On the Beach

Another drive to visit a family member, this time one who lives by the beach. We took the dogs along, hoping to give them (and us) a walk on the sand. I was a bit worried by the amount of traffic as we got near the coast. A sunny weekend day possibly wasn't the best day to choose for this outing.

There were a few people around on the path to the beach:

But once we got down to the shore, there was plenty of space for social distancing:

The dogs even got a bit of a run off their leads:

A fun time was had by all.

The Garden in May

Yesterday was our first frost of the year, and this morning the temperature was -1. Winter is coming!

Here's what's still in flower on this lovely sunny autumn day.


Abutilons:

Viburnum tinus:

Red hot pokers:

Buddleia:

There are a few different varieties of salvia around the garden, and most are flowering profusely. But this one is only just beginning:

Photographed from underneath because the blooms are way over my head. It is Bethel sage, Salvia involucrata 'Bethelii'. It gets bigger every year, and is now over 2 metres high. It will get moved once it finishes flowering, as it is too close to the house to be this size.

Lavender:

Treasure flowers:

Penstemons:

Earlier this morning I watched a spinebill hovering and drinking nectar from this plant. Of course my camera wasn't handy at the time.

Our negative temperatures mean the end of the zinnias:

Not a good photo, but the leaves seem to have just disintegrated in the frost.

The ranunculus are getting in early for spring before winter has even started:

Hakea "Burrendong Beauty" was just buds last month, and has almost finished this month:

Yellow buttons, or common everlasting, Chrysocephalum apiculatum:

Correa:

Diggers speedwell:

These photos taken in the shade aren't great, but I'm just including them for my records of what flowers in May. This little pelargonium is flowering profusely:

The bergenia has started again:

The very last of the dahlias:

There are a few roses still coming, although a lot of them have had their flowers wrecked by the recent rain.

This flowering quince (Chaenomeles) thinks it is spring:

Japanese windflowers:

 And last but not least, inside the African violets are still going:

On the Road Again

From midnight last night, Victorians are now allowed to visit friends and family.

While we have been isolating, some family members sold their house, bought another one, and moved. (It was their chooks who came to stay with us while that move was happening.) So today we took the opportunity to go and see their new property, which is about 150km south-west of here.

It was lovely to see see the house and garden, and just visit! But I didn't think to take any photos until on the way home. So here is some of south-western Victoria:

Quite flat in places.

On the horizon you can see something here:

Zoomed in a bit, it is obviously an old volcano:

But we had to wait until we got home to confirm that it is Mount Noorat, a dormant, not extinct, volcano. Apparently there is a walking track around the crater, so that might be an activity for a future visit.

Blast Furnace

While we've been keeping isolated, taking the dogs for a walk has covered pretty much the same ground each day. This map of my iNaturalist observations over the last two months shows how limited our horizons have been:

At the top of the map you can see a blue marker where we drove up to the Falls about a month ago. Today I felt the need for different scenery again, and you can see the result on the right-hand side. A short drive lead to a few observations of plants and fungi here:

There were a couple of other people in the car park when we arrived, but they were just leaving. So we enjoyed an isolated walk around this historic area, the remains of an iron mining and smelting endeavour at Lal Lal from 1875 to 1884:

There is little left but some stonework, and this ruin of the blast furnace which operated from 1881 to 1884:

It turned out not to be economical to run; iron produced here was more expensive than imported iron. It is a fascinating bit of local history though. There is a Wikipedia article with lots more detail about it if you are interested: Lal Lal Iron Mine and Smelting Works.

Twenty Percent

This morning I made the last of the blocks for the third part of the Laundry Basket Quilts mystery from earlier this year:

The part three blocks were the same as the part two blocks, so I have been making this block for 16 days. I am looking forward to something different now; the fourth part is an Ohio Star block.

Here's what each corner of the quilt will look like so far:

It doesn't seem like much, but I have now made 20% of the blocks.

Observations

Just realised it is nearly a week since I did a blog post. What have I been doing?

Apart from my one quilt block a day, I've done little bits of this and that, but I really don't know where the time went.

One thing I have been doing is adding observations to iNaturalist. While wandering around our property, or taking the dogs out, I keep an eye out for little bits of nature to photograph and add to the site. Here are a few of this week's observations.

A skink sunning itself:

I now know it is a Pale-flecked Garden Sunskink, Lampropholis guichenoti.

An interesting bird battle seen while out walking:

Magpies chasing off a galah. I don't know what threat a galah might be to magpies, but they swooped it and chased it for quite some distance.

I didn't have to travel far to see this one:

A superb fairywren after a bath in my birdbath this morning.

Autumn is peak fungi time. I don't know much about them, and it is hard to get them identified, but someone at least identified the genus of this one for me as Laccaria:

As well as adding my own observations I find it interesting to explore observations from all different corners of the world, and to see if I can identify anything. (Usually only garden plants.)

Day Twelve

Each day I make one block of the Laundry Basket Quilts mystery which was run about a month ago. There are 100 blocks in all. Today I finished the second clue, meaning that I have 12% of the blocks made. Here is what each corner of the quilt will look like:

Stash report for the end of April:

Thread:
No spools emptied, none added.
Year to date - no change.

Dress fabric:
None used, 3m added.
Year to date - up 4.25m.

Quilt fabric:
1.4m used, none added
Year to date - down 5.7m.