landscape | Time to ACT

It’s been a while and a lot had happened in that time.

Stuart has been into hospital to have an ankle fused. He’s well recovered now, but still has another to be done. His op was very hard on me with me having to take on everything whilst he was completely non-weightbearing for 8 weeks which turned into 10 weeks because on issues relating to covid-19 and getting medical appointments etc. And as my mother will testify to, both my parents ended up stranded in Australia… what should have been a 6 week holiday turned into a near 6 month stay and instead of/as well as an Australian summer, they had an Aussie autumn and 2 months of an Aussie winter. Not too be sneezed at when you’re this far south and in an area that routinely sees -10°C and snow at least once or twice each winter…

But it has also been an autumn/winter of rain, and fantastic sunsets and sunrises. Since the drought broke back in February with torrential rain, washing away our gravel road in many places (something repeated the day my parents left! ), I now have a new photographic point to capture sunsets reflected in the dam. It has lead to some amazing pictures.

Like many, 2020 has not been a great year, (drought, bush fires, smoke and worst air pollution in the world at one point, torrential rains (100mm of rain in less than an hour when the drought finally broke), the virus, parents stranded here in Australia, major surgery for Stuart, a shoulder injury, my surgery postponed etc… ) but it has also had some good points as well (plenty of time to spend with my parents, plenty of knitting done, some fantastic sunrises and sunsets – we don’t usually see sunsets here, and the drought finally breaking. In fact we are due rain again today, tomorrow and the next day!

As you can see, there have been some great sunsets to say the least.

And this gum tree has provideda great focal point.

We’ve also discovered a new cafe in Braidwood that thanks to the owner and chef being vegan herself has a great range of vegan dishes and most dishes have either a dairy free version or a vegan version available on request leaving me a choice of 5 or 6 dishes to choose from. Sadly only the 1 desert and I don’t like it (a fruit cake slice that tries to be everything. Gluten free, refined sugar free, soy free, egg free, dairy free, vegan and so on…).

We’re just waiting for the new Spring menu to arrive.

Strike that. We’re just waiting for Spring to arrive!

So what had been happening recently?

Well, nothing actually. Not much has been going on at all. We’ve not had much chance to get out much being tied to Saturday mornings at the doctor’s in Bungendore. But finally for a few weeks at least Stuart is free from that and we can get away again if we want to. We’ve been experimenting with trying to get the weekly shop away from the weekends. That hasn’t gone too well or to plan. Despite being less remote than previously (when we lived in Bungendore) we can’t get home delivery on shopping from Woolworth’s. They don’t deliver to our area. I haven’t yet tried Coles the other major supermarket, but I suspect it too well be the same sadly.

The idea had been to free up the weekends completely so that we could get away and do something. Currently Saturdays seems to be taken up with shopping and Stuart resting on the afternoons. If the weather is good we have been getting some gardening done as well. Sundays are taken up with swimming in the morning (back into Canberra for the nearest pool) and housework, gardening or resting depending on the weather in the afternoons.

But we made a promise back in March to get out one a month camping. We did try in April but failed due to a slight vehicle legality issue and it took us several weeks to get Serenity back on the road when the gas tank failed it’s safety check, which in hindsight was probably a good thing because it had apparently rusted through explaining why I could smell gas whenever I ran off LPG. We ended up missing May because neither of us felt well the weekend we had planned at the end of May. Earlier in May had been the school holidays which isn’t the best time to go and try to use any type of camping (legal or otherwise, free or paid). And so we find ourselves in June trying to free up weekends to make better use of them.

Since the wool expo, we’ve not been out to anymore similar events. The start of winter means there are fewer to go to and even fewer that actually interest us. So it’s back to museums.

The weather had been interesting recently. Right now we have yet another cold front coming in from across the country. Last weekend (? possibly the one before) it came from Tasmania and produced snow. It did snow here but didn’t stick. But it showed in Queensland close to the NSW border in places that haven’t previously had snow. Here it has just rained. Something that is badly needed by both the land and the dams. Lake George is still dry.

Garden wise it’s time for pruning. The apple trees, the quince trees, the single pear tree, the apricot and unidentified soft fruit trees all need lots of work. I’ve started on the apple, quince and pear. Last weekend we also attacked the pine tree to the side of the house. Serenity couldn’t get under it with the roof top tent on her so the lowest branches needed to be removed but it was a chainsaw job. We now have a battery operated chainsaw which is light enough for me to lift. It’s only up to small jobs due to its size but that is all I can really manage anyhow. Some of the wood is now at the bottom of the wood pile seasoning for burning on the slow combustion stove.

I guess the only thing happening is that it’s the season of sunrises or more accurately sunrises (and occasionally sunsets) that are worth photographing. And this week saw a beauty.