Some colour in the garden

One of the advantages of living in the tropics is that there is still a lot of colour in the garden even in winter - or what is supposed to be winter!

I

 I have pots of bedding begonias all round the garden.  I love them as they keep on flowering for months on end and always look so cheerful.  When they finally succumb to wet feet they are easily replaced.

 The nodding violets have also been flowering for months.  Bill downloads all my photos for me and he never edits them so you see all the background rubbish because I can't crop them - or I haven't yet worked out how to without my photo editing programme which will not work on this computer unfortunately.

 The zygocactus on the back verandah has been flowering its socks off, but the couple in the greenhouse are only just starting to flower now.  I am not sure what the difference is, but we are enjoying them for longer.

I had to take this photo last night - an improvised wind shield!!!  We have been having very strong winds which interfere with cooking on the BBQ more than somewhat.  I was cross that Bill had not disposed of the cartons when we purchased three new office chairs, but he knew there was a reason why - he can always find a reason to hoard everything!
The wind is still almost gale force today, with occasional showers, but the forecast for rain earlier in the week was wrong.  The three day show was held in brilliant sunshine - really great for those who wanted to attend.
Now I had better get some lunch.

Better late than never

I have been trying to do this post for several days but at last I am here!  The Friends of the Gardens finally made an excursion to a local beach an hour's drive north of Mackay.  The day was fine and the wind was not too strong so we were all happy.

 A friend took most of these photos.  This is a blue tiger butterfly feeding on snakeweed flowers.  We get huge swarms of these butterflies in the Gardens quite often, they make a lovely show.

 We had a park ranger in the group, who said this is the case of a cicada larva.

 He also identified this gorgeous tiny bat as a northerrn tube nosed bat, it would fit in the palm of your hand easily.

 There were a couple of young children in the group so John was explaining to them how the hooks on the legs of this caterpillar, one of the swarming locust varieties, work.  i would like him to have killed it then, but i don't think he did!

 Just showing you what some of the vegetation looked like

 There were quite a few melaleucas flowering

 One minute you are in dense scrub, then a few steps further on you break through to the beach!

 Of course we had to eat after all the walking! The Seaforth Progress Association has erected some wonderful BBQ shelters and picnic tables for everyone to use - they even have lights so can be used at night.

There were two of these lovely Burdekin ducks wandering round and round the shelter, obviously hoping someone would throw them some bread.  Usually they are quite shy, but not this pair - sorry there is only one in the photo.

The weather continues to be quite crazy and still not cold - or not for most people anyway.  Minimums have made it down to 14, which is much higher than the maximums I have been reading on the weather chart for Tasmania!

How I see the world

I thought you may like to see images of the technology that lets me read and be able to communicate with the world.

This is my computer with the 30 inch screen which has a very high definition.  I can change the colours on t he screen, but for reading text I usually have yellow text on a brown background.  The keyboard is a special one to go with the software and when I want to look at photos I can press a button and the screen has normal colours.  Photos do look rather strange in the colour scheme above!  There is a very convenient wheel on the left side of the keyboard which allows me to magnify or decrease the size of what I am viewing.  There are also lots of other buttons to change bits around which I have never really learned how to use - probably because I am comfortable with what I am doing.  You learn what you need, then get lazy!  I have learned to do  a lot of scrolling however as what you are seeing in the screenshot above is only half the page.  Bill goes crazy trying to whiz across the page but I have got quite used to it.  Fortunately I was always a fast reader.

This next gadget is my wonderful portable scanner called a Zoomax.  It fits in my handbag so I can take it to the library and continue with my voluntary work in the history room there.  As well as magnifying the tesxt you can change the background colour to the yellow which is showing here, or reverse the background - white text on black background.

I don't often use this facility, but I can plug the Zoomax into the AV on the TV so it really magnifies then.  I can also take a snapshot  to capture a piece of information like a phone number which I have looked up in the directory and I can save till I have dialled the number.

Lastly, here is the scanner which sits on my kitchen table and which I use every day.  So far I only use pretty basic operations on it, but there are all sorts of different operations available if my eyesight deteriorates.  I do the crossword each morning while having breakfast and that is an interesting exercise.  I am reading a vertical surface while writing on the horizontal surface below - sometimes takes a few seconds to locate where I should be writing!  I also never see a whole crossword so I need to remember a bit more - and my brain is not always working as well as I would like it to.  They do say that mental activity keeps the brain working, but perhaps I am not doing enough some days!
Thank goodness for modern technology.
I had hoped to post some photos of an excursion planned for the Friends of the Gardens.  We should have visited a local beach last Saturday to see some interesting plants but the weather was against us - cold, wet and windy!  At least we received some useful rain - 19 mm on Saturday and 21 mm on Sunday. We have rescheduled for next Saturday so are hoping for fine weather then.  I am rather doubtful as the temperature is far too warm.  I am writin this dressed in a T shirt and shorts - and this is mid June!!!

Gardening matters - and some very large prawns

My orchids are flowering again, with absolutely no help from me. That is the sort of orchid I like - they hang under the tree and occasionally get watered!

The photo is not wonderful as they hang very close to the ground and I am not very good at getting down low!

The cardinal creeper is also putting out lots of flowers which the honeyeaters and the bees a

all love.  They have such a lovely shiny  .surface to the flower.

This next photo was taken several m months ago.  The bromeliad flowers are looking very sad now and I would really like to cut them off and trim up the plant....But...the sunbirds and my native bees are still in there every morning so the sad plants remain. 

This, however is one branch of the Abelia which was definitely pruned off - after Bill had taken to it with the pest spray.   He did not think there were many wasps there, but well over 50 flew out into the spray - and hopefully died. one had died earlier after it stung me - ouch!

Now to the prawns.  A friend of ours brought these monsters back from Cairns.  I have no idea what variety they are, but they are the largest prawns I have ever seen, and they are not as large as some he brought last year.  I fried them in some clarified butter and lime juice - they are nice but we both prefer the smaller tiger prawns.  We would not dream of offending him by rejecting the gift though.

I hope you have all enjoyed your weekend.  This is the last official day of Autumn here, but it feels like mid summer.  I believe it is due to turn very cold in Brisbane overnight so perhaps we will have a cold snap by Tuesday. 

A birthday present

Twelve years ago this weekend, our Botanic Gardens officially opened.  The Friends have just purchased a Golf Buggy for Staff and Friends to use around our extensive grounds.  Fortuitously it was ready to hand over in time for a celebratory morning tea.

We invited some of out Councillors to come along and do the honours unwrapping the buggy - after we had wrapped it (in a cover we have bought for it) and decorated it with streamers!
Everybody is thrilled with the present.  I have sat in it but Bill has been for a ride already!
The paper work and regulations we had to work through to donate this to the council were unbelievable, and we are still not completely sure we will be allowed to take members of the general public for a ride - something to do with the limited registration which we have paid.  Volunteers are okay, we are covered by a different insurance! 
The volunteers who usually have to wheel heavy trolleys with water cans on to water new  plants in areas without reticulated water will be dancing with joy - they can load up the golf buggy and travel half a kilometre or more in style.
 Autumn has really arrived here.  Thankfully we had a gorgeous day on Friday, but since then the wind has got up and a drizzly rain with very strong winds has arrived. I had planned to spend the day in the garden, but instead I have read some blogs and put up a post as well - some achievement!
 It is just on twelve months since I lost my sight so I am getting used to what I can manage to do now, mostly by just ignoring the loss. 
 I hope you have been enjoying your weekend. 

I may or may not have some photos

We have returned from Bundaberg and I discovered that I could point and snap and I ended up with some quite reasonable photos!  I have been tearing my hair out as I followed my usual procedure and loaded all the photos, then tried to write text around them.  I am not sure if it is just blogger or my Magic software, but nothing will work - grrrrr!  When I press the space button I was taken all over the place, even to another blog which I had read this morning.  I will try to post some photos at the end of the post and hope you can see what I have been talking about.
The ladies were treated even more luxuriously e
than ever and a diet was definitely the order of the day by the end of the week!  We had wonderful lunches and dinners of local delicacies as well as (unnecessary) morning and afternoon teas.  We visited a macadamia nut factory which was really interesting.
I grew up with a macadamia nut tree in our back yard which we knew as a Queensland nut tree, and the people who lived on the coast knew them as Bauple nuts.  They are really delicious, but have a very hard shiny brown shell covered by a tough outer husk.  We used a vice to crack them, but others used a hammer and a hole in concrete!  I hope I can publish the photo of a large container of the nuts ready for exporting to china.  There someone runs a sawcut round the shell, after which the nuts are steamed and sealed in a bag which contains a small key, ready for retailing.  The customer twists the key in the sawcut to access the kernel inside - ingenious!
We also visited a seaside resort Bargarra which is now a very trendy place, full of lovely coffee shops and wonderful gift shops.  When we sat down for coffee we found a selection of small gifts in front of each or us, including a photo taken the day before of the group, attached to a little easel.  Our hosts thought of everything!
We had  a two hour cruise in wonderful weather on the Bundy Belle, sitting in the sun being wined and dined in absolute luxury without even having to move out of our seats - it was all brought to us.  There is a lot of history along the river and the Captain made it very entertaining.
The best was left to last - a cooking demo come workshop in which we all participated, then ate some of our results for lunch.  Wayne had us all chopping and slicing and peeling green prawns or stirring pots on the cooktops he had .  We made a beetroot risotto topped with scallops and prawns, figgy linme chicken, sweet potato rosti, beans with garlic and feta cheese, and a very rich dessert of pastry shells with caramel topped by a chocolate cream!
The gods certainly smiled on Bundaberg for the conference.  It finished on Thursday and the heavens opened on Friday.   There was really terrible weather from the south of the city to the north coast of New South Wales, with five people dying in raging flood waters.
We drove north in lovely sunshine!

Sorry about the shadow on the photo - not testing my luck any further! 

Books........and reading

 I know I don't post very often these days, I always feel it is a bit boring with no photos, but I have been thinking about books and reading lately.  I have always loved reading, even as a small child - tucking myself under the blankets with a torch to finish a good story!  I'll bet many of you are guilty of that also.

Listening to a book as opposed to reading is a very different experience.  There is no skimming over bits which  don't interest you - or going back to check on another thing you have forgotten!  I can only go back or forwards one chapter at a time which is sometimes very frustrating.  I often forget  the title of the book I am reading as I only hear it the first time I start listening on my MP3 player!  I will  remember the author, so that is something.

The narrator is very important also, some of them are wonderful, often professional actors who almost bring the story to life, with different voices for each character.  Once or twice I have given up on a book simply because I could not bear the voice of the narrator.
I have heard some people say they go to sleep listening to talking books.  I rarely find I am doing that, but I do find  I am drifting off in another direction following my idea of what has just been read instead of continuing to follow the story!  Then I have to work out what has been happening as I can't go back just a few paragraphs - it does encourage concentration.
The other food thing about books on my MP3 player is that I can plug it into my ears and listen to a book while I am ironing or doing other boring jobs around the house.  I often continue to listen when I am out walking as I don't really see much of the scenery these days, and I can actually continue to look anyway.
Bill thinks the MP3 player is an excellent device for me to listen to in bed at night as I don't need the light on and he can go to sleep in peace.
We are enjoying magical Autumn weather here at last, with lovely sunny days - perfect tourist weather, just as we are heading away for a week to a conference in Bundaberg.  The ladies have a wonderful time being shown the sights and wined and dined while the men are working.  I will need to diet for sure when we return, there is always far too much luscious food - and it would be rude to leave it untasted!
Back in a week or two.