December 1st is the official beginning of the Australian summer. We were lucky enough to have a car for a few weeks in November, which let us prepare properly: buying gardening products, said barbeque, and taking some friends out to goldfields country.
Summer has us feeling lazy, so this is going to be kind of a lazy post, with limited wit.
An old gold town and gold mine
Our books tell us that Melbourne really got going when gold was discovered northwest of the city. The gold rush is long over, but there are a few remnants. One is the cute town of Maldon:
Other remnants are ruins of smelting buildings, some of which we climbed around with friends Jon and Heather.
A bit uphill of the ruins was the entrance to a former goldmine that offers tours:
However (we were told), the reliable cool temperatures inside the mine had saved some feverish children's lives during one especially hot summer some decades ago.
Gardening efforts (aka plants we haven't killed yet)
We have things growing in our backyard now. Some are even things we meant to grow.
Potatoes emerged in a pot we thought only had strawberries in it. We haven't harvested the potatoes yet, but they provided some nice flowers:
The strawberry plants have been less enthusiastic about life than the potatoes, but they have yielded two berries so far. Here's one:
Naomi discovered that some planters are made out of cloth, and wanted to try them out. Here's one with lettuce and capsicum (i.e. pepper) plants.
Colin's first summer birthday BBQ
We had an initial trial run with the barbeque, which was a success (no injuries, no food poisoning, only a small amount of swearing while trying to get the coals going). Inspired by that, we decided to put it at the center of a small birthday gathering for Colin.
A handful of friends came over, and patiently sat around while Colin slowly over- and under-cooked their food.
When it cooled down outside, we moved into our living room for cake.
Cake!
