Opp Shopping in Upper Gully

I was up at my favouritest Parents Without Partners Opp Shop in Upper Gully to-day.

To-day, Friday 13 June, and to-morrow, Saturday 14 June, they are having a Dollar Day.

They are stocked to the hilt and they want all their regulars to benefit from the sale.

As well, they want to welcome lots of newcomers too.

So, time to hotfoot it to Rose Street, Upper Ferntree Gully.

Directions:

Head east to the Dandenong Ranges,

turn right from Burwood Highway into Dawson Street, Upper Ferntree Gully

(Ferntree Gully Plaza Shopping Centre on one side of Dawson Street

and the Royal Hotel on the other side)

Take first turn to the left - along Rose Street.

Rose Street bends to the left.

On the bend look right and there it is!

Your money is well spent

because PWP at Upper Gully contributes to the support of Emergency Housing in the south-east and, in addition, pays the wages of a Social Worker to assist those in need of the housing.

Permaculture - the way to go

Cabin in Lee's Harmony Garden, Upper Ferntree Gully, Victoria

I want to take you for a stroll through the Harmony Gardon of my friend Lee here in Upper Gully. It seems timely. My long-time blogging friend from San Diego, California, Woofnanny has left a comment over at Oz Tucker. She is about to start her first garden! Her very first! Isn't that exciting? You can see my comments in reply.
Lee is a believer in permaculture as am I.
But Lee is a qualified permaculture designer - whereas my knowledge is picked up from Permaculture 1 and 2, hearing Bill Mollison speak in the long, long ago, and visiting various websites - not least of which is David Holmgren's.

Lee's garden is on a suburban block not far off the highway as you travel up into the Dandeong Ranges.

She has a large backyard - a few times bigger than mine.

Her front and backyards are intensively planted - and even her footpath has a garden.

Lee's garden is eclectic and highly individual - and, in some ways, quirky.

She is generous in showing her garden to the public and has raised a lot of money for charity.
Ran into her the other day taking some plants home to put in the boot!



Lee has two laundry tubs (short that sit in a cabinet in the laundry) full of worms!

Sam (above) walking the plank.








So Woofnanny - I hope you have as much fun as Lee and I do, each of us with ours. In a garden there is always change and always something to be done and something to be discovered.

A photographic walk

Upper Gully from Glenfern Road - home of The Trad Pad

Gina has posted on a recent walk. Set off on a l-o-n-g walk from The Trad Pad on Monday. I walked up Glenfern Road, turned into Ferndale Road, walked past the Sherbrooke Archers meeting ground, took a diversion along a creek, walked by Gilmour Park and its lake complete with ducks.

Then I came to the beginning of suburbia with lovely mountainside homes. I stopped to chat to a newer resident who had purchased a home with an overgrown garden and he was doing battle with rampant ivy over the rock wall. He was interesting - a retired horticulturalist with a penchant for cacti and succulents.

On my walk, I was able to feast upon wild apricots and plums. I took pictures of some beautiful "weeds": rampant convolvulus "Morning Glory" intermingled with agapanthus. Agapanthus is beautiful but it has found its way into our close-by national park. It does look beautiful - the mauve blossom against the grey eucalypt trunks - but it is indeed an interloper there.

And then it was down into Upper Gully village and home by a walking/bike path tucked away behind the main shopping roads. And then past the Neighbourhood House and School, across the park, along the creek and home. Two and half hours on the hoof and on the loose and here are the photographs:

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Friends and Flower

Recent friends who have come to lunch, have come bearing flowers.

Above are the native flowers from Madelin's garden -

kangaroo paw (the tallest); grevillia (the yellow); and callistemon.

These beautiful pink roses are from Elaine and Kevin's garden in Clow Avenue.

Photo Friday: Silence

The topic for this week's Photo Friday is Silence.

One of the fascinations for such a topic is how does one grab the feeling visually. When I think of silence, one of the images which comes to mind is something from an old British black and white movie which has a pea-soup fog and the echo-ing sound of footsteps.

It seems to me that such a thick, thick fog provides a blanket or wall of silence against which sound echoes.

Here in Melbourne, we can experience thick fogs - especially in or close to the mountains. Upper Gully is in the foothills of The Dandenongs which are thick with temperate rainforest. The further up the hills you go - on some days - the thicker the fog. My picture was taken early one July morning at the Upper Gully railway station: an early morning blanket of silence which could echo with the footsteps of each new arrival to the platform to wait for the train.

Drop in on The Dandenongs

Hat Tip to Winza for the photographs This post is blatant promotion. Miss Eagle lives in Upper Ferntree Gully in the foothills of beautiful Blue Dandenongs. The Dandenongs comprise large tracts of temperate rainforest - tall, ever so tall Mountain Ash and valleys of tree ferns.
For more than 100 years, The Dandenongs has been a leisure and pleasure getaway for Melburnians - particularly in a hot, dry summer. Sometimes they come from day trips. The wealthy had/have week-enders in The Hills. These days it is B & B territory with wonderful restaurants.
At the moment, there is a competition on and you could win a wonderful week-end experience in my neck of the woods. So, I didn't want you to miss out on an opportunity. So please go here and enter. And when you win, please email me so that we can do coffee up at Sassafras or Olinda.

Snow snapping cold

Can I have what he's having?

John So, Lord Mayor of Melbourne in a traditional Wurundjeri possum-skin cloak (Jiawei Shen, 2005 Archibald Prize Finalist)

In south-eastern Australia, where winters can be very cold, Aboriginal people kept warm with possum-skin cloaks. Check out this ancient craft here. After a life-time in tropical and sub-tropical climes, Miss Eagle still feels the cold in Melbourne even though this is her third winter here. So she could really, truly do with a possum skin cloak.

Forest Glade Cottage, Olinda : St Matthew's Anglican Church, Mount Dandenong


Will this be what it will be like up the road in The Dandenongs this afternoon? Last night, here at Upper Gully, it was like sleeping in a wind tunnel. Cocooned from wind with an electric blanket, a doona, a minky, a Rose and a FootFoot maybe - but oh the howling, noisy wind.

A little while ago it started to rain.

The Age carries this story. They are calling it a cold snap! What do they think we have been having for the last ten days! A fortnight ago from last Friday this was the scene as I breakfasted beside Lake Wendouree. My weekend in Ballarat was oh-so-cold. But here is the picture in The Age to-day just a short step away from my breakfast place:

Brrrrrrrrr!

Cottage gardens in Clow Avenue

Miss Eagle was walking around Upper Gully yesterday and couldn't resist snapping these glimpses of the gardens in Clow Avenue.