On mer bike

My knees are calling for more care these days and I am faced with getting out on my bike or pedalling indoors; an alternative I have already rejected, so this morning I made it with a bit of help from my friend and we rode 7.4 km to the shop for a paper at 10 degrees with some SW wind. I enjoyed it. It's about time I got over the fact that we live on a hill.
Yesterday morning was quite hot at tennis, then I went out to lunch, visited a native garden at Cotswold Hills, made a Far Breton, and we had a full moon campfire at Mt Peel. It was a lovely clear evening but quite cool away from the fire. I had chestnuts to roast but perhaps I was already full of food by then as I was not taken with them.

Theatre

We went to another subscription event at Empire Theatre on Friday night. This time it was Menopause the Musical. It was booked out and for many a girls night out. Unfortunately the four singers/actors were heavily miked and although we had very good seats we only heard the loud speakers on each side of the stage. There were some good bits of theatre in it but generally it was not our style. It was more a revue than a musical, with reworked songs from the sixties.

Navigation

Our tank is done [it still needs dirt replaced and connections to house] and we enjoyed being at home on Saturday. Sunday was navigation day at Glen Rock. We really enjoyed it three years ago and were disappointed to miss it in the past two years. Once again it was a day of interesting learning. There are so many aspects to navigation and Ian manages to set a course which illustrates different things on each leg. Dick and I worked well together and made it to all points. We had a challenging climb to a knoll at 1 pm where we planned to have lunch. Thankfully there was a ribbon on top and also a box of lollies - we don't usually get that on a bushwalk.
On Tuesday we walked in the upper Perseverance area. It is greener and softer after the rain and is a wonderful backyard, but I wonder if the creeks will ever run again?

The moon in June

Full moon has come around again and I am quite unprepared. The past few weeks have been busy, with a trip to Mullumbimby to collect Nancy from the airport, then we flew to Canberra for the long weekend with Lee. On Saturday we went out early on a cold morning to the farmer's market then headed out to Namadgi National Park with Liz and Lee, where we climbed a steep hill to the Ororal tracking tower, now defunct, and had lunch on the rocks high above the valley floor. We then drove back to Canberra cross-country via Lost Lake, which we had never visited when the Tavs had it.
Sunday was miserable. We went to the Art Gallery to see the Turner to Monet landscape exhibition but as it was the final weekend there were thousands of people in long queues so we had a look at other parts of the gallery then went home. We started on the chair renovation and had dinner at the Tavs in the evening.

Monday was a better day and we walked across to get something from Liz in the afternoon. Thirty minutes each way was very pleasant. We bought a roast duck for dinner.
Lee headed off for a 4 day workshop on Tuesday morning and Dick also had a workshop, so I finished the chair. On Wednesday I did patchwork with Liz and her friends and had drinks with Rita and Andree in the evening.
I had a good trip home on Thursday, feeling refreshed from the break. It was nice to get back to warmer Toowoomba which is also quite green. This month we have had a bit more rain than the 11 year monthly average for the airport [31mm].

May report

Despite some predictions of good rain in the last days of May, we have only managed 5 mm for the whole month. It has been quite windy in recent days. Our recent electricity bill shows that we generated 413 kWh or 58% of total power used for the quarter.
Today is World Environment Day and my thoughts have moved to wind power generation. A 1 kW system is not very expensive, especially if it could be directed through the existing inverter. This may be next year's project. Meanwhile the tank is poured and waiting for a lid. Then for the fun of replacing dirt around it and redeveloping the site.
Food for thought? We are enjoying lettuce and rocket from the garden, pea and ham soup with home-grown carrots and spring onions, ricotta and ruby chard pie, and still some beans.
Last Tuesday we walked between Spring Bluff and Murphy's Creek cemetery.
Yesterday I mowed the paddock. We are rethinking our management of the native grassland. Although we had a good stand of Queensland blue grass last year, we have lost a great deal of it due to the extremely dry conditions. It has done well on the upper part of the block which was top-dressed with soil last year. In the favoured area below the roof bubbler, it does not seem to suffer from mowing on the highest setting, so we are looking at more frequent mowing than once or twice a year. There are a few prickly pear and white foxtails but only odd Rhodes grass plants.
We have found a new volunteer gum seedling adjacent to the volunteer ironbarks on the top bank above the house. It has grown between the abutting ends of two railway sleepers and is about 15 cm high. It is very pleasing to have well-positioned natural renewal of the native vegetation of this ridge.