I can not believe how long it has been since I put up a blog post. It feels like forever. But we have been busy, not making soap, but busy any way. Spring is definitely here which means life gets more hectic than normal. But it is so nice to be outside in the beautiful sunshine, and to be hanging the washing outside instead of in my new drying room upstairs. There is just something about putting the washing out side and letting the sun hit it.
One of the highlights of the past couple of months was that a close family friend had a 5 week job in a small costal town about 4 1/2 hours from where we live. Because he knew he would get lonely being away from home for so long he asked us to come over each weekend. How could we refuse an offer like that. His apartment looked out over the bay, and it was whale season.
WARNING: This post contains heaps of photos. Which like the slide shows of old, probably are more interesting to me than you. But I have enjoyed looking through them again.
A whales tail. We saw this mother and calf on our first weekend, it was the only whale sighting in the whole month. We felt very special.
Looking out over the bay to the naval base and a wood chip exporter.
At the harbour the pelicans and seals were lazing about waiting for some treats from the fishing boats.
The wind was cold, but that didn't stop us inland folk wanting to get down and explore the rock pools.
Some of the inhabitants of the said rock pools. Those crab colours give me some inspiration for a soap.
Our kids were amazed when they learned how a star fish eats its food, now years later they can see for real that the science book was right.
Dan being king of the castle.
My wonderful husband trying to keep me warm in the icy wind.
Green Cape light house (Under repair). This light house sits on the eastern most point in Australia.
The houses were once used by the lighthouse keeper and staff. Today the lighthouse is fully automated.
After visiting the lighthouse we followed another road which took us down to the naval warf. There was a ship there so the warf was closed, but we managed to get some photos. Some sailors saw us and nobody came to confiscate our camera, so we assume that there wasn't anything too top secret. But just to be sure I'll only put this photo up.
A wallaby hiding in the bush.
This tower was built by Ben Boyd originally to be a lighthouse in 1847, but he wasn't allowed to use it as a lighthouse, not long after this his financial empire collapsed and the Davidson family who took it over used it as a whaling station instead, somebody would sit up top and watch for whales. It gave them the edge over their competion, because they saw the whales first. Needless to say the tower has not been used for a very long time.
We had a laugh at this poster, it makes the angelfish the same size as a great white shark.
To get to see the rock pools sometimes required some steep rock climbing, my shoes were not designed for rock climbing.
This wall is a monument to fisher men who have lost their lives off this part of the coast.
Back home, signs that spring is almost here, the parsley is huge, and the mandarins are ripening.
The garlic is growing nicely.
The chooks decided that they needed to eat the red cabbage more than we did. I was not happy.
One afternoon the kids said that they felt like burning something. So they did, one of the blessings of living on your own farm is that you can feed your inner pyromaniac from time to time. This is not only fun but it helps keep the summer bushfire risk down as all the dead dry fuel gets burned now, when the likely hood of fire danger is extremely low. Just to expand on this point, it rained that night. It is also good excercise, and now that our kids are young adults, we can just let them go. We did teach them fire safety since they were toddlers.
Mark and I saw the smoke that was going up, and decided that we didn't want the kids having all the fun, so I grabbed the camera and we went up the bush after them. I couldn't help taking heaps of photos of our little creek. It never ceases to amaze me how beautiful it is.
Sarah with her poly pipe burner.
More smoke.
A burning blackberry bush.
Another shot of the creek.
Worn out kids heading home.
The first spring flowers. I love the brightness of the first jonquills and daffodils.
Happy Spring, or Autumn, or Fall. What ever it is where you are.
Hopefully next time I'll have photos and updated of our latest project, and some soap. I haven't been totally slack in the soap department, but I have only made some plain castile and goats milk, both unscented and uncoloured.
