The dangers in gardening; Part 2..

The new leaves are starting to appear on the crepe myrtle trees; to the left of the photo are the shrubs which I'm slowly working on to prune back old growth.

It's Spring here in my part of the world and there's lots to be done in the garden. This is especially so for me as in recent years many of the heavier garden jobs were left undone...especially pruning of shrubs and small trees. As a result these plants have become rather rampant here at the Goodwins.

Splashes of mauve colour on the jacaranda tree

The clivia didn't flower last year but is making up for it this year :-)

The first of the hippeastrums (amarylis) to flower this year

A climbing geranium cutting I brought back from a visit to Warwick a few months back is now flowering

Lettuces thriving in the veggie patch



 Just over a week ago I wrote of the shoulder and arm pain that I was experiencing after a particularly enthusiastic pruning session. By last week that was all better so I re-started the serious pruning that needed to be done. I couldn't find what I'd done with the safety goggles. After looking in a few places I thought I'd just do a bit of pruning and I would be very careful. Yep! You guessed it! A wayward branch of a plumbago shrub poked me in the eye when I wasn't looking. After a bit of discomfort I decided to go to the GP and have the eye checked out. Getting the appointment was no problem but getting in to see the doctor at the appointed time became quite problematic. I waited an hour and a quarter after my appointment time :-). Then a few drops of orange dye in the affected eye, a check with the little ultra violet light and the doctor announced that there was no damage to the cornea, so all was good. It got even better when I went to pay the bill. The girl waved me away saying I was 'right to go'....I'd been bulk billed! Yippee free!!

Another part of the 'jungle'! Note the black and white 'tiger' lurking!

By the way I later found the goggles just inside the back door on the floor; not in the gardening cupboard in the laundry!

 Just a reminder of the Pay It Forward Giveaway which closes 7pm Eastern Standard Time Thursday which is about 21 hours away. It doesn't matter where you live, if you are a blogger entry is just by leaving a comment here.

Pay It Forward Giveaway...

In the 1990's I spent a lot of time at university which meant lots of assignments and tutorial presentations to prepare. A lecturer in the QUT School of Early Childhood /Faculty of Education gave me some great advice on how to survive working , raising a family and surviving uni when doing more than one subject per semester. It was simple...organise yourself so that one lot of  research will give you enough material for 2 different subjects' assignments. It doesn't always work but the inter-relatedness of so many topics did save me a lot of time and effort.  I've always enjoyed books and films that that have characters and or plots that are all intertwined and inter-related. (I loved 'Marchlands' which was shown on ABC1 recently because of that very thing!)

So I've been absolutely chuffed about the link between the 2 books I've been reading. Please excuse how this photo is turned...'blogger' is playing silly games at the moment, with me any way! lol It was great to be reading both as the same theme ran through them.

I've mentioned both in previous posts. Shannon Hayes book contains a lot of research on the process by which societies changed from family units being production units to consumer units in society. The book also contains personal stories of Americans who have chosen to be more in control of providing for their family's needs.  The other book 'The Undomesticated Goddess' by Sophie Kinsella is the PIF giveaway which I won on Fee's blog. It was a bright and breezy and enjoyable read, although I did cringe at some of Samantha's early culinary disasters. Now it's time for me to send this PIF on to the next person. There are some conditions attached to being part of the PIF. Click on the scanned image below to enlarge the image and then  read those conditions. Still interested??

 Now if you are a fellow blogger and would like to have a chance to 'win' this giveaway, just leave a comment at the end of the post saying that you would . If you don't live in Australia it's still ok to be part of the draw.
On Thursday 7pm EST, I'll draw out a winner! Is this book coming to your place???