Month: June 2012

Rain, snow, ice and frost – and that’s the good parts!

by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs

This was when it was almost at its best.It’s been raining  since about 11pm last night. I have not really had a lot of sleep because I have a crazy Foxy Lady with very sensitive hearing and the loud rain on the pergola roof convinced her that “The Sky is Falling!”. The Maltese Terrorist did , as any good terrorist should, just pretend it wasn’t happening and go to sleep. But Chienna cried for most of the night. She would calm down for a bit and I would start to doze off, then she would start up again as the rain increased. Noise and darkness – not a good combination. At the moment she is calm.  I don’t know why I even bother to mention the rain since it seems to be happening quite often. I think we are having so much rain of late because someone “Up There” has confused us with Austria. According to the news tonight it has been the coldest and wettest start to winter in 24 years. Adelaide had a month of rain in two days and Mount Remarkable – thirty miles from here – had snow. That’s just scary.. I did go out on the bike this morning but even with extra clothing, it was just too cold for me. After one tour of the area, I gave up and came home.  The frost on the roof of the cars I went past did little to warm me up. I went to the travel agent and said that I wanted to go to Scotland for the Summer. She said ” that was last Wednesday and you’ve missed it” Oh well. On the garden front, nothing much has been done. I did plant a number of rose bushes and the Standards should be in this week sometime.   Given the cold and wet weather, that’s about as much as I’ve managed to do between showers and frost.

Cold with a slight frost in the mornings.

by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs

The Wet Driveway and front gardenOn either side of the driveway is an area about two feet wide. When I did the garden I did not attend to this mainly because I wanted to get  the granite and the wood chips finished first. I had intended to get to it soon, but the weather put paid to that idea for a while.  However, the last days have been fairly dry – cold but  no rain – so I started work on getting these two areas cleared, One is completed but the other side  will have to be dug out, the old edging dug up and replaced. Provided I don’t get called in over the next couple of days I should manage to get most of it done – at least to the stage where I am ready to replace the edging. Once I have both sides clear and the edging in place I’ll get another load of granite and get that down. That should be that finished and I can then think about getting stared on the next project, which will be getting Annabell’s clothes line area completed. The decking, which is yet another project has been put on the middle burner for the moment – it’s not  too far away and  if the weather becomes too inclement, I can easily bring that forward. For the moment it is not raining so much but the mornings and evenings are cold with the mornings having a light frost. And I have been called into work where I would have preferred to be at home. Still, only two weeks and everything is on holiday and I  can relax knowing that there will be no phone calls in the morning.  I have used this photograph before to show it raining but it also shows the area between the driveway and the edging. This is what I am cleaning out. There is another section on the other side of where the photograph was taken and that will also have to be done. I had hoped to do it this week but being called to work has put that on hold at least until the weekend.

The dogs have been well and although I have not been able to take them out in the mornings I do take them out for a good long walk each night. The little man still gets tired and needs a bit of a break so I still lift him and carry him for a little while – until he gets his second wind and takes off again. Both dogs are over ten years old but the little one had a very difficult life before we adopted him.

Still raining

by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs

Be glad when he gets back from holidayI wonder if the weather forecaster will comment about the average June rainfall because we seem to have had more of our fair share – and june is only four days old. The same is happening across the border in the state of Victoria where that had a month’s rainfall in two days.  Part of  Victoria is now flooded. We don’t do floods here, but it does get wet. At the moment we have all three, wet, cold and miserable. Herself has had a washing out for three days now in the hope that we will get one  unwept day to dry it off. If not, I will have to take it to the  laundry for her. Why does she not use the drier? Well simple, we don’t have one. This is Australia, we are only a stone throw from the desert – we are not supposed to have this much rain – Adelaide yes, but not up here.  I offered to buy her one years ago and she refused. So, given the weather no bike rides, no dogs out and no work outside for a little while. But it can’t rain forever, can it??  At least I should think not – and the forecast is for cold mornings and nights but reasonable during the day about 14c dropping to -1 overnight.

It had been my intention to post this but a telephone call and a dash to Adelaide to attend a meeting put paid to that idea. The venue had been changed from a country area to the city of Adelaide a mere 370 kilometres away (800 k for the round trip, including driving in Adelaide). Can’t say I was very impressed but had to go. The weather, however, has not improved any – still cold, damp and generally  not great and Adelaide was no better. On Saturday morning it was freezing cold at the meeting- and the temperature was not all that great either :o) However at least the temperature improved as the day went on and it was a pleasant drive back home, getting in just before it started to get dark.

Today (Monday) I am happy to say that it is not raining. No not a drop of rain – although it is -2 and freezing cold. I went out for a bike ride as soon as it got light. Generally I do two tours of the area, which takes me about an hour or so. This morning I did one tour, decided I was being a masochist and came home for a hot drink. I think the frost on the grass and on the tops of parked cars was the deciding factor here. I just thought I would include a clip-art of the Sun. He’s away on holiday at the moment. Look forward to him coming back..

Winter Rains Continue

by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs

The Computer NerdIt has not been raining too much – mostly during the night and early mornings, then dull and overcast for much of the day. Apart from planting roses, I have not had a lot of time to do much in the garden. Other things have made demands on my time this week – over and above work.

I took the dogs out for a walk last night. It had been raining so the ground was a bit wet and there were a few puddles. I am not making any comments other than to say she delicately jumped over the puddles, he,  on the other hand, just walked right through them.

It is starting to get a bit on the cold side so I decided it was jacket time. I brought their jackets out and put them on. I saw that the little one was shivering a little – then again it could have been just his Shaker Syndrome – he has that, sadly, but not too badly. With him it is only light and, according to the vet, it is unlikely to increase. But we still keep an eye on him.

One of my roses is dead already – at least I think it is. It is one of the very first I planted out the front. I am not sure since the other two seem to be ok, so I will watch it. I don’t mind too much since there is still time to replace it and I had expected to lose some, but not the front ones. I took particular care with them. Still it might be ok, but time will tell. I will give it three weeks until the Standards arrive then if it still looks dead, I will remove it and replace it.  There is one out back that I am not too sure about but I have had that one for a while and decided to replant it from a pot to the ground, so there might be a little bit of trauma there. Hopefully it will recover. Others seem to be going along although it is difficult to tell at this stage.

A Rose by any other name…

by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs

The Wet Driveway and front gardenSince I am not working today and since it is dry for a change there are two things that I need to do. I need to get the unit cemented in place so that I can start work on the Washing line area as soon as it is practical to do so.  The crazy paving is just crazy and would take too much to fix it. I  would like to have it concreted over and if time permits tomorrow I might just see about that and how much it would cost. It may well be that the cost of cementing it would be less than the cost of what I wanted to do. We had a lot of visitors  yesterday and there were a number of little people. The dogs were not used to little people and were a bit wary at first but then they enjoyed the attention that they were getting. Chienna even allowed a little one to give her food – it’s food, why ever not?? Just as I was starting to relax and working out plans for the day – the telephone rang and I ended up working for the whole day. Oh well, tomorrow’s another day. And I was working that day too, and the day after that. I bought a  few roses and I have been planting them. I am planting them in bulk wherever I can on the  concept that some of them have to survive – I can’t kill them all off. I’m good but I’m not that good.  I still have not got the Standard Roses for the front and I was told by the garden  centre that it will be at least three weeks before them get them in – somewhere around the 20th June. There is also another place but same there nothing for a few weeks yet. The New Season Rose Bushes and Climbing Roses are in but not the standards.  Patience…..

Today is the first day of winter and to celebrate it rained for most of the morning. I think it’s going to be a long, cold and wet winter..