Its Berry Fruit time in Tassie

 

 

 

 

So we set off on a beautiful day, with just a cloud hovering over Mount Wellington, for Wolfe Bros. farm, about 5 km from home. We found them up dirt road at the head of a valley, lovely spot, pickers huts and bits and pieces all over the place. Apparently the Wolfe family have been in this area growing berries since the late l800's and this is their busy time of the year. There were a couple of French boys picking redcurrants and what a lovely spot, if you HAVE to work, and I would think fruit picking is pretty boring and hard going, so you really earn your money.

I loved the 'guard dog' he was watching all that was going on, but didn't seem to pose a threat, he was lovely.

 

 

We went mainly to get Kentish Cherries (the sour ones) but the redcurrants looked very inviting too, so we had some of them as well. Back to the cherries, they are not very popular, not like the dessert ones, but when we had the Apple Valley Teahouse the Cherry Pies just walked out the door quicker than I could produce them.

We bought five kilos!!!

and for an extra dollar fifty a kilo

you can get them all stoned!

I lost my virginity years ago, but I've still got the box it came in!

I don't know about you, but I have an awful job throwing things away.

When I saw this slogan on a very groovy campervan recently it reminded me of all the presents you get in nice boxes or packaging and you think, I will keep that, will use it some day. Consequently I have a cupboard full of empty boxes AND a lot of junk besides, but what a hard job it is to get rid of things which meant so much to you once!! It is going to take forever but at least we have made a start.

Prickly Pear!

 

This is Heidi's Prickly Pear in flower, and you can actually eat the little red "pears". To our cost (we both ended up with those darned little spikes in our fingers, too small to see to get them out easily) we picked a pear and dissected it to see if it really was edible. It was, but I wouldn't write home about it, you would have to be out in the wild, with nothing else to eat, before you would 'feast' on prickly pears AND you probably wouldn't have any tweezers to extract the spikes!

Don't you just love this sky?

 

Coming back from the beach the other evening it was just beginning to get dark, but not before I took this photo.

Double click photo to see it larger, it is worth it (I think!)

Time for an update!

 

 

Things have certainly moved on since we planted our garden, just look at it now, we are starting to harvest beans, both scarlet runner and bush beans and soon there will be zucchini and chillies. We are getting to know our fellow community gardeners and have our second working bee there this Friday to tidy it up a bit.

A walk on the beach

 

 

 

 

with a difference! It was an absolutely beautiful day, considering all the rain we have had in the week, and how Queensland,NSW and now Victoria and even northern Tasmania have been experiencing terrible floods. Heidi had told me she had done a cake for a wedding on the beach at 3 pm on Saturday, so I took myself off with camera and ipod and got a birds eye view.

It was good that is was such a lovely day, and there were actually people on the beach AND in the water, a rare sight at Blackmans Bay.

Here comes the bride

 

 

 

in nothing less than a beautiful red Mustang! Daddy must have a good job!

She's looking good

 

 

 

 

The Vestal Virgins!

 

Beach wedding, cont'd.

 

 

 

The Cake!

 

 

As the proud mother of the bride (whoops) cake, this is what I had come to see, another masterpiece by Heidi!!

Heidi's Little Visitor!

 

 

 

Heidi and Karlo had a visit recently from this beautiful Blue Tongue Lizard! Apparently if you have Blue Tongue Lizards in your garden you do not have snakes, so that is one consolation.

'Old Fart'

 

Look, there is even an English Ale named after him!!!!

Hurrah - England won the Ashes!

 

 

 

We visited friends, old neighbours from our time at Grove, and had a game of cricket in their garden, we had a fine batsman (he is from London) a groovy fielder in a wonderful hat, and a nice little underarm bowler called Jess.


First time for years and years that we won the Ashes outright here in Australia. The Ozzies were heartbroken (and we were victorious, happy and glorious, long to reign over us, God Save the Queen!)

Oh what a beauty

 

I've never seen one as big as that before,
Oh what a beauty, it must be two feet long or even more!

thats how the song goes! And this was our second mouli (or white radish) from the community garden, and considering I left half of it in the ground because I didn't use a fork to lift it, its not bad, is it?