Let's take a walk through the garden......

The first thing that you will notice in our garden are the colours purple/lilac/pink/white  They are my favourite colours. We have balanced the pastels with some big spashes of colour but I think it is working.  

So lets's begin that walk.

 We dug up all the agapanthas earlier this year and divided them.  They must have loved it because we now have a glorious display of huge blooms. In the photo above you can see splashes of colour from the hippeastrums and day lilies.

The next find in my garden is this little purple beauty.  It's going to give me the most amazing flower in a couple of days.  I'll keep you posted.

The lovely pink ground orchids (well, that's what I call them) are along the path that leads to the palm garden.  They started flowering in September and will flower right through until autumn.

This is the little waterfall in our fish pond.  

The day lilies have been flowering for many weeks.  This one has a gorgeous lilac and yellow bloom.  Can you see the little insects humming around the stamen?

Last but not least are the hydrangeas that are just starting to flower.  This is the blue and we also have a magnificent white.

The garden gives DH and I an immense amount of joy.  It is now an established garden but we still put a lot of time into mulching, composting, fertilizing and the endless pruning!  However by putting in the hard yards our garden has repaid us a thousand fold.

Fishing

I would love to go reef fishing, in fact take me anyway where I can actually catch a fish. My only experience with fishing was when we were younger and we made the annual trip to Ballina for Christmas holidays.  My Uncle Darcy had a "tinny" that he used for fishing on the river.  It would (and should) only hold two adults safely but somehow we would squeeze two adult men (dad and uncle) and four kids!  No lifejackets in those days.  We, or should I say, everyone except me, would catch flathead but I never seemed to be able to land anything. And then there were the times that we took the boys to the waterhole at the back of our place at Julia Creek.  We (once again, everyone but me) did catch a few catfish and the occasional barramundi but sadly not me.
I love to watch fishermen.  They seem to be so contented.  Our late son loved fishing and DH fondly recalls the last fishing expedition he had with our son.   They didn't catch a thing but DH will remember that day for the rest of his life.
I took this photo of a couple of fisherman just on sunset and I often wonder if they caught anything.

Solar Eclipse 2012

We were dead centre of the path of the lunar eclipse today.  That in itself is remarkable.  What was not so remarkable was the cloud cover that we had this morning.  It spoilt it for us somewhat, particularly as we looked towards Mt. Molloy and saw sunshine!  Anyway, our next door neighbours, their three children and DH and I made our way to the highest point on our farm.  We took bacon, eggs, sausages, bread - all the makings for a bbq breakfast - and cooked it while we waited.  We arrived nice and early at 5.30 am.  It started to rain lightly at 6.00 am and continued through most of the eclipse.  Occasionally the clouds broke and we caught glimpses of the eclipse but when the moon completely blocked the sun at 6.38 am and day turned into night, well,  that was  an experience that we will never forget.  It was so eerie.  These are the photos that I managed to get.

6.33 am

6.57 am

7.00 am

7.02 am

7.08 am

7.14 am

7.17 am

7.32 am

Vale Myra Scott Beach 24.5.1919 - 3.11.2012

Yesterday we attended the funeral of one of the most gracious ladies I have ever had the pleasure of knowing.  Mrs. Beach lived on the neighbouring property at Julia Creek.  DH's parents moved to Julia Creek in 1958.  DH was two years old and his brother was a babe in arms.  They had moved from southern Queensland to the north west and it was a HUGE move for them.  They were instantly welcomed into the area by their neighbours, Jack and Myra and there two sons.   DH has recalled a wealth of memories of the two families enjoying picnics, bush race meets, Christmas's, New Years, birthdays, anniversaries....all spent together.
My mother and DH's mother lived thousands of kilometres away from us so when our boys came along Mrs. Beach "adopted" them as her own grandchildren.  Such a selfless, and beautiful thing to do.  She never forgot a birthday and the boys loved visiting her.  She always had little treats for them whether it was lollies or her famous snowballs.
I remember fondly her wonderful contagious laugh.  She would laugh so easily and and that was just one of a hundred things that I loved about her.
She was passionate about her tennis and encouraged all of us "girls" to attend Ladies Day tennis in Julia Creek.  I loved those Friday mornings.  It gave my boys a chance to play with other kids and it was great to have a gossip with the other girls!
And who could ever forget the cocktail parties that Mr and Mrs Beach hosted at the Sedan Dip Picnic race meeting.  Mrs Beach would cook for months beforehand and only enlisted the help of a select few.  She was quite particular about the way things should be done.  I learnt so much about catering from Mrs. Beach.  The cocktail parties were by invitation but Mrs Beach would make sure that EVERYBODY that attended the race meeting got an invitation!
Mrs Beach has not been well for a long time and I guess some would say that it was for the best that she has now "moved to the room next door" to be with the love of her life, Jack.  For me personally it feels like the end of an era and I will miss her greatly.

Pineapple Bromeliad

One of the joys of living in the tropics is that I can grow almost anything.  My latest joy is the pineapple.


We planted a couple of pineapple tops (bromeliads)  in the garden some time ago.  It was so long ago that I had forgotten about them.  But to my surprise and wonder those spiky tops have now produced a fruit.  They are a very pretty fruit when they are young and I can't wait for them to mature to see how juicy they taste.

A wedding at Kingscliffe

We received an invitation to a wedding at Kingscliffe located on the Queensland New South Wales border.  Kingscliffe was a place that we visited quite often when I was young.  We spent many, many holidays with relatives that lived at Ballina and one of our Sunday drives was to the sleepy little town of Kingscliffe.  Well, I have to tell you, it is certainly not sleepy anymore.  It has grown into quite a bustling metropolis.  It is sad in some ways but hey, that's progress.  A seachange is everybodys dream and that is why the sleepy little beachside villages have grown out of all proportion.
The wedding was held at Mantra on Salt and it was a lovely setting for the garden wedding.  The day before the wedding was very blustery but mother nature kindly stepped in on the day of the wedding and turned on the sunshine.  
The grooms parents are very close and treasured friends. The grooms father lived on the neighbouring property at Julia Creek and DH and him grew up with each other.  When we married, our children continued the tradition and also became lifelong friends.  
So off to Kingscliffe we headed for the wedding.  The groom looked nervous while waiting for his bride (who was traditionally a little late) but once he saw her approaching his face lit up.
The bride looked perfect in her gown of lace and her bridesmaid (sister) in a lovely shade of blue completed the picture.
After the ceremony we adjourned to the cool comfort of the Mantra foyer for pre-dinner drinks and also to catch up with friends and family that we had not seen in quite awhile.  At 6.00pm we were called to be seated in preparation for the buffet dinner.  The food was delicious and as usual I overindulged but I made sure that DH and I hit the dance floor to dance away some of those calories!  It was a lovely wedding and I'm very pleased that we made the journey to Kingscliffe.

Tomato Passata!

We went away for four days and in that time the tomatoes have exploded on the bushes.  We have yellow egg tomatoes and large red cherry.  The bushes came up by themselves in different areas of the garden and we just let them grow.  We have tried growing other varieties of tomatoes in the vegetable plot with very little  success.  So this morning I went out and picked these little gems.  I ended up with three kilograms!  I have already slow-roasted a large amount of tomatoes so this time I made tomato passata.  The recipe takes very little time make and the slowest part, by far, is cutting those little tomatoes in half!  Here is the end result.

The recipe came from Annabel Langbein - The Free Range Cook.

Here is the recipe (adapted for 3kg tomatoes).

TOMATO PASSATA
3kg large tomatoes (I of course used cherry tomatoes)
6 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons tomato paste
18 basil leaves
1.5 teaspoons salt
1.5 teaspoons sugar
lots of ground black pepper

If you are using large tomatoes, peel and dice them.  For cherry tomatoes, just cut in half.  Place all the ingredients in a large pot and simmer over a gentle heat for 40 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Cool the sauce, then pass through a mouli or puree in a food processor.  Pour into clean jars.  The passata will keep in the fridge for over a week or can be frozen for later use.  Recipe makes about 9 cups.

I use this sauce for so many different recipes.  Tonight I am having guests for dinner so the lasagne I made was based on this sauce, as are my bolognese.  I make a mean eggplant parmigiana using the passata and also use it tossed with home made pasta for a very quick meal.  It is a very versatile sauce and well worth the effort of making.

White Lion Jungle Ride

DH's vintage Mongoose that he will NEVER part with!

Daintree River Ferry

Lookout at Thornton's Peak

DH looking comfortable!

Today, DH rode in the White Lion Jungle Ride from Port Douglas to Cape Tribulation, a distance of 90km. The cyclists can then do the return ride, if they so wish.  Not many decide to do the return as it is quite difficult riding Thorntons Peak, the third highest mountain in Queensland.  DH initially said that he would finish at Cape Tribulation but when he arrived there he was feeling so good that he decided to do the return as far as his legs would carry him.  I was his support so I followed along behind him....driving at a speed of 20-30 kph.  Can't say I'm not a dedicated wife!  Anyway, DH finished the ride at the 145km mark.  He rode the 145km in 5 hours and 49 minutes and I'm very proud of him.

Pack riding

The return ride home was much faster than the ride to Cape Tribulation.  On the way up to Cape Trib the riders were split into six "packs" according to there riding ability.  DH had elected to ride in the group 27-29 kph.  On the way back it was a "free for all" and a case of "keep up if you can".  The pack kept up a much faster pace, around the 30 kph.  DH did very well to keep the pace.

I spoke with a few of the riders, who had travelled from all over Australia, and everyone of them was impressed with the ride.  It is a very beautiful ride through the rainforest and I think that is why the ride has so many repeat riders.  There are plenty of water stops for the riders, one being on the Daintree River Ferry!

Pack coming in Wonga Beach stop

DH wants to do the ride again next year....the whole 180km.....and I'm sure that he will ride that with ease!

Pack riding through Mossman

Fish Fingers

We had fish fingers for dinner tonight.  This may not seem like a profound statement but to DH and I it was a walk down memory lane.  We have not eaten these little morsels of loveliness for many years, indeed not since the boys were little and my youngest son is now 31!
You see, we lived in a very remote area of Australia for the greater part of our married life.  When I first moved to our western property in 1977 the only frozen food we could buy, came in a Peters "shipper"  A shipper was a large cardboard box lined with plastic to hold the dry ice and the frozen goods.  It stood about a metre and a half high and was about a half meter wide.  It was bulky to handle.  These shippers came out by train in a "cold car" and we had to make sure we were there to meet the train at the station in our little local town as the dry ice would not stand the 40 plus degree heat.
The frozen goods that we ordered were real treats.  Things like meat pies, chiko rolls and fish fingers!   It's a shame that these days we are told that those foods are bad for us, because, my goodness, they sure were tasty!  Everyone looked forward to those shippers that were ordered two or three times a year.

Anyway, back to our dinner tonight. These little fish fingers were just as nice as we remembered.  We did eat them with salad and lemon juice squeezed liberally over them and did not include fries on the side, so it was a little bit healthy.  I don't want to read what these little morsels are made of.  I might be shocked into never eating them again!

Sunrise in the West

This is a sunrise!

I took this photo when we were at one of our North West Queensland properties.  I  never tired of this beautiful view in any of the thirty years that I lived there and I have to tell you that the sunsets are just as spectacular.
The north west is vast.  It is very flat and has very few native trees.  The native grasses are flinders and mitchell and after an exceptional wet season this year there is an abundance of grass.
Where we live now, in tropical North Queensland, it has it's own beauty but I never get to see the sun rising over the horizon nor the sun setting in the west.  We have rainforest mountains surrounding us so the sun rises and sets behind them.  I can of course drive to one of the nearby beaches to watch the sunrise and I have done just that many times, but nothing is the same as the sunrise in the west.

It's nice to smile

I follow a blog called Woogsworld and I advise you all to check it out.  Mrs Woog writes from the heart and is incredibly funny.  Yesterday she wrote about crashing her brand new Kluger (or as she calls it, Sonia) into her husbands surfboard that was hanging from the ceiling in the garage (you really should read this).  Anyway, I commented back to Mrs. Woog about the time that I backed into a parking meter in Mount Isa of all places.  It was quite funny and Mrs Woog emailed me that she went to bed with a smile on face after reading that comment.

It made me think about things that make me smile.  I have a quirky sense of humour and I really hate it at times because the things that make me smile are things that cause another person discomfit. 
I love Funniest Home Videos.  I don't just smile I really laugh.  So is this a bad thing and am I a bad person?  I almost wet myself when I saw our PM trip over her heels in India and go down to the ground.  Poor woman.  But, I empathise because it has also happened to me in front of a lot of people.

Sometimes I get the giggles at the most inappropriate times, like for example, at a meeting when you have a guest speaker who trips on his way to the dais.  I try to hide the giggles with coughs but that just comes out sounding ridiculous.
So, my mother says that laughter is the best medicine but should I laugh at another persons discomfit?

Vegetarian

I'm not a vegetarian.  Never have been and never will be.  I love a good piece of meat - preferably beef - and we eat it at least once a day.  I don't knock vegetarians because I believe that everyone should be able to make choices without prejudice.  Personally I think that it is not a healthy diet to take out meat.  I have three friends (all vegetarian) who have been quite ill in the last few months.  All have been told the same thing, bad bacteria in the stomach?  To me there is a pattern forming but I'm not a GP.

What I do object to however is the vegetarian lady that told me that the reason she gave up eating meat was because of the way animals are treated.  I was truly gobsmacked when this woman made this statement.  We LOVE our animals and would never intentionally harm a single one of them.  We even go as far as naming them and if you follow my posts you would have read about Delila, the twins, etc etc.  Even on the station where we are running thousands of cattle our weaners are almost pat quiet.  This is because at weaning we hand feed them for  a long time so that they become used to humans and they know that they do not need to be afraid of us.

This is REALLY bad treatment of animals (ha! ha! Actually its DH having a chat to one of the wearers!

Now, I'm not naive enough to think that all people treat their animals with the same amount of respect that we extend to our animals but these people are most certainly the minority and it is very unfair to base allegations about animal mistreatment on the majority of us.

Yep, here he is again mistreating the animals!

And why are some (not all) vegetarians taking on a "holier than thou" attitude towards us meat-loving folks and making us feel guilty that we enjoy it!  This minority group of vegetarians are becoming more and more vocal and we are targets........ easy targets, with our easy going country natures that really don't like confrontation.

That same woman that made the comment about animal treatment was carrying a leather handbag and was also wearing leather shoes.  Undoubtably she drove off in her car with leather car seats.  But hey, it's not for me to point out where the source or her leather came from.  So much for loving your animals!

October Sketch Challenge

Here is my take on the October sketch challenge over at the Scraptherapy website.  I love this sketch as  I have always enjoyed using paint on my layouts.  I was also trying to think of a way to scrap our twin calves, Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum.  I am happy with this layout.