google Account, or Name/URL. I can comment on those by the Name/URL option. But some blogs have only Google Account as the method, and for those I cannot make it work. Unfortunately mine seems to be in this third category. I cannot comment on my own blog! I am logged in to my google account for my email, my calendar, and for blogger itself. But I just get an error message: "Unable to sign in to comment. Please check your browser configurations to allow sign-in."

If you are also unable to comment on my blog, I am sorry! I don't know if there is anything I can do to solve this, but I will look into it.

Quilted Mountains

In July last year I made a Scrappy Mountain Majesties top. In November I sandwiched it ready for quilting, which I was hoping to get done by the end of the year. In fact I didn't start quilting it until February this year, when I only did a little bit and then stopped. The quilt has been sitting waiting for me until this week. But here it is, quilted:

Finally!

The first idea I had for quilting it just didn't work, so there was some unpicking, then a lot of waiting for inspiration. A few days ago I had an idea, and it really didn't take long once I got going. Close-up of the quilting:

The colours look a bit strange because the sun was behind it and the printed design on the sheet I used for backing was showing through:

Let's see if I can get the binding done before it is 12 months since I started making the blocks...

(In case you aren't familiar with the pattern, it is from Bonnie Hunter's Free Patterns page.)

The Garden in June

I was a day late taking my garden photos this month, and that was a shame because yesterday morning the tree dahlias looked great, but today:

Sadly battered by strong winds that broke many of the stems:

But at least that as the only damage. Down the road an enormous tree came down, and by what I could see as I drove past today it must have been right across the road.

Yes, today I got in the car and drove! I was a bit worried I might have forgotten how after 2 weeks, but it all came back to me :-)

First open zygocactus flower:

Several of the other plants are budding up as well.

Hebe flowers:

Rather wet cyclamen:

Wet bergenia:

Very wet hellebore "Cinnamon Snow":

Crassula succulent covered in flowers:

Leafless wattle, Acacia aphylla:

I can't find any previous mention of it on my blog, but perhaps I posted a photo without naming it? As you can see it has a few bedraggled flowers, but lots of buds to come.

The little white-flowered correa "Gwen" that we bought in Melton last month is flowering like mad:

Here's one of the larger, more established correas, that the rosellas haven't stripped all the flowers off (yet?):

This euryops daisy has been having a break for a couple of months, but it is starting to flower again:

And this little daisy bush has jut one flower at the moment:

But there are buds.

Baby salvia:

Lavender:

The various larger salvias have just about finished:

Thryptomene:

A white camellia:

Viburnum tinus:

Phygelius aequalis "Yellow trumpet":

At this point it started raining heavily, so I retreated inside. I missed the fuchsia and the bethel sage, the abutilons, gazanias and maybe one or two others. 

Not too bad for the first month of winter, as we approach the shortest day.

Out of Iso

Last Sunday at 3:38am I was sent a very long text message about what I had to do having tested positive to covid. Part of it said "You can leave isolation on 11/06/2022." So I suppose now I'm free to go.

(Beautiful cyclamen gift from my neighbour the day before I got sick).

Each day (including today) I have been sent a link to a reporting tool to record my symptoms, including blood oxygen levels. (The same neighbour kindly collected the oxygen meter from the health service in Ballarat for me). For the first few days someone from the local health service rang to talk to me about how I was going, but they haven't bothered since Wednesday. I suppose by then they knew I wasn't sick enough for them to be concerned.

For a day or two during the week I couldn't taste anything, and for a day I could hardly stand up or walk because my balance was was all screwed up. The well-known symptoms of runny nose, cough, sore throat and tiredness gradually lessened during the week, and now I feel just about back to normal.

Sometime during the week a large chunk of a tree fell down on our block:

But we only noticed it yesterday.

One of my zygocactuses almost has a flower:

These used to flower for my birthday in the city, but they are a couple of weeks or so later in the colder climate here.

I don't know if a rapid test will still show up as positive. I will have to try one at home before going to visit my mother. Don't want to drive all that way only to find out that they won't let me in.

This afternoon I made a couple of test blocks for Preeti's 2022 Positivity Quilt-Along. Block tutorial here.

I will probably make enough for a small quilt to donate here. But I was also interested in the block because of something that has been in the back of my mind for a while, that I mentioned when I took a trip to Amitié 4 years ago.

Positive

Every day our state government releases the daily covid data. The figures don't get as much attention now as they did in the the early days of the pandemic, even though the rates of infection and numbers of deaths are much higher now than they were then. Here is today's release:

Sadly I am one of those 7,077 new cases. I had a PCR test yesterday, and at 3 o'clock this morning I was notified by text message that the result was positive.