Saturday, 1 September 2007		Images for 1 September 2007
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The garden continues to surprise us; just about every week there's some new flower. This week there's a black lily:

Tuesday, 4 September 2007		Images for 4 September 2007
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Last month it hardly rained at all. We started measuring our local rainfall on 8 August. Since then we have had 19.3 mm of rain, and there's still no significant rain in sight, and the Bureau of Meteorology predicts less than average rainfall for our part of Victoria. So we're thinking of installing a ground water pump (“bore”, as it's called in Australia), especially since we're right next door to the Dereel “Lagoon” (also, more accurately, called “swamp”), and Chris Yeardley brought by an analysis made of her bore water which shows that the quality compares favourably with that of German mains water: you could probably brew with it. On the other hand, the property we looked at in Swansons Road a few months back had a bore with water obviously high in iron:

Look at the colour of the water tank on the left. Clearly there's a wide range of possibilities.

Off to take a look at the community bore round the corner, with intent to get some water from there, but it's not clear that passers-by are meant to start the pump, which looks like it's been there for ever:

Wednesday, 5 September 2007
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Another day spent mainly in the office, though I did spend some time addressing a seriously neglected brewing setup. Finally found the last part of my brewing fridge, but too late to do anything with it today.

Thursday, 6 September 2007	Dereel –> Melbourne –> Dereel	Images for 6 September 2007
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Off early to Melbourne today. Despite the dubious accuracy of Google Maps, tried their latest route from Dereel to Melbourne: previously it had been via Ballarat, but recently they've recommended a route via Geelong. It seems pretty much a matter of luck which is faster, but today at any rate the Geelong route was better, and when they finish the western bypass round Geelong (next year) it should be even faster. Got out of the car in the Queen Victoria Market after only 110 minutes, and for once it was open. Yvonne was also happy with the produce, a marked difference from last week.

Then off to Abbotsford to pick up a new scanner, an Epson “Perfection” 4990 Photo. To get there was pretty straightforward: they're just round the corner from IKEA, down Victoria St, which is one of the most congested roads in Melbourne. Gave up after the Exhibition Gardens and turned into Nicholson St, then down a parallel road to—Nicholson St. There are two of them, in two different suburbs, and this road just happened to start at one and end at the other.

Saturday, 8 September 2007		Images for 8 September 2007
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Yvonne and Chris Yeardley spent the afternoon tearing down the fences that made up the greyhound runs, happily not requiring much involvement on my part:

Tuesday, 25 September 2007		Images for 25 September 2007
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Spring is coming! And Yvonne found out the natural way:

Also did some work in the garden, and discovered dozens of rhizomes under bushes, where they can't grow. I think they're irises:

They look quite like the ones shown in Wikipedia. I wonder where I can put them.