'tis the season to be silly

The silly season is upon us in taxi world.

Christmas parties and gtg's are on all around town which makes for a busy night, so busy that I worked through to sunrise and being such a beautiful morning and needing to unwind from the night a bit I decided to walk home.

It's about a 45min slightly diagonal walk from south to westish of north.

Here's some photo's I took with my phone. A kinda walk journal











4.50am









5.09am



Queens park












5.14am



Just bright fresh morning daylight











5.16am



Campbell st. looking east from Hume street.
Toowoomba should be well known for it's avenue's of Camphor Laurel streets













5.18am


This looked so much better in real. It's a salmon bougainvillea with the morning sun highlighting it's brilliance.












5.19am



Just sticky beaking over someones front fence.












5.42am



Nealy home. Looking back from where I'd come.
Looking south on Ruthven Street near North Street.












5.43am



Round the cnr. Agghh, Home at last.










5.44am


Just before I go inside I say good morning to my Sage and hello Rhubarb.






Good Night

Tattie Tyre update final.

What can I say, they were disappointing at best, my expectations were for a good sized crop of Kipfler potatoes or better only to harvest a crop of small undeveloped tubers.

In comparison Neville (my mums hubby and avid veggie grower) had some Kipfler tubers planted in the ground and his results were more along the lines of what I expected.

That's the second time I've tried tattie tyres with poor results so from here on I'll just use them for making compost.

Here's how my mind works, sometimes

Sunday night at work I was thinking about my blog(taxi drivers have a lot of time to think), and came up with the thought of putting a video post on my blog. So that was cool I thought, good idea, I'll look into it and left it at that.

Anyhow(btw, I hate Paul Hogan because I can't say or hear "anyhow" without saying to myself "Have a Winfield") when I got home around 11ish (I don't work late on Sunday 'cause Monday is my only day off and I don't want to spend half of it sleeping) climbed into bed and started to think about the video again and began wondering how to start.

I was thinking like newsreaders, "Hello I Bruce Paige and I'm Heather Foord", then from left field(as it usually does) came, "Hello I'm Mister ED", then the next thing you know I'm singing

Mister Ed by Ray Evans and Jay Livingston - Mr. Ed Lyrics

A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
And no one can talk to a horse of course
That is, of course, unless the horse is the famous Mr. Ed.

Go right to the source and ask the horse
He'll give you the answer that you'll endorse.
He's always on a steady course.
Talk to Mr. Ed.

People yakkity yak a streak and waste your time of day
But Mister Ed will never speak unless he has something to say.

A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
And this one'll talk 'til his voice is hoarse.
You never heard of a talking horse?

Well listen to this.

I am Mister Ed.

I can remember a report card from grade 4 or 5 which said Stewart is a good student but is easily distracted. Bloody hell 30 something yrs later and nothing has changed.

And if you want a tune to go with that then try this. (Reading between the lines, if you are way younger than me and have never seen Mr ED)

P.S. And after all that the Video camera is on the fritz. Currently going through the yellow pages.

You can't beat a Beetroot Pickle

From this, to












this, with a little help from this.

After the rain

Butter beans that need a bit more buttering up yet.
















Growing up the mesh is a cucumber and to the right is a rogue pumpkin and somewhere in between a not very noticeable eggplant.















This is the real corn as opposed to the baby/pop corn. Flowering well so it shouldn't be long before I'm eating fresh sweet corn

Potatoes in the foreground are lovin' the rain.












This is my roma Tomato San Marzano stand that I'll use for sauce and relish and whatever else I can think of (jam). I have a book here devoted to cooking with tomato's.











My beam's yellow tomato I planted on the 10th of September

Now, at least 7 feet tall and full of fruit.












My climbing beans now 3 weeks old and going gang busters.

"Gang Busters (Wikipeda)was an American dramatic radio program heralded as "the only national program that brings you authentic police case histories." It premiered as G-Men, sponsored by Chevrolet, on July 20, 1935".







Remember these guys. (2/10/08)














And now. Whoo who. Chips, Baked spuds, mashed potato, hash browns, potato bake, potato salad, ooh I can hardly wait.

Don't grumble give a whistle.

Another 30mls of rain last night, we might have some run off in to our water supply dams if were lucky.

I'm feeling a bit glum this morning so I thought I'd cheer myself up.
I always find this works for me.


Whistle.

Q. Why did everyone leave the party?

A. Because there wasn't mushroom.


Some idea of how much rain/dampness we are getting along with overcast skies and the odd shower is that I have mushrooms growing wild in my backyard.
I'm a complete void when it comes to mushroom knowledge and have no idea if I can eat them or not, but they sure look tempting.













Q. Why was the mushroom invited to the party.

A. Because they heard he was a fungi. (fun guy)

















Guess who's lovin' the rain apart from me.

That's right it's my baby/pop corn and I swear it's growin' overnight.

Top Cat

Remember this one?
Always loved the way his ears went through his hat.



Rain fall: 3 day total is 44mls with more storms and overnight rain predicted.

Cab 11

Well it's a drizzly rainy day here today so not much gardening happening although every thing is growing really well.
Got to be happy about that :-)

As seen as it's raining and there is no gardening happening I'm thinking I'd like to introduce to you to the Taxi I drive here in Toowoomba

It's a Toyota Prius which, if your interested, you can find out all about on the Toyota Website.

It is a funky car to get around in and fun to drive and the savings on fuel are phenomenal.

Now with half the population running scared and hiding their money under the mattress due to the world economic crisis I'm finding it a little harder than usual to find customers, so if you find yourself in Toowoomba and need a cab then by all means look me up.
You can't ask for me by cab number but if you contact me through this blog I'll make sure you get a phone number you can use to call me direct.
Cheers
Stewart

Seeds

The Digger's catalogue got the better of me.

ITEMS ORDERED
S008 BROAD BEAN CRIMSON FLOWERED  
S1221 KOHLRABI          
S061 CABBAGE MINI  
S081 CAULIFLOWER MINI  
S160 PARSNIP   
S117 EGGPLANT LISTADA DI GANDIA  
S121 KALE, TUSCAN BLACK  
S136 LETTUCE, RED ICEBERG   
S142 LETTUCE, ROUGE D' HIVER  
S209 SILVERBEET FIVE COLOUR MIX 
Hours of fun for all the family.
Cheers
Stewart

Gardenate

Hi all ,
Just a quick plug for Gardenate
It's a very helpful site for the veggie gardener. You can have an e-mail sent to you on what to plant and when, there's various tips and info on growing veggies.
Well worth a look.
I hope daisymum7 finds this helpful.
Cheers
Stewart

So, ya wanna' sow some seed do ya!!

Alright then, walk this way, no not that way this way.

First I work on the KISS, I "love rock n' roll", no not that one, the Keep it Simple Sally principal, so just grab some Seed raising mix(SRM) and bung it into your empty container of your choice.

Following the KISS principal I going to plant some Cos lettuce. Cos there so easy. Hah ha ha ha, Oh I kill myself sometimes.







Found one.
Now just a few notes
* Your SRM should be moist at this stage, not dust dry or tea bag out of your cup of tea soggy.
* When putting your SRM into your container don't squash it in tight just fill it up and give your container a bit of a tap and level off the top.











Here's on I prepared earlier.
After you will need to put a planting hole in the top of your SRM. Some people use a pencil, I use my finger. The required depth for Cos seeds is 3-5mm so just a divot with said finger and place one seed in each hole.
Some times you'll get advice to plant 2 seeds in each divot but I only want 3 seedlings for my garden so I'm sure of at least 50% strike rate.





If you want a 100% strike rate you'll probable get it with fresh seed but if you want to be sure then you can pop 2 seeds into each divot and when they germinate just carefully pull out the weakest one.


Now all that is left to be done is to cover the seeds to the required depth either by putting some extra SRM over the seeds or as I do just push the edge of the divot over the seeds.







Just a few things left, I always label my seedlings cos I will forget which is which.
Water the punnet. I use half strength fish emulsion for the first watering and after that never let the SRM dry out and don't over water.
I usually water when just the very top of the SRM is just starting to look like it's drying.
I also place the seeds in a well lit but shady area (dappled sunlight under a tree is good)until the seeds have been up for a week or so and then gradually introduce them to full sunlight and by then they should be ready to plant into your nicely prepared garden soil.
A rough time line. End 1 week, seeds of cos lettuce should be up by now and can be watered with another half strength fish emulsion.
End 2 week, seed should be 25/30mm tall and growing well.
End week 3, another half strength fish emulsion. Almost getting full sun
End week4, whack em into the garden, again, with another half strength fish emulsion.

Veggies. Really

I am slowly getting back into the garden and feeling better everyday, if a little unmotivated.

You tend to get used to sitting and lying around.
Also a little worried about overdoing things, but thankfully most of the garden has been able to look after itself the last 8 weeks or so and here is some veggies I gathered together this arvo.
Anyhow, have a carrot
Bfn.

Come on, up and atom.

Hi all, I'm feeling the best I have felt for about the last 8 weeks and a sure sign of this is when I start feeling like I did when I was a kid watching Atom Ant.
I'd think I was invincible and capable of anythink when I was a kid and I'm feeling a bit that way now.
But when I start saying "he's rough, he's tough and bad guys yell enough when he's up and atom atom ant", it makes me feel powerful and my heart soar.

Scottys almost go.

Well scottys finally got his head back on and after a lot of swear words I have almost got everything going up and down at the right time(I think I'm one tooth out on the timing chain, but that's a job for a calmer Stewart).
Still a way to go but hopefully most of it is just a matter of bolting everything back on.

The knee bones connected to the thigh bone, the thigh bones connected to the hip bone etc. etc.

Well I'll be blowed

Well, cover me in honey and tie me to an ants nest, an asparagus crown I'd planted in August, which I'd all but given up on, has produced a spear. Veggies will never cease to amaze me.
Look very, very closely, It's roughly dead center.

Worms

Nobody likes me, nobody wants me,
Guess I'll go eat worms,
Long, thin, slimy ones; Short, fat, juicy ones,
Itsy, bitsy, fuzzy wuzzy worms.

Down goes the first one, down goes the second one,
Oh how they wiggle and squirm.
Up comes the first one, up comes the second one,
Oh how they wiggle and squirm.

Speaking Laterally

Can you believe it . It looks like the automatic weather information gathering thing in Toowoomba broke down last night and now I have no idea how much rain we had, yes it rained buckets here for a couple a hours, but judging by what is in the bottom of the weed buckets I leave lying around there would have been at least 25 to 30mm so it's all smiles around here.


Laterally speaking.

A few friends here in Toowoomba are growing Tomatoes for the first time and I asked them what they knew about lateral growth on their toms and both said they had heard about them but were not sure what it's about, so here's my attempt to explain lateral growth on Tomatoes and what and why and how we do anything about them.
OK first what. This only applies to what the boffins call Indeterminate tomatoes, that is the ones we usually tie up to a stake for support.
Now you will find these sneaky little buggers, laterals that is not the boffins, between the junction of a leaf and usually the main stem. As shown in the photo above, you can just see where I'm pointing a twig.
Now all that needs to be done is to pinch these little extra stems out so they can't grow any more.



Why. Mainly because if all the laterals are left to grow you will have to much extra growth that will weaken the plant to the point where it produces numerous small fruits that may not even ripen.
The photo on the left shows the lateral pinched out.
This pinching out of laterals will need to be done on a regular basis all the way from the bottom to the top of the bush.
If the photos aren't clear enough I'm happy to do them again for anyone who wants then.

Let it inspire you

Don’t let someone else’s success make you feel diminished or jealous. Let it inspire you instead.
Steve Pavlina

Almost rainy day blues

There's a fine misty drizzle here today that's supposed to turn into rain later on in the day/sometime/maybe/so they say. So I'm stuck indoors which is good because I've taken an interest in playing my guitar again. I usually pick it up for a few months then get frustrated with my lack of musicality and put it down for a few months. Music makes sense to me in my head but I have trouble getting that to my fingers.

In the meantime Scottys head has finished being worked on and is now back home awaiting me to get up the courage to put it all back to geather again. Humpty Dumpty comes to mind and so does unscrambling eggs.



The first picture shows the cause of the problem.
The gasket on the left is the new one the one on the right is the old. As you can see the one on the right should have a nice shinny strip of metal all around the inside edge of the gasket like the one on the left.
Judging by the extent of the damage it looks like it has been a long term problem but only showed up in the last month.
Anyhow when I do get it all back togeather I'm hoping for a much improved performance.





All shinny and kinda new.

Now where does this bit go again?

Award #2

I've been awarded again, this one comes from Mandy at the The Old Dairy who has one of the sweetest blogs around.
As with the Uber Amazing Blog award I'm expected to pass it on to five more people.
Me being the stubborn and rebellious anti conformist that I am will do only one,

* My sister at Wild Honey Photography

Award #1

I am delighted to receive this award from Peggy at organic growing pains.

The rules of this award are:
*Put the award logo on your blog or post
* Nominate at least 5 blogs (can be more or less) that you consider to be Uber Amazing!
* Let them know that they have received this Uber Amazing award by commenting on their blog
* Share the love and link to this post and to the person you received your award from

I am nominating the following blogs for this Uber Amazing Blog Award

* The Mad Gnomes Strike Again
* Cathode
It's either two or everyone. I think you're all fantastic.

Melbourne Cup tip

If you want a tip for the M.C. then don't ask a weatherman/woman/person.
Judging on their ability to predict the weather I'd rather play the stock exchange.
If they do give you a tip though I wouldn't put my money on the horse they tip, you'd surely lose.