Doo Doo Doo, Looking Out My Back Door ........... *

* .... no, not John Fogarty, or even the Salvador Dali-esqe images from the old Creedence song .....

....... just some of the beauty that constantly surrounds us, and which it sometimes takes a stunning autumnal day to remind us of ............

Here, the native dahlias peek over the top of a bird-sown cottoneaster.  Poor old dahlias always bloom at the end of summer, and try to get their seed making done before the winds pick up and blow down their fragile stems. Ours can be five to six metres (20 feet) high.

Cottoneaster berries are a vital food source for birds in hard times, and as winter draws on and other food is scarce.  Silver-eyes love them, but they also support our local satin bowerbirds, who eat everything.  It will be a month or so before we see them.

Boxwood, as used in old quality tool handles, is hard to get these days.  Cottoneaster timber is often used as a substitute - not quite as tough, but very similar in colour.

Cottoneaster flowers here a foodsource for the native bees during the warmer months. Native bees are tiny, (they are the fly-spots around the mouth of the hive below) and they are very laid-back.  They won't even come out of their hive unless the temperature reaches 18 degrees Celsius (64.4 deg F)

Here is our little native bees hive - sitting on our veggie garden fence-post.  They are great pollinators and the garden benefits from them enormously.



They produce small amounts of very rich honey.  We'll leave them the fruits of their summer labour, as they will need it to get them through the winter.  Next year we'll get some honey from them, and maybe divide the hive.



Here they sit above one of the last of the summer pumpkins.  This is a jap - one of the tastiest pumpkins in the whole pumpkin family IMHO - anyway they are my favourite and are fantastic in a baked meal.




The LOML has created her own little bamboo garden, and it is showing off some of the bromeliads which are in flower at present.

As well as the broms, the elkhorn ferns have done well and are growing on the small trees at the back.

This monster is growing a little further back.

Compared to her works of bamboo art,  mine are very rough and ready, and a sort of -in your face clumping type. Oldhami and painted bamboo are the two that I have planted.

Of course the liquid ambers are also responding to the season, and are beginning to change into their autumn coats.

Not a patch on what our cousins in the colder climates see, but a pleasant reminder of that riot of colour that happens in the northern hemisphere during their Fall.

While we all rejoice in the palette that the change of seasons presents us, nothing gladdens the heart like a growing woodpile to help ward off the coming winter chill.

My woodwork lately has been cutting and stacking firewood.  I did notice during these chores that some of the wood chunks had very pleasing grain, but I was too tired to do anything but keep throwing the pieces on the pile.  I made a silent promise that I would go back as the pile diminished and fish them out ............
..... I have a feeling that this is one promise that I may not keep ...............

 There is something about the smell of fresh split firewood that bodes well for the winter.

May your autumn senses be filled to capacity and your cup of joy overflow ............

................ and happy woodworking to all .............................