It’s not often it’s cold enough to keep me inside but today it is. It feels like snow. I was going to post about Snowdrops, (the bulbs not the weather) but after a little research, I realised that what I have are actually Snowflakes.
If I was a Galanthophile, I would be loving Snowdrops, but alas there’s no official title for Snowflake lovers.
Snowdrops’ botanical name is Galanthus. It comes from the Greek word ‘Gala’, meaning milk and ‘anthos’ meaning flower. Put them together and you have milk flowers. Galanthophiles are people who collect these beautiful bulbs. And there are more than 2300 different varieties. They are similar to, but different from, Snowflakes, and apparently are frequently mistaken for them.
Snowflakes, as I have discovered are often confused with them, especially where I live in Australia. What I have here are Leucojum. They are taller and they have more than one flower per stem. The feature I love is the little green dot on each petal.
When I was a young girl I was fascinated by these and I still am. My mother’s side of the family were all gardeners. Mum loved them too. There was always a clump or two of these snowy little plants around during winter.
Did you know Hans Christian Andersen wrote about a story and the life of a single Snowdrop flower? The snowdrop ends up being pleased to be a book mark in a book of poetry. He called it simply The Snowdrop. In my imagination I’ve always visualized them as snowflakes. Fancy learning that all these years later.
Snow drops are exquisite. I’m doubtful that they could withstand the harsh Australian conditions. But, I’m tempted to give them a try.
Henry Lawson ( 1867-1922) is one of Australia’s most famous short story writers and poets. My favorite story is entitled, Water Them Geraniums. One of the characters, Mrs Spicer, tries to maintain some beauty in her difficult life of isolation and hardship in the Australian bush, by growing geraniums. Her final, dying, words to her daughter were “water them geraniums”. It’s worth a read. Just follow the link.
I never take any drop of water for granted where I live. If my garden is neglected, it shrivels up and dies in the harsh Australian climate. Luckily I live on an irrigated farm, so I have access to water. It’s expensive, but I couldn’t imagine living without a garden.
The geranium pictured above, lives in a pot under the verandah, just outside my door. It needs very regular water to survive. It’s just about to flower.
After visiting Cee’s Flower Of The Day Photo Challenge and looking at her fabulous photography, I was inspired to play with tomorrow’s post. Here it is. Come back tomorrow for the real thing. I’m still debating which photo I like the best.
Bear with me. I’m still a beginner. I’m going to take some time to celebrate what I have achieved so far. After a few early posts I have tried to post once a day. This has been hectic at times, but having not much else to do, it has been achievable. Learning to work on drafts and then schedule the finished posts, has helped a lot. But, I have made 50. It’s a start.
2. Finding a focus
At first I had a vague idea of the direction and focus of this blog, my ‘dolls’, my garden and where I live. It seems like this is still fairly fluid. I initially wanted to show off my crafty projects and record what I was making. My current thinking is that my ‘craft’ is not something many people can relate to. Actually the garden is more appealing. I’ve been slowly realising what my readers find interesting. There doesn’t seem to be much purpose to writing a blog if the audience isn’t engaged. Another part of me says it’s still to early to focus too narrowly and I should just keep exploring blogging and it will find its own direction. I think, at this point, I’m just writing about me.
3. Discovering other blogs
I’m spending more time reading other people’s blogs than working on mine. At first I found gardening blogs very interesting reading. All the more because Australia is in the southern hemisphere and most of the bloggers I read were in the northern hemisphere. In the depths of winter, it was uplifting seeing images of beautiful flowers and gardens. It gave me something to look forward to, rather than dwelling on the misery that is Covid. Now I’ve discovered the amazing range of subjects covered by bloggers. I’m currently devouring photography blogs; enjoying their content and hoping to pick up some tips.
4. 1000 hits and very nearly 50 followers
My first follower was my son, then a friend and then strangers I’ve never met, in places I’ve never been. I find it amazing that so many other people read my blog, take the time to like the posts and sometimes comment. I love reading about other people’s lives. Sometimes they live in places that I am familiar with in my own country, but it’s rather magical being virtually transported to other places, only to find that underneath the details, people share so much in common.
5 Discovering challenges and an award
What a compliment. To have another person appreciate what you have been up to. Thank you Cee Neuner for featuring my post. as a CFFC Featured Blogger. How embarrassed am I to admit that I’d love to put the banner up on my site, as a widget, but with my skill level, that presents yet another challenge, just to get it up there!
An unexpected result of blogging has been rekindling my interest in photography. Loving that!
6 Upskilling
I bought my first computer with the leave salary for my first pregnancy. It had 48 K! It was a real luxury back them. It cost a fortune. Computers have been a great tool for work and I will admit to spending many, many hours as a ‘gamer’. But, this blogging business is a test of my patience and perseverance, and most definately a real challenge.
7 Challenges not the fun ones
Getting the site up and then changing the theme to a more advanced one. DAYS LATER finally making it all work again.
Ping Backs. I did it. (Once!) Look at me with the technical language…
8 More challenges, not the fun ones
Organising my photos. Still a work (quite a lot of) in progress. Enough said.
9 Challenges : the worst
Trying to put a watermark on my photos. Discovering that ctrl shift ‘u’ a9 = the copyright symbol. Like, since when is that a thing? AND THEN BEING CAREFUL TO PUT IT ON A STICKY NOTE ON MY COMPUTER SO I WOULD NOT FORGET IT, AND THEN REALISING THE STICKY NOTE HAD UNSTUCK AND DISAPPEARED, AND THEN SEARCHING THE HOUSE FOR SAID STICKY NOTE….AND THEN TAKING HOURS TO WORK IT ALL OUT AGAIN…..
10 Looking ahead
This year I took all my long service leave, a whole year’s worth, to travel the world. A few days before we were set to go, the Pandamic was declared to be a thing and all plans were cancelled. So I’m hesitant to make any future plans. However, I can still blog.
Except for the challenge logos, all the images I’ve used have been current and have been my own. I want to have another look through the thousands of photos I have and share some of the better ones. I’ll continue to try and improve my skills and maybe, treat myself to a couple of better lenses.
If you’re still reading, thank you. I’ll visit you later.
This is the old chook house, about to fall down. The chooks (Australian slang for chickens) and the ducks have left home in fear of their lives.
Kachunga is a name made up by my children many years ago. I think it originally came from a TV program. It sounds like something you might say when this finally tips over.
World Photography Day is an annual, worldwide celebration of the art, craft, science and history of photography.
I started this blog to simply record what was happening in my life. As Covid intensified and my family became separated it was a way to keep in touch. I wanted to share what I was doing. I hadn’t thought about the process much. As I progress, I realise the power of an image. And it fascinates me.
I was planning to use my phone to take pictures and I have been impressed by the quality of the photos. However the day inevitably came when I dusted off the old camera (a DSLR not the one below!) and set about relearning how to use it. Now I’m hooked once again. I’m finding that the photos are dictating the direction of the blog. Once I have a good image, the rest just happens.
The younger generation continue to impress me. Electronic schooling, electronic games, electrionic music. They adapt so quickly to using technology and their creativity is boundless.
Home schooling took a tangent the other day. My grandson showed an interest in photography. Here he is discovering the wonders of how a camera actually works. I wonder what he’ll teach his grandchildren about, when he’s my age. What advances could there possibly be in the future? Mirrorless, intelligent cameras, more resolution, 3D, versatile lenses, drone mounts? Will the camera just be an app?The possibilites are endless.
Better late than never. Maybe. This year is the first year I have had any luck with Cannas. Other years I’ve manged to kill them, usually before they flowered. Only sheer determination to remember to water them, no matter what, has enabled them to survive, I could proudly say thrive. Before you imagine a garden full of colorful cannas, let me put it in perspective. I only have a few, maybe six plants.
I finally got the nerve to cut them back. If you’re thinking it’s almost springtime there, you are starting to understand reasons why plants have an uphill battle at my place. As I was hacking into them I noticed that a few had some seed pods on them, so I carefully put them aside and went to Mr Google to research how to grow some more.
Mr Google said “gathering the seed was easy to do”. And it was. The seeds were large and easy to remove. The pods below were from a plant in a different location and I had left them too long, There were no seeds to remove.
The next step in the process was to ‘nick’ the rather hard seeds, so that they could germinate. As an afterthought many of the references said growing cannas from seed (even once you had it) was not that easy. That was an understatement. It started with ‘nicking’ the seeds.
I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to ‘nick’ the seeds. I tried sandpaper. Not going to happen. A file, no. How do you hold the seed and file it. Slippery little suckers. I ventured into the workshed. Maybe the grinder. No, I value my fingers too much. The seeds were round and very hard to hold on to. I chased them all round the shed as they flew out of my fingers. A sharp anything; knife, blade, no, no, no. I couldn’t cut them. Maybe ifI hold the seed with a tool I could grind it. No!! A hammer. Yes that broke the seed. Shattered it. Apparently that’s a no – no too. They need to be ‘intact but nicked’. I nearly gave up.
Then I remembered. Once I grew wattle trees from seed quite successfully. The seed was also hard as nails and had to be boiled for a while before sowing.
IDEA : Type canna, seed and boil into Google.
There was one, (just one) video I found that claimed boiling water over the seed might do the trick. So, I boiled the kettle and poured the water right onto the seeds. Success. They crackled. I could actually hear them burst their extremely hard exterior, so that I might have a chance of success. They even danced around the jar. Now they are happily soaking for a day or two before a trip out to the glasshouse.
Check back in a few months. I’m feeling I might have cracked it!!!
While I was in Rochester, I took time to walk along a river track along the Campaspe River. It felt a little like spring when the sun emerged from behind the clouds.
The colours were lovely. The gum trees and the wattles merged together.
While it looks idyllic in 2011 Rochester had a massive flood that did some severe damage throughout the town, 80% of Rochester was under flood water.
Isn’t it amazing how much you can learn when you write a blog post?
I’m still waiting expectantly for my Echiums to flower. I posted about them a week or so ago. Today, they are slowly developing more and more tiny flowers. So I thought I’d take a photo to record their progress.
Imagine my delight at finding a pretty red bug.
Actually, if you look closer there are two bugs. They are stuck together copulating. Apparently, the larger female drags the smaller male around. They are Harlequin bugs (Dindymus versicolour) and until today I thought they were harmless.
I read today that they are sap suckers, and can be harmful to flower buds and fruit, especially to apples and other soft fruit.
I’m not sure if I’m fascinated or revolted. I think I might start trying to elimate them, before too many of them breed.
AT PATHO 