Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Polar Bears, Weddings and Gardens!

Last weekend turned out to be quite a fun-fulled weekend! Nat and Andre's wedding was on Sunday, and Clinton was a groomsman so we had to travel down for the practise on Friday.

Seeing we have a QLD pass to Seaworld we thought we'd drop by on the way. The Polar Bears are our favourite as is the Dolphin Show. It always amazes me just how willing the Dolphins are. Last time we went we watched the show twice. I love the Dolphins!!

Jumping High!
Swimming backwards!
Surfing on a Dolphin!




But the Polar Bears, well... they are just soo amazing! This guy had to be coaxed out, and also coaxed into the water but then he seemed to enjoy it. The underwater viewing was amazing.

Why should I wake up?Going for a dip!
Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming!


The other amazing part was being able to touch a stingray! They had a touch tank! I touched quite a few, and also a sovel-nose shark too! Clinton had to be talked into it, and freaked himself out! I loved the weird feel of it!

Shovel nose shark!
Trying to reach a stingray to pat.Clinton's friend.




Sunday was the grand-event! I forgot my camera, and ended up being in charge of the video camera! Was a truly beautiful wedding down at the Gold Coast. Here is a picture that I have "stolen" from Imogen!




After the huge weekend, we came back to work on our garden. We've been having lots of problems with crows eating everything, so we had to crow-proof the garden, as well as give it some shade. Here's the results of today:



We've got corn, silver beet and lettuce so far, as well as a few tomatoes that are coming up. Our herbs are doing really well too!


Here are my Carrots!

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Gardens and Owls

We've been working on our garden since returning from holidays. We needed to put more soil into our garden box, dose it up with nutrients and get some seedlings. Generally, the yard needed a really good clean up too. Why? Rain. It seems that while we were away it actually rained, and rained enough to make things green and grow. Unfortunately this also included the weeds.

While doing our stock up on soil at Bunnings, Clinton hurt his back. So he's been out of action, which has left me to do a good bit of the gardening. I mowed for the first time yesterday. Yep, just as I thought, I hate mowing. I hate mowers even more though. They throw things at you, like rocks! Not nice.

With all the soil in, we've so far planted lettuce, silverbeet, carrots, some more herbs (seems our potplant family of herbs is growing rapidly), and some tomato seedlings. We've also got some snowpeas which will go in soon too.

Today is a rather overcast day, and perhaps this is the reason for our visitor. We've had one of his kind before, it may even be the same one! An Owl has decided the edge of our window makes a very good perch! The only problem is, it's the window right beside the kitchen table, and he look at you if you sit there! He's a big Tawny Frogmouth, seemingly very well fed.



We're currently working on trying to Crow-proof the garden. Rotten crows keep pulling up things, eating things, or just generally destroying things for the sake of it! Any ideas on crow-proofing a garden box???

Sunday, January 3, 2010

A New Year!

Well, isn't it exciting, it's a new year. Welcome 2010 - i hope you'll be a good one!

We've had a lovely holiday so far. First of all, we went up to Agnes Waters for a few days. It was lovely. Poor Clinton was a little unsure when he first saw how small Agnes Waters/1770 is, but he soon warmed up to having a slower pace... We stayed at the Agnes Waters Beach Club which was amazing. We had a self-contained unit, which had an amazing little kitchen, as well as a huge balcony. To make things better, we were at the back, which meant we had a view of the bush and to our left the salt water pool. Mmm, that pool was lovely too, and it had a spa!!

We had a choice of either going on a LARC tour, or out to Lady Musgrave Island. Clinton choose Lady Musgrave, which was a lovely day out. The boat trip took a while to get there, and it was rather rough, but when we got there it was great. There was the pontoon where you could just sit and relax, a guided tour of the Island which included some local history, snorkeling (we saw a small ray, turtles, reef sharks and soo many fish!), lunch, semi-submersible, and coral viewing. It was really worth the sunburn! If you've ever up that way, it is really worthwhile going (http://www.lmcruises.com.au).

We then headed back down to Hervey Bay. Not as keen on this place. I thought we'd go all fancy and stay at the Mantra. Bad move. Our "King Size Bed" was two single beds pushed together... our "View of the Marina" consisted of a very smelly view of only half the marina and our balcony was the smallest possible size... our room was above the cafe downstairs which had live music until VERY late at night.... I wasn't impressed!! As for Hervey Bay itself, when it isn't whale watching season, there is actually very little to do!

We then drove down to Cooranbong to stay with Sonja's parents. Was a lovely Christmas. Got to see a couple of friends while we were down, which was really great! While down there we bought a really cool coffee table!

Our lovely "gift" waiting for us when we got home was a power outage... which resulted in a fridge full of off food that was putrid!!! Wasn't nice. We spend Friday evening cleaning it out, trying not to gag the entire time. Sadly we lost the top tier of our wedding cake, which made me rather sad. I know it's a rather silly little tradition, but still.... Second lovely gift was no hot water. The switch is broken. I do not like cold showers! Hopefully that will be fixed tomorrow!!!!

We're now working on the garden. Lots of rain while we were away, which has made everything green. Amazing! Going to have to put up a "crow barrier" of some description, because they're eating/pulling up everything we plant so far. We went to Bunnings to get some plants, and Clinton hurt his back trying to pick up some soil for our garden. So he's now flat on his back. Looks like it'll be up to me to get in and do some gardening!