Burra Maluca

I usually do 'Ruth Stout' type composting in place, tucking the food scraps under the mulch around the veggie plants. I don't keep it wet specifically, but it helps maintain the moisture level in the soil underneath and it rots down gradually without any extra work when the rains come or from the drip irrigation set up around the plants.

Time to test the first fruit!

With a little help from AI, just for fun...





In real life, rather than AI, I've been pulling at the apples every day for weeks to see when they wanted to release, but the tree has been hanging on tight to them. I'd heard that Cripps Pink is usually ready from 1st November onwards so I didn't worry too much. But I'd also heard that they go a bit mealy rather than crisp if they stay on the tree too long. So today I decided I'd waited long enough and picked the ripest looking one, which involved quite a sharp tug to persuade it off the tree.

Rosa cut it in half for me and Austin and I did a taste taste. Sweet, juicy, flavourful. But a little mealy. Which might mean I left it on the tree too long.

I'm going to pick the rest later and see if they are all mealy, which might mean that this tree gives mealy apples (it's a seedling off a Pink Lady apple, so it's not going to follow rules because seedlings never do) or it might mean I should have picked it when the colour changed and not waited until so late in the year.

I've been playing turning photos into AI video shorts.

They can be kinda fun!

I mentioned to Rosa that it was about time for Cuca to start waking up and that we should check if her ears were recovered.

She decided to test them...



And then, wafting up from the room below us, came the dulcit tones of dragonsong...

Nights in white castle
Sleeping just round the bend
My ears are hurting
I hope they soon mend

Always I hoped they'd miss
'Cos these ears are sore.
Just what the truth is
They can't see anymore

But I love you
Yes I love you
Oh, how I love you

Gazing at people
Blades in every hand
Just what I go through
They can't understand

Some try to tell me
That they have to defend
Just what they believed in
They'll believe to the end

But I love you
Yes I love you
Oh, how I love you
Oh, how I love you

Nights in white castle
In the home of a friend
I'll soon recover
Then the summer will end.

The seasons they always pass
As they roll evermore
And my ears will replenish
Like the wheat and the corn.

But I love you
Yes I love you
Oh, how I love you
Oh, how I love you

Yes I love you
Yes I love you
Oh, how I love you
Oh, how I love you

I think she's waking up!  

Rosa thinks it's time to check up on Cuca, the dragon who lives in the rocket mass heater.



Cuca is very shy and lives just round the bend, out of sight if you open the door. But Rosa thinks that if she plays a pretty tune on the recorder then she might be charmed and say hello. Cuca spends all summer sleeping and recovering in there, re-growing her ears and getting ready for winter.

I suggested Rosa learns a few bars of Knights in White Castle...

I'll report if there's any news...

Pretty sure this is the castle they mean.



Built by the Knights Templar, it's in Castelo Branco, which, in case you don't speak Portuguese, means White Castle.

I've spent over twenty years worth of nights living in the region.

The dragons are busy playing with their new lenses  and shining lasers all over the place at the moment, but I might try to find a way to get them interested in their own version of the song. They seem to like plagiarising poetry so I'm sure a parody would appeal to them.

The rocket mass heater is occupied by a (currently sleeping) dragon called Cuca, who emerges every spring to go and do battle with St George up in Monção. I suspect she's thinking of waking up soon and maybe she'll inspire them to write about her annual adventures. She generally loses an ear or two and has to retreat somewhere safe for the summer to let them grow back...

This is her losing this year's ear. I might go and see if she's waking up yet and check that it's grown back properly...



And as for what the knights in white sat in, I guess it was their saddles..


source

Coydon Wallham wrote:Have you considered some sort of drying rack on or suspended over the mass like in the fisher price house and the solarium?

I have, and I have a kit to make one stashed away somewhere. But I'm also thinking that one day (hahahahaha....) there's going to be an extension to the downstairs, which will have great bit areas with no wall or glass, just fly-screen, ie lots of air passing through, that I want to use partly as an outside kitchen and partly for a plant propagating area, and I think I'd like the pull-up rack to be in there. I figure it will be shaded from the intense summer sun, protected from rain, and have a lot of air flow so it won't make the place damp. When it rains here, it tends to be for six weeks at a time, usually once a year but sometimes twice, and it's during those weeks that it gets difficult to dry stuff. I've never owned an electric clothes dryer and I really don't want to start now! Using the bench to dry clothes is really just for the final airing off, which during the wettest parts of the year can take about three days if I just leave them lying around on a rack.

But yes, I have considered a rack above the bench and it might happen. I just want to take things slowly and see what I actually need rather than what I think I might need.

Hmmm, we tried the pretty lacy thing on the bench and while it would work, it's a bit small and leaves more than one entire slab uncovered. Which means I won't be able to spread out a batch of damp laundry. She says it does look very pretty though and I could probably use it for things like seed starting or raising bread. But let's face it, mostly she just thinks it's pretty...

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Rosa had another think and remembered something a bit special I've had tucked away for a while - not a freebie or amazing bargain this time, but something I'd bought myself as a treat because I loved it and the price was good and it came with a nice story.



This is a hand made pure wool Arraiolos carpet, as per the video below.



Actually strictly speaking it's not a genuine Arraiolos as it was made a bit too far away to officially count, but it was made by the great grandparents of the guy who sold it to us. He had inherited too many and wanted to clear a few out. Apparently his great-grandparents would work on them together, sitting facing each other and working from opposite ends of the carpet towards the centre. Which is just too beautiful an image to not see in my mind's eye every time I look at it. I find it a bit slippery to use as rug, but a bit stiff and heavy to use as a blanket. So it's been sitting in my heap of stuff for a couple of years waiting for a purpose. Maybe draped over the rocket mass heater bench can be its new life! Then if anyone wants to rest down there, they can use the caravan cushion on the bench to lie on and use this as a blankie. I think I'm going to have to build a shelf unit at the end for storing cushions and blankies and pretty pink crocheted things aren't I...

I had a rummage through the bag of tablecloths that had arrived with the stash of blankies that I was given a couple of months ago, thinking I could modify one with a bit of blanket inside to use over the granite bench when I want to air clothes off during wet weather when I can't dry them outside and they're taking too long to dry inside. I used to use a heated blanket during really wet weather to finish drying them off, but since installing the rocket mass heater I haven't bothered putting it on the bed. And it seems silly to use electricity when there's a heated bench downstairs that is likely to be in use at precisely the times we need to dry clothes.

I picked out a couple of potential ones but then Rosa, my little pink dragon with an obsession for pink, flowers, and all things pretty and made of thread, reminded me that somewhere there was a bag full of old hand-made lacy things, including some kind of white crocheted table covering with pink roses and hand-made lace edging.



And she was right! It's fairly thick, cotton, with rather faded pink cross-stitched roses embroidered on top. It doesn't completely cover the granite, but I think it will be a suitable layer between the hot stone and the clothes that need drying off. And whilst it does feel a bit sacrilegious to use such a beautiful thing for such a mundane job, it's probably better than spending the next twenty years shoved in a bag and forgotten.



Plus it keeps Rosa happy. And it's easier than modifying a tablecloth by padding it out with a bit of blanket and hand-sewing it together. This thing can be used as is.

Does this link help you any?   Bent Finger Due to Mallet Finger or Fracture