Sunflowers

It has been a busy week for Vanessa as she has taken on the task of planting sunflowers all the way down the driveway between the olive trees. The drive is over 350 metres long, and each patch is being planted by hand- a lovely rustic scene, the peasant woman in her bush hat lovingly sprinkling seeds over hand-raked tilth. It is doing wonders for her tan and her biceps.

Obviously the tractor would have made the job easier, but it is jealously guarded by James, who is madly fencing and sorting out the pig paddocks before the Mudgee Fine Foods Committee arrive next week for an assessment visit.

The rain continues, so the seeds are already germinating, despite the efforts of the sulphur crested cockatoos and galas to consume the lot. Ness is tempted to get a gun licence and patrol the plots heavily armed. Gala pie for supper- probably goes well with the glut of courgettes emerging from the veggie patch. Georgie is in the kitchen at the moment baking a chocolate and courgette cake ( desperate measures ).

When we were vaccinating ( by the way, since publishing the delightful picture, I am now officially 'The Vaccinator'- come on horse, make my day ) we visited a far flung farm and were invited onto the verandah for a cold drink. The entire place was littered with spent shells, the explanation being that the house overlooked the fruit trees and the family spent every day shooting any hapless feathered creature that attempted to get a feed. Three rifles propped up outside the front door confirmed this.

The mind-set that could make anybody think that in a vast open space they could succeed in controlling the problem of birds eating the fruit by blasting them into oblivion beggars belief! Decided not to point out the futility of it all to a man with an arsenal a survivalist would be proud of.

If we are still here in a few weeks ( which depends on when customs finally decide our gear is not a risk to society and release it ) then we will post impressionist pictures of sunflowers en masse nestling between olive trees, being harvested by people in straw hats drinking absinthe.

By the way, I have subscribed to Google's Adsense scheme, whereby they post ads on this blog 'appropriate to content', purely to see what content they deem relevant. After this post, I suspect firearms will feature heavily. All I require of my vast readership ( which is in danger of hitting double figures soon ) is to click on the ads constantly, thereby generating enough income for me to buy the petrol which drives the generator which allows this blog to continue.

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