A Slow September

After my last post which mentioned how many events are on in our city in September, I have had a slow start to the month. I have read so many recent blogs where everyone seems to be so productive and, in comparison, I feel positively lazy. Of course you should never compare yourself with others particularly those who are about forty years younger which is something I need to remind myself about at times.  However, the hot weather is just around the corner so I had better get out of my 'flump' and get organised with the spring cleaning and gardening. 

I haven't been completely 'flumpy' though as I took stock of what is flowering in the garden at the moment so that I know where the hundreds of bulbs that have been planted over the years are so that I don't dig them up now that the CEO has given up on the weeding :-(

 The cliveas are looking their spring best and we did buy a yellow one a couple of years ago but it got 'lost' along the way and is in a pot somewhere on the 1/2 acre.

 One of the succulent gardens is a bit overgrown and the freesias are coming up in the middle of them all. I was going to take a lot of succulents to our Simple Living Workshop on Saturday but it has been cancelled so they will have to wait another month.

This is a Euphorbia Milii that I brought back from Mt.Isa.  I presume it would be frost tender so protected it during winter. I was pleased that it would grow here as our temperature is a lot colder than the North West of our state.

 

 Finally we removed the East Indian Lemongrass that had been growing in my herb garden next to the house and it has been replaced with its West Indian cousin and hopefully will be used in meals down the track. As I mentioned in a previous post, the East Indian Lemongrass is used mainly for tea and mulch whereas the West Indian one is used in Thai cooking as well as tea and for mulch. The Rosemary plant had grown over it so it had to be cut back severely to get the Lemongrass out. Lots of cuttings were taken of both plants which will come in handy to swap or give away.

 

 Yesterday I used a new recipe to make some soap which had Brambleberry Oatmeal Stout Fragrance Oil added as an online friend had sent me a bottle of it as she didn't really like the smell. It certainly is a 'different' smell. I ran my recipe through SoapCalc but my friend tells me that the Brambleberry Lye and Fragrance Calculator uses less water for the same recipe. I was wondering why the soap looked like it does in the photo 24 hours after being made. Too much water! I have never had soap that looked like that before. However, I have just mopped up some of the liquid and taken it out of the mould to cut it so I will do a post on the finished product soon so that I remember what I did wrong. Oops!

So I guess in the scheme of things I haven't been too tardy for a senior citizen :-)  I am still missing Sally the Chook but like everything in life we get used to sad events even if they don't seem important to anyone else. On the bright side I can now do the weeding without worrying about putting the fork through her beak when she would move with lightning speed to catch a worm.

Farmer Liz wrote a post today about Native Bee Hotels so that is something else that is going on my 'To Do' List now that I am getting organised. Just check out these Bee Hotels!

Well, I had better go and write out my spring cleaning list before summer arrives. I guess my Northern Hemisphere readers will be preparing for winter and are amazed that our cold weather is over already...all three months of it!