The first day of Autumn...

In Australia the seasons change on the first day of the first month in each season, so March 1 is the start of Autumn or Fall. In most parts of the country, we've had some very hot summer days.

This is one way that Eduardo copes with the heat...

Lying on his back, catching the afternoon breezes!

And here in Brisbane there are not a lot of trees that start to lose their leaves as Summer turns into Autumn...but those crepe myrtles sure do! These trees at the side of our property have been shedding leaves for a few weeks now...

It's a daily job to sweep up the leaves from the veranda. 

But just because Autumn has arrived, the hot temps won't ease...the weather won't start to cool for a few months yet. But that's life in the sub tropics. 

Regular readers would know of my 'battles' with the bush turkeys, to grow veggies and herbs...these birds dig up anything I plant in Spring and early to mid summer. So Autumn is the time I plant up a crop, hoping to grow and harvest before the turkeys come back on their 'seek and destroy' missions.

The quarry tile in the foreground isn't for throwing at any errant turkeys, it helps hold down the big umbrella that I sometimes put over the young plants in the middle of the day to stop them 'frying' in the hot sun. These plants are well established now and are fine with the sun. So I'm hopeful of being able to pick some homegrown tomatoes, eggplants and herbs, just like I used to before the bush turkeys took a liking to our backyard. :-)

 

A bit hot lately...

For the early part of this week, my part of the state experienced heatwave conditions. Stifling hot days followed by very hot uncomfortable nights were the norm for 4 days. When I worked, and high temperatures were predicted, the school had a number of procedures such as showing movies in the aircond library at lunchtime, more breaks for drinks, extra rostered time at the school pool, art lessons and quiet, free reading activities on the concreted areas under the buildings etc.
And it's a bit like that at home too with routines adapted. Extra hot days means more showers taken, ceiling fans on, doors and windows open to get cross breezes, salad meals and cooking meat on the BBQ, fresh bedding and night wear after a hot humid night, lots of chilled filtered water, I wear sarongs around the house and the minimum of house work gets done! DH and I don't have a pool and we don't have airconditioning and the number of days when it is 'super' hot is a very small precentage of the whole year so we do 'survive' quite nicely.

DH and I walked on the Redcliffe Pier

The view from the cafe

Seagulls lined up 'waiting to catch a wave' perhaps?

We do sometimes go to the movies or the council library to use the aircon there! lol Where we live is also fairly close to beaches and going the other way, we are half hour from the mountain range areas behind the city with their cool rainforest parks and picnic areas with cold creeks flowing; so we're pretty lucky! So on Thursday, just gone, DH and I took a 30 minute drive north to Redcliffe, one of my favourite places. We went  for a walk enjoying all the lovely cool seabreezes and then had a coffee at Banjos, a cafe chain which we first discovered in Tasmania in 2010.

A cool change has come to this part of the state so I'm now working on the myriad of jobs that need doing around the house...and in the garden.