Nannup in the South West

 Last friday John and I took to the road our destination, Nannup Garden Festival.  I just fell in love with Nannup, such a progressive little town.  It was a lovely day, took us about an hour to get there, through beautiful natural bush.  Nannup is a timber town and most of the buildings are built of timber which reminded me of home.  How cool are these patchwork quilts hanging out on the line with yards and yards of bunting, lot of work in there.

 This is a Nannup tiger, extinct now but they did have them here.  Carved out of timber.

 yarn bombed bicycle outside the quilt house

 lots of yummy places to eat and this lovely shady hideaway

 guess who, waiting patiently enjoying the sun, a lonely little petunia in a tulip patch

 Just one block back from the main street, this old tractor sitting in the weeds

 Nannup also has a musical festival in this beautiful park where there is a stage and beautiful covered buildings to get out of the sun, they have lights in them so would be quite magical listening to the music  

they have these amazing carved totems at the entrance to the park, must of been about 8 towering above us

 the tulips where stunning in raised garden beds all around the town.

Had to add these guinea fowls, such amazing markings which unfortunately I didn't capture.

Special gift for a special boy

After quite a few years gathering materials for this special present I made this for my son last christmas.  Raymon has been battling with  cancer and then the after effects of the radiation treatment which is still ongoing.
This art journal is made in an old army steel lined case which I think was made for water bottles.  I love how the fabric on the outside and in is all faded and marked showing it was used for a purpose and one can imagine if it could talk it would have a lot of stories to tell.  Across the bottom is a belt of used artillery shells, attached to the right side a used bullet, dog tag and small bottle of sand found in the pocket of the old army jacket i cut up and used on the inside pages, the sand suggests the African desert. . On the left is the 8th army star which my dad fought with in El Alamain and an army photo of my dad on the truck.  One of the pages has the New Zealand badge with his dog tag number.  Tied in the lid is letters he sent back home mostly to his sister as the ones he sent my mum got lost when we moved around, also another photo in the camp.  The pages inside have his army photos taken when he served in the 2nd WW. 1939 to 1943. Following are the pages inside the case.  I made them in a concertina style using string to join.  The pages are displayed on an old english flag, which I cut up and included into the book.

Alex you might be interested in this of your uncle Ray

House started at long last

 This is where we have been doing all the work on our vegetable gardens.  Vege bins dug down into the ground, all filled up with part wood chip from the trees cut down (would cost way to much to fill with soil) and topped up with Mumbullup Garden soil which is very rich, will keep topping it up with this as it breaks down below.  Our pallet table and $1 chairs from the tip where we sit for morning tea or lunch.  Just to the right of the photo you can see the shadow of my Bug Palace, more on that in another post.

 Blossoms coming out on one of the old Apricot trees which may have to come out as it may be in the way of the septic tank.  Apparently it flowers each year but no fruit the other Apricot tree next to it has stopped flowering (maybe dead) so no polination.  Will plant some more if we have to take these out.  Have room for about 10 new fruit trees in the orchard, what fun choosing them aye!

 A few of the old trees have a lot of this lovely lichen covering the branches, look lovely in a vase.

 Builders sign at top of the block.  John cut all the long grass down before this photo was taken so the builders can see better where to put the poles.  in the foreground is the view we will have from the back verandah about 2 metres above ground.

Right, most important thing, the dunny is here so building can start.  Earth mover digging out the pad for the garage which is part of the house.  Will keep you up to date.