Van Gogh would be happy with these sunflowers – don’t you think?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A close-up – look at how perfectly motley they now look J.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And because I was having fun editing the photos – that one above is my original, just resized; this one below is edited with “one step photo fix”, twice – I love the orange coming in…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then in computer Van Gogh style, add the painterly effect and you get this masterpiece:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For Nicola.

Borrowing an auger is a good thing – Thanks Mike!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chook yard is started!! J

This week in Sunny Strawbales:

Paving – of course – getting there….the going is slow with so much cutting around the plinths – and it is very noisy and oh, so dusty work – so it is good to just take it steady!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gardening – lots happening which is lovely – we set up three new raised beds.  Valerie painted the waterproofing on them and I (mostly) filled them with our usual lasagne of rocky sand/rocks; then cardboard and paper; then straw; then mumby magic; then sifted sand and mumby mix; and finally more straw for mulch. 

I’ve decided our tractor sure could do with power steering – I was feeling my muscles the next days!  But we do love our Bob (that is our tractor’s name).

 

 

 

 

 

The hard work is worth it – we have got this to show for our efforts:  asparagus and tomatoes:

 

 

 

 

 

 

And three rows of potatoes – we will plant more next time it is below-ground planting days:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This here is our current, most exciting waiting:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our boy loves his corn and these ones he planted are looking delicious!!

Today I am grateful!

What a wonderful (emotional) place to be!   And, trust me, I struggle with this plenty of times even though I know I am grateful - so I am always up for celebrating this feeling!!

I am very grateful for the gifts of music that touched me this weekend – Mary at our church singing, “When you believe” – absolutely stunning and her performance left me totally speechless – and Josh Whiteland playing the drum and didgeridoo last night at the Art by the Bay event.  Blessed gifts indeed.

I am grateful for getting paid to stay at home today!  My first paid public holiday in 3 years J.  I know others who don’t have this privilege, so I am very appreciative.

I am grateful for the helpers we have had the last two weeks – Valerie and Tristan – a French couple joining us for a bit, courtesy of HelpX – and progressing jobs very nicely J.

As always, I am grateful that I can go for a walk and enjoy the beauty that is our world.  Very grateful for the comic relief too of a waddling swan bottom as it fed from the bottom of the lake J.

And very, very humbled and grateful for the blogs that have crossed my path the last couple of weeks – two in particular have given me plenty of thought and some answers to my current “living sustainably” questions – you might like these:  Artist as Family and Revolution from Home.

This post spoke to me today – it is not our place to change the world, but we must change ourselves, right where we are.

ETA - Edited to add – I forgot – between the important (to me) thought I had ‘composing’ this blog post on my morning walk, and the late afternoon when I actually typed it up – Revolution from Home’s blogging about her family living overseas – brought me to think about how our family would go if we moved overseas – and I thought – we would just get by on the minimal of possessions, as the move would be temporary.  Then it hit me – wherever we are, wherever we live – is temporary!  So why do we fill our lives with possessions that are more than we need to survive – and survive well?

Are you seeing that my “living sustainably” questions are currently focussed on food security, food miles and our western excess…???  Just a normal pastime for me.

 

At the first sign of sunlight on our wall, we got up yesterday morning, trundled into the laundry and watched in anticipation – our brand new solar inverter change from exporting 0 W to 23W with the very first rays of sun J.

We were very excited!!

So here are our lovely solar panels in all their glory:

 










And here is the very first electrickery generation graph – after the panels were connected at 1.40pm, we generated 12.93KW – more than the daily usage on our last power bill – and only half a day of us being energy exporters.  

 

And today, day 2.5, we topped 5KW output!!!

Bring on the power bill credits – yay!

Last night's sunset:

This night's moonrise:

As I looked through my photos to see which ones to edit for the blog, I saw us being pirates for a fun visit to the STS Leeuwin, I saw our fish and chip dinner with these labels J:




 











I saw photos of our dessert pizzas; sunflowers; new bathroom screen doors (fire-resistant and “one-way” viewing-extra-strength mesh); massive piles of boxes and bits for our major shed, hobby room and front hall tidy ups!  And I saw Michael swapping over our water pump after the first (little one) decided to stop one afternoon; I saw a 15^th birthday celebration; corn stalks growing tall; cards I made; new shelves in our pantry; cane chair cushions re-covered and pretty hooks on our walls.

But none of those photos told the stories as I remembered them…

So I choose to share this one instead:

 



 










Our bench cushion recovered too – with a recycled table runner and some fabric we got from the op-shop for 50c! 

And I choose to share this photo:

 

 















The heirloom tomatoes are coming along J.  I cooked up another batch of passata today with nearly the last of the regular tomatoes – and included one massive zucchini in there!  They just keep growing of course and we have had our fair share of zucchini frittata, zucchini and potato bake and vege (zucc) soup!  More to eat too – will be resorting to the chocolate cake recipe tomorrow I think J.

Today’s photo was:

 

 
















Shelves in the front hallway!!!  This man is an absolute legend!  The shelves are so lovely and will make all the difference to being able to store blankets and winter clothes – yay.

And finally:

 



 














The gorgeous light I am sitting under to type up this blog post.

Just because it is pretty.