Green Peas

We have left Moree by car and tonight, Sunday 22, we are at Narromine.
The reason for our earlier than usual departure is due to Tatum, eldest granddaughter, obtaining a double degree from Monash University.  We are very proud of her and wish her great success in her marketing promotional business, 2 Minds Marketing, which she runs with her boyfriend, Adam.   Her graduation will be on Sept 26 and we will be there to rejoice with her.  
Steve will return to Moree by train, to pick up the truck and caravan and bring them home.  Meanwhile. I will stay in Melbourne with the girls.  

As we are going early, THE GREEN PEAS are not quite ready.   I was a little worried about them for a while, as they seemed to have powdery mildew but they remained very healthy looking,  They have just developed lots of pods and there are many more flowers.  Les is going to water them and Marion and Richard will give him a hand and help to eat them.  I am waiting on word of their first meal so that I can savour every mouthful.

I think I've solved my problem with the blog by using Google Chrome instead of Firefox browser.   That's a shame ---- Firefox served me well and I loved it.

Now go ahead and admire my peas.  They're very easy to grow from seeds and while not a dwarf variety, they don't grow very tall.

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A Man and his Bird

It was a long, long, long nesting season for the magpies this year.  I'm sure that they spent longer than usual building their nests ---- which they lined with coconut fibre --- from my potplants.

The parents were so diligent at keeping humans away from the nests.  I tried to tell them that we intended no harm but ........      They dive bombed on people as we walked to the pool, all along our road, 150 metres and around the corner to the office, another 50 metres.  They hated Steve being on his bike and attacked vigorously.    He painted eyes on the back of his helmet and stuck in vertical spikes of cable tie.  These proved to be too short for comfort, (for snapping beaks) so he replaced them with much longer cable ties.   Still they attacked.
Then he decided to tire them out ---- when he returned from his long ride out on the open road, he circled our area of caravans, over and over, with birds swooping, until they wobbled tiredly away!  When people stopped to talk to him, he told them that he was taking his bird for a walk!

Even after the 3 baby birds were flying, the parents still snapped at Steve whenever he went outside.  They almost came into the annexe to get him.    They never came near me!!!!   One day recently, Steve stopped wearing a cap and put on a battered straw hat and the maggies kept away.  Now we are leaving and their babies have left, what will they do for their daily exercise and entertainment??
                         
               You might have to look closely to see how close the parent gets to Steve.

Why won't my photos line up?   I'm having all kinds of trouble with this blog.  I might have to give it up.

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A precious gift. A surprise flower. A drama.

 A precious gift

When I opened a parcel last week, there was a lovely handwritten note from Indy, our youngest of 7 grandchildren.  He has just had his 9th birthday and is in Grade 3.   At this stage, I used to give children their "Driver's licence" to join up their letters and write with a pen.  Indy's carefully formed letters seemed to also have some copperplate characters in them!  Beautifully done, it said, "Dear Nana, It has been so cold lately.  I fingerknitted this scarf and returned your blanket.  And I know you like purple.   Love Indy xxxooo
What a great scarf, what a lot of work and what a lucky Nana!!!!  Thank you Indy.   

A surprise flower

The first of my flowers to come out were the hyacinth bulbs.  They gave me a lot of pleasure and their beautiful perfume lasted for ages.    When the flowers had all died, I stopped giving them water and put the pot aside.   To my great amazement, I found that the pink one had a second flower starting to grow.  I cut off the rotting stem of the first pink flower, to give it more room and up came another full sized gorgeous flower.

When all first flowers were out ---- the pink one is at the bottom.  

Here is the second pink flower.

 

  A drama

Steve provided some excitement for the neighbours on Thursday, August 15th.    After having had a colonoscopy two day earlier, he suddenly developed severe abdominal pain.  It worsened rapidly and he had other rather frightening symptoms like a terribly high BP, so I called the ambulance.  After a night in hospital, lots of tests and a running river of morphine, the pain stopped suddenly, with no cause being established.  Gall stones were found in a CT scan but the doctor felt that the pain was not caused by them.

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A Visiting Poet

On Monday this week, we had a lovely visit from a travelling poet and her photographer/roadie.
Nerelie Teese is an ex-Leitchville girl, who attended school with Steve's sister Deb.  Steve met her through Deb in the late sixties and I was introduced to her in the late seventies when she was living in Beaudesert, Qld. 

I don't know how many different paths Nerelie has followed during these years but you can be sure that they are all interesting and people oriented.    Check out her website -- it's fascinating reading.
By the time Steve's and Deb's Mum, Betty, required funeral services, Nerelie, who knew Betty well, had become a Civil Celebrant.   She conducted a beautiful, personal service, which must have thrilled Betty.

Nerelie's latest incarnation is as a travelling bush poet.  She began by reading bush poems, mainly to kids, graduated to memorising the poems and dramatising them and is now giving presentations all over the countryside, indeed, all over the world.  It was a foregone conclusion that Nerelie would write her own poems which are now included in the presentations and ceremonies.   Here in Moree, she performed for the Fairview Senior Citizens Village.

We met Leigh Wright for the first time.  His bush photographs enhance Nerelie's presentations.  He described his role to us as, "Sitting quietly in the back and watching, making mental notes of what grabbed an audience's attention, anything that needed changing."

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Pass The Peas Please

There was a young girl from Dimboola

Who always ate peas with a ruler.

When folks cried, "Use your knife!"

She said, "Not on your life,

The steel only makes them get cooler."

For a long time, I have yearned for a feed of fresh shelled peas. I've tried in all of the local shops but can't find any peas, apart from snow peas . I asked in the major supermarkets and was told, "No one wants to waste time shelling peas these days."

What a lovely way to waste time!! Sitting with cousins on my Grandmother's veranda, shelling peas for Christmas dinner into a large bowl. Every now and then, Nana would call from the kitchen , "Keep whistling". While we whistled, we couldn't eat the peas!

In the mid sixties, frozen vegetables hit the supermarket shelves; just a few --- peas, carrots and corn, from memory.  They were very expensive which showed they were a luxury so I normally didn't buy them.  For a "night off", instead of buying fast food (of which there was little), I would buy a small packet of frozen vegies and feel quite decadent!   It wasn't until the seventies before I could buy any frozen food without feeling guilty;  this was because we were in a tiny town that had very little fresh vegetables.

Long story short ------  I bought a packet of seeds and we sowed them along the fence on July 17th.  Two days later, we had 1" of rain, followed by a week of warm sunshine so the little green leaves have all stuck their heads up.     It's going to be a long while before there are peas to eat and I'll be waiting daily, smacking my chops!!

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Visitors

Jenny and Leon and a trailer load of his son's furniture arrived late on Thursday.  As this park was full, they took a cabin at the Mehi park, which turned out to be very nice.

We all went to the RSL Club for dinner that night, talking nineteen to the dozen, as they planned to move on to Brisbane the next day. 

After they had a spa on Friday morning, they found themselves very relaxed and exhausted, so they booked in for another night in the cabin. 

We hadn't made any firm plans for the day, so it fitted in with their mood.   We went to a great little cafe in the main street and enjoyed open grilled sandwiches for lunch.  Two huge slices of bread were loaded with fillings; that was fine for Jenny and Leon, who shared.  Steve and I could eat only half of ours, which was just perfect because we had the other half for tea that night.

We all came back so that Leon could see our caravan.  He and Steve have a lot in common and they talked so much that Jenny and I couldn't get a word in edgewise and left them to it.

They left on Saturday morning, with us wishing they could have stayed longer.  That's a sign of great visitors!!!

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WELL DONE TATEY!!!!!!

After 5 years of hard work, Tatum has completed her double degree --- while working at a part-time job (which is almost full-time.)
We are so proud of her. As well as her jobs, she managed to keep up with some sports and an active social life.  Along the way, she gathered up Adam, who then gathered up our family as his fan club!!

They both worked for some years with a promotions company before forming their own, Two Minds Marketing, which is doing very well. 

Facebook announced the completion of the degrees, then a little later it carried the louder screams of elation at winning an indoor beach volleyball competition.   Tate also got the Most Valued player.  She's riding high this week!! 

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