Spring has sprung! ...

I know it's not officially Spring yet but Spring has definately arrived at our place. The garden is filled with birds. We have birds with babies nesting in our eaves. I have been watching momma bird dash to and fro to feed her little ones. Birds abound in our garden all year round but at present we are blessed by the prescence of honeyeaters, finches, willie wagtails, magpies, plovers,doves and a pretty blue fairy wren and his mate. Of course we also have our quota of pesky sparrows and starlings.
I get great pleasure watching the garden change it's clothes with the seasons. The trees bud and blossom and the orchard is bursting with new life at present. Flowers on the plums and quinces and buds appearing on some of the other later blooming fruit trees. I wandered out to the garden earlier this week and took a few photos to share.

I hope Spring is bringing you joy at your place too.

wishing you sunshine in your shadows
Helen

Silent Saturday...

My take on wordless wednesday ;)

Wishing you sunshine in your shadows
Helen

Winter is on the way...

Some simple pictures of the latest offerings in our garden. I love seeing the changes as the seasons turn.

One of our roses produces the most enormous rosehips I have ever seen!

The lemon tree is still producing well.

The pomegranates are starting to swell - it's a shame none of us like them LOL!

We have lots of grapefruit with both newer green fruits and ripe large yellow fruits all on the one tree.

I am not sure what to do with all the grapefruit. None of us is terribly keen on them. I thought of making marmalade but we don't eat that much of that either. It is a terrible shame to see them go to waste. The orchard was planted by Mr. B's parents and contains many strange or unusual fruits. Perhaps they were popular fruits of the time.

Although my daughter loves them just as they are I am hoping to pick enough quinces to make some quince jelly.

We have lots of different trees in the garden, both natives and exotics but I love the deciduous trees. I enjoy seeing them shed their leaves at the end of autumn and love the structure of the bare branches through the winter. Of course spring brings buds and tiny green shoots followed by flowers and fruit.

We have half a dozen different apples in the garden, they all fruit at varying times. This one has finished fruiting and has changed it's colour, ready to shed it's leaves. I love the shape of this lovely old tree.

This is one of our two almond trees. It has already shed it's leaves ready for the dormancy of winter.

I took this photo of the hawthorn tree just two days ago. It has lost almost most of it's leaves now after the heavy winds we have had the last few days. It is such a pretty tree to watch change. In autumn the leaves turn yellow and fall. Winter sees it bare only to burst into life in the spring with green buds and new young leaves unfurling. The leaves remind me of oak leaves, they are a pretty shape. The blossoms remind me of apple and it is so beautiful when in full bloom. It also sports tiny red berries in early autumn. The tiny birds love it for protection. Although not a native I think it adds much to the garden and I am glad we have it.
Have you wandered around your garden or neighbourhood lately to see what delights nature has to offer the senses?

wishing you sunshine in your shadows
Helen

Even on the gloomiest of days...

The birds still enjoy their bath! It's been so jolly cold here this week and damp as well but we still have our parade of little birds come for a bath and a drink each day. Often they visit 3-4 times a day. I only managed to catch a few in my photos but it is nothing for us to have up to 15 little birdies sitting around the edge of our birdbath. The photos were taken through our lounge room window (a tinted window at that) so aren't that fabulous but I wanted to share anyhow.

Have a wonderful weekend everybody and keep warm!


wishing you sunshine in your shadows
Helen

Simple pleasures ...

Some pretty things I found in a walk around the garden this week.

We have quite a few bromeliads in the garden. They look quite unassuming most of the year but waiting for their flowers is well worth it!

One of the roses has developed the loveliest big, plump rosehips. Hopefully that means lots of flowers next season!

I'm not sure of the name of this pretty shrub but it looks a little like a salvia. It is covered in these pretty purple flowers. Who said you can't have flowers all year round?

With a promise of great things to come (I hope) the daffodils are beginning to shoot! We have an edging of them around the lawn. As you can probably tell our garden is 'let go' a bit. We aren't too fussed about weeding etc. We benefit in having a part 'wild' garden with visits and live in residents of the bird and animal kind. Hope the peek into our garden reminded you of the simple pleasures all around us.
wishing you sunshine in your shadows
Helen

God's garden...

Gods garden

Fingers of light

Creep softly across

The shadowy landscape

Small creatures scurry about

Some burrowing into dark places

Preparing for their deepest slumber

Others still waken softly and stir in the

Early morning stillness as the sun slowly rises

Birds twitter noisily in the trees welcoming the new day

Daisies in the garden lift their cheerful heads and prepare to play

A gentle breeze blows

Breathing life into the very earth

God’s creatures tilt their heads and feel

 Simplest pleasure in the softest breath on fur and whisker

Ancient trees lift their weary limbs skyward and rejoice in life itself

Slowly the light passes over plains, hill, valley and mountaintop standing proud

Across the tiniest bubbling brook and rivers wide and strong to the deepest oceans

People from all nations wander the myriad paths of their lives and go about their days

Slowly the sunshine peaks in brilliant and dazzling rays and slowly it retreats again 

Father time has done his work and once again the light retreats to shadows and darkness

So ends another day

26^th January 2007

© Helen B

** I found the beautiful picture at the top of this post here 

**  Poetry my own

Nature's bounty.....

I've had a grand old time here this week pretending at least for a short while to be a real domestic goddess! Housekeeping and the like has never been one of my greatest strengths despite being a dedicated stay at home mum for years. I'm messy, disorganized and relaxed about housekeeping standards. (I do like to think I practice good basic hygiene however especially in regards to food handling)
Beginning with the apples I stewed on Tuesday I have been cooking up a storm to deal with the bounteous harvest from our fruit and vegetable gardens. First up was the job of stewing the rest of the bucket of apples left from Tuesday's efforts.

Don't they look oh so scrummy and kind of cute all packaged up in their little freezer proof tubs? The only way I can think they would look nicer is to be in beautiful preserving jars. A batch of fowlers vacola jars and a sterilising unit is something I'd like to look into buying at some time.

Next to get my attention was this MONSTER beetroot!

Yes it's a beetroot and it weighed about 4.5 kilos. It is a different variety to what we grew last year and is long and tubular in shape. (No it's not deformed) Most would be picked and eaten well before they reach this size but we just had so many beetroot this year that despite pickling two big batches we still have heaps left in the ground. We also did very well with our carrots this year although they have gone a little nuts and are turning into weird little things with lots of twisted, hairy and bent legs! It makes them a little difficult to peel and chop but their home grown sweetness is so worth the effort.

We planted three pumpkin vines this year and they have given us more pumpkin than we can possibly eat. Pumpkin soup was an obvious choice for using up at least some of our pumpkin although I am still searching for that 'best' pumpkin soup recipe.

I was busy having 'Cinderella' visions whilst admiring this beauty.

Look at that colour! Isn't it fabulous?

I blended the soup up this morning and now have a nice little stockpile in the freezer. I roasted some vegetables for last night's dinner and am still left with half a pumpkin. Pumpkin scones may be on the agenda this afternoon or tomorrow.
How is this for a fabulous soup pot btw? Some of you will be aware I only recently moved in with my partner of three years. The house was originally his parents and there are oodles of things here that belonged to them. I've yet to explore fully what vintage treasures might be waiting to be found but I know his mum had some wonderful old things in her kitchen. This soup pot is fantastic, it's Bessemer ware so I suspect from the 1980s era. It is HUGE and so heavy I can barely lift it empty! It is also a non stick pan and I can see it is going to be well used in the future!

Look at the size of that baby!
I had a full day in the kitchen yesterday and STILL have rhubarb and quinces to deal with. I don't think it will happen today but there is always tomorrow.
wishing you sunshine in your shadows
Helen

Our garden's autumn offerings...

Whilst we may not get the pleasure of trees with everchanging leaf colour in the Autumn I recently took a few photos in the garden and for lack of blogging inspiration this week will share them here with you all.
wishing you sunshine in your shadows
Helen

**all photos my own
Little green apples

grevillea

Growing your own...

Vegetables that is! I took a stroll around our garden yesterday and snapped a few shots of our vegetable beds.
I am hoping that the locust plague will stay away from us. Our vegetable plots are doing very nicely and the thought that we might lose all our delicious home grown produce is well damned annoying to be polite about it LOL! I can only imagine how terrible it is for the commercial food producers who have already lost their crops to this pesky insect plague. I have decided at the first sign of a locust I will pick everything I possibly can and freeze it. It just isn't the same as strolling out to pick fresh as you need it though.
Do you grow your own?
wishing you sunshine in your shadows
Helen

bunny heaven! Our carrot patch

vegetable plot 2 with my beloved trying to keep out of the photo (he prefers to remain anonymous)

Now THAT's a strawberry!!!!

A little bragging today! Our strawberries are producing beautifully and yesterday came up with this beauty. You can find giant strawberries like this in the supermarket but they are tasteless compared to homegrown!
I just had to share.
wishing you sunshine in your shadows
Helen

photo my own
50 cent piece for size comparison

Summer Love

Summer is here at last. One of my favourite things about Summer is the stone fruit that comes into season.
We have a small orchard and productive vegetable garden at home and if we can beat the resident possums to them we pick a lovely amount of fresh organically grown fruit at this time of year.
Our strawberries are doing well and we always have a lovely lot of plums. The wildlife got the apricots before we did last year so I am watching them carefully as they develop & ripen. Unfortunately we are missing my favourite - nectarines.I really love nectarines! Really must plant one this coming year!
Our cherries succumbed to the drought so it will be store bought cherries for Christmas this year.
Do you have cherries at Christmas? Which stone fruit is your Summer love?
Wishing you sunshine in your shadows
Helen

Photograph my own