Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Photo a Day 68 - Our World Tuesday


Good to be back blogging again. Hopefully it will last!!

A change this week from my usual flower shots. Was driving through the suburbs the other day - I actually avoid going to the city if I can help it, but this was something I had to do.  

Espied this very ruby building in a shopping centre as I drove past. Drove on for a way because there was a lot of traffic around, but then I thought "No, go back!  That would be perfect for Ruby Tuesday.  No U-turns allowed on the busy main road, so I had to do a few right hand turns until I was heading back towards my 'catch'.




Now that is a very red building.

But of course, I couldn't resist putting my garden in the blog, so here is a shot of one of my pomegranates. Our trees are still pretty small, but this one has about 10 on it.



Liz Needle -  linking with "Our World Tuesday" and "Ruby Tuesday".




Monday, March 30, 2015

Photo a Day 67 - Mellow Yellow

Have had the Blogger Blues - combination of too much to do and too little time and energy to do it. Hopefully my blogger mojo is back. I certainly have a lot of daily photos to catch up on.

Starting with "Mellow Yellow Monday".  I drove past this property yesterday and was taken with the mellow yellow of the Golden Ash trees lining the drive.  At the moment ithe countryside  is so dry and brown here (virtually no rain since November) and it was a joy to see this splash of colour.



Same trees, different angle.




Liz Needle    -    linking with "Monday Mellow Yellows".




Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Wild Bird Wednesday

I spent some time outdoors this week when I visited the wetlands at Mount Barker and spent a quick 30 minutes trying to get shots of some of the water birds there.

This was not a good shot of the Black-fronted Dotterel, but he refused to cooperate, moving every time I got anywhere near him. Better luck next time I hope. The reflection looks OK though.




 I had better luck with the Dusky Moorhens. They were far less shy and quite obliging.






This is a straw-necked ibis. We get them in our front paddock as well.  He looks as if he has a definite purpose in mind and is striding towards it.



Liz Needle  -  linking with "Wild Bird Wednesday" and "Outdoor Wednesday"..



Photo a Day 66 - Natural Beauty


Had to share these shots with my fellow Bloggers. This is my elder grand daughter - just 14 and absolutely gorgeous.





Not only is she beautiful, but she is smart, talented, athletic, hard working, sensible and a typical teenager - drives her parents mad sometimes.  But as a grand daughter she is perfect. and we love her dearly.




Liz Needle





Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Rubbish Tuesday

For those of you who saw my Good Fences post last Thursday, this is the old cottage behind the old iron gate.  It is another old local cottage built from local stone as most of them were. I'm not sure if this was a German cottage as it was built on a farm that was not near a German settlement.

This one is unusual though in that the stone was cut into even shaped blocks and butted together to form a irregular pattern.  Most of them were built with the stone rougher hewn on the outside.

As you can see, the house has two separate roofs. Probably two rooms were built and roofed and later another two rooms were added with a separate roof. At one stage the veranda would have gone all around the building.





























Liz Needle  -  linking with "Rubbish Tuesday"

Photo a Day 65 - Ruby Tuesday

More flowers for my Ruby Tuesday post.  I have quite a lot of red in my garden at various times of the year, particulalrly when the roses or camellias are in flower.

Here are a few of my favourites.



This stunning rose is called "Othello"  -  a David Austen rose. Amazing colour.




And thi beauty is a camellia, whose name I have forgotten. It doesn't look unlike the rose above.





Another lovely red rose.




And a single red camellia.  I have had this one for about 40 years.




I hope you enjoyed the red in my garden.


Liz Needle  -  linking with "Ruby Tuesday" and "Our World Tuesday".




Monday, March 09, 2015

Photo a Day 64 - Monday Mellow Yellows

Browsing through my photos today looking for inspiration, I was surprised at how many shots I had of yellow irises.It's a very cheery colour in the garden, but not one that I am conscious of. If anyone asked me whether I have much yellow in the garden I would probably answer no, because apart from a yellow Kerria, the only other yellows are seasonal ones like daffodils and irises.  Yet they do make a statement when they are out and they are certainly very noticeble.

Here are some of them.






















Liz Needle   -   linking with "Monday Mellow Yellows"





Sunday, March 08, 2015

Photo a Day 63 - Critters

The photos I am posting today for "Saturday's Critters" and "Camera Critters"  show one of the most exciting and fascinating days of my life.

Monarto Zoo is a free range zoo 50kms out of Adelaide. They specialise in endangered species from Africa and Asia. The rhinos I posted last week were bred there.

Several years ago they bred the first cheetah to be bred in captivity, followed a few years later by a litter of five. The cubs had to be hand reared as the mother contracted an infection and was unable to feed or mother them. So quiet and biddable were the cubs that they were used to promote endangered species.  A Meet the Cheetahs program was established.

Don and I were given a wonderful Christmas present - a hands on experience with the cheetahs.



Several of these cheetahs went to other zoos to join their breeding programs. Follow the cheetah link above to learn more about the cheetahs of maonarto Zoo.

Liz Needle  -  linking with "Saturday's Critters"  and "Camera Critters".






Saturday, March 07, 2015

Photo a Day 62 - Old Adelaide




Sepia Saturday had me stumped this week until my eye fell on the word Adelaide as in the Adelaide Polka. Dancing, polkas, music - nothing in my collection  BUT, Adelaide I know well . Adelaide as in the capital city of South Australia, where I was born and bred.

So I went searching through the archives for some photos of old Adelaide and came upon a great collection that had me fascinated.  Probably this post won't have much interest for anyone except South Australians, but I had a great time looking through the shots.

The city of Adelaide was named after Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, who married Prince William later to become King William IV of England. Adelaide was queen consort when the city of Adelaide was founded in 1836. I could find no photographs of Adelaide, but a number of portraits - all very flattering I suspect. Though the one I have used doesn't look particularly flattering.
From all accounts Adelaide - born Amalie Adelheid Louise Therese Karolina Wilhelmina - was a quite remarkable woman. At 25 she married her princely husband who was 32 years older than she and whom she had only known for a week. She also accepted and cared for his 10 illegitimate children whom he had by actress Dorothy Jordan. Adelaide had no surviving children of her own and her husband was succeeded in 1837 by his niece Victoria.

Adelaide


So, onto Adelaide the city - most of these shots were taken in the 1880s.



The Adelaide GPO - General Post Office - still stands today, but is now on a busy corner in the centre of Adelaide. Where the photographer was standing is Victoria Square - still there, but having undergone nearly as many renovations as we have had a City Council to make those changes.

South Australia was the only Australian colony settled by free men - no convict labour - and as such was a fairly prosperous city judging by its buildings.

Click To Return To Previous View


This shot of King William Street shows the GPO clock tower  on the right and the Town Hall clock tower on the left. It always amesed me as a child that the two were never quite synchronised. The GPO was the official South Australian time. Actually when this photo was taken, the Town Hall clock was yet to be installed.


Click To Enlarge

The Jubilee Exhibition Building was completed in 1887 to commemorate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee and also Spouth Australlia's Jubilee the year before This wonderful building is no longer there, having been demolished in the 1970s when our governmeny had a rush of blood to the head and pulled down many beautiful old Adelaide landmarks. 

To build this, they constructed a railway line - The Jubilee Exhibition Railway - from the Adelaide Railway Station - about half a mile away - up North Terrace to transport building materials. The train used an old underground tunnel to go under King William Street. There are no existing remnants of the railway line, though when they were building the Festival Theatre, part of the old tunnel was opened up. There was talk of excavating the tunnel and using it as a historical landmark, but the plan was shelved because of the cost involved.

I remember this building well from the 1950s when it became the Art School and I spent many Saturday mornings there going to Art School as a teenager. Later I attended Art Balls put on by the Art students at Uni. Many of our classes were in the "catacombs' under the building.


Fortunately this building has survived. Originally the Art Gallery, it is now the Museum with a new Art Gallery built next door in 1900.

Click To Enlarge


Fortunately this majestic glass building still exists in the Botanic Gardens and has recently been
renovated.




I'll try not to bore you with too many pictures of my favourite city, but this one has a personal connection. This is Rundle Street - the main shopping street in Adelaide.  The large building on the right is the "Adelaide Arcade". As you can see trams used to run down the centre. The traffic congestion eventually got too horrendous and so Rundle Street became Rundle Mall in 1976.

My great grandfather - Ernst Bernhard (E.B.)Heyne was a botanist and head plantsman for the Melbourne Botanical gardens. He moved to Adelaide in 1868 and established a plant nursery in Norwood and started the first shop in South Australia for seeds and plants at 168 Rundle Street.


Hope you enjoyed my walk through Adelaide.

Liz Needle   -   linking with "Sepia Saturday"








Friday, March 06, 2015

Photo a Day 61 - Flowers



More Australian native flowers today for Floral Friday Fotos  and Today's Flowers..

This first one is a bottlebrush - the common name for several species including Callistemon . This one is Callistemon pallidus.




This little daisy is an Olearia, but I am not sure which of the 100 plus varieties it is. It is very hardy and easy to grow - hard to kill in fact. Grows to about 2 metres.




This beauty is one of our flowering Eucalyptus trees. They come in a range of glorious colours from cream through pink, orange, scarlet and crimson. The trees are long lived and grow to 30 metres. The one in our garden was a large tree when we moved in 43 years ago.




The trees in full flower are quite spectacular.



Liz Needle  -  linking with "Floral Friday Fotos"  and  "Today's Flowers".






Thursday, March 05, 2015

Photo a Day 60 - Good Fences


This type of gate is very common on the old properties in our area - we have several similar ones ourselves.  Not for the old German farmers the fancy wrought iron gates we see in Tex's posts - ours are simple wire mesh and iron gates. And only one gate - two require too much time. large enough to fit a farm vehicle though, but not so large that double gates are required. Though I have to say that some of them take a lot of lifting and pushing to open now that they are old and sagging on their hinges.


I love how this farmer at one stage put in a new cement strainer post on one side, but left the old gate  -  "Why waste a good gate, it still keeps the cows in."





And where does this old gate lead to?  Check in next Tuesday for" Rubbish Tuesday" and you will see.

Liz Needle  -  linking with "Good Fences".  Pop over to Tex's place for more gates and fences.




Wednesday, March 04, 2015

Photo a Day 59 - Wild Bird Wednesday

Haven't had time to shoot birds these last few weeks - there! doesn't that sound awful, but you know what I mean.  So I am looking back through some of my early photos to see what I can find that I may not have used before or for a long time for my "Wild Bird Wednesday" post

This fellow is a Crested Pigeon. We usually see them in pairs, but last year we had 5 of them coming in to feed off the lawn. They are often mistakenly called Topknots.







This colourful fellow is a Galah very common in Australia and very recognisable. In an earlier post I showed one feeding its baby in a hollow branch, their favoured nesting sites.




These two are Adelaide Rosellas. They are from the same family as the Crimson Rosella, commonly found up the east coast. In fact they are called a sub-species. The Adelaide Rosellas vary in colour from pale yellow through to orange and crimson. These two fall some where in the middle of the colour range.


This boy on the other hand is very crimson in colour.



My apologies if you have seen them before. I'll try for some new stuff next week.


Liz Needle  -  linking with "Wild Bird Wednesday".






Tuesday, March 03, 2015

Photo a Day 58 - That Barn is Rubbish

My photo today is one I have been trying to get for a while. Unfortunately it is on a busy road with no place to pull over, so I had to choose a quiet time and walk some distance from a safe parking spot. Even so I took my life in my hands as I had to stand on a very narrow verge with the road on one side and a big guard rail on the other.

Still, I felt a great deal of satisfaction when I got the shot and am now sharing it with you.  Seen from the distance it looks like a mess of rusted iron and wooden posts


A closer shot gives more idea of the structure and the size of what must have been a very large shed.


In the centre you can see the remains of a stone wall which I guess may have been the original stables/shed/barn. The rest of the building seems to have been built in sections and added on as the need for more space arose.

I am tempted to stop at the nearby house and ask if I can get a closer look at and hear the history of this very interesting old building.

Liz Needle  -  linking today with

The Barn Collective  -  The Barn Collective

Rubbish Tuesday     -    Rubbish Tuesday

Our World Tuesday -   Our World Tuesday

Photo a Day 57 - Ruby Tuesday

Ooops!!  I missed yesterday - very busy trying to organise a School Sports day, so didn't have time to blog.  Catching up now.


I seem to be featuring this young lady a lot lately - probably because I only see the girls a few times a year so I take lots of photos.  This day we had fun in the playground and found quite a lot of red for "Ruby Tuesday".










Liz Needle  -  linking wit "Ruby Tuesday".







Sunday, March 01, 2015

Photo a Day 56 - Happy Birthday Erinn

Today my beautiful second grand daughter is 11. It doesn't seem that long ago that we got the news that we had another grand daughter - but how happy we were to welcome her to the world.

Right from the start Erinn was her own little person with a mind of her own and a strong will.


Those black eyes would either be glinting with mischief



Looking at you with absolute disdain 


Or making up her mind to do exactly what she wanted


Evil brewing here

But at all times she was and is a delight - sassy, mercurial, clever, witty, thoughtful, charming and gorgeous. These are the faces of Erinn.











Happy Birthday my beautiful girl!!

Liz Needle