Double O

The Natural world has been a bit cruel lately, I took this glorious shot of that huge moon, and this is how it came out! What sort of trick is that? Perhaps I should have photoshopped it!We have had two days of torrential rain, and the ditches are full to overflowing. WE still have the majority of the grapes on. They will be harvested this Friday and we are not holding out much hope of getting it in with the condition holding. What we'd like are cold winds to dry things up without encouraging botrytis. It hasn't been much fun for Warren loosening the nets today. Duncan will spend most of his birthday taking the nets off tomorrow, then I will do a full day on Thursday.

Moons and floods. They have double 00 in common. Oh goodness I am looking forward to a holiday!!

What's important

With all the disasters in the world lately it has reminded me to focus on what's important in life - friends and family. Rather belatedly, here are my Weetbix triathlon pics of Millie and Alex.
Out of the pool and Alex makes a fast sprint to his bike.
Off on the bike and then the run - and finally, the finish line!

"I won this medal"

Millie as a seasoned campaigner in this event reflects on her efforts.

And its all worth it to get a chocolate bar from your Mum. Its not often she hands out the chocolate!

Well done kids, and a frantic morning for the supporters!

She's Gone

I had been noticing changes in Myrtle, she had been wrinkling badly and going a golden colour, and sure enough when we went out today we found that Myrtle had disconnected from her stem - probably when Duncan is in the Patch taking off all the flowers and baby pumpkins.
So now all our hopes are on Jack. He's getting a big boy, so we will just have to be carefull with his stalk. Its probably to late to start another one. Duncan can't lift Myrtle so maybe we can use her for moving practice.

Very Taxing

The last two weeks have been very taxing. The GST rate changed but the textbooks didn't. They are due out in Sept this year. Very useful. So every night I have to do the work for my accounting class to prepare an answer sheet. Not only this, but the extreme heat has meant that the grapes are now about 1 week ahead - but it happened very suddenly and so i have had some very long days doing netting. So just as well we could go and relax at The Winery Tour. The artists do the tour, not us. It was Brooke Fraser, Op shop,and Midnight Youth.

Brooke Fraser and Op Shop were very good. The band of Midnight youth was very good, but the vocalist wasn't.

Jack and Myrtle are well, and growing .........

Not to be beaten

Some of you may have been amazed by Simon's blog about his shoes. Unfortunately we have a bit of a situation where Duncan's shoes have gained the smell of cat's spray. I am insisting these are not in our suitcase. Washing and shoe deodorant didn't work. So here now is our version of the shoe pictures. Look for the worn bits. Very tell tale!If you haven't seen it try thebushiesblogspot.blogspot.com for those enthralling photos.

Meet the other woman.

Who does Duncan take drinks to?
Whose skin does he rub and not mind the wrinkles?
Who does he positively encourage to gain weight?
Not me.
Its Myrtle, of course. This is his entry in the giant pumpkin competition.

I guess to console myself I could take an interest in his reserve pumpkin Jack. But Jack is a long way behind Myrtle. There is apparently a website where you can measure it with a tape measure, and get an estimate of her weight. Even though she is huge now, there is still 2 months until judging day!!

We will be away on judging day, but the girls at Duncan's work say they will take it along. Tessa's husband works for a helicopter firm and there has been talk of Myrtle making a spectacular entrance....

Still a long way to go yet.

People in glasshouses....

... pop in an out each day to see what is happening. After a couple of frustrating days by himself, Duncan discovered that one vital piece of equipment that was missing from his "build-your-own" glasshouse was a son-in-law. Fortunately rua came to his aid, and now Duncan has a glasshouse that has withstood the recent bout of gales.

He has a chair and a chilli bin in there now - the chillibin is to store seeds - not what you were thinking!! Here he is with Millie.



And now the first seeds go in. Dwarf beans. Some handy hints on the gardening show last week mean that he potters in each morning to "open up" and then potters out each evening to close up.

Lots of interest!! Watch this space for further gardening stories.