summer rain

Looks like I've got a good crop of 2l milk bottles ready to pick but they are shielding some small seedlings from the scorching sun. Since coming back from Vietnam, I've changed my growing plans to include our summer. The gardens are so productive and having such fresh veges is just so lovely  I've been inspired to have another summer planting.
I usually find it's just too hot for most veges, need too much water and the insect pests are at their peak. 

So I don't need to spray or worry about birds eating my fruit, I've had to cover my lemons and figs . It's been so dry though and my rain water tank has been empty for months that hand watering with town waterhas been unavoidable. Tonight is looking like it may rain but so far it has managed to surround us close by and we're still missing out. I'll try a little rain dance but have my doubts.

My sweet peppers were an early success but to avoid the nematodes I had to grow them in a pot. Maybe I might ytry some capsicums again but they too are very prone to nematode attack despite a garden full of marigolds. It just so nice to get your hands dirty for a couple of hours before breakfast. Not sure what any of this has to do with my art stuff apart from sharing great chunks of my time with it but I have blogged about my vege patch before. I think the green peppers could inspire a zine or book, who knows.

more broken

The incredible winds and recent rains have demolished and shredded much of my garden but no large trees or damage to our house. Thank goodness! Sorry no photo - bit sad.

Compared to the shocking experiences of many others in Queensland and Northern New South Wales, we have absolutely nothing to complain about. The devastation of Bunbaberg is just too horrible to contemplate and also the thousands who were just recovering from the cyclone 2 years ago. We sure do live in a land of great contrasts but I can't help feeling that the extremes are getting more frequent. The one in a hundred is now 3 or 4 in a hundred, for some at least. Most of the time we have weather most of my overseas friends dream about.

My garden will grow back and after the rain at great speed in what is left of our summer. The "Indoor days" gave me a chance to play with more little books. For inspiration I visited the blog of my recent book friend Helen Malone http://biblio-tout.blogspot.com.au/. I remembered she had made a beautiful folded book based on a square book inspired by a Japanese card structure.
http://biblio-tout.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/the-square-and-semicircle-book.html

This was meant to be a little trial attempt and then a more "serious" one later.

front cover

opening

As you can see the book is about maps (so why didn't I use the Turkish Map Fold ?) A copy of an old 1596 Venetian map while inside, a map of part of Kakadu national park and also a part of an old forestry map that shows all the different types of trees in this area. I was trying to make some sort of connection between the age of the old European map the old australian map and point to the almost agelessly old area of a part of the country of our indiginous Aborigines. Of course they didn't use maps to get around from one part of our land to the next - they were/are part of the land as encompassed in the difficult (for us) concept of Tjukurpa.

personal map flap

old forestry map

detail NP map

detail National Park map

detail forestry map

My personal drawings are appropriately on the inside of the side flaps and are linked to the other maps visually as well using stamps, images and notes.
























































































The little book hasn't got a name yet so any suggestions would be very welcome. I'm not sure if I can modify this one off to make multiples. Maybe the whole lot on heavier stock and forget about using card for the covers??? Thanks to my mentor Helen, I have made a" little triangular  patchwork book" that works reasonably well.

back cover

broken

heliconias from my studio window

The view from my window is certainly very tropical and this part of the garden looks quite lush but we've had a very long dry summer so far.

At long last! It's been a long time coming but the summer rains have finally made it here. It has been so dry for so long, that what little grass is still in the lawn , is crunchy underfoot. A cyclone off the coast north of here is predicted to bring even more flooding rains here over the next day or two. Why we need to go from one extreme to the other is quite problematic. But it gives me a chance to do some inside, studio work which has been rather quiet during the warm months.

Reading all the blogs of review and how many different forms they take, shows how most of us try to make plans and organise our lives to get things done. I was most impressed by Amanda's blog and her review plans  but must admit I'm a bit more casual and don't do as thorough a plan as I should.

I always tend to start by clearing a space on my overflowing desk. But.... I always seem to get side-tracked by some unfinished work or project from earlier in the year. I hope to eventually start some completely new work once my list of stuff to do, stops  growing.
Which reminds me, I did promise to scan a few more images from my other diaries of 2012 (part of my review). If it's still raining tomorrow, I'll post some more.

end of season

So much of my life at the moment is working with paper. Recently, one of my grand-children  asked me why I'm growing white paper bags on my tree in our garden. It would be a great way to make paper without killing the tree. The bags are not an original idea but come from Japan and are one way of protecting fruit from birds and I think even help reduce fruit fly attack. This year I've had the most productive and delicious figs ever and as well as lots of lovely rain , I think the bags may have helped. Sadly, I have just plucked my last couple of figs and will need to prune the tree ready for the next crop.
 Here are some interesting things I learnt from the last Organic Gardener magazine.
My figs , like most in Australia, are self-fertile. The female flowers develop inside the fruit without being pollinated. These figs would not be so good to dry as they are don't have the seeds that give the dried figs that lovely nutty flavour.
The older style pollinated fig needs a special fig wasp to fertilise the female flowers (of Smyrna and San Pedro fig types) with pollen from the Capri fig. The wasp burrows into the Capri fig to lay its eggs and when they hatch, the male and female  wasps mate, then the female leaves the fruit to look for developing fruit to lay their eggs.
Growers of Smyrna and San Pedro figs collect the figs with wasps still inside and put them in baskets hanging in their trees. When the wasps leave they enter a new fruit through a pore at the end of the fruit fertilising the fig. However, only the flowers of the Capri fig are the right shape for the wasps to lay their eggs in, so they leave the fruit looking for a Capri fig. They eventually fertilise many more figs before they run out of pollen and find a Capri.
How special and complicated is that! I'm sure the Greek and Italian fig farmers who farm figs, must have some sort of festival or special day to mark the fig season. How else could they get all that right?

Beauty in the garden

a leaf in the cauli-clouds

a spray of hairy onion -drops

The lovely warm weather and recent showers have transformed the vege patch overnight.
I never cease to be amazed at the simple beauty of our plants. How can we use this visual delight in our art work? I really don't know, maybe words are sometimes better at creating the image in our minds eye.