Great Grandfather's day

The sidewalk supermarket has a downside when you stop to load the car with a newly cut down tree, especially one that oozes sticky sap.  This stuff is now on the door handles and the steering wheel and anywhere else you might touch. We unloaded them yesterday, now we have to cleanup. There is an orange based cleaner that I have used for unglueing stamps, that might work. Other wise it was more cake and coffee at the fathers day gathering.  I am limiting cake to birthdays only for this birthday season. Call it a Spring resolution.  We have just enough time to get the yard swept and weathered plant detritus into the green bin.  Abin to that.

rocket cake

toasting the children

Heart rate at 112 at the top of a hill, is that good for a 70 year old?

Birthday Season

There is nothing like a spit roast and if you are going around to James' house for lunch then lamb on a spit is it.  It was also his birthday and I scored a present or two for Father's day so everyone gets a prize.  The backyard projects are progressing here with a huge five hour effort to dig a hole for the new pond, actually an old triangular bath reporpoised (haha) for frogs and fish.  The science is in the seperate tub for cleaning and recycling the water back to the fish tub. Still a work in progress. 

thousands of worms

birthday trimmer

two ponds

Fountain of Knowledge Part II

Riddle me this. How do you change a water feature into a water creature?  You reporpoise it.  HaHa.  The relocated big urn is now successfully gurgling water but mostly is shooting it outside the recollection bowl.  Also the pump is now much shallower therefore more noisy. In fact it competes with the cascade effect that we were after.   So plan C-2 is to plug the urn in order to fill it with deep water and sink the pump to the bottom thus dampening the sound. I think there is another riddle there somewhere.  One problem I can see now is the much smaller watershed for the recollection of the spray.  The silicon plug will take at least 24 hours to harden.  As Baumgartner would say "These procedures are fully reversible".

pump hidden behind in the shallow bowl

pump now directly attached the head

plugging the centre tube

Fountain Head

 We have a number of water features dotted around but the original and best is getting obscured by olives, cherries and other growths.  Now this is an inground heavy duty construction and now it is to be moved. Moving or even duplicating the brick lined pit elsewhere is a problem, so we are going to try and turn it from an underground reservoir to an above ground bubbler.  Debbie has located a pot wide enough but not so deep as to submerge the original.  However the shallowness also needs to conceal the pump and store enough water. 

black abyss

Spring Flowers

 It's not proper wildflower season as yet however there are hints as a few blooms emerge.  Not sure why backyard orchids are Winter and bush orchids are Spring but there is another four to six weeks before those start showing through. Along the rail trail today there are boards showing the various native orchids and what to look for. We did see some ground huggers that had unfurled with the Sun but as usual you need to get right down to Earth for a better look.

Wood Sorrel

Barrel Part III

 On our ride yesterday we saw the cleanup truck coming so would be glad to get the barrel off the street.   An hour later we returned and the bin had been cleared but the barrel was left behind as well as the decking.  I could use the snap send solver but will wait for the kerbside truck which picks up neighbourhood hard rubbish.  I also walked the high tide line from two weeks ago. This one had pushed right to the back and there are two others lower down which I have already walked. This last one was packed with small lids & caps, straws, wrappers and rope pieces.  There is more there but I must have bent down over 100 times in 400 metres. Makes for a slow walk.

puffer spike hazard

inside the bag

Whiskey Creek revisited

 Some weeks back we ventured East along the coast until a deep ravine crossed the way.  This time we came riding bikes on a reasonably smooth track following the course upstream.  We got to the spot where we turned back previously however we only went  another 300m before having to U turn.  At this point the locals have put fences across the creek, one of which is electrified.  I can see they want to deter any thru traffic from the back of their properties.  We could see the main road not 100m away. In the rogaining days this would not have been a an issue as fence climbing was all a part of the trek. This time we had bicycles. We turned back again and found the nearest coffee stop. 

turn back

bay cliffs