Things 'n stuff

Ok, so I know its like 3:00am. But what the hey. The nice thing about being a grown up is that it is completely acceptable to wake up at 3:00am, make a pot of tea and play on the internets. After all, when one works from home, one can have a nana nap in the afternoon if one needs.

Anyhoo, I know it is a weed, and not so good for ponies, but I love Patterson's Curse. I found a patch of the most luminous light blue & pink ones sprinkles in amongst the usual lovely purple and red ones. Nature is groovy like that.

And here is the first poppy of the season. hmmmmmm. poppies.

Remember those tomato, eggplant and capsicum seedlings I started a couple of months ago inside, under some lights? Well, it was their big day yesterday.

I am pretty happy with how they went. I took a gamble and planted them out into the green houses down at my plot on Monday.

Welcome the Tomato Mahal.

And the Eggplant Emporium.

And here is something special and delightful. Knitted by my mama. A new tea cosy. FOR ME!

. Now I know how awesome it is to be given a handmade tea cosy made with love. me like.

cycle chic in australia

I am still captured in the most delicious way by bicycle love. There are other lovely things happening - especially in the garden, but this is taking up lots of my head space. It could be linked to finally being happy here in the city and thinking muchly about how I make city living elegant and frugal and healthy and happy. Alternative transport - especially on ones deadly treadly is the way to go. I have sold my serious cyclo cross bike and am enjoying so much riding Selina up right in what ever I want to be wearing when I get there clothes. I feel liberated and free. I do not miss my lycra and my click on shoes that are unwearable off bike. This is all good because instead of a new car, I have a new bike (on order anyway). Mr Duck and I are determined to cope with just the one car and to go "car-lite" and far from being a drag its FUN and happy making.

Here is Mikael Colville-Anderson, founder of cycle chic, while he was in Australia last month. He says it better than me.

that is all for the moment.

more bike love

Photo lifted from the workcycles website.

My fickle ministrations have moved onto a workcycles secret service. She is the sporty spice version of the Oma. How is this for a description: "A modern workhorse. A fast, tough and stealthy city bike for the long haul." How any bike that weights more than 20kg can be described as stealthy escapes me however I am smitten. Imagine a bike that is designed to last a whole life time even while living outside in the snow.

While there ARE a few city style bikes available in Australia, none of them have the amazingly practical and usefull components of the workcycles bikes. Note the skirt guard, fenders, full chain case, hub dynamo for the lights which are mounted on the fork so that a front rack can be mounted to the frame. They rock.

In other news, Selina suffered the indignity of having a last century plastic woollies basket strapped to her new old pink rack. She is super practical now. I needed more boot capacity to carry the veggies back from the community garden, not to mention the milk and papers.....and the other night when I rode up the hill to a friends house for dinner, the two bottles of wine in her front basket almost bounced out - YIKES.

Despite the snow on the weekend, spring is here and it is time to get out on ya bikes.

I am getting good at only using the car for work trips out of town. Although I need to pick up some star pickets for the tomato tunnels this weekend......might need the car for that too.


that is all.

in my brain

“Be Content with what you
have; rejoice in the way things
are. When you realize there is
nothing lacking, the whole
world belongs to you.”

- Lao Tzu

Selina Selina I love you

OK, so she is just a tad on the small side but she is lovely to ride. I am having a bit of a bicycle epiphany and renaissance all in one.

Yesterday I rode Selina 11 km or so to Ma and Pa Duck Herder's for a cuppa, and then rode home. It was lovely. Today I rode down to the garden, did some weeding then off to the hardware store in Phillip and then home and then back to the garden and then home. Perhaps about 13km all up. The extra layer of rim tape seems to have fixed the exploding tube issue. I like not being in a rush, or "training" ie hurting. I like not driving. I Like Selina!

I need more storage space, so I took my pannier rack off my cyclo - cross bike. With a bit of stuffing around it will fit onto Selina. Its black which won't do at all, so I am spraying it PINK which is much better methinks.

Around the traps

We have MORE possum cuteness. Meet the second shift. These two turn up at 10:00pm, after Bitie has been and gone.

Today I got to see one of Eric's hives SWARM. One minute the air was FULL of bees, the next they were all clumped on this tree. It was beautiful. They are all in a box now, waiting to go to their new home.

And here is the garlic lookin good.

Bee Tradition - A new Bee Herder is Born.

Reprinted with kind permission from Elaine Supkis at http://emsnews.wordpress.com/

Its a tradition folks. A new bee herder should be gifted their first swarm of bees from another bee herder. And thats what happened tonight.

Some of Eric's girls at the community garden swarmed yesterday. I wasn't there but apparently they were BEAUTIFUL.

Anyway I rustled up some broccoli boxes and Eric pulled together some drawn out frames - some with honey and scooped up those little lovelies from the casurina trees into their temporary home.

Now I KNOW that Mr BVVF is a hankerin' for some stripy micro livestock of his own, so I suggested to Eric we see if he would like this particularly big and dark and lovely swarm, and he said yes. (hooray!)

So I phoned Mr BVVF who had serendipitously just purchased some second hand bee boxes, so it was perfect timing and all meant to bee.

Mr BVVF and I bundled his girls into the car tonight, and well, reports are mostly good. Apparently a GREAT NUMBER managed to get out on the trip home, and well, the latest report is that MOST are back in or on their box in their new home under some poplars, but it appears some may be spending the night in the car. oops.

The good news is that Mr BVVF is safe and well and remains at this early stage an unstung hero in the beekeeping world.


Congratulations Mr BVVF. Let me know when you want me to come out and give you a hand to move the kids into their new boxes.


Love Duckiexxx

Peak Hour in Copenhagen