Skywatch Friday

We haven't had very many red sunsets this summer which is unusual.  But this one tonight really appealed to me.

And zooming in.

Liz Needle    -    linking with Skywatch Friday

Fridays Fences

There are a lot of old tumbledown farmhouses and outbuildings in this area of South Australia - the Adelaide Hills - built by early settlers in the 1830s and 40s.  This one was built close to one of the creeks that run through this area. I'm not sure what purpose this building was put to - perhaps a dairy or stables.

This was once a fence designed to keep something contained.

I love the colour of rusted iron roofs. It matches the brick facings on the old stone barn.

Liz Needle    -    linking with Fridays Fences.

Weekend Reflections

A day spent on the River Murray at Morgan and I snapped these pelicans sailing along serenely. We don,t have a lot of natural water in South Australia, so our river and its wildlife  are very important to us.

 Same day, same camera, but different angle and different light.

Liz Needle  -  linking with Weekend Reflections

Friday's Fences

I have had a very busy week what with one thing or another, so I haven't had a chance to look for fascinating fences.  These two living fences will have to do.

The first one shows Spring growth on a Photinea hedge - love the colour.

And the next, a rose hedge along the edge of a vineyard nearby.

Finally, over the fence I spied this rusted out Holden ute.  Very common in rural Australia.

Liz Needle  -  linking with Friday's Fences

Weekend Reflections

Water. I love water. I love the effect of the sun reflecting off the water.

Liquid Gold

 

 

Liz Needle   -   linking with Weekend Reflections

Sepia Saturday

Sepia Saturday this week appears to be about moustachioed men winning swimming trophies. I have decided to take the easy option and go with the moustache angle - that seems to be a favourite in my family, judging by the number of them in the old albums.

This gentleman has an artistic look with his luxuriant swept back hair and moustache and his knotted tie. I can see him in an artist's smock, paint brush in hand.

A military look about this lad with his short hair and twirled moustache.  I think he fancies himself a bit of a ladies' man.

An odd choice for a young man, I think. It would look better on a more mature gentleman.  Perhaps this fellow had rotten teeth or thin lips and he preferred to keep them hidden. This moustache would make dainty eating rather difficult.

Rather a wispy effort with the moustache, made up for with a neat beard. Almost a forerunner to the unshaven look that is so trendy today.

An even wispier effot at a moustache, with a much fuzzier beard.  Quite a handsome fellow this one.  I'd fancy him without the facial frizz.

For the older gentleman. This fellow would make a great Santa at John Martin's Magic Cave (a South Aussie reference).

And to my mind, the weirdest of the lot. I think he must suffer from a cold neck - that's the only reason I can think of for this weird fringe of hair under his chin.











That's Sepia Saturday for this week.  Check out the link and have a look at what other Seoains have come up with for this theme.

Liz Needle  -   linking with Sepia Saturday.

Friday's Fences

I must have had a busy week as I haven't touched my blog at all. Funny, it didn't seem to be that hectic, but I must admit I did sort of lose a couple of days. My son and I had a night out. We went to the movies and on Wednesday at 9.00pm saw the first "Hunger Games" movie, followed at 12.01am on Thursday by the new "Hunger Games" movie. You do have to be a fan, but we enjoyed ourselves.  Unforunately I didn't get to sleep afterwards until 6.00am, so the next day was virtually a write-off.

So on to Friday's Fences for this week - a day late. In an earlier post I showed the very grand gates and fence of a renovated property.  Amazed the other day when I drove past to see that they have erected this enormous bronze urn in the middle of the front lawn. It actually looks quite monstrous to my eye - but each to his own taste.

By contrast I rather liked this old iron fence around a cattleyard.

Most unusual.  Never seen one like this before and I can't for the life of me work out what it is made from.

Liz Needle linking with Friday's Fences

PS.  My husband tells me that the fence is made from old iron railway sleepers. Apparently as sleepers they were not very successful, but they seem to make an effective fence.

Fridays Fences

Today's Fridays Fences photos depict a scene that gave my family an immediate moment of riotous laughter, followed by a few days of chuckles.  But first the story - there is always a story behind a good photograph.

We live in a bushfire prone area and the Electricity Trust has decided to reduce the fire risk by cutting back trees in the Adelaide Hills that are deemed too close to electricity cables. That is fair enough and no-one objects to this happening.

However the various contractors who do this work are forever upsetting land owners by coming onto properties without telling land owners and making an absolute mess of the cutting back. No thought at all for the aesthetics of what they are doing, no knowledge of the species they are lopping and the best way to go about it, no consideration for the age, beauty or importance of the tree.

They are universally disliked, not for the job they have to do, but for the arrogantand ignorant way they go about it.  My husband has is sick of it all after losing several trees, having many disfigured and having trucks drive through our property. He has repeatedly asked them to have the courtesy to check with us before they do anything.  This they refuse to do - they do not have the time to knock on every door! They have the right to come onto a property whenever and wherever they choose.

Well, the last lot decided that they had to trim some pines on our property and the quickest way to get to them was to drive across our front paddock.  This they proceeded to do!!  Unfortunately they had failed to check out the area first and did not notice that the front paddock was a waterway and very wet from the recent torrential rains.

Halfway across!!!!!!

Up to the axles in mud.

 They had to come to the door then to ask if we had a tractor to pull them out. Sorry, no tractor here, but we were able to lend them a couple of spades.  They radioed for help.

Help arrived, but first they had to unhitch the chipping machine from the new vehicle. Then discussions, arguments, trials etc took place. Two hours later the vehicle was extricated from the mud.

If they had spent two minutes knocking on the door and telling us what they planned to do, they could have been shown an easy way to get their vehicle around to the pines!!!

Liz Needle   -   linking with Fridays Fences.

Sepia Saturday

Back online again after three weeks of frustration arguing with bureauocracy and the protocols and procedures.  Long story and not worth telling now.

Our Sepia Saturday theme could be about the beach, women, photography or even soft toy cats. I could find very little in my collection that might match these themes. Apparently my ancestors either never went to the beach or never had their photos taken in beach clothing - probably the latter.

However I was able to find this old sepia in the local antique shop. I have no idea who or where, but I though the ladies interesting in their very 'daring' swimming costumes. Sometime in the thirties I would guess. They obviously enjoyed posing for the photographer. The two younger women on the left look as if they could be sisters with perhaps mother on the right.

I did eventually find another beach photograph. This one is of me in the year in which I discovered "BOYS"!  Not that I had never had anything to do with boys before that. Indeed in my street all the kids my age were boys and I grew up a total tomboy and this is why my mother decided to send me to an all girls school - to make a lady of me!!  Some chance!!  But in this year - 1953 - we went on a holiday to Kangaroo Island and I fell in love for the first time.  His name was Bernie and his father owned the holiday house we stayed in.

The photo indicates that I thought I was very elegant and grown up posing like a beach belle.  Ignore my little brother- I did that summer!

Liz Needle   -   linking with Sepia Saturday.

Skywatch Friday

Just a quick shot of the view across our back paddock. Ignore the ugly buildings - focus on the sky.

Liz Needle   -   linking with Skywatch Friday.

Friday's Fences

Thanks to a bolt of lightning followed by 3 weeks of bureaucratic rubbish, we have been without internet access for 3 weeks, but finally we're back on line and celebrating Friday's Fences once again.

This week a gate on our property. When we bought this property 40 or so years ago, it was part of what had been a working dairy. This gate provided access to the dairy for milk trucks, tractors, farm vehicles etc. We use it to drive up to the cattle yards behind the dairy. At some stage the local council decided to seal part of the road and in doing so they changed the road level without any consultation. As a result our road to the dairy became unusable as the road level dropped about a metre leaving this gate and our track with a steep one metre drop to the road!!

We no longer have goats so the dairy has not been used for some years, but it would have been nice if they had asked us  before they acted.

Liz Needle   -    linking with Fridays Fences.

Sepia Saturday

This week's image suggests dressing up, theatre, Pirates, whatever you will.  I was really pleased that this theme came up as it gives me a chance to display one of my favourite photos of my mother, Laura Heyne.

My mother was born into a reasonably strict Lutheran family, though I suspect her parents were less devout than some of their siblings. Nevertheless as a girl, my mother  and her siblings did not go to dances or wear makeup etc.  Mum trained as a teacher and in 1925 at the age of 20 went to teach in a small country school at Minlaton on the Yorke Peninsula.  Teaching in those days was not easy and her first class was 70 children from Kindergarten (now called Reception) to Year 3. The principal (the only other teacher) had the children from Year 4-7.

Mum loved teaching in the country, not the least because for the first time she was free of the strictures imposd on her as a member of the Lutheran church. She literally 'had a ball'. As an attractive single girl she was a popular addition to the farming town and had a very active social life. She boarded in a local boarding house and had many stories to tell of it. The house was not very large and to fit in as many lodgers as she could, the landlady divided up the bedrooms with dividers made of hessian, thus turning one bedroom into two or more. As Mum was the only female lodger, she had to share a bed with her landlady - not an ideal arrangement.

After a couple of years she moved to Port Lincoln which was a much larger town with an even more active social life. Several female teachers (including Mum) were transferred back to the city because it was thought by the Education Department that they were not setting an example that "we like our lady teachers to set".

This photo shows a group of young things dressed up for a fancy dress ball. My mother is seated on the right.

 
My mother in-law as a young girl was keen on calisthenics and music and was apparently in a lot of performances. These are some photos of her and a friend dressed up for concerts or maybe Eisteddfords which were very popular in the 20s ansd 30s.

Mavis in her calisthenics uniform.

Mavis again dressed up as a little girl, I think.

A friend of Mavis'dressed for a parade.


















Finally one of myself taken with the cast of The Mikado at Darwin High School about 1969. I actually made all the costumes.  I was young and attractive enough in those days for the young lad holding my hand to have a crush on me, one of his teachers.

Liz Needle  -  linking with Sepia Saturday

Wild Bird Wednesday

Very excited as I have a new camers - a Canon 60D - and am loving it. madly snapping photos. Trouble is my son keeps borrowing it too, so I guess I'll show you some of his shots too. These were all taken at a nearby wetlands.

 This pair of Royal Spoonbills look like they are dancing - a quadrille perhaps?

 A Pacific Black Duck flexing his wings.

 And Mama Pacific Black with her brood.

This little fellow is a black-fronted Dotterel.

 A dusky moorhen going about his business.

.And I could not resist including this very friendly fellow - an escapee from someone's poultry run, I suspect'

Liz Needle  -  linking with 'Wild Bird Wednesday'.

Skywatch Friday

Back from the dead - so to speak. Computer fixed, new camera.

 Thought I'd share this shot of a volcano in Bali.  It is active and if you look carefully you can see some smoke coming out of the side of the mountain. The volcano is called Mount Batu. That is smoke overhead - not clouds.

We were sitting in a restaurant on another hill. There were many such eating places along the road  there with crowds of people watching the volcano through big picture windows  -  all SKYWATCHING.

Liz Needle  -  linking with Skywatch Friday

For those of you who are interested, I have added this shot taken from above the volcano. You can actually walk up to the top of the mountain. It last erupted in 1999-2000.

Needless to say, I did not take this shot.

Friday's Fences

After much discussion (argument) with my husband, we have fianlly agreed to extend the front garden - about 10 metres. The front fence had to  be redone and  my son who offered to do the fencing wanted to extend it, so it is done.

 Enough room for another lot of trees. We had to cut down some of the old ones because they were affecting the solar panels, so now I can put in some new species that I hadn't come across before. Here are some shots of the new fence in the process of being erected.

 Here you can see the pile of wood from the trees that were chopped down. One was a maple that spread seeds all over the garden  - tiny maple trees everywhere. A real pest.

One day I'll show you the new plantings.

Liz Needle  -  linking with   FRIDAY'S FENCES

Our World Tuesday

We have had some very welcome visitors to our property lately. With my new camera and decent zoom lens I am able to get shots of them that I couldn't before. My husband reported that earlier in the morning there were about 6kangaroos in the front paddock - but I was still asleep!!!

We get quite large groups of these little red-browed finches, but they are difficult to snap as they are constantly on the move.

This colourful fellow is an Adelaide Rosella - red variant.

Still Adelaide Rosellas, but this time another colour variation. Some of them are quite a pale yellow on the front.

Off to seek out more visitors.

Liz Needle - linking with Our World Tuesday.