November photos

Dear Gran,

Now Ruth has had two sets of grandparents visit in two weeks. Colin and Lorraine were here last weekend--- they parked the caravan in our backyard, to the delight of the kids.

And Mum and Dad left this afternoon. They spent a bit of time taking Ruth around--- they looked after her on Friday while Brendan and I worked, they took her over to Sean and Sandra's yesterday afternoon, and out to breakfast with Ian and Lesley this morning.

Later this afternoon we went to the pool. We arranged to meet Nathalie, Joseph and Momo there. We didn't arrange to meet another three sets of friends (and their kids), but we did anyway. This way Canberra feels like a very small town.

Ruth had a good time in the baby pool, walking around and playing with her buckets. Later we went for a second swim, in the big pool. What joy! I think she squealed for the whole 10 minutes. She loves jumping into our arms off the side of the pool, being thrown up and down, going underwater.

Came home, had dinner, ran around in the rain for a while. Gran, the weather these last weeks has been lovely. Not too hot, and with fairly frequent evening thundershowers.

Anyway, here are some photos from the last month.


Firstly, from the trip Ruth and I took to Bairnsdale on cup weekend: Wendy took us to Raymond Island, which is overrun with koalas. Here are two of them.

The next night we stayed at Cape Conran. We have a new tent, a spacious THREE person tent. It seems to do the job.




Ruth and I balancing on the edge of the garden.




Finally (I include this photo just to disgust the more sensitive members of the family) Ruth after eating several cupcakes made to her friend Vida's special recipe.





We're really looking forward to seeing everyone at Christmas.


Much love,

Julie.

Back to the garden

Dear Gran,



I have been meaning to show you the new garden bed for a while. It is a (so called) no-dig bed: which means it is made of newspapers and cardboard boxes laid flat, then peastraw, then some horse manure from the race course and cow manure from Joan's place, then finally a layer of dirt. You can also see the black porous hose, which will eventually be completely under the mulch.




In this photo I took a few weeks ago you can see mostly lettuce and silver beet. There are some very small tomato seedlings, some potatoes (Royal Blue). Today I planted some bean and physalis seedlings. Physalis is a yummy fruit, like a yellow cherry tomato wrapped in a husk. It was fashionable in Berlin when we were there.

In the middle of the garden there is the replacement lemon tree that I bought when I thought the one you had given me died. But it hadn't really! I cut it back and it resprouted again.

The other bed--- in the ex-sandpit--- is a jungle of peas with a few broadbeans (not doing too well, I planted them too late). The peas are partly intentionally planted snow peas, and partly ones that have come up from the pea straw. Ruth helps herself to the peas--- she is delighted at seeing them in the pod.



Finally some photos of Ruth cooking. I have found the last couple of weeks, while Brendan has been working on his thesis and I have only been having two days a week at work, quite hard. Too much being mummy! However Ruth and I are always good friends when we cook together.



Much love,

Julie.

ps. Brendan has asked me to tell you that Ruth has many smocks, she just wasn't wearing them. Plenty of smocks.

Smiles on Thursdays

Dear Great Gran,

This is the routine that Ruth, Maurice and I have on Thursday mornings.
First, R&M tell me its time to get out of the house and go down to the park.
Then we all check our bears and helmets before heading off...
At the wetland we admire the king parrots, cockatoos, wattle birds but - most of all - the Big Ducks and the Baby Ducks. There are also long necked tortoises who live on the log in the middle of the water - but they're a bit harder for little eyes to see...
We then have a drink and diligently suck the sugary icing off our "healthy" muesli bars...
before heading over to the playground...
...

...pausing only to watch the little Digger working on a new footpath...
...before doing some more playing...


and then back in home for a bit more playing
before a well earned lunch and siesta!
much love
Brendan

South of the Border

Dear Great Gran,

Ruth has almost recovered from her great adventure down South. In the city, Ruth enjoyed playing with her "twin" Claire...
...as well as story time with Annabel and Tullio...and she really loved drawing with Vinnie (who's now one years old!)Later, in dank, dark Gippsland, Ruth was obviously more astonished by Polar Teddy wearing Nana's jewellery than she was by all the other characters who came to visit. Finally, at Gran and Pa's place, she was so taken with Jed that she didn't even notice that a local magpie had singled her out as Enemy Number One.
We enjoyed camping at Corowa on the way back but its probably about time we got a bigger tent.
much love
Brendan

Flowers, Friends and Memorials

Dear Great Gran,
here is the stripey nanna sue outfit I mentioned last time. It has become hard for Julie and I to take Ruth's photo when she's smiling, as she is only happy when she is holding our camera. A lot of the blossoms have gone in the wind and rain - not much rain, but enough to strip the blossoms.
Here is Ruth last weekend enjoying Floriade with her cousins and Gran and Pa - the little windmills were a present from Gran. Ruth liked the baby animal farmyard more than the tulips.
And here is Ruth at home with some of her little friends.
Ruth and Maurice, two peas in a pod.
We visited the SIEV X memorial last weekend, which is very moving. It honours the lives of the 353 people who drowned when a 20 m long refugee boat headed for Australia from Indonesia sank in 2001. Each pole represents one of the people who died - a tall pole for an adult and a short one for a child - and they were mostly children. Most of the people on board were fleeing Iraq and many already had some family in Australia, usually the father or husband. The poles were beautifully decorated by survivors, individuals, schools, churches and community groups from all over Australia. More info at
www.sievxmemorial.com

Much love,
Brendan

Spring Fashions

Dear Great Gran,

Ruth has been sporting some great new clobber lately. Last weekend Nana Sue delivered in person the great stripey jumper and hat she knitted - but I don't have a photo of it yet.

Here Ruth is wearing the jumper that Marg knitted for her. They are reading a book that used to terrify me when I was in primary school.
Another view of the Marg jumper below - Ruth is helping tidy up the dead hakea from the front yard. Today we planted a quince tree next to where the hakea was and it was certainly time to plant - as there are lots of plum and wattle blossoms out around the house. The daffodils also came up last week but they were promptly souvineered by our industrious garden assistant!
Finally, Ruth loves wearing the smocks that you made but - be warned! - the next photo is not for any one with delicate sensibilities. You can see the result of Julie letting Ruth feed herself two bowls of borsch and then Ruth deciding it was the right time to sing "Head & Shoulders" with all the actions!
much love
Brendan

Swarm at Towrang

Dear Gran,

Ruth and I were expelled from the house today by Brendan, who wanted some time to work on his thesis. Luckily there was an Anderson family swarm happening up the road for us to go to. Marg, Jan, Paul, Sean, and Sandra were at the farm--- not to mention Sam, Jack and Preston, much to Ruth's delight.

We had a lovely time--- Ruth saw cows, caterpillars, an alpaca, and a sheep, and also helped Jan and Marg load their car up with firewood (we will blame her twig if their suspension breaks on the trip back). Sandra made sausage rolls for lunch and there was leftover plum pudding, made to Hugh's recipe.

Much love,

Julie.

Binalong

Dear Gran,

We have some outings to catch up on: a fortnight ago we cycled to a nearby town, Binalong, to stay the night. This time we were accompanied by our friends Dan and Allison (with their kids Vida and Oscar), Ian and Bec (with baby Pippa), and David.

We stayed in the old pub, which has been reopened as a guesthouse.


Actually, when I say "we cycled", only David and I set off from Canberra. We had a brilliant morning's ride--- it was a fine cold day with a little tailwind, and we felt like we would be in Broken Hill for lunch. We found a back road to take us to Yass, past sheep and large old homesteads.

After lunch, we were joined by Bec and Dan as we cycled along an old stock route.


Then I got two punctures, and my second spare tube had a hole in it already. Of course I only realised this once I'd put it on my bike! Fortunately this was within five kilometers of Binalong, and Allison happened to be driving past, so she picked me up for the last little bit. Brendan and Ruth drove there too. At 100km each way, with some of it on narrow highway and some of it on the Hume, weren't sure that the trailer would be such a good idea. Ruth was very pleased that the guesthouse had chickens and ducks as part of a permaculture garden.

Here you can see her and Vida looking at the pond.

The guesthouse was excellent--- the proprieters made us a three course dinner and hearty breakfast.

Here is a picture from the return journey.

We didn't get started as early the next morning, so by dusk on Sunday we were still on the road.

This is the back country near Canberra, looking towards the Brindabellas and the Murrumbidgee. In fact at this point we weren't sure whether we were lost or not--- our map didn't extend to this part of the road and we didn't know whether the road would meet up with the main road again. It wasn't until after sunset that we met the highway, and cycled the last 20 or so kilometers in the dark. It was getting colder and colder but it was somehow an exhilarating finish.

All photos except the first were taken by David, who is an excellent photographer. He has a website with more photos here .

Much love,

Julie.

Winter Escapades

Dear Great Gran,

Julie has a new toy - a bike luggage trailer that was given to us by a friend who built it himself several years ago. I suspect the friend has become a bit embarrassed to own the trailer now that he makes and sells much flasher trailers and bikes for a living. Julie has been using the trailer to getting some hay and manure for the veggie garden (seen under construction in the background.)
Ruth has enjoyed "hay rides" around the backyard on the trailer. I think she poses just like the chariot drivers from Ben Hur.
Saturday, three weeks ago found us dining al fresco, as they say in France, with Ian, Heather, Grumpa, Nana, mussels, bread and wine. It has generally been much too cold since to attempt such sedentary outdoor activities!
Ruth has recently taken to grabbing Julie's scarves and declaring them to be "Ruthies" before running around the house with them over her head (pictured below). Other times she runs around with the scarves over her face until she crashes into something hard and cries. I mention this last point to counter any rumours that you may have heard about Ruth showing early signs of great intellect.
Drawing has recently been added to Ruth's list of favourite activities (obsessions), along with books, fridge magnets, piano playing, playing with water, birds and dogs. She has been drawing with pencils inside and with chalk outside.
I hasten to add that some of the above drawings are not entirely by Ruth's own hand. They were however executed by her studio assistants under her close direction and supervision i.e. directions like "Bird, here!", "Doggie, here!" and "Toddler, here!". And she makes many of the finishing touches herself.

much love
Brendan

Back on Track

Dear G. Gran,

Don't worry! I promise you that there there will be no graphs or other high falutin science from me in this blog. However, this blog is about another one of Julie's recent projects i.e. she instigated a weekend cycle trip along the lines of what we have often done before (but just haven't been doing recently!)

On Saturday a couple of weekends ago, we cycled with friends about 40km north to Gundaroo for a pizza lunch. Here you can see David, Julie, Ruth (asleep at this point), and Rohan on the way there.
It was just like old times - only now the pelaton erupts into animal sounds everytime we passed a horse, cow, sheep or kangaroo! After lunch, Julie gave our two year old friend Vida a short ride in the trailor, in addition to Ruth. Of course, we immediately came to the biggest hill of the day. As Julie struggled up the hill, Vida asked: "Julie, why are you going so slowly?"

Julie, Ruth and I cycled on another 40km or so to stay overnight in Gunning before cycling back home on Sunday. Rather than stay at the old pub (which Julie and I used to do) we stayed at a bed and breakfast which was set in a beautiful 1870 house - except we stayed in the demountable building out the back! I think Ruth enjoys the trailor trip more than travelling by car as she can see a lot more of the countryside at a comfortable speed and has lots of toys and books at hand. And - just like the car - she happily sleeps for long periods while she is moving.

love from,
Brendan

More details about the greenhouse audit

Dear Gran,

this might be a bit boring for you, but here is the rest of the data (I spent too much time on this so I want someone to look at it!):

Electricity (note the big spike for last winter's heating):


Petrol:


Gas (we've only had this since we moved):


Aviation fuel (here you can see our recent trips):


So, more than you wanted to know!

much love,

Julie.