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Friday 21 September 2012

Friday; for the birds...


New Grevillias for my garden;

When I planted my first grevillias there were not so many hybrids available. Some last long and some don't.

Yesterday I bought

Yamba Sunshine, an open, tall shrub 3m  yellow flowers,
Lady O,  short red flowers pointing downwards, quite exquisite,  1.5 m,
Sandra Gordon, with long, brilliant yellow flowers tall up to 3m, was always a favourite,
Coloundra Gem, salmon flowers 2m,  hope it will do well,
Honeybird pink, shrub to 1.5 m

When freshly planted they need  to be looked after and watered, once they start to grow well they will be quite drought resistant and just need a little pruning from time to time to keep them compact.

I also bought a Rose  for my tiny rose garden; "Love Potion"  has a wonderful fragrance. I grew this rose before.
A couple of punnets of miniature Zinnias for the herb garden, which will be flowering in the summer's heat  as well, while the Petunias have packed up and gone home!


©Photo/Text Ts


Thursday 20 September 2012

Thursday; blogging;


Dampiera stricta; Australian perennial; 


Yesterday I met Diane and Bill, blogger friends from some years back.  Link Adventure before Dementia;   We had lots to talk and laugh about. It was so nice to meet you; thank you for this lovely plant.
Today I am going up to Redland to a nursery. I have to replace some of my native plants in the garden. I will get a bigger pot for this one, as it likes to spread its roots! 




©Text/Photos Ts

Monday 17 September 2012

Monday; a furry visitor;


Sunday morning,  eating breakfast I saw something  disappearing very very fast up  a palm tree. Billy was rummaging around, luckily he leaves the animals alone. When he was a puppy he took  small lizards in his mouth  but let them unharmed out again. This behaviour is unusual with a Jack Russel. But he has always been an unusual fellow.
Anyway, I went and had a look, I thought it was a Pheasant, as they always stick around  to look for nests with baby birds. When I looked up I saw a Koala  sitting on a palm leaf and holding on to the next.
At around lunchtime I returned to the palm tree but the Koala had disappeared. 


A little later I saw it going up a paperbark, but did not feel comfortable and left...

 walked all the way to the end of the garden and quickly climbed a  frangipane tree, which gave me an opportunity to snap a few photos.



It looked at me and then decided...



to climb over the fence into my neighbours garden, where it very fast climbed up a very high gum tree and disappeared  high up in the branches. Generally they live there and feed on the leaves.  But it was nice to see this  furry visitor. Usually they are very high up and it is hard to see them as they blend so well with the colours of the gum trees.

©Photos/Text Ts

Links
 Poetic Takeaway's; a trivial world of words;

Lavender & Vanilla;

Saturday 15 September 2012

Sepia Saturday 143; Confiteria;


Sevilla, Andalucia; Confiteria Filella; I don't have to explain what they are selling!
The Confiteria is located in this Moorish style building. 




To wet your appetite for these...




Tempting in the food hall at
Galeries Lafayette, Paris.





Please visit 



©Photos Ts

Thursday 13 September 2012

Thursday; I am a tree...


Photo/ Lismore Road NSW;  Tree Araucaria cunninghamia;


I am a tree;
I am still growing;
I want to be huge;
I want to be free;
I want to be a refuge;
don't cut me down,
please let me grow
I am a tree.  
 Titania


©Photo/text  Ts


Links

Wednesday 12 September 2012

Wednesday; joie de vivre;


Photo/ baby water dragon; Physignathus lesueurii

This baby came around  when it was like a tiny stick, it grows at a fair rate and seems happy to stay around my pot plants.  Mornings at breakfast time it is warming itself, enjoying the sun, watching us with its shiny black eyes. It is such a thrill to have these creatures around. The same spot is sanctuary to a fat, small gecko, which was also arriving as a baby and sticks around, very fast and always hiding behind the pots. It might come out quickly when I am watering the plants. A baby lizard with golden stripes, I have not seen before,  hides itself between the plants and comes out to sun itself.



Many hiding nooks around the breakfast area for the little creatures. 


This tiny tree snake, not poisonous, wanted to get inside. It was not happy to be handled and put back into a  secure spot in the garden.  I am so glad my garden can be a little refuge for some wildlife.


©Photo/text Ts 


Links
  Poetic Takeaway's; a trivial world of words;

Lavender & Vanilla;



Tuesday 11 September 2012

Tuesday; versatile;


The versatile pumpkin, received from my neighbour Virginia;

Pumpkins  look beautiful, they lend themselves for decoration until the time comes to use them for cooking.
They grow in many colours, sizes and  forms.

What do you fancy tonight? 
A deliciously roasted pumpkin, skin and all?
A fine tasting pumpkin soup in the french style  or perhaps with a hint of cumin and ginger?
Not to forget a creamy pumpkin risotto with a handful  of  true parmigiano reggiano?
For dessert a luscious pumpkin pie, sweet  with a hint of spices and lashings of cream?

any of these and 101 more to use a pumpkin.


The time is here to scatter different  pumpkin seeds. I let them grow and spread downwards where nothing comes into their way as they  need a lot of space  to grow. 

Applause for the humble pumpkin.

©Photos/Text Ts

Monday 10 September 2012

Monday; cheers...



Banca Ridge Merlot;
served in a big,  fancy green glass; I like to break rules; at least some!

This is a very nice Merlot,  from the granit belt. 


The wine-cup is the little silver well,
Where truth, if truth there be, doth dwell.

William Shakespeare, English poet and writer, (1564-1616)






Friday 7 September 2012

Sepia Saturday 142; Three...


1953  with my little, much loved "adoptive" brother and his sister. When he was a young man he had a brush with death as he was badly electrocuted and was lucky to survive.  Later he died, still at an early age.


A few years later


1959, holidays in Austria; my mother holding baby Susie, daughter of my cousin. Susie was looking at my red painted fingernails and said "Zuckerl" meaning lollies.


and again a  few years later...


My mother with my first born daughter and  Amanda  sister to Susie;


Please hop over to Sepia Saturday 142

Friday; Thoughts;




Photo on the way to Glen Innes;



To doubt is wise, to ask questions is wise, it is the only way to find the truth. Titania.


© Photo/text Ts








Thursday 6 September 2012

Thursday; Apple pie;



Apple pie,  the universal  sweet pastry nobody ever says, no thank you.  Apple pie  comes in any version. You can let your fantasy run or you can rely on the good old  varieties. 
This one I baked quickly for an afternoon tea.
I still had some butter puff pastry in the freezer which I used for the base.
A good hand full ground almonds, apples peeled and cut in thin slices arranged over the base.
Tuck  some blobs   of raspberry jam between the apples. 
Mix half a cup of cream with a little sugar,  vanilla and  1 teaspoon cornflour, pour over the apples. Into the oven at 180 C until nicely crisp and the apples are soft, around 30 min. 

Easy as pie and done in no time! It is really tasty, but my favourite of them all is Tarte Tatin, which is also very easy to produce and fresh from the oven, slightly cooled with a decadent blob of whipped cream...no more to be said. 

© Photo/Text Ts


Wednesday 5 September 2012

Wednesday; it's a dog's life;


Napping, Billy knows the best place...


“I do not particularly like the word 'work.' Human beings are the only animals who have to work, and I think that is the most ridiculous thing in the world. Other animals make their livings by living, but people work like crazy, thinking that they have to in order to stay alive. The bigger the job, the greater the challenge, the more wonderful they think it is. It would be good to give up that way of thinking and live an easy, comfortable life with plenty of free time. I think that the way animals live in the tropics, stepping outside in the morning and evening to see if there is something to eat, and taking a long nap in the afternoon, must be a wonderful life. For human beings, a life of such simplicity would be possible if one worked to produce directly his daily necessities. In such a life, work is not work as people generally think of it, but simply doing what needs to be done.” 
― Masanobu FukuokaThe One-Straw Revolution

©Photo Ts

Tuesday 4 September 2012

Tuesday; Gondwana;


...sleeping .. Photo/Ts Rotary park Stanthorpe Queensland

Gondwana included most of the landmasses in today's Southern Hemisphere, including Antarctica, South America, Africa, Madagascar and the Australian continent, as well as the Arabian Peninsula and the Indian subcontinent, which have now moved entirely into the Northern Hemisphere.



The adjective Gondwanan is in common use in biogeography when referring to patterns of distribution of living organisms, typically when the organisms are restricted to two or more of the now-discontinuous regions that were once part of Gondwana, including the Antarctic flora. For example, the Proteaceae, a family of plants known only from southern South America, South Africa and Australia, are considered to have a "Gondwanan distribution". This pattern is often considered to indicate an archaic, or relict, lineage.



During the late Paleozoic, Gondwana extended from a point at or near the south pole to near the equator. Across much of Gondwana, the climate was mild. During the Mesozoic, the world was on average considerably warmer than today.



Gondwana was then host to a huge variety of flora and fauna for many millions of years. The laurel forest of Australia, New Caledonia and New Zealand have a number of other related species of the laurissilva de Valdivia, through the connection of the Antarctic flora as gymnosperms and deciduous angiosperm Nothofagus.



The sempervirens tree niaouli, it grows in Australia, New Caledonia and New Zealand. New Caledonia and New Zealand ecoregion are separated by continental drift from Australia 85 million years ago.

The islands still retain plants and animals that originated in Gondwana and spread to the southern hemisphere continents later. But there is strong evidence of glaciation during Carboniferous to Permian time.






Photo Ts/ Mount Warning Northern New South Wales




The Gondwana Rainforests of Australia (formerly known as the Central Eastern Rainforest Reserves) include the most extensive areas of subtropical rainforest in the world, large areas of warm temperate rainforest and nearly all of the Antarctic beech cool temperate rainforest. Few places on earth contain so many plants and animals which remain relatively unchanged from their ancestors in the fossil record.
The Gondwana Rainforests of Australia were inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1986 (extended in 1994).
The Gondwana Rainforests of Australia were one of 15 World Heritage places included in the National Heritage List on 21 May 2007.

Global warming band aids?  A money spinner for some? 
The planet is fine, the people are fracked!  
The planet has always been in evolution, still is, who do we think we are? Are we better then any other living thing, because we have  developed a bigger brain? 
The planet will still  be here when all of us are gone. Evidence is still here.


Link   http://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/places/world/gondwana/index.html

Link  http://www.apstas.com/gondwanatimeline.htm





Monday 3 September 2012

Monday; third day of spring;

Frühling  ♥  Primavera  ♥  Printemps;



...at home;


country site in the granite belt;



Cherry blossoms in a park in Warwick, Qld;


Spring has sprung 
with a tune of its own;
the bells are ringing
to let it known
it's a new beginning...


© Photos/Text Ts


Link Lavender & Vanilla;

Sunday 2 September 2012

Sunday; while away...


...in the granite belt...


goblins have been here and replaced the old fence with a new one... 


and  orchids are getting ready to flower.

Good to take a break but nice to be home!

Monday 27 August 2012

Monday; enjoy...


Have a nice week;


I promise I won't hop into the veggie patch anymore...promise;


©Ts

Sunday 26 August 2012

Sunday; the world;


The world  © by Titania




"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."
 - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

§

In order to get power and retain it, it is necessary to love power; but love of power is not connected with goodness but with qualities that are the opposite of goodness, such as pride, cunning and cruelty." Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi - (1828-1910) Russian writer 

§

Changes in laws to the benefit of the few ride in on  a white horse  with the war cry of emergency and terrorism.  Titania

§ 

This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector." -  Plato -

§

My questions; have there been at any time politicians with a clean conscience?
Where are they?
 Politics must be a profession where the ruthless, the nasties, the liers, the cheats and the hypocrites soar and thrive.
Perhaps politics is not and has never been  the place for honesty and justice. Anyone who enters politics and has an inclination to truthfulness, justice and kindness will be morally finished by the gutter press in no time, there is no chance for a honest person. Because there is no honest press  the few that exist belong all to the same stable of lies and hypocrisy.


Globalization is the worst which could befall  all countries. Because profits are the gods of globalization  not  a decent standard of living for all.



©Photo/Text Ts

Saturday 25 August 2012

Sepia Saturday 140; Weddings;




My mother and my father; wedding 1933

My mother was 23 and my father 30 years old.  My mother wore a black dress and a white embroidered veil.  I remember the veil and also the headband with the flowers.
They were tucked away in box tied with a pretty ribbon. I also remember,  the art deco brooch she was wearing with quite a long pearl necklace.

♥ 


My mother's sister Helen and Thomas married in 1936
This is a true sepia photo. Helen does not wear a veil. She is wearing a silk dress, but also not white. the dress is embellished with lace at the front. 


Anna and Simon were married  1939;
Simon was my mother's younger brother.
Simon was conscripted into the German army and died in Russia in 1944. He was a driver in the war.
Anna wears a white wedding dress and also a veil. All the brides carry white roses. 
Anna never married again and had no children.

Please visit Sepia Saturday 140

Friday 24 August 2012

Friday; Not by bread alone;

©Photo/Text Ts


I harvested the first Roma tomatoes. I roasted them with Olive oil and lots of Thyme in the oven at 180 C until they were soft and juicy. Mixed them with  the spaghetti and Basil leaves and dinner was ready in no time; it was delicious...you can ask ML who came by at lunch time and ate the leftovers. No Parmesan cheese was needed it would have interfered with the fine taste of the roasted tomatoes

"Not by Bread alone" written by  Vladimir Dimitrievich;  (the meaning, individual man can not just live on bread, he needs more in his life then food) 

I read this book in the early sixties.


Vladimir Dimitrievich; July 29, 1918 - July 23, 1998) was a Ukrainian-born Russian writer who gained fame for his 1956 novel, Not by Bread Alone, published at the time of the Khrushchev Thaw.
Dudintsev, the son of a member of the gentry, attended law school in Moscow and fought during the second world war. After the war, he became a reporter and writer.
Inspired by Soviet apparatchiks refusing to credit a report of a deposit of nickel because Soviet dogma said it was impossible, Dudintsev wrote Not by Bread Alone, the tale of an engineer who is frustrated by bureaucrats when he attempts to bring forth his invention. The novel sparked wild enthusiasm among the Soviet population. Official reaction soon turned against the book, and Dudintsev suffered years of poverty, and was only able to publish occasional works. As the USSR tottered, in 1987, Dudintsev published a novel, The White Robes, for which he was awarded a State Prize the following year. He died in 1998.

More about this  Author  here

 Vladimir Dimitrievich  
Born 29/07/1918

Died 23/07 1998 



Thursday 23 August 2012

Thursday; hugs;


Hugs for Life; 

“Such as we are made of, such we be.”
-William Shakespeare 



©Photo/Ts

Wednesday 22 August 2012

Wednesday; Leo;

My garden/Australian native flower/ Grevillia Misty;


Leo, Happy Birthday!


‘The course of true love never did run smooth.’
William Shakespeare; A Midsummer Night's Dream Act 1, scene 1, 



©PhotoTs


Tuesday 21 August 2012

Tuesday; a walk in the village cont.

Ponds and new plantings of trees, a heaven for wildlife;

I live opposite this lovely place,  between the trees is just a little of the roof visible;

The village green; doesn't this scene make  one want to  run, skip and jump... and play with a big red ball?


Trees provide a great play area;


Native, pink  Strawflowers in a garden;


Not much traffic, we saw a couple of cars and  a man on a horse;

Back at our doorstep.