When your flowers start blooming

Spring at Marmalade House. 

We love them all but foxgloves are a favourite at this time of the year. Their beautiful tall spires line the path to the house. Those splotchy bits on the bells fascinate me. That is Mother nature’s work of art in all its glory for me. Apparently that’s a way of guiding the bees and bugs inside the bells to collect the nectar. 

The last few weeks have seen us keeping tabs on some of our birds here constructing their nests in the most random of places. Nest building is an incredible feat of animal behaviour to me and it takes place right in front of our eyes every Spring. Just like our houses, the nests come in all sizes and shapes…and comfort.

Speaking of random, here’s one in the garage on top of the fishing rods….

And here at the back door of the house in a tin that contained some dried flowers 

hanging on an old wardrobe…a neat dome shape.

Both nests are now fully occupied with baby wattle bird and baby blackbird fledglings.

The fishing rod nest…….

And the one at the back door….

I’ll always be in awe of how our birds choose their nesting sites. In these two cases perhaps they know that they’ll be safe from predators because we are always coming and going. Who knows….

A day at Cape Conran…must have been one of those chilly early Spring days.

Some marshmallow toasting at home.

Jack wondering whether the baby might fit inside his jacket…

Sam came to visit for Amy’s 40 th birthday. While he was here he helped Bill put up the second awning over the kitchen window.

Jack named all the new chickens…Philip, Rosie, Seahorse and Lion.

This is Lion.

Just because I was on a roll, I’ve purchased another collection of quilting fabric to play with. Another bit of quirkiness to turn into something beautiful.

Garlic harvest all sorted by Helen and Jack.

I’m always intrigued to see what people have in their “ to be read” pile.

This is currently Amy’s stack.

 “ When would Amy have time to read ?” I hear you say. 

At the moment the babies are waking every two hours at night. A month or so ago they were sleeping practically through the night. Go figure! So yes, that pile will be there and continue to grow for a while yet I’m thinking.

I’m also looking forward to reading these two.
This one is currently on EVERYBODY’S reading pile apparently.

Bernice Barry recently won $100,000 ARA Historical Novel Prize. I seem to have been drawn to historical fiction of recent times. Such a strange title but I can’t wait to get started.

We’ve had several purchases from Amazon recently and I can’t tell you how true this is. 

Talk about having all the seasons at once… there’s something  about this view on a cloudy, showery day though. It’s still a favourite for me. 

I’d love to see your favourite views….mmmm, hang on, we have enough trouble writing comments let alone sending favourite views photos!!

With a side of yellow

It’s the happy colour.

So it’s not surprising that it’s linked to sunshine, joy, energy and warmth.

It reflects the most light on the colour spectrum so it’s the first colour we notice.

I love “pops” of yellow.

Like these nine lemons on our kitchen table.

It’s a thing.

A feng Shui thing apparently. 

Nine, because it’s an auspicious number in Feng Shui philosophy and lemons because of how they evoke a sense of brightness and lightness.

Mind you if I need one for cooking ( or most likely Bill! )it gets taken from the pile, which means there’s not nine anymore…..but I don’t mind, my eye still gets drawn to them no matter how many are there.

So many yellows to choose from out there right now. And look at those delightful names. Much more alluring than “yellow”.

Shades of yellow at Marmalade House today…..

Even yellow in my concrete experiment for those of you playing at home. It involved scooping out the insides of some grapefruit and filling the half cups with concrete. Turns out there’s all different kinds of concrete and the one I chose was a complete fail. I’m still going to try again though. You’ll probably work out what they’ll be in the end.

Couldn’t wait to use this little collection of new fabric. Not sure why we have to always buy something new……that’s just how it works!

We lugged five tubs of fabric scraps here when we moved and I unearthed one of them a couple of weeks ago. “Why didn’t you use those?” I hear you saying. 

The perfect start to finding my sewing mojo …. but only after searching high and low for the sewing machine.

Just a cushion.

Just squares.

But it’s a good start.

I’m not the only one who’s been making things though…..

Jack has befriended our regular kookaburra visitor.

 He calls him Duck.

 Lord knows why. 

Amy took this photo of him on one of his frequent visits. 

We installed Merlin ID on our phones. It’s a bird identification site and it’s free.

We've all become a bit obsessed. 

This list showed us which birds were calling in a five minute walk through the Fairy Garden just a few days ago.

Searching for pippies on a Sunday in Winter.

There were enough for the girls and Jack to have a taste.

A wonderful getaway to Wilson’s Prom in the middle of Winter with Claire and Sara.

We asked AI to show us a more “cottagey “ version of our aluminium windows out the front.

Still not sure how we can make this happen but it’s given me something else to think about.

Loved this book. It’s been around for a few years now.

The story and resilience of two sisters during World War 2 in France. I had very little knowledge of what our women did in those frightening conditions. It’s moved to the top of my all time favourites list.

Who would’ve thought that turnips could be so tasty. 

Bill made soup from these sweet, tasty morsels that were dug up in our vegie patch and it was delicious.

So good to see Sue and Graeme again.

More yellow. 

Dulcie’s Delight. Couldn’t resist this .

These three fill our hearts every single day. 

This……..it’s me. 

Have a lovely week everyone.

 Hope you can find some pops of yellow to bring inside to brighten up your rooms….heaven knows we need to find some ways to help us all deal with the news stories flooding our screens right now. 

I’ve just been across the road to pick some more freesias. They grow wild there.

We adore them.