Summer's Brilliance

Summer lingers long, with all its wonderful goodness and challenges. The grass is becoming dry and crunchy under foot yet life continues with all it's resilient brilliance. This kookaburra comes often, perching on our back fences on the lookout for possible food. 

With a little watering our gerbera daisies continue to flower and produce intricate seed heads. Our new lime tree has a small first crop slowly filling out. Until today I was concerned there may be a problem with the limes as they look different to the smooth skinned ones I see in the shops - but it's a Kaffir lime and (thanks to google) I now know this is exactly as the fruit is meant to look.  :) The large caterpillar on the small orange tree nearby may not be pretty but the Citrus Butterfly which I expect it will become certainly is!

Our 21 year old above, Master J, hitting the shot which scored him his first ever century in cricket. He held his bat too, meaning he was one of the opening batters the previous week and was still not out at the end of last Saturday's play - all his ten team mates in second grade had batted with him and got out (including one of his 18 year old sisters). He scored over half the team's runs, soundly defeating the opposition. It was Pink Stumps Day, a special day of cricket in Australia to raise awareness and support for the McGrath Foundation which assists families affected by breast cancer.

Miss E, the youngest of our eight children, turned eight last week. She was so excited, rising before the sun! In the predawn she chose to read a book (with her favourite dinosaur) while waiting for the rest of the family to wake up. She had a wonderful day, filled with family activities. Master J surprised her by arriving home from uni just for the day! A homemade ice cream cake, with specialty bought ice creams, is a popular summer birthday choice in our family.

Enjoying one of today's passionfruit flowers - they open in the afternoon and last only 24 hours. Their fragrance and glorious visual display leads to luscious fruit some months ahead. 

A week without some sewing would seem incomplete to me. The cool refreshing colours of my Fresh Fields quilt, a long term English Paper Piecing project, have been my stitching choice this week.  :)