I have to give a big thank you to River for having a succulent garden and making me think I might like to try growing succulents. I have never grown them before. You may recall, I chose some Portulaca. In the photo above you can see how they looked on the 20th of September.

And here they are just one short month later on the 20th of October. They have taken off like mini rockets.

Above you see them on the 21st of October – as you can see, each day can make a huge difference in the flowers that appear. Some days there aren’t any but there are always loads of buds growing and so the suspense of when each flower will open is lots of fun to watch. :)

I had no idea how much I would enjoy watching their progress. These Portulaca plants have been an absolute revelation for me. Every morning the first thing I do after putting on my glasses is head to the back door to see whether they have any new flowers for me today.

You can see two of the plants are reaching out branches to each other..

I do have a routine of watering. Every second day, I give all the plant pots a good drink of 1 litre of water poured into each pot from some 2 litre milk carton friends I kept and drew a line on.

I am very careful not to wet the leaves, just the soil. If it is a hot day, I will usually do this about 3:30pm because around that time it is pretty shady out there thanks to a tree in the right spot. Around 20-30 minutes later, the sun peeks out from behind that tree and things get hot again.

On the alternate days, once the sun is on the way down, around 6-7pm, The Other Half waters with a hose – not a long water or a soaking, more like a sprinkle.

The flowers are truly gorgeous and there are many different colours. So far a lot of pink, yellow, and two different apricot shades have appeared. I’m sure this plant has many more lovely flowers in store for me this summer.

Would you like to join in with Sunday Selections?? The rules are very simple:-
1. post photos of your choice, old or new, under the Sunday Selections title
2. link back to River at Drifting Through Life, somewhere in your post
3. leave River a comment so that she knows you’ve joined in and can come over and see what you’ve posted.

I’m also linking up with Sunday Snap over at JibberJabberUK –

And the Maple Hill Hop.

Weekly Wrap Up –

It has rained almost every day this week. Sadly when it does rain, the portulaca flowers do not open! This has caused many sad moments here. However the chooks are having an absolute blast out there digging for bugs in this weather.

I discovered some submersible LED colour changing tealight “candles” this week and I’m a huge fan, they are gorgeous. I will have to update you urgently on the state of the candle shelf soon. :)

This is the first Sunday of November, it is Garden Update time. I’ll throw in a chook update because it is relevant to the garden this month. The sunflowers and catgrass are doing well –

The portulacas are a constant riot of colourful flowers. I’ve got a post just about them for next weekend. :)

One of the new nasturtiums is very very happy.

The other one was looking a little straggly. Then, the chooks found it. More about that below.

Chooks Are Good

Chooks love to eat spiders. So they have been getting a lot of free range time since we discovered we have funnel web spiders on the property. They do not stop with spiders – they will eat any kind of bug or moving thing. This past week, I saw Rosie chasing a cabbage moth across the yard, jumping into the air trying to catch it.

Chooks Are Bad

On Thursday my afternoon peace time was interrupted with a lot of trumpeting – when I went out to find out what was going on, one of the girls had a small lizard in her beak and one of the other chooks was chasing her around the yard trying to get it.

Then they took a fancy to eating one of the new nasturtiums, because it is right next to a spot they love to dustbathe in. That one was looking a little straggly to begin with, now it looks.. bad.

Also, one of the girls decided it was time to build a nest among the flowers – she laid an egg in there too – and consequently my lovely planter box now looks like this –

The girls were not let out on Friday at all. Saturday morning, we did this –

That is 10 photos, which is my limit for a post. I’ll update you on the planter box with baby spinach, brussel sprouts and silverbeet next month.

Would you like to join in with Sunday Selections?? The rules are very simple:-
1. post photos of your choice, old or new, under the Sunday Selections title
2. link back to River at Drifting Through Life, somewhere in your post
3. leave River a comment so that she knows you’ve joined in and can come over and see what you’ve posted.

Sunday Snap –

I’m also linking up with Sunday Snap over at JibberJabberUK –

Weekly Wrap Up –

I’ve been recovering from an injury this week so I have been taking things super easy. You’ll get to read about my injury on Friday this week.

I also ordered and received a new phone – the Samsung Galaxy s5. My old phone was struggling a bit to find a signal and the battery lasted less than a day, so it was time to upgrade.

Sephy sent me a package as well. When we were in Hawaii in 2013, I bought some antihistamines I had never seen in Australia from Costco which have been fantastic for me, they work really well. I ran out of them right before allergy season started here this year and it is a bad allergy season. Within 2 days of the drugs arriving, I am like a human again!

Here are some photos from our Canberra day trip. First up a bit of a photo fail – it may be out of focus and difficult to make out, but that is a reflection of my sparkly watch in the window as we were driving home in the afternoon.

These pineapple bookends would be an awesome addition to my collection, however they were Up Money at $199. A lot of things in this particular store are Up Money.

Like this glittery skull for $179. The photo does not give you an idea of the size – we are talking large bowling ball size here. I think I could probably recreate this with papier mache and glitter for considerably less $$.

This “diamante” skull was more reasonable at just under $35. It was still fairly large, probably just slightly larger than a real human skull would be. They also had a skull shaped liquid soap dispenser which I exclaimed out loud when I saw it, much to the amusement of a nearby staff member, which made me shy about taking a photo of it. I wish I had, in fact I wish I had bought it!

This copper toucan would be amazing on my candle shelf. Now that I know how candle light reflects from these kinds of items, I have to refrain from buying All The Things That Look Like This. Copper, Gold, Silver, Bronze, these things are my Kryptonite. After all, my candle shelf is now completely packed with items, there is no room for anything more!

Christmas at this store is also very beautiful. A few years ago they had a white feather Christmas tree which retailed for just under $900. It was a thing of great beauty. Well, it would want to be for that kind of money!

Would you like to join in with Sunday Selections?? The rules are very simple:-
1. post photos of your choice, old or new, under the Sunday Selections title
2. link back to River at Drifting Through Life, somewhere in your post
3. leave River a comment so that she knows you’ve joined in and can come over and see what you’ve posted.

Weekly Wrap Up –

Happy Moments for our Grumpy. Friday morning she was returned to the vet for another eye check up. Her eye is almost healed. She will receive eye cream for another week, then nothing more.

A not quite so happy moment – on the way there, The Other Half said to me he seemed to have lost the power steering. It turns out the return hose has a crack in it, so that will be difficult to fix. We’ll have to share the Polo until it is fixed.

Television Update –

You may recall that The Other Half and I watched Mr Robot together a few months ago and we decided we wanted to keep watching something together.. After the first season finished, we chose 24 which we had never seen before.

This turned out to be a terrible mistake. Maybe 7-8 episodes in, we personally wanted to strangle 99% of the characters ourselves, and we would be screaming at the teevee – usually TELL HER or TELL HIM, because the characters on that show had a – wonderful for storylines but terrible for actual people – habit of keeping stuff to themselves!

We gave up at the end of the first season, and I suggested that we try watching Breaking Bad, which The Other Half has not seen. We are 7 episodes in and he is enjoying it thus far, plus it is wonderful to *finally* watch it together.

Would you like to go to the garden centre with me? Don’t worry, we will look with our eyeballs, not our purses.

These were new to me – lollipop daisies. I am not normally a daisy fan but I love these!

They had quite a range of different coloured daisies.

This bee was a fan.

Out of all the non flowering plants, I deeply love Pittosporum. My parents have this planted down one side of their house and have made it into a hedge of awesomeness.

This little plant is called a Loropetalum. Every year at this particular garden centre they grow something to a very large size and make a feature of it out the front of the place, then they have smaller versions inside for people to buy. This years plant has proved so popular, the local Bunnings are stocking it too.

There is some truth in advertising.. :)

What a gorgeous display of purple and pink! I bought the Aubrieta.

Would you like to join in with Sunday Selections?? The rules are very simple:-
1. post photos of your choice, old or new, under the Sunday Selections title
2. link back to River at Drifting Through Life, somewhere in your post
3. leave River a comment so that she knows you’ve joined in and can come over and see what you’ve posted.

While meditating on whether or not I should purchase the Gold Pineapple for my Pineapple Collection, I was wandering through Pillowtalk with a friend and I discovered a couple of items which were considerably marked down. They returned home with me to be added to the candle shelf.

First up, I wanted to see if we could hang up my clock to add some room to the shelf. I was concerned about hanging it up because it is very heavy indeed, and we’d already had an incident where the whiteboard fell off the wall here. The whiteboard is firmly screwed into the wall studs now, and so is the nail holding up the clock.

This tealight holder was $4. I liked it because it was that gorgeous blue glass which I love to collect. However, light a candle inside it, and you get almost a purple effect. The light that shines out of it is a cool white.

The effect of this is quite interesting and makes me want to add more tealight holders in various colours to the shelf.

This gorgeous glass tealight holder with silver accents was $9. I thought it would be interesting to have a candle at a slightly different height, plus the silver fits in with the shelf very well now.

I was right that it is interesting – it allows for some new reflections from the pineapples. I’m still considering the gold pineapple – if and when it gets marked down and I happen to drop in and spot it, I will likely pick it up. Until then, this shelf is looking pretty awesome with the new additions, and I have a few tealight holders which I am planning to rotate onto the shelf regularly.

Of course, there was a copper vase added recently and I also got two new bright red tealight holders. I’ll show you those next time.

Would you like to join in with Sunday Selections?? The rules are very simple:-
1. post photos of your choice, old or new, under the Sunday Selections title
2. link back to River at Drifting Through Life, somewhere in your post
3. leave River a comment so that she knows you’ve joined in and can come over and see what you’ve posted.

Weekly Wrap Up –

Oops, totally forgot to schedule this post yesterday! I was out to dinner with family while The Other Half went to bed super early. He has gone to Bathurst today leaving at 1am. I am here with a cat who spent most of the night unsuccessfully trying to remove her collar. She is very determined but she has finally given up and climbed into one of her favourite spots to get some sleep.

I get to visit Canberra on Wednesday – just a short day trip. I’m not sure what the plans are but I know DFO is in there somewhere. Next weekend we are dropping my Loopy Uncle off at the airport with all his stuff, and he is going back to Adelaide to live. He has so successfully chewed through my parents goodwill that they are saying they will not take him. Whether that turns out to be the case or whether my Dad will change his mind at the last minute I am not sure.

Fun for all the family! But hey, we’ll make it fun for us with a drop into IKEA, and go to dinner with friends, and probably bring home some Krispy Kremes.

Today I have some shots of a sparkly Swarovski light fitting. :) I will let the pictures do the talking!

Would you like to join in with Sunday Selections?? The rules are very simple:-
1. post photos of your choice, old or new, under the Sunday Selections title
2. link back to River at Drifting Through Life, somewhere in your post
3. leave River a comment so that she knows you’ve joined in and can come over and see what you’ve posted.

Weekly Wrap Up –

After just over 4 years of owning chickens, I managed to be at the coop at the right time to witness an actual egg being laid this week. It is not for lack of trying, believe me. When you go out there and open the flap and a chook is on the nest, 10 times out of 10, they will decide to put their egg laying off until a later moment.

I think I arrived at the exact moment it was too late to postpone that egg. The chook looked at me, I looked at her, and out popped that egg. It was quite a magical moment.

What the heck happened to the warmer weather? I’ve been feeling like an icicle for several days now. Not cool, weather deities! Brrr!

A couple of songs inspired me to sign up to Pandora Radio this week, which I will be writing a post about in the near future. One of them was Head Over Heels by Tears for Fears, and the other one is a Neil Diamond song which appeared in the pilot of Mr Robot. And here it is – as it appears in the show.

It might surprise people to find out I am a Neil Diamond fan. To be honest I like a lot of music which might seem unexpected.

Winner Winner

Chicken and Lamb Roast Dinner! We went to the meat raffle last night and won a couple of trays. I said to The Other Half, I have a mathematical for you – how can I make two of these roasting pans fit in the oven at the same time? He tested it with the cold oven and the answer is, I cannot. They just do not fit together. So I have to roast them separately.

I don’t eat lamb so that is currently cooking in the oven for The Other Half and once it is done we will slice it up awesomely and use it for his lunch sammiches next week. After that, I will roast the chicken with some potatoes and then steam up some carrot, cauliflower and broccoli to go with it. Happy moments!

How About You?

What is happening in your world?

As I mentioned in this post, I wanted to protect these plants from chickens, moths and caterpillars. We began with chickens because had I kept the girls locked up for a few days. After planting these seedlings one of the English Game Hens had jumped up onto the planter box while I was standing right there, and then looked at me with a face that said, I’m about to eat all your seedlings! She was quickly shooed away. Had I not been there, the seedlings would have been eaten quickly.

My Other Half is a delicate genius as you may be aware. He chose to put this on hinges, to make access easy if required. He knew the box would be completely covered and he thought ahead. Yes, those are the kitties enjoying some backyard time.

You may have noticed, these photos were taken after the box has been covered in fly wire.

The solar lights are those LED colour changing ones. At night this looks pretty funky now. The baby spinach is really taking off.

Here is a shot with the completed box in place.

Some more recycling and some inventions – The Other Half bought a weather station many years ago and some of the plastic parts had disintegrated. He printed out some parts for it with his 3d printer, those are the red parts.

Here is our former cat door, which stands on a layer of brick pavers and then has brick pavers on top holding it in place. This is not a long term solution, it is only temporary while the new plants have a chance to settle in. Otherwise the chooks might dig too much around them and they might not survive it.

We also bought some cat grass and there are some sunflower seeds in this planter box. We’ll see if they grow. :)

Would you like to join in with Sunday Selections?? The rules are very simple:-
1. post photos of your choice, old or new, under the Sunday Selections title
2. link back to River at Drifting Through Life, somewhere in your post
3. leave River a comment so that she knows you’ve joined in and can come over and see what you’ve posted.

Weekly Wrap Up –

Not much to report this week. Our main goal for this weekend is to install a chicken treat holder in the chook pen – inspired by this post and some cooling racks we found at Aldi. Click through and watch the time lapse video of the chooks eating the treats, it is super cool. :)

The Emmy Awards

This year the results could be *very* different. Alan Sepinwall from Hitfix has a great post about why that might be so. Here’s where you can catch the Emmys on TV in Australia.