Icy

The forecast low temperature for last night was 1 degree, but it actually dropped a little lower than that. Here's the weather station when I woke up:

 Minus 3! Winter has arrived one day early.

Yesterday I was excited about a touch of frost. But today the bird bath froze solid:

The washing I had left out on the line froze solid:

And I was concerned to see how the garden fared. Other gardeners have told me they lost lots of plants in their first year in this part of the world, as they learned what could and could not cope with the cold.

My poor luculia is looking very sad:

I knew it needed to be protected from frost, but I wasn't expecting such cold temperatures last night. I've now moved it under the verandah, and hope that it will recover.

Geranium flowers don't do well in frost:

Although the leaves look OK so far.

Lewisii flowers turned to mush:

But the plants look like they are OK. I can't say the same for the larger succulent in the centre of that planter:

It had flowers forming, but the whole plant looks a bit cooked now.

The dahlias also look cooked:

But the tubers should be OK and re-sprout in spring.

I hope the TreeProject seedlings will all be OK:

Brr!

For the first time, the temperature dropped to zero degrees overnight.

A touch of ice on the remaining pile of logs, before the sun hit it.

More Toadstools

Over a month ago toadstools appeared under some nearby oak trees. They were probably Amanita muscaria, the fly agaric. But now, just around the corner from the oak trees, a new crop of toadstools has emerged under some pines:

They look like the same species, but if so, why didn't they come up at the same time? They are about 100 metres apart, so everything in the environment is the same except the species of tree they are growing on. Why might that make them fruit nearly six weeks later?

Waverley Quilt Show

It was a bit of a trek from here, but well worth the journey

to the Waverley Patchworkers quilt show. Due to work happening somewhere on the line, trains are being replaced with buses on the Ballarat line this weekend. That meant free travel for the whole trip, including the suburban trains:

That was a nice bonus!

The quilt show was up to Waverley's usual high standard. Lots of quilts, lots of variety, and all arranged thoughtfully. (Well done, Jeanette!) I didn't take many pictures of the quilts, and I'm not sure if is OK to show the ones I did. But the award winners can be seen on Waverley's blog here, for a taste of the more amazing of the quilts on display.

The challenge theme was "Carnival", and the tables in the cafe were decorated appropriately:

I ran into several people I haven't seen for a while, which was an extra joy.  So it was a wonderful day all round.

And now photos of the viewers' choice winners are on Waverley's blog here.

Concrete

I was out for a lot of the day, but this is what I came home to:

Cement poured and smoothed on one side of the garden.

And on the other side:

Pour just starting.

Unfortunately one of the pavers that people noticed in my last post didn't survive being run over by a cement mixer:

Builders Are Back

Our friendly builder, Dan, and Ben the apprentice, are here

preparing the foundations of the garden wall:

Geelong Quilt-In

Spent the day with quilting friends at the Geelong guild's annual Quilt-In. The entertaining guest speaker was Irene Blanck, who also showed lots of her quilts. One of her messages was to make quilts you love, and not "give a rat's" what other people think.

I compared binding tools:

Won a door prize:

The purple coaster was one of the gifts given to everyone who attended. The rest of the goodies were my door prize. That makes two door prizes out of three attendances. Not bad!

And I stitched down about two thirds of this binding: