Lessons I learned on your behalf today:

Lessons for the evening.  

When you discover a new blog which entertains:

 and you fail to find her facebook page or her twitter feed (because you fail to see the very obvious Twitter Feed box on her blog - d'oh)

do NOT then search for like terms on Twitter.
 

You may find yourself in alien territory

 or lost in reminiscing.

That is all.

The Third Thing

You know how things happen in threes...

and when one thing happens, you think it is isolated, just one thing...

and then another thing happens and you just start searching like crazy for that third thing?

---

No?

Okay, welcome to my mind.

This is the third thing.

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It was also instrumental in the first thing - for being a little heavy.

In defence of the hapless right foot, the logic sector of my brain assisted it - along the lines of "roadworks, fair enough, like to slow down through someone's workspace, do de do de do de dooo - 4 km and nary a sign of any roadworks, mustn't be happening or be over, send the message to the appendage in charge of acceleration - oh, apparently it is still roadworks despite the lack of actual work going on on the road, appendage, hit the pedal to the left - too late, flashing lights, hello there officer".

Working out the cost of that little misunderstanding - 8 (in the end) km of "roadworks" (my definition of that term apparently isn't wide enough to encompass that of the legal establishment in the Sunshine State) at 40km below the usual speed limit = 5 1/3 minutes - so I need to earn the equivalent of $6,446.25 an hour to justify that sort of frittering...

Yeah, right.  Onya right foot.

---

The second thing - again, not completely the fault of the right foot. 

Driving along a lonely road with the girls on my way back to V - a long, lovely, sun-dappled, lonely road.  A long, lovely, sun-dappled, lonely road that was not the scene of the above.

The sun-dappled is the thing, though.  Weaving in and out of forests and hills and valleys so gorgeous, ensuring that the foot was not too heavy and heeding my father's sage advice "drive to the conditions" so the gravel road received far more respect than the above-mentioned "roadworks".

And then the sun-dappled malevelently tripped me up.  Threw a pebble in my path, if you will.  A large pebble.   Of rock-like proportions.

Until I was upon it, the sun-dappled was just doing its thing, and then I got a half-second glimpse of my doom - and then the underside of my car felt its doom and then...

And then the old right foot could do whatever it pleased, it no longer had control over acceleration because my car was mourning its transmission.

In the middle of a long, lovely, sun-dappled, lonely road with ABSOLUTELY no mobile coverage.

Right foot got plenty of time to contemplate.  As did left foot.  As did 'Salina and Paris - full kudos to 'Salina - she was a trooper in sharing the load (half an emergency kit we put together - warm clothes, water, food - darn, I am going to have a torch next time though!! - and half to the just woken from a much needed nap Paris).

We did see one car during our hike - a ute with a young couple - who we gave our details to so they could call for assistance in case we didn't find any mobile signal before dark.

We had to hike for several k along that  lovely, sun-dappled, lonely road - around bends, through gullies and up, up, up hill - one hill, one HUGE expletive deleted hill - until, miracle of miracles, 'Salina found a magical spot where we got 2 bars!!

Those 2 bars of signal meant we could call for roadside assistance, for friendly reassuring voices, for quelling fears of loved ones and for entreaties for a tow-truck.

At first, I was promised the towie would call me "as he was out on a job".  When the call came through, it was from the town of our destination - over 120km away - and he had NO CLUE where we actually were but thought he could wing it and would be there in a few hours - and could I stay WITH the vehicle, in the dark, away from my precious 2 bars of mobile signal with the girls?  He conceded that was foolish, but still expected us to wait several hours on the side of the lonely road with looming shadows playing with the Twilight-gorged mind of  'Salina.

We did see several other vehicles after this promise - all were warned of the car and the possibility of rocks, and all were (thankfully) normal pleasant people.

As we were working out the logistics of transporting ourselves to safety as well as the car, the bright flashing lights of a tow truck approached from the town we had travelled FROM - only 45km away - which was SUCH A RELIEF.

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So a broken toe-nail?  So claiming it for my third!!

August - Garden Share Collective

The biggest producers during July were definitely the herb patch - we harvested like crazy, as the coriander does get the bit between its teeth and bolts so easily in our climate.  Luckily we have a few more seedlings getting started, so we are letting it go and hopefully I will work out how to treat the seed for spice usage.

The legume patch is going gangbusters also, producing enough for several meals a week and a voracious 3 year old self-serving!  There is a bit of powdery mildew, which was an issue with cucumbers in this bed last season.  We used a milk spray (not always effectively) then, but I have just read about a chamomile spray suggestion so might see how that goes.

We have some new plants in the ground - Pak Choi is awesome, so I have coerced V into planting a few more here and there.

As the strawberries were busy disappointing us, V has thinned them considerably and mounded them, and is going to mulch to see if they are happier.  We think this bed may be a bit unhappy - about 7 months ago we used a fair percentage of paper trash in a mulch on it and, while the chilli is going great guns, everything else complains.  TLC is definitely scheduled here.

This little patch, however, needs no extra assistance - all by itself it has created a forest of tomatoes of all ilks, and we have already reaped a hearty crop.

That tomato created some excellent raita last night!

V has also been hard at work getting a few more seedlings up and running - I am looking forward to capsicums...

Another thing I am looking forward to is a bumper crop of limes next year - this year we got attacked rather severely by brown aphids (and there masters and controllers, the ants) - this year we have banded for ants and ladybirded for aphids, and it looks like me might be approaching a win

Something that does pop up from time to time and puts smiles on our faces are sunflowers (hence the header) - we are looking forward to this one blooming soon...

And these several million in Summer - V is trying to develop a bit more terrace out the front to define our ground a little more and stop the run off (and eventually grow a bit of a privacy border) - as an interim measure we put all of our flower trash from the front garden in here, and we are definitely going to have marigolds, whatever those flame flowers are and allysium in abundance to kickstart us.

Thanks to Lizzie from Strayed from the Table for inspiring and hosting the Garden Share Collective - go and see what else everyone is doing in their gardens this month.

Today we welcomed Spring

This morning you would not have anticipated this afternoon at all.

This morning promised a search for self-entertainment in confined spaces due to impending inclemency...

But it seemed it was not to be

For today we welcomed spring.

Nature spoke in the back yard of Paradise this month.

I have helped entertain 8 households with herbs these past few weeks

The coriander exuberantly bolted upwards, delighting in the sunlight and warmth

Galloping gaily towards bloom.

Echoed by the abundance of the legume hedge.

Youthful exuberance coupled with a basic failure in understanding the principles behind the gentle parental guidance to use two hands to harvest

 

Means it is a mess,

 a mass of vines and flowers and suddenly apparent pods

Our centre of philosophical corn still stands

The pyramid of tomatoes above received a hearty prune

(as did the hedge of romas, cherrys and a curiously striped tiger variation in the corner eco-system)

And we look forward to a million and two green tomato time bombs.

In the last go round of the Garden Share Collective (thank you Lizzie from strayedtable for your inspiration.  My "if I had not a care in the world" daydream this week was the workshop they ran over the weekend) - anyhow, in the last go round of the GSC, one thing that truly struck me was the number of fellow gardeners and bloggers out there who had a completely different relationship with the avialae genus than we

who actually encourage and plant trees

Specifically for their property

Of attracting birds.

You know you are in paradise

When you are sipping coffee

 
on a Sunday afternoon

And have the luxury of feeling acceptance

By birdlife

(who incidentally also display territorial spats and marketing campaigns of suitors-to-be

indicative of Spring-ie 
Potency.

We even squeezed in a trip to the playground and beach

I have just pulled a loaf of bread out of the oven

Finished colouring my hair

And ticked a major list item off

In finally kicking to the kerb the el-cheapo DVD player

That frustrated us greatly with its

None too cute inability of translating the frantic jabbing at grey buttons on a black box

And tendency to tantrum and switch off like a 14 year old with a Manga habit.

How was your Sunday?

Vignette - or is that vingette? Or vinegarette? Anyhoo, little bits of life right now...

I went to a photography exhibition and saw something that reminded me of work (and now, not the toilet part)

I stayed at the most gorgeous B&B with views (thanks Mum & Dad)

I saw rainbows

I saw this awesome lady (with this awesome lady) (and missing this lady)

I saw people who really needed help

and people who were happy to help

I have spent hours on the phone and talking face to face with people and verifying forms and filling documents and pushing with bureacracy and photocopying and photographing and driving and  folding piles and international land deals and phone calls I should have made to embassies and small organisation machinations and impossible demands and wins and water and husky voice and rusted cars and mandarines and despair and delightful roses

 ...  well, what can I say, it has been a week.

How was yours?