52-Week Illustration Challenge, Week 14

Week 14: Simplicity

How different is this? Framed very simply, and photographed with my iPhone instead of scanning it. (The scanner seemed to separate out the black shading that I'd so carefully blended into the red!)

Update:
I decided to have another go at simplicity!

Week 14 Simplicity: Meerkat in black Sharpie on brown paper satchel

Where the mild things are

Disaster averted! My now sheepish gargoyle.

Today I realised, after a few weeks of niggling doubt, that one of my garden gargoyles was missing. Had he been consumed by rampant pigface, which has been overgrowing like crazy in recent rain and humdity? Trying to explain to fellow investigators exactly what he looked like, and failing miserably, I had to bring up online evidence (see archived Flickr photo below) - good ol' Internet! - but miracle of miracles, he was not MIA after all!

The hide 'n' seek gargoyle is back!



As he appeared in 2007, last seen surrounded by self-propagating portulaca.

Three in a row

A busy weekend, dodging raindrops!


Coming home rather late after a day of heavy rainfall. 13 February 2010.


A lone portulaca has sprouted and flourished on the edge of the gutter
in the front yard. They've been self-seeding in the back yard
for several years but none emerged this year. Somehow this tiny,
lone seed made it into the front. 14 February 2010.


It seems appropriate that a prehistoric Wollemi pine's pot
should harbour a very prehistoric-looking toadstool! 15 February 2010.

How does your garden grow?

It's a little bizarre that the grass is growing so wonderfully in the middle of a drought, but we've been getting a combination of frequent storms, that can dump a month's rainfall in ten minutes over parts of Sydney, followed by days of gorgeous sunshine. You can practically watch the blades of grass growing!

I'm particularly thrilled about my gardenia bushes, which are blooming extremely well this year. Gardenias were my paternal grandmother's much-treasured flowers, due to her daughter Elaine's fondness for them (Aunty Elaine died at age 17, although she has ben an influence over several generations who never met her). I once bought my grandmother a potted gardenia for her balcony as a gift and it was an annual celebration whenever that first fragrant bud burst open. When I bought my own flat in 1984, a gardenia for the balcony was one of my first purchases.



Since moving to the house in 2000, I've made a point of picking up a new greenhouse-reared, ready-to-bloom gardenia plant each year, mainly because they have had more promise of many blooms than the ones here, which have traditionally granted only about ten blooms each per season. The last few years, despite careful spraying for pests, some little caterpillar has been tunnelling through the tiny unopened gardenia buds and this either mutates each bud as it grows to full size, or causes it to not open at all.

This year, anticipating disaster again, I bought a new, ready-to-bloom gardenia plant - which has started performing well - but all of the other plants are covered with buds and flowers, too! Mind you, there've been some black caterpillars threatening to start munching but so far so good. (I squished one in the centre of his body the other day - and his brains shot right out of his head. If that's where a caterpillar keeps his brains.)

I'm also enjoying the development of this year's agapanthus blooms (but so far no action from my two Black Panthas), the gorgeous self-seeding portulacas, and the amazingly hardy pigfaces (first time this year) in their numerous colours.


Fingers crossed for a black pantha!


Sunday's magic number: 88.6 I'm so excited! It was a difficult week, watching a friend tuck into Krispy Kreme donuts when I had a skinny milkshake, and I even refused to partake of free Christmas cake at work. Sigh... I guess it's been worth it.

One kayaker, one Jack Russell, one portulaca

Today I took Jack for a looooooong walk at the Sydney International Regatta Centre on Penrith Lakes. "Set on 196 hectares of native and landscaped parkland", the Centre hosted all the rowing and sprint kayak events during the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. "It has now been re-invented to become a popular sporting, corporate and social venue", and is said to receive an average of 50 000 visitors a month.

Jack undertook the challenge of two x 1.5 kms (to the starting line and back to the car park) with great gusto, always trying - and succeeding, if his Extend-a-lead permitted - to stay just ahead of any walker on the path. He'd only been there a few minutes, but you'd be convinced that he knew the place intimately, and owned the path, the river, the water, every tree and blade of grass, and all of Penrith District. Typical Jack Russell. Jack was quite interested in the ripples of tide against the pebbled edges of the water course. Not to mention the groups of ducks and other waterbirds. But what really caught his attention was the sole rower on the water. Suddenly, as he or she passed by, Jack decided that that person had no right to be paddling a kayak on a Sunday afternoon and Jack began to bark enthusiastically.

He's incredible sleepy tonight, of course, and just looked at me with big cow eyes, indicating that it was time for the toy tiger to come out of its cupboard, so that Jack could retire to his sheepskin mat beside my bed. Mind you, it's only 10.30 pm as I type this, and he's normally content to wait until I'm ready for bed myself.

From lone kayaker to lone portulaca! Several of last year's glorious (self-seeded) portulaca display, here at home in the backyard, have themselves self-seeded - and they really do look fantastic, spilling casually over the rock walls of the elevated garden alongside the pool as if they had been artfully placed there on purpose. Today, a single stem of portuca plant, which had grown up, unnoticed, from a thin crack in the concrete surrounds of the pool, bloomed with a glorious red flower. Amazing!





The single portulaca joins the lone Black Pantha agapanthus (below) that has graced us with its presence this year. Although they are more of a deep purple colour, last year both of my Black Pantha specimens took a rain check on putting out flower stems. Very annoying when they cost so much more than the average blue or white agapanthus (many of which were no-cost hand-me-downs from elderly relatives and friends), and which grow like the introduced noxious weeds they were recently labelled as by the Blue Mountains Council.