Weeds, Workshops and Rain

 Last Saturday our Simple Living Toowoomba group held a workshop titled 'Identifying Weeds' which was presented by Tim Nash a local soil scientist and secretary of Permaculture Toowoomba.

As was to be expected the information Tim shared was very interesting and there were plenty of questions asked about the weeds he brought along to show us, many of which are edible. He also recommended a few books like.....

...The Herbal Drugstore...

...Wild Food Plants of Australia...

...and The Weed Forager's Handbook. This book and Tim Low's are available at our City Library for those who are interested. 

One of our favourite presenters, Neralie made this fantastic tote bag for me. I had given her some fabric which my daughter bought years ago and never got around to using and I told her I would make something which I never did of course but I knew that Neralie could sew something useful as she and her sister, Valda love sewing. Their workshops are very well attended and are very popular.

The bag was beautifully lined with red rose fabric and I was just so appreciative of Neralie's generosity. 

My first hollyhock finally opened up a couple of days ago. Next year I will plant the seeds earlier as the gardeners in one of our parks told me they planted in March which I did and then during the Carnival of Flowers I asked a gardener in another park when they planted theirs and she said they planted seedlings in March not seeds as I did. Another learning cure. Severe storms are forecast today so hopefully the hollyhocks will survive if we happen to be in the firing line. 28mm fell during the night in early morning storms. 

If anyone in our region is interested in scrapbooking etc. a new Kaisercraft store has opened in the Wilsonton Shopping Centre if you don't want to venture into Grand Central in the city to visit the other store. I must admit I was surprised to see the store opening up in this Centre but hopefully it will become popular with the locals. 

The Aussie Backyard Bird Count starts on the 18th October and there is still time to register if you are interested in joining in the count. I find it is very interesting watching out for the birds that visit our backyard. The stormbird has already arrived and is making his presence felt as I write this. It is amazing that these birds come back to the same backyards in late September every year without fail. Mind you, if they start up their call in the early hours of the morning just near your bedroom window they can get very annoying. They do have an unique call. 

Well, I had better click 'Publish' and get off this computer. I am rather slack with keeping my blog up to date and haven't been reading all the posts on blogs that I follow. Sorry! I think it is called 'procrastination'. LOL!