An autumn gift

I cracked the egg painted with a dragonfly last night. I've treasured it for a long time so I felt quite sad.

 Then this morning I found a dragonfly chilled by the night, its wings burdened with dew drops.

I picked it up to admire it and in the warmth of my hand it began to revive.

I took a couple of one-handed pics

Then I put it in a dry place under the yellow chrysanthemum, and in an hour it had gone.

I have had a dragonfly on my finger. 

(Surely everyone keeps a camera by the pots of chrysanthemums, just in case of dragonflies?) 

Ephemeral

Saturday

Sunday

Monday

Glorious red

I saw red on my walk this morning.

Just yesterday there were still a few green leaves left on this tree.

Orange-red.

Every shade of red.

Gleanings from lanes and fences this morning

I found plenty of red to warm this chilly evening.

A bit of quiet

Spending a couple of days with a good friend.

Drinking green tea on a sunny morning

Pipers restaurant, Saturday morning by Lake Wendouree.

Bread and roses

The last roses are flowering in the garden, and on my windowsill.

I took a pile of books out side and browsed through them in the soft autumn sun.

This evening I baked quinces in honey and a loaf of bread. The house smells delicious.

Bread and roses bring to mind St Elizabeth of Hungary,  her basket of bread changed miraculously to roses, and the mill workers of Lowell, Massachusetts in 1912, striking for bread and for roses too. 

Lollies and candy

When I was eight, bliss was a bag of lollies from the milkbar. Now it can be an old Aussie lace tea-tray cloth, patterned with lyre birds.

It can be a basket of lemon verbena leaves to dry and a jar of sugar layered with lemon verbena leaves  for sweet cakes or tea.

It can be the bag of spring-pink angora wool found at the op shop, which will become a cloud-soft shawl.

  It can be the mad wool-tapestry cover with it's lolly-pink accents. Just the colour of a sherbert bomb.
A delicious sight. Maybe this is what is called eye-candy in the US.

The hunt for saffron milkcaps

It's been warm and very wet - wetter than for several years so we went on our regular fungi forage with high hopes.

First we tried the edge of Creswick township, a rich source in other years. We were looking for saffron milkcaps which flourish in the pine plantations all around our region.

Lots of broken and crushed fungi, and no saffron milkcaps. Too many careless picknickers have been here.

Next we tried the back of Creswick railway station. It's been unused since Jeff Kennett stopped the Maryborough train, but soon it will open again. Alas, more mashing of mushrooms - a clump of Slippery Jacks had been thoroughly stomped on.

On the way home we stopped at a place just off the road back to Ballarat.

It was full of puddles and marshy spots and little ponds.

Beautiful and very poisonous fungi flourished

We also found the saffron milkcaps.

We took only three baskets of them home, as it seems there has been a bit of a war on mushrooms in Creswick, and we would like to find them again next year.

Excess

I put in a solid day of gardening today. Autumn is the best time in the garden. Some things winding down, others, like the chrysanthemums, are in full flower, and it's not too late to plant some winter greens.
I overdid it a bit, the sun was so mild I just worked away all day. I was stiff when I stopped, but triumphant.

I did make time for a cuppa and some flower viewing too. Look at this beauty. I do nothing for it and it just grows slowly, planning to take over the whole garden one day.

I had so many scratches that I got really reckless and had a bath. The first bath since we moved to Ballarat. The first bath  for seven years, really. We've been trying to save water for so long and have stuck to very brief showers with buckets to catch any overflow. Oh joyous, sinful excess!

A gorgeous day

We had a gorgeous Easter Sunday

and a little too much chocolate.

Good Friday on Soldiers Hill

I love the hilly bits of Ballarat.

I walked around the little streets between Soldiers Hill and Black Hill today.

While there are some grand houses here, I prefer the cottages and their friendly gardens.

Houses as bright as Easter eggs.

Walking in clouds

A grey morning.

The mist was thick even at 9am

It was a joy to wander through the cloudy park 

breathing cool, moist air.