Storms

 Oh, boy had we had a time of it with storms. Since Saturday we have had six maybe seven, currently the third one for the day is happening. 

We have missed a few and only received some rain. 20ml yesterday and yet places to the south, east and west of us about 20kms received over a 100ml. 

Poor Lucy is terrified of storms, she is better than she was but still not good.

She is sitting on the bed with me as she can get closer to me than Warren, he is in the lounge and she can only get under his chair. It's unusual that she gets on the bed and stays there.

She has her head turned to the door, not sure if she is turning away from the window or if she is keeping an eye on Warren. She pants and drools while the storm is happening so she has a towel under her head. I dare say we will be washing the doona cover tomorrow

A Productive day

 After a sleep in this morning, I had quite a productive day. Because it is/was Sunday, I don't like to do washing or vaccumning in the house. Basic house cleaning, like making the bed and wiping down benches is okay but not big stuff. However, I have no problems with doing craft work. 

When I was young, say under ten, if we visited my grandparents who lived in the city and bought weekly comics for the grandkids, but if we were there on a Sunday, we were not allowed to read the comics. Only reading on a Sunday was the bible.

Anyway, today I finished two quilts, one needed some buttons sewn on it, the other was about half done and I made a bag.

I love the colours of this. It is a print and the print is actually not square on the fabric, which is a shame. I had made a quilt from jt and this was left overs.

I also crocheted a pair of slippers while watching TV. I had a new pattern sent to me and it is much easier and therefore quicker to make. They will be my main project over the summer months as well as some toys.

Then dinner which Warren thought was pretty good.

Portuguese chicken with salad and wedges, I thought the chicken may have been too hot as it seemed to have quite a lot of paprika in it but it was mild thank goodness. 

  

Christmas baubles

 These are a dime a dozen and we have several, probably too many as we dont get too carried away at Christmas these days. However I saw a crochet pattern for them and decided to have a go at them. 

I had a ball of cotton in the yellow, just one ball so I made these two. I am making advent wall hanging for a friend and putting some small gifts. As it needs to be posted to Victoria, I need to get on with it and things need to be small and light. 

Plastic shrubs

 Lucy and I walked the Parkrun path today. Two reasons, its nice and shady and I needed to replace one of our caches that we put over there in June.

I haven't been back since our caches were published and I was surprised to see how dry and sparse it is along the path.

I noticed a shrub that looked a little odd, at first I thought someone had thrown out a fake house plant. One side is the backs or sides of houses and the other side is a large high metal barrier as the main highway is just the other side. It is surprisingly quiet though.

The photo does show it very well, the branches are quite green with segments and pink flowers.

Very dry and the metal barrier in the background.

Snakes and lizards

 It is that time of the year.

Warren was walking Lucy the other afternoon and used a shortcut path, a snake slipped along the path in front of him and went into the undergrowth. 

There are houses nearby with kids so he knocked on the door and told them what he had seen. 

I am always on the lookout but hadnt seen a snake in about three years when I nearly stepped on one in the bush. Prior to that it had been years and years since I had seen a snake, probably back when I was a kid on the farm.

This morning Lucy and I were out early, earlier than usual as it is starting to get hot so I need to get going before it gets too hot and I saw a blue tongue lizard just off the side of the path. It could have been a stumpy as it was short and stout, about a foot long. Lucy noticed it after me and was interested but I pulled her away and we kept going.

It's nice walking in the shade of the trees but sometimes it's easy to miss seeing things.

Toys

 As its too hot to crochet blankets, I have moved on to toys.

First one was a cube in bright colours, it's about five inches square. I put a bell inside of the stuffing but it is hard to hear it.

Second toy was a pattern that I got from the internet, called Humpy bumpy. 

Quite easy to do although each segment took a day/night of crochet.

The mouth and horns are a roll of crochet that is stuffed as making and then sewn on.

I have made a second one, finished it tonight, that's not quite and big and I made the mouth flat, it's also in more pastel colours.

Garden clean up take two.

 We have one tomato bush in the garden bed nearest the house along with some herbs and a couple of shrubs.

Somewhere in there is a solar fountain. Warren picked several bowls of tomatoes, the plant was growing over the edges.

He wanted to mow the lawn so decided to trim everything.

Oh, there is the solar fountain and the little pond. I had forgotten that I had planted some spinach in there as well and a couple of Lucy's tennis balls were hiding under the foliage.