Batten Down The Hatches

We had such beautiful weather over the weekend.  

Yesterday's Blue Skies

Even so, we managed to receive more than our fair share of rain, which, thankfully fell mostly overnight.  This morning however, most of the south-east coast woke to a dreary wet Monday which is developing into an even drearier wet Monday afternoon with the potential for high winds.

We've lived in the Blue Mountains long enough to know that high winds means exactly that.  The Bureau of Meteorology has become a very reliable weather forecaster and when it issues a severe weather warning for damaging winds, I sit up and take notice.

As a result, all our deck chairs are neatly stacked on the verandah, my potted cuttings are set back out of the winds, and all loose objects (you know, the empty polystyrene box, empty plastic pots, gardening gloves, etc, etc), are packed away so that we don't have to spend the next month collecting stray items from the side of the holt on which we live.

Outdoors, the temperature has dropped from yesterday's comfortable mid 20 'C to around 12 'C so I think this calls for some serious cooking.

The heating has been cranked up but I always love to use the oven to help heat up the living areas of our home; so tonight (well, this afternoon), I'm preparing a slow roast fillet of beef for dinner.

I usually search the Internet for recipes but rarely do I follow a mains recipe completely. After scanning through three or four recipes I adapt them to suit my family's taste and what's available in my pantry.

The garden is overflowing with thyme...seems our dry, sandy, soil and humid conditions are ideal, after all, thyme has Mediterranean origins, so I've flavoured the beef with 25 (or is that 26)springs of thyme . Previously I had rolled the cut of beef in a mixture of freshly ground black pepper and Celtic sea salt.

After inserting the sprigs of herbs under the string I also rubbed some olive oil into the beef.

It is now in the oven roasting away in a pre-heated oven (reduced to 140'C - my oven is a 'hot' fan forced oven.)

  About an hour before serving the beef I'll put on a tray potato, beetroot and pumpkin to roast and just before serving make a nice dark gravy using the tray juices and steam some green beans.

Autumn Already

Summer is almost over, here in the southern hemisphere, and I'm beginning to already feel autumn in the air.

My favourite season is most definitely autumn.  This February has indeed been the season of mists because of the many days of rain so far.

None the less, we've had the odd sun shower and much humidity and the gardens are seeming to thrive on this unlikely mixture of weather.

Yesterday afternoon, Little Miss Seven danced in an afternoon rain shower while visiting her uncle at his new house and picked an exotic assortment of flowers. 

She left them at our house last night and this morning I couldn't bear to throw them out so arranged an outdoor bowl of flowers. 

 

But now I'm facing a dilemma; I love to have decorative bowls around the garden, filled with water.

This one catches drips from the garden tap on our front verandah. I know water attracts snakes to the garden but I haven't worried too much about this as in our fifteen years living here we have seen maybe one or two. I've figured that the benefits of having water for other wildlife outweigh the risks.  That is, until today...when I spotted the largest, sleekest, blackest, red belly black snake in my entire life(and believe me, I've seen a few) in my front garden. Now I have to rethink this practise - at least until the weather cools. 

I'm Thankful for This

After a spell of awful temperatures of up to 41 'C, I am thankful for the reprieve we had today when our day's low plummeted to 

16 'C.

I happened to spend the afternoon in Katoomba, which is at a much higher altitude than my village in the lower mountains and while there took the opportunity to visit Echo Point.

I didn't at all mind that the mist drifted in, a mist so heavy that I got wet.

The tourists around me were whispering: "Magic, magic, magic."

And it was.

Bright

My African violets need bright light to flower.

This morning's light was especially bright, as Sydney and its surrounds geared up for another scorcher.

The maximum temperature at our house reached 36.1 'C.  The humidity is very low, (at the moment it is around 31%. Tomorrow, a total fire ban will be enforced. 

African violets like a humidity level of about 50-60%, so I have had to put them on pebble lined trays to try and raise the humidity a little, especially since the air conditioner has been on for most of the afternoon.

During our on-again-off-again temperature spikes, I have been watering the African violets almost on a weekly basis.

So, I watered them again today,since the soil was dry. The pebbles ensure that the roots of the plants are not sitting directly in water and helps raise the humidity at the same time.

Since the light was so strong this morning, I kept the translucent window blind down until the afternoon.

I'm very happy with the way the violets are progressing...so many are coming into flower.

Once the blooms open, I sell them on an on line garage sale of which I'm a member.

8 O'clock

8 O'clock

Well, it wasn't quite eight o'clock...about 20 minutes to eight actually, and today we had four seasons in one day.

So it was nice to see the sunset, even if the temperature had dropped to a chilly 16 oC.

Weather

Weather

Sunshine through trees

Day 76/366

Just another stormy afternoon.

Or: I'm-really-over-this-wet-weather.

Day 15/366

This is not what I originally intended to post for my day's photograph.

I started out photographing the beautifully soft and furry leaves of oh-so-green banksias, resulting from all the rain we're having this summer (even as I post!).

My photographs were all washed out and I was not happy with them at all.

Then this beautiful diary caught my eye. 

It's a gift from our son's girlfriend to my Mr Honey Pie...a belated Christmas present.

It's has a very ornate cover in a mottled brick red colour and so I photographed that.

I'm feeling very much in the mood to play around with Picasa's editing program today and this is the outcome.

I realized that a beautifully hued item has resulted in a reflection of today's weather...grey.

I hope you like it!