Winter soup warmers in my winter garden

It is winter here in Western Australia. I went around my garden this morning and snapped some pics to show you. It is actually looking very green at the moment... 

In my front garden the last few roses are blooming, the hydrangeas are shooting, the lavender is pushing up a few flower heads, some winter bulbs are coming up, and the gorgeous Strelitzia (Bird of Paradise) growing by my neighbour's front driveway is really spectacular. The yellow flower you see in the top row is Hibbertia - a Western Australian native. 

In the back garden, 

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Lyndendale in the winter, Ferguson Valley, Western Australia

Today I am sharing some images from around the grounds of beautiful Lyndendale Gallery along Crooked Brook Road near Dardanup where I have been running a basics photography workshop. Last Saturday was mostly theory, and yesterday afternoon was practical - taking pics around the garden.

Lyndendale is such a wonderful creative, peaceful and supportive environment. Thank you Denise for the opportunity to run my photography workshops at Lyndendale.

How about a sit on the porch?

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Making Anzac biscuits & my week in pictures

Last Anzac Day, 25 April, I realised that I hadn't made Anzac biscuits for years.  I mentioned it on my blog post on Anzac Day - you can see it here - 25 April-Anzac Day-We will remember them

So a couple of weekends ago when my grandson came for a sleep over I decided to make Anzacs with him. He loves cooking.

Anzacs are a traditional Australian family favourite biscuit. Everyone has their own ideas as to whether they should be crunchy or soft. I remember great trays of crunchy Anzacs coming out of the oven of my Aunt's wood stove. They waft out a delicious smell through the kitchen.

Here is my Aunt's recipe - she called them "John Bulls" - maybe from the brand of oats she used. 

Mix together 1 cup rolled oats, 
1 cup dessicated coconut, 
1 cup plain flour, 
1/2 cup sugar.  

Melt 125gm butter or margarine. 
Stir in 2 heaped tablespoons of Golden Syrup. D
issolve  1 1/2 teaspoons bi-carb soda in 2-3 tablespoons boiling water.
 Mix into the butter mixture. Pour into the dry ingredients and mix in well. 

Place flattened balls of mixture onto you baking tray. Baking paper works well. Leave room for spreading. 

Now here is the tricky part. My aunt cooked in a wood stove, so I really have no idea what temperature. It was amazing the sponges and cooking she pulled out of that oven. 
A recent recipe book says: Cook in a slow oven (150-170C) for about 20 minutes. So I suggest try that.

Cool on a wire rack. 

According to the Australian War Memorial website it is unknown how Anzac biscuits got their name or how they came to be a traditional biscuit to make on Anzac Day. 

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Autumn days of May in Western Australia

 May was a hectic month, especially the last few weeks. Some aspects have been purely creative pursuits, and this last week has been elderly parent concerns.

Those of you who stop by my blog regularly might know that I have been doing a 365 project this year - one photo a day for a year. Sometimes this is easy for me, sometimes I take time over taking images, other times not so easy and I just snap a pic on my way home from work, just to get a pic. 

 I thought for today's post I will show you the autumn days of May - and looking at all the yellow and orange it certainly does look like autumn - although we don't get the autumn leaf fall that is common in the northern hemisphere. In Australia our trees are "evergreen", that is, green all year.   If we see any autumn leaf colour we know it is an introduced tree.

Lets start with Flamenco! and our beautiful teacher Nicole from Sol y Sombra Spanish Dance Company when the company danced for an art group in Busselton - Sol-y-Sombra on Facebook  I love the movement and swirl in this image

The on-line web based collage program - Picmonkey - crops the images a bit, but you will get the idea I hope.

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Photographing Food in the Ferguson Valley, Western Australia

I have had a great weekend being immersed in Photography.

On Friday I attended a "Lightroom" photo processing workshop. It was part of a 3 day weekend of events organised by the Photography Group of Bunbury and the WA Photographic Federation at Evedon Park Bush Resort in the beautiful Ferguson Valley only about 30 minutes from Bunbury in the south west corner of Western Australia.  Evedon Park has cottages which would be lovely for a weekend getaway.You can see some pis from around Evedon here -

We have had quite a bit of rain the last few weeks so the rolling hills of the Ferguson Valley have put on their best green dresses. It's beautiful driving up around here this time of year. There are wineries and galleries and walks.  In the bottom pic you can see some cows and calves being moved along the road from one paddock to another on my way home this afternoon.

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Weekends of art and dance

I have had two lovely weekends of art and dance and another one on the way next weekend.

A couple of weekends ago I was involved with Sol y Sombra Spanish Dance Company & School of Dance (of who I am a member) when they performed flamenco dancing and held portrait poses for a life drawing afternoon at Jacksons Drawing Supplies in Busselton on Sunday as part of the Margaret River Regional Open Studios arts program. 
We were made very welcome - it was a wonderful event - and everyone, dancers, artists and photographers thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon.
Many of the artists took photos during the performance so they can draw or paint pictures later.

I am updating Sol-y-Sombra's facebook page, so I took lots of photos, and then joined in for the last two dances.  Here is their Facebook link if you would like to take a look - Sol-y-Sombra on Facebook

This is our beautiful principal dancer and teacher Nicole performing an amazing dance with castanets.  

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Mother's Day love

On the second Sunday in May we celebrate Mother's Day in Australia, and I spent a lovely afternoon with my family at a late lunch/afternoon tea at a brewery restaurant, the Moody Cow, in the Ferguson Valley. But it felt strange not to be planning and cooking a meal for my mother today. I missed her.


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Part 9 - South Australia trip - Quorn and Hawker in the lower Flinders Ranges

Today I am back with the next part of our trip through South Australia late last year.  If you missed the last post, Flinders Ranges, you can click here - Part 8 - Exploring Wilpena Pound, Flinders Ranges

Quorn and Hawker are two towns in the southern Flinders Ranges that are well worth a visit either by travelling north from Port Augusta - or south from Wilpena Pound. 

The town of Quorn, 50kms north of Port Augusta, was proclaimed on 16 May 1878. With the building of the Great Northern Railway it became an important railway centre, and the main railway junction for the east-west rail to Perth and north-south to Alice Springs. The last Ghan train passed through Quorn in 1956.  This major railway link has now closed but you can travel up to Quorn on the Pichi Richi steam train from Port Augusta.  The railway line passes through Pichi Richi Pass which was a major route used by the Aboriginals for thousands of yeas, it's name derived from the Pitjuri bush which was used by the Aboriginals as a medicine.

Whether you visit Quorn via rail or road it is a lovely scenic route up through the lower Flinders Ranges. We travelled to Quorn from Port Augusta in the afternoon and it indeed a beautiful scenic drive. I wish we had gone up in the morning, or taken the Pichi Richi train and allowed more time to explore - but alas we only had the afternoon spare.

If you have an interest in history, your will love Quorn's historic streetscapes which have been the setting for a number of movies incuding Bitter Springs (1940), Walk About (1952) Robbery Under Arms (1957), The Sundowners (1960), Sunday Too Far Away (1974), Gallipoli (1980), The Last Frontier (1985) and the Shirlee (1987). 

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25 April - Anzac Day - we will remember them - 2014

25th April - is Anzac Day in Australia and New Zealand - and this Anzac day is the 99th anniversary of the landing in Gallipoli.

"ANZAC Day goes beyond the anniversary of the landing on Gallipoli in 1915. It is the day we remember all Australians and New Zealanders who served and died in all wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations. The spirit of ANZAC, with its human qualities of courage, mateship, and sacrifice, continues to have meaning and relevance for our sense of national identity".

 To read more please for to the Australian War Memorial web site - click here - www.awm.gov.au/commemoration/anzac/

This image is from the Shrine of Rememberance in Melbourne....
 

 All across Australia and New Zealand in cities and towns, overseas where servicemen are still serving, where Australians and New Zealanders gather, at memorials in France, and on the shores of Gallipoli  where thousands go every Anzac Day to honour and remember, even at the Australian base in Antarctica, there are Dawn Services, parades and ceremonies to remember those that gave the supreme sacrifice.

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Peace in a country church - Mourambine, Western Australia

There is a peace and calm that seems to surround small country churches. They are a place of sanctuary. A place to sit in quiet contemplation.

Over the Easter weekend we visited the St Patricks Anglican church in Mourambine during our return drive home from a few days staying with our family in the central Western Australian wheatbelt.

This church holds a place in our family history.

It sits on a small rise overlooking undulating grain fields which are drying golden in summer and sprouting green and fresh in winter.

The town of Mourambine developed around 1860 and the townsite gazetted in 1884, but it has disappeared over the years - it's fate sealed when the railway line came to nearby Pingelly in 1889. All that remains of Mourambine now is the church and its small cemetery, the rectory (now a farmer's home), the old inn (also now a home) and the house where my father lived between 1939 and 1942. He has told us many stories of his life there. 

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