Reddening

A hint of autumn as some leaves on my Japanese maple begin to turn red:

But there is lots of red elsewhere in the garden.

Rose "Mr Lincoln" looking a bit heat-scorched:

Lovely red geranium:

(That's from the cutting you gave me, Jenni.)

Paintbrush lily, Haemanthus coccineus:

Propeller plant, Crassula falcata:

Red valerian, Centranthus ruber:

with bonus butterfly.

Homegrown tomatoes:

And finally, this week's temperature rosette:

The first time in four weeks that we have had two red days in a week. Here's the top temperature (C) for each day of week 41:

9/03/2018    31.1    red
8/03/2018    30.2    red
7/03/2018    29.1    orange
6/03/2018    22.5    yellow
5/03/2018    17.2    green
4/03/2018    20.5    yellow
3/03/2018    29.7    orange

Lined to Sarah's weekly Weather Report. 

Blurry Caterpillars

A few weeks back, Jeanette posted pictures of caterpillars I'd never seen before, living on her lemon tree.

So this week when we found large numbers of the same caterpillars on our citrus trees, I knew what they were:

 Not just little ones, there are also medium-sized ones,

 and quite large ones.

So there are multiple different instars, which implies multiple batches of eggs have hatched and developed. Without us noticing at all!

They will become dainty swallowtail butterflies (Papilio anactus) which are rather beautiful. But I haven't noticed them around here, and wonder how they found our citrus trees? And how far do they travel?

Sorry the pictures are blurry. I've had a bad day. I broke a tooth last night. This morning I found a dentist who could see me today, but when I was on my way to the appointment they rang me about my "missed appointment". Somehow either I got the time wrong, (despite repeating the appointment time back to them as confirmation when I made the booking), or they noted it incorrectly in their system. Either way, we had a failure to communicate, and I missed the appointment. Fortunately they had another time available tomorrow morning, so I will try again.

A Bit Close

This afternoon the emergency alert sounded on my phone. I couldn't believe it when it said there was a fire only a couple of kilometres away. That's a bit close!

When I first looked at the Emergency website, I think there were 3 vehicles responding, but it didn't take long for the number to grow:

In the screen shot above you can see that six vehicles were responding 14 minutes after the initial alert. Below, 11 vehicles only six minutes after that:

Meanwhile I was checking the wind radar to see how likely the fire was to move in our direction, and wondering if I needed to grab everything and leave. But there was almost no wind, so it seemed safe to stay at home for a while and keep an eye on it.

Graeme was actually driving near the site of the fire, so he stopped and captured this shot of a helicopter dumping water on the fire:

At about the time he took that picture the fire status changed to "Under Control" on the Emergency website, and then a couple of minutes later again it changed to "Safe". So the whole incident was over in only about 30 minutes. But in that time it had burnt out 2 or 3 paddocks; those in houses close by were very lucky there was no wind. Everything is incredibly dry at the moment. We need some decent rain, but there is none forecast in the next week, just hot dry days.

Slow Stitching

First part of the second border of my Rajah Revisited quilt:

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...