Over the last couple of weeks I have been focusing on getting our vegetable garden happening. Not as simple as you might think.

When you live on the edge of real bush, the benefits are fantastic - lots of butterflies, and birds that of course feed on the butterflies and other bugs; families of echidnas, wallabies, hares... all of which are fabulous, except that as soon as your seeds germinate the wildlife gets to them and game over...

So it became clear that we would need to construct a truly critter-proof enclosure in which to germinate and grow our vegetables.

I did a basic design for this and then talked to Geoff, a friend and neighbour. He then told me that in order to follow my design I would need to upgrade the timber that I was planning to use in order to ensure that the whole structure was sound.... And fortunately Geoff was around to help with the construction.

So over the last couple of weeks I have been excavating holes for the posts, concreting the posts in place, stretching wire around the enclosure, putting in sleepers for the beds (so as to raise them slightly and make picking the produce a bit easier on the back).

Not quite finished yet - still have to put the gate on and complete the bird proofing, but we have now planted out tomatoes and beans, and next week will plant some more seeds. (On that note we are only planting non-hybrid open pollinated seeds).

Here are some pictures of the construction taking place:

I walk pretty much every morning through the woodland trail that goes up Moeyan Hill and along the next street along - its about a 40 minute walk - and is pretty aerobic.

Along a section of Borrowdale Close there are some quite large pine trees and there are certain mushrooms that really like that environment. One of them is the quite famous fly agaric. I wanted to check the spelling of 'fly agaric' yesterday and found a web site that has a whole lot of really interesting information about them. I had always understood that this kind of mushroom was deadly if ingested. Now I find that there is poison in the mushroom but the mushroom has psychedelic qualities but there is a rigorous cleansing that has to take place ahead of use of the shroom.

Apparently you can also dry the mushroom and then smoke it.

The conditions must be just right at the moment for the fly agaric, because they are sprouting everywhere at the moment.



Up on the trail I came across another fungus that looks like it would also be fairly noxious - it has a brown/gold colouring - unfortunately not really in focus in this picture taken with my Nokia phone....

Yesterday was the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. From here the days start getting longer again.

I went down to our beach yesterday - there was a chill in the breeze, but it was a beautiful day. And, as you can see the beach is pristine...

One of the most delightful things about where I now live is the fact that there is a track right next to the house that goes through a small piece of national reserve forest called Moeyan Hill.

Here are some pictures that I took this morning on the walk:



Here is the view from near the top of the hill:



And here is the view in the other direction, from the corner of our block of land with the house down below...

One of my neighbours was telling me the other day that her father had been a milk taster on the South Coast and that the farm with the best tasting milk in the area was the dairy farm on Agar's Lane. It is still there, and still producing milk.

This is how it looks early in the morning in winter.

In the middle of the night I woke up and thought that what I need to do with this blog is to write down some really important things... And the important things for me right now are to do things that are intellectually stimulating and fun.

That includes particularly cooking, working on projects for clients that are interesting, developing the property that we live in....

Cooking:

Over the last few weeks I have been perfecting Osso Buco cooked with gremolata - a sauce made with garlic and parsley among other things. (if anyone wants the recipe, let me know). Last weekend I bought a beautiful piece of eye fillet and cooked beef braised in red wine. Served that with freshly made polenta. Over the weekend I cooked another Italian dish that is really outstanding: Sausages with broccoli. Now this last recipe is really excellent - you cook the sausages in a pan with them just covered in water for about 20 minutes. Then add a little oil and brown the sausages, and then add some chicken stock and a little lemon juice and reduce the sauce by half, and add a few olives. Then add the broccoli, cooked separately al dente, to the pan to get the sauce into the broccoli. Serve with roast potatoes. Yum!

Work Projects:

Bruce Marshall and I are developing a process for researching people inside companies in order to determine the dissonances and synergies within the groups. This helps determine what the real focus needs to be for detailed Action Research.

Robyn and I are also continuing to get to know the neighbours. We had Greg Downey and his wife, Tonia, round for a drink earlier in the week. Great company and conversation. They are both academics, and really interesting people. It means that I get to do a little bit of work that is challenging, meet people that are entertaining, and cook food that is delicious for people that we like...

How good is that?!

And by the way, here is a picture of the pond out the back of the house....