After the rains

On a beautiful sunny day I persuaded the family that a trip up into the mountain would be an excellent idea. A picnic was created and packed into the car 'fridge - I pack all the ingredients for sandwiches and let everyone create their own once it is lunch time. Since the temperature was rising and the sun bright I reasoned that most people would either be heading to the beaches or to the theme parks. (This place is a holiday playground with several fun parks). I was right. There were plenty of parking bays free at Purlingbrook Falls and we were able to park right beside the track leading to the Lookout. Madi (short for Madison) is a 12 year old boy and was the only one of the party not to have a camera so I dug out the Samsung from my bottomless handbag and he had a wonderful time with it and was so thrilled to be able to take pictures that I told him were good. He was my shadow for much of the day! He learned how to take Macro shots and became quite excited when his attempts started to give good results.
We were slower than the rest of our party and were lucky enough to see some people aiming a camera into the undergrowth. We discovered the attraction to be a black skink or "land mullet" - a magnificent large one.

f/13  1/30   ISO200   55mm

This glossy black lizard was approximately 500mm from nose to tip of tail. Much bigger than any I had ever seen previously. Madi discovered the advantage to a zoom on a still camera and he managed to get some lovely shots of this lizard. I was using the 18-55mm lens so he was thrilled to be able to take closer shots than I could!

After viewing the falls from the front and seeing the wonderful long drop of water - so dramatic after all the rain we have had - we walked around to see the falls from the other side - not a big walk - and had to paddle over the footpath because the head of the falls was so full it had spilled over the track. I showed Madi how to get low to get a more interesting shot of the racing water.

f/5.0  1/30  ISO 200   18mm

After capturing many beautiful tiny creatures as well as dozens of lovely water and bush pictures we made our way to another lovely waterfall right at the end of the mountain road at a place we know as the "English Country Garden" because of a Tudor building beside the parking area for the falls with that name.

f/9.0  1/100  ISO 250  18mm

From the lookout besides these falls is a magnificent view right over the tree covered mountain tops.

f/20  1/100  ISO200 18mm

I always find that shadows from the clouds make the hillsides even more attractive. The sky looked beautiful today.
After our picnic I wandered around with my camera and although leaving the tracks in National Park is forbidden I broke the rules and stepped over the garden weeds and discovered this beautiful but hidden delight.

f/5.6 1/60 ISO 640 55mm

This amazing display would have gone unseen by anyone if I had not ventured into the undergrowth! All that could be seen from the track was a pale top on an old stump that could not be identified as anything special. I was careful not to crush anything precious and walked back to the track in my own indentations. But, as I mentioned, since the vegetation I stepped on was introduced from gardens I really did not feel guilty!!
AJ

Night works

My son is still showing off this area of Queensland to his girlfriend and when he offered to take me along with him when he took her up a nearby hill to see the lights of the Gold Coast I immediately said "yes", Not to worry, his plan was not to go "parking"! He really did want to show off the pretty vista! So with the entire family aboard his 4x4 and with every member carrying a camera of one kind or another and two tripods as well, we drove about five kilometres up "Monaro Drive". What a steep road! I have driven past this road so many times but have never driven up it - now I know not to!

f3.5  3 sec  ISO 200   18mm

This first image is of Surfers Paradise. I used two focal lengths since I was using the 18-55mm lens. To take the photos I put the camera into Live View which flips the mirror up - of course I was one of the two people using a tripod!

f/5.6 3sec ISO 200 55mm

And this second picture is using the other end of the lens. The very tall highrise building is right in the centre of Surfers Paradise and is known as the Q1 and is the tallest residential tower in the southern hemisphere.
I love having the opportunity to try something different with my camera!
Do click on each of the pictures if you would like to see them larger.
AJ

Splendour in the garden

Each morning before Christmas I would look out the window and urge my little tree to flower in time for December 25th - and it did! Mind you it was such terrible weather than no one, other than me, bothered to look out of the window to admire it!

As you can tell from the bleak looking sky this picture (taken this morning) was also taken on a non sunny day - but at least the rain had stopped!  I rolled up my trouser legs to the knees and donned my heavy sneakers to venture out onto the lawn to take a few photos to share.

I have possibly left deep impressions in the lawn where I walked! The ground is absolutely sodden and although I walked slowly and carefully the mud squelched up and I discovered splashes of mud on the knee and thigh of my pink pants!

My tree must be roughly the height of my big son by now so once it has reached its potential - which I think is 20 meters - it will be an amazing sight to see if it gets this proportion of blooms on it. They are so bright and showy. I was afraid that the torrential rain that has battered us over the last few days would have ruined the flowers so it was with much relief that I found the flowers intact.
Another young tree is also making a colourful show.

This tree is a Tibouchina Austenville and has been grown from a cutting - a gift from a friend who thought it was going to be a white flowering Tibouchina. We have another tree (this same purple) that is near the house and has been cut back many many times but it is not flowering or even close to flowering at the moment. Funny that we should have so many different Tibouchina trees and they all flower at different times. Incidentally, if you are curious about the tall spikes of pink and purple flowers near the flowering eucalyptus, they are one genus of the bromilliads. I forget the name of it. The leaves are quite dangerous when I do the weeding, I always come inside covered with blood from them - they have the most evil downward pointing spikes along the edges. Colin bought me some elbow length gardening gloves to wear when near them - but I never remember to put those ones on! I do wear gloves when gardening.
AJ

A new toy

It was a big surprise when I opened one of my gifts from Colin on Christmas morning. The gift he had given me was the size of my flip mobile phone and was a JVC camera for taking blog movies! He and my son Paul had been aware of me checking out the results of the different blog cameras on youtube and with Paul's help - because Colin doesn't even know how to turn a computer "on" - a camera was purchased "on-line". It is actually a superceded JVC camera and very cheap, ($135.00) but what the heck! It is so much fun to use! This is my first attempt with it - imagine taking video with your left hand as your right hand is doing the chores, that is what I did!

Click on the video to view in Youtube - some of it has been cropped in this blog.
The results are far from perfect and the quality is not really all that crash hot - but it is better than the quality from Steven's standard definition hard drive camera.
The camera model is GC-FM1 and takes an SDHC card . I simply push the card into the laptop, use Windows explorer to move the video files (MOV) to my hard drive and then edit them with Premiere Elements 9. The voice over is recorded with Cool Edit Pro 2 using a Skype headset microphone.
Obviously the video would have been much better if I had been doing more than just making sure the lens was pointing in the right direction. But I wanted to share my "number one" video with my blog camera!

We have had so much rain just lately that the lorikeets have spent almost every morning pooping on our chairs! Once they have been fed we have to get the hose and wash everything down! Because they are nectar eaters the bird poo is just wet - but sometimes they have found some purple fruit and their squirts are rather showy! Mulberry season is a good time for multiple verandah hosings!

Hmm! Should I have shared that with you? !!!!!!
AJ

Almost Christmas

With the days racing past and visitors arriving and departing by the minute it is difficult to fit everything into a day! This morning after collecting a car from the railway station and then taking a friend to the airport I was able to start on decorating the Christmas cake.
I first made some fondant (roll out) icing and made a sort of reasonable job of placing it over the cake - I certainly couldn't win prizes for my cake decorating skills!
Then it was into my collection of ornaments for something to put on the top.
Every year I manage to find a different one to add to the collection and when friends go overseas at Christmas I ask them to look out for something a little different for me.

I found a rather sweet "Santa" that was brought back from Europe for me a few years ago and dug out the little reindeer that must be over fifty years old by now! They have trotted over a few cakes! Then a strip of sequins suggested a different way of surrounding the cake.

Pieces of left over fondant icing was rolled into sausages to create the raised lettering.

A week ago I picked up a bag of gold bells thinking they were tree decorations - but they did not have loops for string so were packed away - I found a use for them! Incidentally the piece of paper that stuck to my shirt is a mystery! I didn't know it was there! It was a label on the wrapping of one of the (not used) cake decorations, how it managed to adhere to me I don't know!

The finished cake. See what I mean about not winning prizes for my cake decorating, the icing is not smooth! Ah well, the overall effect is what matters!

Now to give you a recipe. I was asked about the sponge I used in my slice, so for anyone who enjoys food I am going to give you this recipe. I make it with all different kinds of filling. Black cherries (canned) or mixed berries - strain the juice away - are quite delicious. A spread of black-currant jam or similar plus fruit that is not so sweet makes a good combination (such as apple or blueberries). Of course, when Christmas comes around I use fruit mince to which an equal quantity of sultanas cooked in orange juice and drained (one minute in the microwave) have been added.
The slice I illustrated was a double mixture with three eggs to bind it.
Here is the recipe as written in my well worn recipe book

BASE:    1 1/2 cups SR flour, pinch salt,  1/4 lb butter ,  1/2 cup sugar, 1 egg.

Put flour, salt and butter in basin, mix well, add sugar, then add well beaten egg and mix to a soft  paste.
Roll out half the mixture and line a swiss roll tin.
Spread fruit filling. 
Roll out the other half of the mixture and cover the fruit.
Here the book is really vague, it says "Bake in a moderate oven" I use a fan forced oven at 180 degrees for 25 minutes. I also gently press the middle to be sure it is cooked, if it feels firm it is cooked - if not give it a further five minutes.

A few little tips. Roll the sponge out on baking paper and lift the paper into the tin for the first layer then do the same with the second layer but this time inverting the sponge over the fruit - but flip it fairly quickly.
When the top layer has been patted to fit into the corners and all the fruit is covered, I wet my hand and pat the sponge gently then sprinkle granulated sugar (regular table sugar) over the top. The dampness gives the sugar something to grip onto!
When cooked put a sheet of baking paper over the top then a chopping board then turn the baking tray and board over so that the slice is now face down on the paper covered board and the tray can be lifted off. Put a wire rack over the slice and invert it again so it is now the right way up and the paper and chopping board can be removed. this makes sure that the sugar stays on the slice!
It all sounds a bit complicated but I assure you that it isn't!
I hope you try it!
AJ       

Christmas is coming

With our topsy turvy weather no one can make any plans for outdoor activities. So many different Christmas pageants have been cancelled in the past two weeks here on the Gold Coast that it is not funny - and I suspect that this trend is not isolated to here. Rain is covering Australia and even the Hairy Nosed Wombat in the desert area of western Queensland has become a water rat with a flooded burrow. (For those of you who do not know this rather rotund huge guinea pig, it is a very endangered member of our native animals!)
Lucky for us, I planned our Christmas break-up for our Visions Group yesterday as an indoor celebration. As Santa was invited too, I asked a few children along to brighten our day. It worked!
Our Santa was a champion and the children - who ranged in age from 10 months to eight years - really had fun with this playful character.

Our youngest party-goer checks if the beard is real.

Santa's real life wife had come along to our celebration too and she remarked that she was amazed at how the children reacted to him. Perhaps it was because we were all in a party mood and the children felt safe and excited. Being in a home with Santa is a lot more relaxed than being in a shopping centre surrounded by strangers.

Being asked to give a "hi-5"

Once the children and Santa had left, the exhausted members of Visions also made their departure. Oh yes, we all had a turn at having our photos taken with the gent in red! Our cheeks were aching from all the smiling! We had a lot of fun.
But now it is pouring with rain and the back yard is not lawn but water frontage! The creek has flooded and is over the banks again. If the weather had been like this yesterday we would have had fewer people at our party because many roads are flooded and those that are not are quite dangerous because of the driving rain.
Christmas carols that are normally held as fund raisers for charities are being cancelled left right and centre. Our local carols were supposed to be held this morning - but it has rained all day so I bet they didn't happen. A big event with one of the "You've got talent" winners, plus two others in different parts of the Gold Coast will be casualties of our rain since they are supposed to start at six this evening - and it has just turned six as I write this story. It must be dreadfully disappointing for the organisers - as well as the performers who were expecting to make their appearances. Even our Santa from yesterday will miss out on his appearances too.

On a lighter note. I will share my email address with you. If you need to contact me it might be useful!

AJ    joanren@gmail.com

A busy kitchen

"The way to a man's heart is through his stomach" is a phrase my mother liked to quote, Its just as well there are other ways too or I would never have got married! My cooking prowess came later!
The sun turned on its strength today and while the mercury outside climbed every upwards past 30 degrees until it changed direction after reaching 35, I was busy indoors with the air-conditioner keeping me cool as I prepared for an on-slaught of visitors tomorrow.

A batch of mini pavlovas were made first, the work is all done with a mixer so they are easy! Tomorrow I will whip the cream to dollop on the top and crown that with some fruit salad. Pavlovas are different to meringues, they have a little cornflour in the mix which keeps them soft inside, meringues are crispy all the way through.

Then it was into the serious cake making! I have a collection of great little recipe books which have been purchased as fund raisers for church ladies or schools or kindergartens and they have real recipes that work in their pages. At Christmas I make a sponge slice that has fruit mince in it. Fruit mince is incredibly sickly sweet, usually, so I add sultanas that have had a sprinkle of lemon juice and microwaved for a minute, to the fruit mince.

The sponge is rolled out like a pastry but it is lovely and soft to handle.

The fruit is spread on the first layer and the other half of the sponge rolled out and quickly plonked onto the top - it is so soft that if I am slow it just rips and falls in a heap as I turn the rolling mat over!

The oven does the rest. All that has to be done now is cut it into slices. (And eat it!)
I hope I have made you hungry!

Colin and I had a sample slice with a cup of tea once it had cooled down, so I know that it is a success!
On Saturday we are having the last meeting day of our photo/video group "Visions" and we are making it a little bit special.

Our Guest of Honour is the bewhiskered gent himself - so I have also invited a few parents with children to come along to meet him. That will give the photographers something to do!
Incidentally, in the afternoon thunder heralded a change in the weather. You aught to have seen the rain come down! We had 30mm in ten minutes. Then it stopped, just like that! Crazy stuff!
AJ

Garden growth

A big round ball caught my attention this morning. I looked out of the window that overlooks the swimming pool and there below me was this big golden orb. Out came the camera (of course!) and without even checking the ISO I went into action.
Why did I mention the ISO? Because it was still set for the dim light in which I used the camera yesterday! Grr!
Anyway, the camera is more intelligent than I am and the photos came out fine! The focus was set to manual - I sometimes cannot get the right thing in focus when I rely on the auto focus - and thanks to the decent sized viewfinder on my Nikon D90 I seem to be able to get the focus accurate in Manual mode.

f/20  1/125  ISO 640    78mm

Obviously I am looking down on this plant from above. We have a two story home with a veranda on three sides on the upper floor. The birds are seen on the side veranda. This shot was from the back veranda, which is only narrow enough to walk along comfortably. All the leaves on the plant - it is one of the Cycads - have white fringing on them. This has been caused by the grub of a small grey moth. We spray when we see the moths but obviously don't stop them all!

f/20     1/125    ISO 640      300mm

The second shot was taken from the same place on the veranda (using the 70-300mm lens) and shows the wonderful patterning created by the petals on this flower. For that is what the ball is. It is the flower of the female cycad or Sago Palm.

f/16    1/80    ISO 640    50mm

Now I have managed to get into the swimming pool yard without being followed by the dogs! You can now see just how large this plant has grown. Many years ago I sent away to a seed specialist for the seeds for this cycad, an envelope with four huge seeds (you can see some under the leaves) arrived in the post (remember those days when mail came in an envelope?) so this large plant came from a seed that I planted and nurtured.
Many of the seeds do fall to the ground (and germinate) and many stay anchored to the plant - and many of them germinate on the trunk of the plant.
The flower will open and seeds will have been formed under the protection of those woody petals so they will be revealed. Then new leaves will sprout from the centre of the core of the flower and force the seeds to the outside of the plant. Then the seeds will fall to the ground. That is how the trunk is formed too.

f/6.3    1/80   ISO 640   50mm

This last shot was taken with the swimming pool behind me to show how some of the seeds have germinated on the trunk of the parent plant. We have to cut them off before they get too big and put them into pots to give away (or we would soon have a forest) or the plant would become far to large and untidy.
Do click on each of the photos to see them in more detail. That way you will be able to see the shape, size and colour of the seeds too.
AJ

Using two cameras for one task

This afternoon I was taking photographs of a rather wierd insect walking on my veranda floor when the finches flew in to keep me company. They seem to be attracted by my presence outside, when we pack everything away after having a cup of coffee and move indoors, they fly away and back into the trees.

I switched my attention to the birds and decided to give the SLR a go in video mode. Boy, was that difficult! Because of the less than ordinary light in the shade from the veranda roof, the depth of field was really narrow, so only part of a bird would be in focus while the other birds behind it were very much out of focus. These birds are quite timid so moving closer and "going wide" was out of the question, as it was I was only three metres away from them but wanted the camera to be close enough to capture their markings.

I must have taken about five minutes of video before I stopped and went inside to find Steven's Sony hard drive camcorder. I know from past attempts at using it that the quality is not brilliant but when all video on Youtube is converted to flash video anyway (and 30fps when we shoot in PAL 25fps here in Australia) I wondered whether there would be very much difference in the converted quality.

Now I am able to view the video I CAN see a difference - particularly noticeable with the zoomed in shot of the pigeons on the tree branch. That was using the digital zoom so quality drop is not really surprising! When it comes to comparing the early shots of the double bar finches and the shots in the second half of the video the difference is not really so great. Interesting!
To view this video on Youtube click to this link
AJ

New visitors

The sun came out today after several days of horrible rainy weather and with the sun came different birds to our bird feeder on the veranda. Perhaps it is because seeds on the trees are soft after the rain - whatever the reason for it, our seed dish was first visited by two rosellas the red headed bird is an Eastern Rosella and the other a Pale Headed Rosella.

f/4.5  1/320   ISO 300

Unfortunately it was quite dull when the photo was taken and it was rather dark so it has been tweaked to brighten it.
I increased the ISO "just in case" and it was just as well I did since we were visited by yet another common Australian bird - but not common on my veranda. Our visitor was the delightfully coloured Galah (pronounced "galaar" with a long second syllable).
Since it stayed still for a few minutes I was able to creep forward and take three shots of it before it flew away.

f/4.5  1/320   ISO 640  

f/5.6   1/320 ISO 640

f/5.6  1/320   ISO 640

These are beautiful coloured parrots and yet when I lived on the farm we would not appreciate it when thousands of galahs would decend on our wheat crop just as it was sprouting and pull up the little plants to eat the seed at the bottom. But they looked totally amazing in the sunset when they flew overhead. The red evening light would bounce off their pink head and chest feathers and make them even more beautiful. It is an image that I will always be able to recall!

These days I get a thrill when this bird makes a personal visit to our place! It happens so rarely.

AJ

Driving on Sunday

It was a very wet awakening on Sunday - my last blog showed you the birds reaction to the rain. Well after our breakfast in the birds' company we had to drive into town to watch one of our Grand daughters perform in her ballet. I took a little video camera along with me to take a few shots of that - but that is another story!
On our drive home again I had the means to take a little video out of the car window just to record some of the wetness that was around us!
Here are a few seconds of wet roads and puddles!
AJ

Wet Sunday

It is always good to roll over on a Sunday morning and catch a few extra moments of "doing nothing" before getting out of bed - this morning it was a bit more difficult to roll over for the almost deafening sound of falling rain. I find it quite incredible just how much water can fall out of one cloud - and the cloud that was hovering above us in the early daylight hours (4.30) must have been quite massive. It must also have been dropping its load of water long before I woke up because when I looked out of the window there was an inland sea reaching half way up our land.
The main bedroom overlooks the swimming pool and normally we have a large area of lawn between the pool and the little creek . . . but not this morning

F/11  0.4 seconds  ISO 160

I was rather surprised this photo turned out - it was taken hand held.(leaning on the windowsill)  I used Aperture priority so that I could get a wide depth of field which meant that the camera chose a slow shutter speed - with such a slow shutter speed it really would have been better if I used a tripod. (It was incredible that I had the camera in the bedroom let alone take a tripod there too!). Incidentally the pool is not directly beneath the window, it would be about six metres from the wall of the house.
Before I make breakfast I have to feed my dogs and the wild birds or my life would not be worth living! The bird feeder extends out beyond the shelter of the roof so to keep the seeds dry I put that dish on the floor of the veranda. As long as we keep Byron away from the sunflower seeds (he loves them) the birds will not mind coming in to graze on the floor rather than in their usual place. Byron is not interested in chasing the lorikeets - they do not look like white hens, it is the sulphur crested cockatoos that he chases (and we encourage)!

F/10   0.6 Sec    ISO 160

From this photo of the birds feeding you can see that the water has overflowed the creek which has come up past the dividing fence through the centre of our land, that open gate you can see is actually between our property and that of our next door neighbours. The gate is opened to allow the faster flowing water to go through without pushing the fences over. The gate was closed but is never latched and this morning's rain has pushed it wide open.

Here is a sixty second video taken this morning just to give a taste of the sights and sounds of our breakfast encounters.

Now that the rain has eased and the lorikeets have mostly had their fill of their seeds - and since I haven't swept up the mess they made with all the seed husks, another visitor has just arrived with a yell of defiance. I left typing this blog to see where it was and sure enough, he was about to indulge!

F5.6    1/60 Sec     ISO 450

The rain has about stopped and already the water is retreating, still over our land but only half as much as first thing. The change in the weather can be quite exciting!

Now to clean up that veranda!

AJ