Green swords

0609 green leaves
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Not sure I captured the light through these leaves as I would have liked, but it's probably thanks to omnia's brilliant photographs that I even noticed it at all.

June 2006 mosaic

June 2006 mosaic
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

A month in pictures. Quite a colourful month!

Rural track

0608 rural track
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

There's a track, winding back - but no shack, and this isn't on the road to Gundagai. Just the wonder of an enormous sky, the clouds catching the warmth of the late afternoon light. Five minutes later the sky was monochrome, the warmth but a bare smoulder of crimson on the western mountains.

Winter tree

0608 winter tree
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

This tree has local heritage listing - it's enormous. In autumn, the leaves below form a thick carpet that delights small children as they fall and toss and play. Now in winter, against the grey light of early morning, it seems more remote; but still beautiful, an intricate tracery of twigs and branches against a monochrome sky. With so many local trees being eucalypts and thus evergreen, this one offers a different view.

Quilt: work in progress

0608 work in progress
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

The sample block, the cut out pieces, the design in a plastic sleeve, the design notebook, the black Bic fine point pen (blame my sixth grade teacher for that particularity), the sewing machine, the plastic sectioned box with extra feet, bobbins, threads, the green cutting mat, the (invisible) yellow rotary cutter - yup, it's all there.

Reading: Watership Down

0608 Watership Down
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

It's years since I read this for the first time, and some years since I've read it again. It was just as much of a pleasure - this time particularly, beyond the well-told story, which mostly came back to me as I read, other things made an impact. Adams's ability to put you into the English countryside with all your senses, so you hear the birds, see the turn and shape of leaves - evocative writing. The story remains strong, but also the truth of it - how many times and in how many countries/cultures since has a Woundwort had the chance to change the world, and has stayed with autocracy rather than adventuring to co-operation?

If you haven't read it in a while, treat yourself. Wonderful writing.

It's not easy being green

0608 it's not easy being green
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

And it's a complete puzzle as to why someone woud require pleated woollen shorts in precisely this eye-dazzling shade of green. The world's a strange place. Even more when you can find shell buttons in pretty much precisely the same shade. Perhaps the fact that I found the shorts in an op shop might explain them - they're in very good nick, so it doesn't look as though they saw much wear...

Magnolia

0608 magnolia
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Is it blossom week or what? I keep noticing and enjoying the neighbourhood magnolias. I remember none from childhood, but now find them glorious.

Another blossom tree

0608 blossom tree
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

More spring, even against a grey morning sky. They're promising rain, which while welcome will probably batter about some of these delicate blossoms. So they're to be enjoyed while they're here.

Blossom tree

0608 blossom tree
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

More evidence of spring.

Vista

0608 vista
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

The river that's been there forever, and the lakes being created from quarrying gravel for a hungry, growing city. Hadn't been to this lookout for a while - the sheer size of this project is astonishing. Photo was taken late afternoon, with the mountains casting an eastward shadow.

Jonquils

0608 jonquils
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Spring. Or something like it - although while the days have been rather warm, it still cools down close to zero at night.

Jonquils are a favourite flower - and still, unlike many flowers/fruits/vegetables, seasonal, so you can enjoy them and then anticipate them. They don't become ho-hum.

Cart (no horse)

0608 cart (no horse)
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Some kind of vintage cart - I don't know enough about carts to know. The garden beyond is filled with sticklike rose bushes, waiting for summer - although on a warm Sunday afternoon in winter, summer didn't seem so far away.

Gee whiz

0608 quilt
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Back in May, I began a challenge inspired by on a Gee's Bend quilt.

Quilt's done.

Bird on a wire

0608 bird on a wire
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Kookaburra sits on a telephone wire...

or maybe it's an electricity wire.

This is not my area of expertise. I do quilts.

(would you look at that beautiful sky??)

(Patchwork)

0608 patchwork
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

There's patchwork everywhere - we are always putting elements and geometry together in a multitude of ways, from the rustic honesty of this letterbox? pillar? to the technoprecision of city office buildings.

The fence adjacent to this is a sandstone wall, with deliberately-chosen stone of fairly even colour. I'm intrigued by this, though: will is remain so varied in colour (which I do like very much) or is this the kind of base that then gets rendered or otherwise hidden?

Frosty violets

0608 frosty violets
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

(OK, so I'm still mining the weekend's photos.) But how can I not use this one? The precise, delicate frost on a tangle of violets. The leaf caught amongst them.

It can be so much easier to see the places you don't live every day - it freshens your eyes. In the everyday round of work and home, the everyday routines of this day, week, year, it's more of a challenge to find something new. And yet... I am pleased with what I've learned and am learning to see.

It's still a pleasure to go away and have beautiful things like this to photograph.

Lake George

0608 track on Lake George
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Lake George is on the way to Canberra, just after the village of Collector; the road skirts around the lake.

It fascinates me - it's vast, and so often there is little water there, so you see fences and grazing sheep. Other times all you would see in this photo is water between the trees and the distant mountains.

More information on Lake George here and here (scroll down to the end for this one).

Abandoned church 1

0608 abandoned church 3
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

This is on the Federal Highway heading into Canberra. I always look for it and wonder about its history. No particular settlement or villages nearby, just this small church. Little or no zoom on this picture, so you can see how it looks from the road.

Look at the difference between the watered paddocks and the unwatered foreground.

Abandoned church 2

0608 abandoned church 1
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Context, rather than just the building's detail.