An April Update

All is fairly quiet at home now our visitor has gone. We are not doing a lot out of the ordinary and have slipped back into our 'lazy' south coast lifestyle with ease. As a result the pics below are of some autumn flowers from our garden rather than any activities.

Well, according to the calendar and some of our trees and plants it is autumn but the climate god don't know this yet. Today is 27 deg C and the ocean is still warm enough for swimming.

Around this time of year I usually get stuck into the more physical farm jobs because it's cooler. Early morning is fine for this but then we both hear the call of the beach around 10am as the day heats up. I have been spraying off the dreaded tussock in the paddocks.

It's a pretty mindless task and it takes the spray around a week to show any affects so it's a matter of doing the area in patches and then going back to tackle those missed. I could use a marker dye in the back pack but people in the supermarket tend to stare at you if you are a bright fluoro pink colour. Also it's snake activity time with their establishing territories before hibernation so you have to be careful where you tread. We found one in the garage the other morning. As much as I don't really like doing it he is now in snake heaven. They should read the rules: "being within 200m of the house is prohibited".

We have started fishing again mid afternoon when the tide is right. It's great to be down the beach early evening this time of year. Surf is never really big and it's virtually windless. And the gutters and holes are full of Australian salmon. Not too good to eat but one heck of a sports fish. I took down a rod with too light a line last night and was broken off five times. Have increased the hardware for this evening's encounter.

The co driver went to the tackle shop this morning on her way home from the gym to pick up some gear for me. I got the inevitable phone call from the proprietor wanting to know what it was I actually wanted. I don't think things started well when she asked on entering the shop, "are women allowed in here?"

Wine wise things are also quiet. Everything we made this year is in the tanks 'doing their thing'.

Planning for our South Australia trip is well in hand. Looks like we will be away around four weeks in July/August and will have to drive over 5000 km. We will be covering the western plains of New South Wales, the fringes of the outback at Broken Hill and Wilpena Pound, the wine regions of the Murray Irrigation Area, Clare Valley, Adelaide Hills, McLaren Vale and Coonawarra as well as the beaches of the Fleurie Peninsula and the Limestone and Shipwreck Coasts.