tickled

I haven't had the best of weeks/months/years, but every so often I come across something that tickles me despite all the heartache. And this is the one for today ...

Cookie!

It's a long time since I've watched Sesame Street, but for some reason I just love Cookie Monster. Perhaps it's the way he valiantly tries to overcome his cravings, only to succumb in a massive binge of pure pleasure.

I can't stand Big Bird or Elmo, but I do like the Bert and Ernie double act. Particularly love how annoyed OCD-Bert gets with Ernie when Ernie is bored and being painful. Reminds me of my family :)

warning: this is a bit gross

Ok, so maybe a LOT gross. Sorry about that (but you can click on the photos if you'd like to see a bit more detail).

We noticed that the lemon tree was attracting flies for some reason (the husband thinks they're attracted to yellow). There seem to be an awful lot of them this year - we've had alternating wet and warm weather, which probably has a lot to do with it.

There are a few types of flies, including big blowflies (erghhhh), and it's quite close to the front door, so not particularly desirable. We didn't want to use sprays, so we bought a few of these flycatchers from the hardware megastore. And do they work or what! This was about two days worth of flies!

I'm not exactly relishing the task, but I'm going to have to empty the traps out and re-set them with more of the liquid attractant soon (we've also put traps in the pear and apple trees). Or go with the husband's idea and just toss the whole thing and put up a new trap ... tempting ...

the key

The key to yesterday's photos, that is, just in case you wanted to know (left to right, top to bottom) ...

1. Red rose (duh!) - the roses are horribly neglected and just magnificent, again :) I just love them - treat them badly and they love you just the same.
2. Silverbeet in the wicking beds. The snails and aphids and other assorted creatures decimated everything else, but apparently no-one likes the silverbeet much. Including the family. I will have to find a way to disguise it, because if it's the only thing to survive, they're bloody well going to eat it!
3. Tomato plants in the hydroponic cabinet that the husband swapped someone something for. I suspect it was used to grow something herbal in a previous life, but it's now doing a good job of getting the tomatoes started indoors while there's still a risk of frost. They're getting a semi-hydroponic treatment - they're still in their pots with soil, but they're getting the light and heat and hydroponic nutrients, and they're loving it.
4. Yellow banksia rose - there are actually three banksia roses tangled up together - yellow, white and pink, and they became so heavy that they bent the star picket supports that were holding them up. They make great subjects for therapeutic pruning.
5. The 'front' lawn/play area. Technically this is our front yard. We're in a battleaxe block, so our front faces out onto a path rather than a road, but we don't have an open front yard that we need to keep pretty for passers-by, and that isn't much good for anything else. The kids have a cubby house, a swingset and a climbing frame here, and room to run around like maniacs. When we eventually get around to levelling it, the trampoline will probably come round here too. The green mass on the right hand side is the collapsed banksia roses. We'll cut it back and put up something stronger to hold it up again ... some time ...
6. Teensy pears, just forming. Not much sign of the pear and cherry slug yet - must remember to look up what to do about them.
7. Orchids from the MIL's greenhouse :)
8. Baby tomatoes (see #3). The husband hand pollinated them with an electric toothbrush (don't ask!).
9. Fuzzy little peaches (I think). Birds and bugs generally get to them before us, but I figure we'll eventually get something.
10. Pittosporum flower cluster. Click on this one to enlarge. Pittosporums aren't my favourite plant. There are loads of them flowering around Canberra at the moment, and we have a pittosporum hedge, but I'd never looked very closely at them before. Just beautiful!
11. Part of the 'orchard' - front to back: peach, apple, pear, pile of rubbish. At least the rubbish pile is diminishing. Hopefully this is where I will eventually have a chook run, so they get shade from the fruit trees, and they can have the fallen fruit and associated grubs and insects.
12. Olive tree - there are now three or four in various places around the yard, but this is the oldest. 
13. May bush, and the remains of the hyacinths.
14. Pink banksia rose.
15. Double delight rose - one of my favourites.
16. Another rose - no idea what this one is.
17. Buds on the banksia roses - just masses of them (click to enlarge - they're just beautiful, even at this stage). I love the potential of the garden at this time of year :)
18. Citrus lineup - a lemon tree in the ground, and the pots have a cumquat, a lemonade, and another citrus I can't recall.
19. Apricot. Again, we've never had fruit from it before the critters attacked, but it's growing rapidly. If you enlarge the picture, you can see the roofline of the preschool behind us - it's purple! Love it!
20. White banksia rose.
21. Artichoke - it dies right back over winter, and then seems to spring back all of sudden. 
22. Bush rose - there are a few of these. They flower for a long time, starting off a bright yellow/orange, and fading to a pinky-red.
23. Baby apples starting to form.
24. Another double-delight rose, in full bloom.
25. Forget-me-nots.
    

wander through the wild backyard

still alive!

We've had rain, we've had sunshine, and there are things happening in the wild backyard. And things growing in the house too! Will update with photos by Sunday, I promise :)

holidays!

Not for me exactly, but school holidays for Miss Tizz and the X-man, and I'm happy to take what I can get :)

After a cold, wet & pretty miserable weekend, I had a lot of work to get through before the fun could begin. The kids amused themselves for much of the day, drawing, reading, watching tv (and I may have snuck out for a couple of episodes of The Flintstones with them) and general running amok, before it was time to head off for swimming lessons. And it all fell apart from there, at least as far as the X-man was concerned. I don't know what it is with him, but he's generally pretty reasonable, until you add water. He morphs into some unrecognisable, horribly behaved creature the minute he gets into the pool. Every.Single.Week. I give him the pep talk on the way to swimming - lots of positive talk about how fabulous it will be if he tries really hard. He promises to behave, promises to listen to his teacher. And then it happens again. Every.Single.Week.

So he's about to find out that I'm serious when I say his lessons are about to come to a grinding halt. He doesn't think I'll do it. But I will.

But today we all woke up happy again, and headed off to the Australian War Memorial for a few hours.

It's been a while since we last visited, and there have been lots of changes in the interim. We didn't see everything, but the kids were enthralled enough to want to go back for more.

The building was opened in 1941, and consists of the central commemorative area (including the memorial pool with the eternal flame, the cloisters down each side with the roll of honour - the names of Australians who have been killed in conflict, and the Hall of Memory, with the Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier), the museum galleries in wings to either side and a new section at the back, and research facilities.

But the thing that captured the children's imagination most on this visit was the dioramas. We only got as far as the WWI galleries - the amount of death and mud and destruction in that area was enough for now.

The following paragraph is the description of the Mont St Quentin diorama from the War Memorial's website:

This diorama [below] relates to Mont St Quentin on 29 August 1918 when the Germans fell back to the line of the Somme west and south of Péronne, closely followed by the 5th and 2nd Divisions. Here the right and centre of the Australian Corps were brought to a standstill, first by the destruction of the bridges across the marshy southward stretch of river; second, by the immense tactical strength of the right-angled bend of the river in the vicinity of Peronne. Successful action by the 3rd Division on 30 August north of the Somme, however, led to enemy retirement on to Mont St Quentin and Peronne. That night the river was crossed at Feuilleres by the 2nd Division, which in three days of fighting against the Prussian Guard, completely carried the height of Mont St Quentin at the angle of the river commanding Péronne, while that town was captured by the 5th Division on 1-4 September by fierce hand-to-hand fighting. This turned the flank of the Somme line. The diorama shows the 6th Brigade about to resume the attack from Elsa Trench.

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I've started something new, because I can ;)