Tag: home

Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Things with Engines or Motors

Motors around the house

Just for a change from vehicles and machinery, I decided to photograph things around the house with motors.

The first two are a couple of real veterans that I’ve owned for decades.

My Sunbeam hand mixer has just finished its Christmas tour of duty as I made two batches of mince pies. It faltered a little at one point and I thought I was going to lose it but it soldiered on to finish the job. This mixer originally belonged to mum. I got it for her with a voucher I’d won in a competition in 1970 when I was thirteen. When I got married she gave it to me and it’s been with me ever since. That’s nearly 50 years of service. They knew how to make them back then. For the record, I think it cost about $25 at least that’s how much the voucher was for. I can’t remember if we bought anything else with it.

The veteran hand mixer is still in use.

Mum also gave me my Ronson hairdryer. I believe I was 23 when I got it. It hasn’t had such a lot of use as the mixer as I usually prefer to dry my hair naturally now that I wear it short but it still works.

Hairdryer mum gave me when I was 23.

It has seen better days but this small heater/cooler still works and gets a bit of use on chilly evenings keeping my feet warm when I am on the computer. It’s been around since about 2002

A small fan cooler/heater about 16 years old.

The HP printer has no such pedigree. It is probably more than five years old now. I know David and I bought it in Hobart. I don’t remember when. It still works but I don’t print that often.

HP Printer.

The last item is my Hoover Dog and Cat vacuum cleaner. I bought this while David was sick in the hospital so I know it is about three years old.

vacuum cleaner with a power head for pet hair.

RDP: Home

Be It Ever So Humble

My house is not a mansion. It is a little rough around the edges but it is home to me.

The chairs in place.

I remember the day we moved in. It was a wet June day in 2002. David and I had driven from Adelaide to Melbourne to catch the overnight ferry to Devonport and then driven for another five hours to reach the Huon Valley. We hoped that our payment would be transferred that day and that we would be able to spend the night in our new home.

It was late afternoon by the time we pulled into the driveway. Someone, the previous owner perhaps, had lit a fire in the wood heater and left us a few logs to get started. We had no furniture except what was packed in the back of the station wagon, air mattresses, sleeping bags, a couple of chairs and a card table. Our dog, Tessie, made the trip sitting on top of a pile of blankets on the back seat.

The next day the rest of our things arrived and once we had our books, pictures, knick-knacks and familiar furniture the place began to look like home. The final touch was the arrival of our cat who was flown to Hobart a few days later.

Over the years this house has become a home. Everywhere I look I see familiar things, some of them were in my childhood homes or David’s. There are things that belonged to his grandparents and mine and of course things we have collected ourselves along the way.

Favourite treasures in the living room.

I think I have always had a strong sense of place so the town has become home too.  If I go to the local shops I know I will almost certainly meet someone I know, if I am walking more often than not someone will stop and offer me a lift. I think I’m lucky to have had that, not all country towns welcome outsiders so willingly.

These big logs welcome everyone to Geeveston.

 

 

Snapshot Sunday: Apple Blossom Time

The apple tree October 2018
apple blossom
bluebells under the tree

The apple blossom never seems to last long, October is often windy and sometimes it’s gone almost as soon as it has arrived.

In May I planted some bluebells under the tree, I honestly didn’t know then if I would be here to see them flower as the house was on the market already but I thought that they would look nice and be a parting gift to the house.

They flowered this week in time to coincide with the arrival of the apple blossom and it does look nice.  If I am still here in the autumn I’ll try to plant a few more. A mass of them would look beautiful next spring.

 

Snapshot Sunday: Location, Location, Location

The lone Photinia
Photinia Hedge 2018

Four years ago we decided to grow a hedge to screen the house from the road. I chose Photinia as it is a commonly used hedging plant locally so I knew it would have a good chance of growing and I like the colours as the new growth is red. Jason and Brodie, the “garden guys” got the plants for me and Jason suggested buying an extra one and planting it in an out of the way part of the garden in case we needed a replacement.

Over time we did lose a couple of the plants but the hedge was dense enough that the gap did not matter too much so the odd one was left in peace at the bottom of the garden. Some people do grow Photinia as a tree it is not only used as hedging.

Well today it has well and truly overtaken its hedge based brothers and sisters and is now taller than I am while they have not quite reached five  feet.

I was chatting to Jason about this recently and he suggested that it is all about location. It rains a lot here as you know and in summer I water the hedge in dry spells but the soil is relatively dry there compared to the bottom of the garden which in winter is so damp that I nearly got my foot stuck in the mud when I went to the compost bin one day recently. I water the other garden trees but never that one. It has thrived on neglect.

The hedge has been trimmed a few times but only to tidy it up as some plants have grown faster than others and it has not been trimmed for a couple of months. The back yard tree has never been trimmed in any way. It looks untidy because Cindy broke a branch when she was jumping and barking at the neighbour dog who had chewed a hole in the fence.

Share Your World 2018 – 14 May

Sharing My World This Week

Complete this sentence: This sandwich could really use some …

You’ve got me there, I’d only say that if I had run out of cheese at home. On the other hand if we were talking about burgers my answer would be salad. McDonald’s and Hungry Jacks (Burger King) don’t put enough salad on their burgers and I like mine with a bit of crunch not just a piece of cheese, onion and a pickle. A proper burger has meat, lettuce, cheese, tomato,onion, beetroot and sometimes a fried egg.

What is your least favorite candy?

I was going to say liquorice but on reflection I think it has been displaced by the sour tasting candies that seem to have become popular and the even more popular salted ones. Just give me chocolate.

What sign are you? Do you believe in astrology?

I am a Taurus and I do think that I am true to the characteristics of my birth sign. However, I don’t take the horoscopes that you see in magazines or these days online very seriously because of course they are generalised. In order to give a more accurate reading the astrologer would need much more precise details about me than just the month I was born. So yes I do believe but I take it with a pinch of salt, just like any practical Taurian would 😉

Taurus2.jpg
By Unknown – I scanned this image from a reproduction of a (normand?) medieval book of astrology (15th century), Public Domain, Link

What did you appreciate or what made you smile this past week?  Feel free to use a quote, a photo, a story, or even a combination. 

As I mentioned in my Sunday post we had three wet days last week. In fact we had a huge thunderstorm, one of the biggest I can remember and there was flooding in several places, parts of the Huon and the city of Hobart in particular.

I was lucky because I did not receive any damage, lose power or my internet connection so that’s something to smile about. On Sunday the weather was a little better and I was able to plant the bulbs I had ordered earlier. I am going to have pots of daffodils and bluebells, tulips, hyacinth and crocus and hyacinth and freesia. I also got out my kneeling pad and popped a few bluebells into the ground under the apple tree. After cleaning the shed I found a few more stray bulbs. I have no idea what they were, they were from previous years pots I think. I popped them under the tree too. Maybe they will grow and maybe they won’t. It was easy to dig the soil after the rain and there were lots of fallen leaves to cover everything with.  I love bulbs, they are so easy to garden with and you nearly always get at least some flowers. If I am not here to see them I hope the new owner will get a nice surprise.

Of course Cindy and Polly came to see what I was doing. I spent some time reorganising the shed and sweeping out dust, and other accumulated mess. Even Polly who rarely goes to the bottom of the garden came in to investigate.

The old wooden garden shed photographed on my smartphone.
Polly came to investigate
There will be bulbs flowering here in spring I hope.
Cindy and Polly head back to the house.I love the way they wander around together sometimes.

 

Snapshot Sunday: Down in the Garden Shed

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After three wet days the sun finally came out for a while today so I unpacked the box of bulbs I got in the mail the other day and planted them in pots ready for spring. A handful went under the apple tree as a gift to the garden. While I was out there I decided that it was high time that I cleaned up the garden shed so I did. I was proud of myself for completing this chore so I took some photos to celebrate.