Some journal pages

Hi, I've done a few journal pages from prompts I found called oxygen mask hopefully you can track them down at jenaferjoy.com. They are tiny little 3 minute videos, with an idea that you can do quickly with minimum materials. Thay have been good to play with this week inbetween the xmas stuff, office parties, shopping, digging out the tree and decorations.

A found poem

I hope you will find some little pockets of time for art over the next busy days.

Sitting on the verandah I can hear rosellas (parrots) next door going crazy over a tree that's in flower. Thunder rumbles in the distance, we just had a week of monsoon rain, and now a little break, I have sheets and towels on the line, and I'm keeping an eye out for that storm. The tv chatters away in side the house, my kids are watching documentaries on rock climbing of all things. A small bird perches on the pool fence and every so often flits down to skim the surface of the pool and then back to the fence. I'm not sure if it's washing or catching insects!

So Happy Christmas from the tropics!!  xx Kate xx

The build up garden

It's the build up... hot and humid with occasional thunderstorms, the monsoon doesn't usually arrive until after xmas - last year it didn't arrive properly at all... Inspite of the heat, and thanks to some decent downpours, some things in my garden are thriving.

Coleus thriving in the shade with amazing flower spikes.

I don't really have a garden plan, I like to grow some food and I've been learning by trial and error what can survive my not very green thumb! I grow a lot of things in pots because of the poor soil, and so that I  can move things in and out of the sun depending on how stressed they're getting.

Hard to make them out but here are basil, thai basil, 

mint, parsley, sweet leaf, lemon grass

pineapple and cherry tomatoes.

I grow a few flowers to attract bees and other pollinators, and so that I can paint them in still-lives!

I only tend about a quarter of the garden - the rest is established palms that fend for themselves (except for piling the palm fronds on the compost heap), and lawn, which my partner mows.

Some of the flowers at the front fence, and lots of

mulch, newspaper and palm fronds to try to

keep the weeds under control.

Lately we have eaten a beautiful pineapple, and another one is ripening. Now and again I fry up some sweet leaf and parsley in an omlette, a treat for me as the kids are not that keen on my garden greens. I  would love to be growing more and cooking more from the garden, but at least it's a start!