A Boy In Autumn Waiting

It's been all about the leaves and colours these past couple of weeks and seeing autumn anew through a child's eyes.

The excitement of new gumboots for muddy puddles on misty cool days and hand knitted yard jumpers in pure merino yarns. Beanies with pom poms on top to keep little ears warm.

Winding some new skeins into balls and choosing patterns.

Collecting leaves and taping them to paper and tracing around some.

Shapes, colours, berries, textures....

Talking about trees and their roots. Leaves and their veins. The pathway of nutrients in sap and the shutting down for winter. 

He calls winter, "The Snowy Time", the time not too far away now when his sister will arrive.

She is eagerly awaited as we revel in our autumn waiting for Aubrey.

Garden Construct and Structure

This has to be the hardest we have worked in the garden! 

Spring and summer are pretty full on with the growing but in this pre-winter period we have been attending to the structural parts of the garden - Remember...this garden just two years ago was a paddock. We have put in some vertical structures like the arches and old gates (like sbove). These give the landscape some substance in winter when most of the garden is dormant.

Over the summer we have been getting ute loads of sandstone "crazy" pavers. These are a random mix of shapes and sizes that we have loosely sorted ready for laying down the central path of the garden.

Some painting jobs are prepped; like the folding seats and a couple of arches but there is lots of linseed oil maintenance waiting to be done too on timber fences and the fowl yard.

Lots of trimming back, dahlia shifting, seed saving, seedling exchanges and vine tying. 

The bulbs!

I've planted about 100 bulbs this autumn, mostly white tulips and white daffodils. I've mixed the varieties in the same colour so that I get a lasting display over the spring between the early and late bloomers.

I've planted out violas and pansies for winter colour into spring and we have our cold crops under way and battling the rabbits. Our pasture has been improved and Neil-Not-Veal (calf) is also thriving on cut lucerne and an oat, corn, barley mix. He has grown his winter coat and is getting jolly boisterous.

Our major project over the coming months though will be a dry stone wall down one boundary side. We will be hosting classes taught by a master Stonemason/Waller from Derbyshire UK. We have sourced some lovely sandstone that splits safely like butter and should produce a beautiful traditional boundary to last centuries to come.

(photo by Valerie Carline)

This is similar to what we are working towards and daily we indulge in gate fantasies....

like this beautiful one in Ross.

Timber or metal???

To tie it in with the shed....but that's a yonder still project again!

May Days

May passed in a blur for me. Work was extremely hectic and I was getting things prepped for the Campbell Town Show. The highlight of May for me was Mother's Day which we spent at Clarendon. It was a superb day of exhibition, skill share and garden stalls etc. They are making it an annual event and I think I will too. We celebrated the day together and there was no cooking or washing up and all the ladies really appreciated that!

The leaf turning this year has been long and lustrous. The crab apple has done a full leaf drop this year so I am expecting a big blossom flush and lots of fruit. The leaves, though a nuisance for some, have been raked often and placed atop garden beds preparing for sleep through the winter. My folly, the Tahitian Lime, has been swaddled in frost cloth and we shall see how she fares in spring.

The quince thicket that provided shelter and cool relief in summer for the hens in the yard has fully leaf dropped and allows in the warming sunlight shafts of the lowered trajectory path of the winter sun. Our handsome black Australorp cockerel, acquired in late summer, is out of quarantine and in full health and minding his flock. He is very attentive to his ladies, finding tid-bits and sharing them and pointing them out. Keeping a watchful eye on their progress round the paddock and calls me raucously when I fail to come down early enough to spread the feed!

Autumn is also the time of rodents! The mice especially have been in large numbers this year, trying to move inside to the warmth. The crows, kookaburras and other prey eating birds have moved into the garden, watching and swooping. Rabbits have moved into the paddock too and we catch them from time to time. They are skun and popped into the freezer and we keep out eyes peeled for mushrooms down in the pine tree corner.

It is the time to safely light the bon-fire and clean up garden debris, young and old enjoying the cold at their back and the warmth on their faces. Jumpers and boots are our uniform now for the next several months while the snows cling to the mountains and the washing is permanently ranged around the heater. 

Great nights for knitting and here is one I've just finished for Julien.

It's a favourite pattern I use and is available 

here.

A lot of it is knit in the round and is quite quick with lot's of stimulating, yet uncomplicated, pattern changes. I use DK/8ply pure wool and 4mm needles. This was one of my entries in the show but it didn't place but I'll try again as Julien will need another one next year! You can view my project from last year on Ravelry here

Autumn Picnic at Clarendon

During the week, my mother liberated her great-grandson from childcare and I packed a picnic and met them at Clarendon House to enjoy a glorious day of sunshine and falling leaves.

I whipped up some simple tiny, tiny quiches of egg and spring onion and kept them warm in the insulated carrier, along with some bacon wrapped prunes speared with toothpicks and baked for about 15 minutes. A steamed corn on the cob wet with melted butter and baby tomatoes and carrots, from the garden. Slices of watermelon and sparkling elderflower cordial and ice.

My grandson ran and played and scooped up armfuls of dried leaves to dump on our heads and let the wind take my colourful scarf like an exotic streaming banner. He calls Clarendon his castle - oh to have those simple fantasies again. "I'm Mike the Knight" he declares.

Stopping just long enough to take a selfie with Grandma.

Then away again to explore some more.

"No other Knight in all the land

Could do the things which he could do. 

Not only did he understand

The way to polish swords, but knew

What remedy a Knight should seek

Whose armour had begun to squeak."

from "The Knight Whose Armour Didn't Squeak"

by A.A. Milne

Mole Creek District

Our garden club had an excursion to the Mole Creek district so I am going to bore you with lots of garden photos because this little blog is actually a good pictorial reference for me and I find it handy to look back and remember dates, places, inspirations and even future holiday stay options.

After a lovely morning tea at the Deloraine visiting an extraordinary work of art in silk and embroidery and a charming Georgian cottage museum, we travelled northwest into the Mole Creek district and had lunch at Marakoopa Cafe and wandered their gardens admiring autumn colours. We had beautiful music provided by a string three piece, a real treat which added to the unique atmosphere of the cafe.

We admired the raspberry frame.

Their various poultry.

And their various landscaped "rooms"

On to Wychwood and their Glory Vine was a show stopper this year.

I think autumn is the best time to view Wychwood, it never disappoints. 

Next we visited Blackwood Cottages and grounds.

If you are looking for a quiet getaway, this is it! I am definitely ear-marking this for a weekend retreat.

I have glass house envy!

Urn envy...

and iron-work envy!

Stone wall lusting,

And hedging desires.

So easy to picture yourself here....

And more beautiful poultry.

The day was everything I could have wished for.

An Autumn Country Luncheon

I enjoyed a very special luncheon with "the girls" today. A belated house warming with my mum and a couple of her friends. They have been special amigos for many decades now since their nursing days and I feel very privileged to be included in their social calendar several times a year. 

It was lovely to be finally sufficiently unpacked enough to set a fine table.

They arrived with a bottle of Moet champagne and we toured the house and celebrated hard work and good country living.

Again, I failed you with photos!

For mains we had chicken pot pies and leafy salad.

The recipe is here

Mum is vegetarian, so instead, hers was caramelised mushroom and leek with a vermouth (Noilly Prat) and yellow mustard seed reduction. This was then enfolded into a white sauce and "pot pied"

I wanted the dessert to incorporate some of the last ruby rhubarb from the garden and I also fancied using sago; something nostalgic and oft overlooked. A quick google and I found this stunning recipe idea from Katrina Kanetani,

Instead of rosemary, I infused the panna cotta  with bay leaf. I took a short cut with the jelly and chose a packet of "strawberry and cream" from the cupboard. Several components that came together for a visual delight and interesting flavour combinations. The tart rhubarb, soft woody bay tones in the creamy panna cotta and the elderflower cordial infusing the sago, divine! I learnt a lot and it has given me some inspiration for trying some different combos with citrus and quince.

Layering Up

We've already had a couple of light frosts that have wiped out the pumpkins, zucchini and tomatoes but we are still covering the chillies trying to limp them a little further.

The "summer" doona is not quite warm enough some nights but we aren't ready for the deep fluffy Scandinavian downy, "winter" doona.

Adding a light layer, like this lacy piece in wool is a Goldilocks "juuust right".

It was crocheted for me by my grandmother when I was 9 yrs old and was designed as a bedspread for a single bed but it is generous enough for topping our queen. It is pure wool and washed seldom and only by gentle hands but looks almost as good today as 40 years ago. Variegated wool was quite big in the 70's. It's not a complicated pattern, just a repeated hexagonal motif, I'm not sure is grandma had a pattern or adapted it from a lace tablecloth pattern. If anyone has this pattern I would be grateful.