Basket Weaving and High Tea in a Tee Pee

I'm pretty sure I'm safe in saying that I spent my Sunday afternoon differently from most people .... bit cocky? Sounds that way but hear me out ... I had afternoon tea, drinking from fine china cups and saucers, eating beautiful cake and Anzac biscuits (well it is Australia Day weekend and all *grin*) - in a real Tee Pee - in Australia - oh, and to top it off we were basket weaving!

We didn't send any smoke signals, the dried smoking sage leaves couldn't make it up to the ceiling to escape! Now you proper ladies don't have to freak out about burning sage leaves - they smell so beautiful, kind of like a walk in the forest, not heavy like many incense scents. It's my second time of experiencing the scent and I love it. It creates a peaceful yet alert feeling in me - very nice. No chanting was involved but lots of pearls of wisdom espoused by a small bunch of lovely women, if I do say so myself, amidst the ambience of crystals sitting alongside our afternoon tea.

The lovely lady on the right of the picture is Ruth, my friend and meditation teacher and fellow yoga classmate. Her home is a cottage of wonderful treasures accessed via a rambling path overgrown with herbs - it's a very lovely space to visit. A wonderful collection of artwork too. The Anzac biscuits otherwise known as Oaty Crisps were very well received which made me feel nice because I'd whipped up a batch in the morning from my wonderful cookbook Destitute Gourmet - click the link to find the fantastic Sophie Gray with divine recipe books in New Zealand - you can also buy it online in Australia. The biscuits are sitting on my pretty Royal Albert Moonlight Roses sandwich plate that my darling husband gave me for one of our anniversaries. He's been adding to my collection over the years.

Hiding behind the growing collection of woven leaves - which we added to during the afternoon is a lovely lady called Tess and on the left is her daughter Brooke. Very nice company! Shame my impromptu photography was not so fabulous - but better than none (well, that's what I tell myself anyway *grin*) and sadly I didn't do a close up of the leaves we were making. We were sewing raffia and grass not actually making a basket but using the same techniques - I got so carried away with the conversation that my leaf was rather oval so it was fun to learn a trick or two to change the shape. These leaves are very special and many have been made during community workshops and have been displayed at some local events and will again be displayed as a special remembrance for those affected by the Black Saturday bushfires.

Sorry my pictures aren't the best quality - how very silly of me to go to a Tee Pee Tea Party and not take my camera! I used my phone. Look at the detail of how the Tee Pee is closed from the outside. The light inside was very beautiful and as the afternoon progressed you could see the patterns from the shadows of the leaves from nearby tress on the walls. It's a very special space, not stuffy at all, just wonderful on a beautiful afternoon.

On the way out Ruth told me to make a wish because legend has it that leaving a Tee Pee is a little like leaving the womb and you can have a fresh start. I'm delighted to say it wasn't in the least a traumatic departure, just a happy smile and some Fabulous Frau thoughts!

May we all have a lovely fresh start this week with lots of good wishes for ourselves. I'll be busy listing away for Valentine's Day on my website with a little smile on my face thinking about my time in a Tee Pee!

Thanks so much for visiting,
Suzy ;)

Baby Miniature Pony - now that's tiny

What a wonderful way to bring in the new year ... (okay, okay I know the calendar is almost on the February page!) .... meet the first born on our property since we've lived here (not including the hundreds of rabbits *grin*!)



And of course I couldn't put a picture up of a new baby animal without showing you my tough miniature schnauzer - and it's rather funny because miniature is not the animal requirement around here - just the way life happens sometimes. His name is Hans and he turned one on January 10 and is a very gorgeous dog! He's also tough. In between these photos loading I let him outside in his yard and there was a kangaroo as tall as I am (not hard *grin*) and he set off chasing it! I was so glad when it jumped the fence. I don't worry as much when Hans is off in the paddocks because the kangaroos can easily run but if they struggle to jump our fence they may feel threatened and attack him. This is the same little dog who has a teddy with one eye and no holes that he takes inside and out with him. Today he had a play date with the neighbours three dogs - what a hoot they all are. If my coffee had kicked in at the time of his depature I'd have taken a photo of the four of them running up our very long driveway to go visiting.


This gorgeous little boy foal is not owned by us but is presently living in one of our little sheds with his mummy, adjacent to a very large paddock with six other miniature ponies - all grown up and all female and one of them 'with foal' so more pics will be coming hopefully. In another paddock we have Felix a gorgeous little man who was very busy servicing these ladies. (You can see pics of the other girls and Felix in a previous blog 'The Pony Cafe')

He looks like a toy I've seen in the shops!

It's been a busy few weeks with school holidays and other things going on and I'm gently starting my working year organising my stock room which is at bursting point! I've got some fantastic things coming and I'm very excited. I've been busy listing exciting things like school books on my ebay store as well as some fab pieces of clothing - Fabulous Frau is having a big clean out!

I've got some gorgeous vintage treasures coming for my website and I'll share them all soon.

I've also been making some gorgeous wristlets which will be appearing on my website soon.


This post is to wish you happy new year and thank you very much for visiting.

I've also been working on my 'page' on Facebook and I'd love to invite you to join as a fan and I'll keep you uptodate with my treasures and more!

Happy January from Suzy aka Fabulous Frau ;)

It's that time of year ....

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Cheers to the Silly Season!

Fabulous Frau is trotting off from the Aussie Bush to the Aussie Beach for a couple of weeks holiday with my family. We've got a permanent caravan set up for our little escapades - and I haven't been there for a year! My husband and son visited last Easter but we had our new little puppy Hans and I wouldn't leave him midst training - and I strongly believe that paid off!

It's a great set up - a couple of streets away from the beach - teenage heaven and our son loves joining the pack and only re-appears when starvation approaches - or the strong urge to play video games beckons - usually when the sun fades and other pack members are dragged off to do dreadfully 'boring' things with their families.... for my husband it's a wonderful escape, sitting on his deck watching the world pass by, glass in hand, re-living a fishing trip or two with his fishing and boat owner buddy. Me, I just seem to trot for most of the time, chores re-located! Although I seem to manage to get some sewing and reading time in - love that - and especially love a spot of antiquing.

We're very well set up thanks to my fussy husband, who in his dreams thinks he's low maintenance - I call him H.M. for short and the title gives him delusions of royalty - LOL. The minus is the trek to the bathroom facilities - we had another caravan complete with ensuite and the park owner sold the place tossing us out and I vowed 'never again' for that was the second time it happened. My resolve lasted about five months and here we are albeit cheaper and more cheerful with much more space and closer to the beach but no loo!

Well, frankly I can cope with that, the dread part is in the form of ants - just after we bought the place the ceiling in the annexe began pulsating with life just after I'd finished a mammoth cleaning effort to make it our own. I cried - couldn't kill the varm-ants! We got on top of them eventually but I'm scared about the return as it hasn't been bug bombed all year! What a whinger, hey? Should be grateful to have somewhere so nice to go.

Naturally I decked the place out with some fun - the kitchen has a range of co-ordinating red items, going with the 70s vintage flow of the place and one must drink good wine and good champagne from good crystal! We inherited a cupboard full of it when we bought the place - what a hoot. The previous owners simply abandoned ship and left the most enormous stash of their linen fetish I've ever seen. We could not believe what was hidden away in the many cupboards. Anyway .....

It's been a busy month - just the same for all of us - and we're looking forward to some rest and relaxtion and a fabulous 2010.

Thanks for your visits - I so look forward to popping around the world on line to visit some fabulous blogs in the new year.

Cheers,

Suzy ;)

Backdoor kangaroo

Hello dear blog world,

Thought I'd pop by for a quickie to tell you about a first for me on the farm. This morning as I hurriedly closed my back door and took a few steps towards the carport to make my way for peace and harmony at a yoga class - big breath! - a kangaroo - not quite as tall as me was jumping around blocking my way! The poor guy was in a mad panic at being disturbed by me. He kept thumping into the wire fence in an effort to flee on next doors rolling hills - eventually he made his way down our drive way towards to back of the property, saying hello to the miniature ponies in the paddocks on the way.

I was a little toey because kangaroos have very big claws and I didn't want him to feel cornered.

They are a pest but very gorgeous. We still get a thrill seeing them so close and fortunately there's enough other stuff for them to eat around the place and they mostly leave my plants alone.

Yesterday afternoon coming home up our one kilometre dirt lane I saw this gorgeous little joey jump into his mother's pouch and they hopped away. You have to be really careful because their heads are rather small and I think their brains match and they are very likely to jump straight in front of the car. At dawn and dusk it's really important to go slowly around here.

I was thinking one day I might get my son to film from the passenger seat our journey home - it's amazing what we see everyday. I'm very grateful.

Hope a little something special pops up in your day too.

Cheers,

Suzy ;)

Kangaroos and Garden Views

Now this is a new thing for me - my photos were straight and I've uploaded them and now they're vertical - well, two of them! Sorry about that....any advice welcome!



I've included these pics as they were shot from my balcony - just outside my studio door - that's why I included the one with the railing ;)


This next pic was taken from the back door - down the balcony from studio in another direction - and the kangaroo is sitting in our paddock - just beyond our 'back garden' - we've had some big winds and I need to get some tree fellers in to clean this up. The battered 'letter box' is actually the bird feeder - regularly attacked by hungry and cheeky cockatoos.



The next pic below has some of our exotic verandah rail included - a bit like having the front page of a newspaper in a ransom photo!

Now this very pretty tree sits just outside the front door - and I'm ashamed to say I missed shooting in with my better camera - $#!@#$!@#$ because the blossoms were DIVINE!


The next two pics are from the back deck again - I love my kookaburras - it's soo funny when their real counterparts sit next to them - one day I'll get lucky and press the shutter button in time to share!

Our view - serenity now....
Just a quick posting to share some of our visitors with you.

I'm very busy getting ready for the market at Allwood House adjacent to the Hurstbridge Farmers' Market on Sunday - 8.30am to 1.00pm if you're interested. Make sure you come and say hello if you're passing.

Have fun,

Suzy ;)

A bird in hand is worth how many in the bush?

Hello again, dear Blog land - I thought I'd better get myself into gear otherwise I'd miss posting in October - tut, tut, tut! I'm sharing some photographs of some of the gorgeous birds that visit our garden - pardon the quality but I was shooting through flyscreens and glass most of the time because I wanted to show you how close they come to our house.

Aren't the colours beautifully overwhelming?
Ahem, just ignore the messy grass - it's since been cut and we'll be polite for five seconds as we are so blessed to have gotten a lot of rain lately - the weeds are thrilled!



It's been a very busy time for my family - husband and I went off on a wonderful winery tour with winemakers - very enlightening! I'll share some pics of our trip soon.

I've started going to yoga classes locally and I'm actually walking with a straight spine - and for a couple of days a week a serene expression!

On the first Sunday of each month the Hurstbridge Farmers' Market is on and I'll be running a stall next door at Allwood Community House and I'm rather excited about that. A very recent decision so my little sewing machine has gotten busy crafting - I'll share some pics after the event - and maybe of some of my offerings before.

After yoga this morning I popped into the Heart and Soul Cafe in Hurstbridge for a wonderful, late breakfast - no it wasn't muesli - they have plenty of good girl and boy things on the menu but I went for the Heart and Soul breakfast - a big breakfast - couldn't finish it all but had fun trying and for some reason wasn't hungry at lunchtime....mmmm.

Thanks for dropping by - Suzy ;~)

The Pony Cafe

My camera is back from the wonderful doctors at Michael's Camera Store in Melbourne - well in truth it only visited there but I finally took it in there at was sooo impressed with the service. I would urge any Melbournians with camera needs to visit there first.

I've even got an excellent digital camera tip - especially for SLR's - DON'T FORCE MEMORY CARDS in to their slot - or you'll bend prongs that sometimes have a lot of importance and will cost you heaps pf $$ and downtime to get fixed. I was so lucky because my repair was done on the spot and didn't cost me an ything except for the purchase of two new 2GB memory cards because my broken prong used to read 4GB!

I'm typing this one handed because I've gone and hurt my wrist - so pls excuse any typos!

Anyhoo I've been playing with tables and chairs around my acreage and have created a lovely spot to watch the ponies in one direction and the bushland in the other - and I road tested my camera and am sharing the shots here. I'm creating little spots around the place to rest one's wine glass, or tea cup, to sit and smell the roses ... ponies!!

Hans my gorgeous dog is my model in a couple of the shots and I'm showing off my fantastic corrugated iron garden art that will finallu be appearing in my website this coming week!!!!

I'll post again very soon as my wrist heals and I'll share some pics of my new cupboards and drawers in my studio and my storage room/guest room - they're fab!

Ciao for now!

Suzy ;)