Dry

The weather bureau is predicting that we won't get any decent rain for another 6 weeks, which is a bit depressing as everything is so dry. It is hard to keep the garden going, but the danger from fires is increasing as everything dries out. The fire last Wednesday was apparently started by someone using an angle-grinder. Who knows what started this one?

Fire on Mt Buninyong, which was out of control for over an hour.

The mountain is about 12kms from here, and can't be seen from our place. But I went up the hill to the next-door neighbours' house to see what they could see:

Smoke on the mountain.

No-one would be using an angle-grinder on a walking track through a forest on a Sunday afternoon. Maybe a cigarette butt?


No fires here today:

After a week of firing to dry it out, the pizza oven today got its final coats of paint.

Two Hours, Two Minutes

In a couple of hours at a sit and sew today I got this quilt basted:

Carolina Chain, designed by Bonnie Hunter. It has been a top since late August last year, but a few other projects took my attention since then. I tried to get it basted at a previous sit and sew but there wasn't room that day. So it is good to have it done - now I just have to decide how to quilt it!

In contrast to 2 hours I spent doing that, here's something that only took 2 minutes.
Into the pizza oven at 5:17:

In the oven at 5:18:

Finished at 5:19:

First pizza from the pizza oven! We now of course need some proper pizza oven tools, for getting pizzas into and out of the oven.

First Firing

First of seven days of fires to completely dry out the oven and all the coats of render before the final finishing touches can be added.

Oranges and Lemons

The base of the pizza oven now has a coat of render:

It's getting closer to completion every day.

And so is this:

Forty weeks of my year quilt! The bottom row is only pinned in place, as I haven't finished appliquéing week 40:

This week's temperatures were a mix of orange and yellow:
2/03/2018      24.4    yellow
1/03/2018      22.3    yellow
28/02/2018    25.8    orange
27/02/2018    29.9    orange
26/02/2018    24.9    yellow
25/02/2018    15.9    green
24/02/2018    26.6    orange

So here are a few spots of orange and yellow  from the garden. First is Echevaria "Doris Taylor":

A nasturtium in one of my hanging baskets:

Paper daisy:

 and a Knifophia - red hot poker, although this one is more of a yellow-and-orange poker:

The spinebill I posted about yesterday loves the knifophia flowers as well. Wattlebirds also enjoy them.

Linked to Sarah's Weekly Weather Report where you can see several temperature year quilts in progress.

Spinebill

This morning a small bird breakfasted on salvia nectar:

It is an eastern spinebill, (Acanthorhynchus tenuirostris). I think it is a female.

 She was much better behaved than the crimson rosellas who found this salvia two years ago,

sipping the nectar, while leaving the flowers intact so she can visit them again every day. It is really nice to be able to watch native birds in the garden just outside the window.

A larger white flower elsewhere in the garden:

Waterlily.

This evening the pizza oven got its last coat of render:

 Or maybe not! Apparently there is enough stuff left for one more coat...

New Shed

This happened this morning:

It's the beginning of a shed for all the tractor bits. I wasn't very complimentary about it. The word "eyesore" may have been uttered. I hadn't realised it would be so tall. But apparently it has to be so that the tractor can fit into it to collect its attachments. Once it is finished it will probably look better than having tractor attachments spread all around.

And in case you think it's been forgotten:

The pizza oven got another coat of render tonight.

Not Much

Nothing much has been happening around here - but here is a lovely gladdie stem I brought inside to save from the hot wind:

Here is the pizza oven with its second coat of render. I missed the first coat because I was out yesterday.

There are a couple more coats to go, and some more tiles to go round the edges.

Outside and Inside

The pizza oven is now wrapped in a couple of layers of ceramic fibre blanket, held in place with chicken wire:

There will be render over the top of that, once the tiling is done.

Meanwhile inside I did some quilting practice:

More visible from the back:

Trying out a meander for the background - it's not something I've done before. Inside the squares will be something else. I needed to make a quilt or two for the guild's "Quilts of Love" program, so this panel I found on sale was the perfect solution. The panel made two tops, and the backing is left-over from one of my recent finishes.

Pink and White Naked Ladies

My pink belladonna lilies (Amaryllis belladonna) are starting to flower:

These came from the old garden in the city. Last year we bought three white bulbs, but they only grew leaves, no flowers. A couple of weeks ago we took them out of the pot they were in, and planted them in a new garden bed. And they must be happy there:

Flowers from two of the bulbs. Pretty! I think I like the white ones even more than the pinks. They might form more of a clump next year; I noticed as I transplanted them that the original three bulbs are now at least four.

And meanwhile at the pizza oven:

The flue piece is now in place above and behind the door arch. And the hole in the top of the dome (which I originally thought was for the flue) and the joints between the dome sections have been filled with a "refractory castable".

Door Arch

This is inside the pizza oven:

It is a car jack holding up a disk covering the hole in the top, so that when that hole is filled with concrete, it stays where it is meant to. I originally thought the flue went through that hole, but it doesn't.

The jack went in yesterday, but this is what happened today:

The laying of the bricks which form the arch around the door. The black piece in the middle is part of the kit - it supports the arch as you assemble it, and holds the bricks in place while the mortar sets. Very clever!

Dome

These pre-cast pieces become the body of the pizza oven:

They've been sitting outside for a couple of weeks, waiting for today.

However hiding in the garage are many other components I wasn't aware of, such as these fire bricks for the floor of the oven:

They appeared yesterday.

Today's job started with some heavy lifting:

It's that tractor being useful again!

Then a bit of mortar:

And the first section is up:

Then the other pieces are added one by one:

Which sounds easy enough, but is not fun when being constantly harassed by march flies. Thus this photo was taken from inside, behind the screen door. My role in the process was to help position each piece, then run inside squealing like a girl until the next piece was ready to go.

The last bit's the trickiest.

 We won't go into why there was a 90 minute gap between this photo and the next one.

Eventually all was good, and with a bit of a clean-up,

It looked like a pizza oven!

But no pizza yet, there is still a long way to go.

Slab

The first bit of concrete for the pizza oven base:

Smoothing it off an hour and forty minutes later:

Formwork

Preparation for the concrete slab the oven will sit on.

Pizza Oven Progress

Block-work:

Noisy petrol-driven cement mixer borrowed from neighbour:

Mixes everything up very quickly:

Still a bit of manual handling needed - pouring the mix into the block-work:

Binding And Concrete

I've finally finished quilting the mystery quilt, and it is binding time. I can never remember how wide I should cut the binding, but after asking for advice online, and doing a bit of a test, I'm recording it here that for this quilt I have cut the binding at 6cm.

And here is just over 6m of binding, joined, pressed, and wrapped around a small cutting board to keep it neat:

I gave myself an extra headache by using a stripy fabric. That meant the joins had to be sewn carefully so that the stripe matched. Several seams had to be sewn more than once!

To avoid the problems I've had sewing binding on straight in the past, I took the machine out of its cabinet and placed it on my cutting table. That gave me a much larger surface to support the quilt, although it did mean that I had to sew standing up.

But it did give me a much straighter seam, so I will do this again in future.

While I was sewing, outside this was happening:

A cement truck. And men doing manly things with concrete.

Apparently we need a pizza oven.