a magic night

Pinot and Pizza met at Beechwood again with 2 new twists - homemade pizzas by Di and overnight stays, Camerons in their campervan and Powells in their tent. The tent won the settling in race, taking 2 minutes to erect including placing the groundsheets.

There was too much wind for the beach deck and  just enough chill in the air to light a fire in the shelter shed so that we could sit outside in front and enjoy the sound of the sea and the bright stars above.

Di's pizzas and Heather's dessert were all delicious and the pinots went down well too.

 

 

Di, Andy, Heather, Michael, David

the metal tank has gone

Barbara and Max arrived early this morning - with fresh nut loaf for morning tea of course - to pick up the small metal tank which once held rain water. It ran out a month ago, just as well so we can move it on and get 2 large plastic ones.

The blue-tongue lizard I had seen retreat under the tank was nowhere to be seen when they got it rolled onto its side and heading up to the truck. They couldn't have done it without Barbara's help!

Australia Day weekend

 

Wonderful weather! and we shared it with Jennifer and Peter - my sister and brother-in-law - who came from Adelaide for the weekend. The men fished and checked the craypots while Jennifer and I did a little gardening, walked on the beach, swam and generally looked at the sea a lot. Jennifer was a great help in filling the pallet with stones and removing stubborn curry bush.

 

All our visitors have to be taken to see the coast around from Cape Douglas and this weekend the water was especially spectacular:

 

 

 

Peter and Jennifer on top of Cape Douglas

 

 

We all spent a lot of time on the boat deck watching the activity on the sea and beach as the calm water and lack of wind tempted people out.
Peter was the first to spot a visiting echidna, which fascinated Henrietta:

 

a not-too-close encounter

 

 

 

Crayfish score: 22 (a big one!)

 

 

 

 



a day of action

David's 4-day weekend is in full swing and we were hard at work in the garden dealing with dead daises and removing rambunctious roses when a huge truck stopped on the road and proceeded to unload with a crane a heap of timber beams. How exciting! - a sign that something may be going to happen in the renovation department.

Having safely lowered the beams, the driver came in for a sit on the beach deck and we watched a huge stingray flapping up and down.

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A couple of hours later, along came Rory on his trusty tractor to deliver some pallets in which we will load our unwanted rocks and old tyres. Someone spent hours placing the rocks around flower beds but now they simply make it impossible to cut the grass that's growing up amongst them so they have to go - behind Rory's sea wall that he is constructing - to be joined by the old tyres that make our place look like Ma and Pa Kettle's farm.

And he kindly removed the monolithic rocks that mark our gateway and have David in fits being careful not to scrape them as he manoeuvres his boat in and out the gateway.

Huge stones being removed to alongside the speed bump on the road



Crayfish score: 21

Garfish score yesterday: 22

 

 

kangaroo returns

Eric saw it first: the builder and plumber were here to discuss starting work after the Australia Day long weekend - yippee!
There, just south of the beach deck, in the water was a kangaroo.  It looked like the one I saw before and probably what nipped a tomato plant clean off,  seemed to be drinking but perhaps just cooling off on what is still a hot day. 

Crayfish score: 20

the heatwave catches up

38' at Cape Douglas and a north wind - so we do get heatwaves.  But I can just pop out the front for a swim which is blissful. Yesterday I discovered a boat mooring right in front of the house so we are assuming it belongs to Beechwood and as soon as David can select the correct rope from the many that came with the place he can moor his boat there.

Alison had her turn going out to check the pots last night and even got to haul both up: very exciting - three keepers in one pot, one keeper and a rat in the other.

Crayfish score: 18

The family came for a crayfish dinner; the boys lugged around some limestone achelers for David's bore house and Christopher took this photo of the sunset. 

 

the place to be in a heatwave

It was forecast to be 41' in Mount Gambier and more in Adelaide so I deferred my trip to Adelaide till next week and brought Henrietta down to Beechwood - to be joined by David when he finished work. They're starting picking seed at 6 and ending at 2, very sensible in a heatwave.

The temp was 28' with a balmy breeze and because the sea was flat I was invited to go out in the boat to check the craypots. It was gorgeous! Warm shimmering shallow water then deeper water and reefs out where the pots are.

First pot held three 'rats' which were returned to the sea and the second pot yielded a definite 'keeper' - so I am judged a lucky passenger and can go again, even if just to hold the boat and  stop drifting while The Captain gets the car.

Crayfish score: 14.

We idled in over the reef to in front of Beechwood so I could photograph it from the sea.

number 12 is cooked

 

David's 4-day weekend has begun.

He went down early on Thursday morning and spent the day pottering about happily, meeting the electrician in an attempt to solve our intermittent power problems, taking a trailer-load of defunct daisies to the dump and checking his craypots.

Crayfish cooking is now happening in the shelter shed and here is number 12 being lowered into the boiling water.

 

#12 and David

 

The skin-diving lessons continued on Sunday with Daisy practically walking on water when she saw a large stingray so no way was David showing her the huge bullray basking on the seafloor. The crayfish he found under a reef became Daisy and Chris's - soon they will catch their own.



Daisy and Chris admiring their crayfish





skin diving lessons commence

Yesterday was appalling weather! It poured rain and howling gales lashed the house:  the forecast said gusts of up to 90 km/hour and I'm sure it got there - just like winter only not cold.  We were cosy in the lookout room but had to feel sorry for Port MacDonnell's big family day at the beach.

you wouldn't want to be in that boat

 

In the midst of it all, Daisy rang - not to back out of her planned skin-diving lesson but to confirm it.

Later in the afternoon when the weather had settled a bit, she and boyfriend Chris came down and had their first lesson with David in a relatively sheltered spot under the Cape.

shallow water to start with

 

I keep forgetting to post the crayfish count:  now 10.

 

 

treasures of the shore

While David was at tennis this afternoon I continued with my self-imposed task of getting rid of senile daisy bushes and piling them up in Les's trailer ready for the dump. I cleared them away from in front of the disused dunny but didn't venture inside: that's a task for a bloke.
 

I started in front of the kitchen window around what will be the house deck and soon revealed something interesting - an abandoned, overgrown crayfish pot with a cane neck, the heavy sort no longer used:
 



it can stay there for decoration until we get going on the deck



a surprise visitor

I don't know who was the more surprised, me or the wallaby. I went to the dune garden to see how my tomatoes and zucchini were getting on and standing there sniffing at a zucchini flower was a little grey wallaby. I gave a snort of shock and he was off like a rocket, never to return I hope.

The dune garden is a sheltered suntrap, totally hidden from view and I can hazard a guess as to what might have been grown there previously but it's all legitimate now. In only a month there has been so much growth I am about to transplant into more boxes.