News & Updates from Vicki Avcin ~ AusCrafts · Page 54

Last Sunday was Mothers Day here in Australia but with restrictions on travel it meant the kids nor us could travel to spend the day with each other.

Hubby came home from the shop on Saturday with a bunch of flowers which had this gorgeous big white flower.

Just so different from the normal roses and carnations. After asking on our local gardening page, turns out it is Ornamental Kale. The only kale I know is something you eat not a pretty flower. So after investigation, it is a member of the cabbage family. Not really edible more of a decoration.

Apparently they come in a lot of different colours in the cooler months of the year. Grown from seed it was off to ebay to see if there were any seeds for sale……. You know………you can find anything on ebay!

I have found a mixed lot of seeds, so going to order some and see if Mrs Killeverything can grow some. 100 seeds in the pack so plenty of room for some hit and miss attempt to grow them.

They say if you can grow cabbages then you can grow these. Well Ive never tried growing cabbage but I know that people do grow them around the area so what can go wrong?

Then on Sunday a delivery from my daughter saw another beautiful bunch of flowers delivered.

Phone calls too from all the kids and grandkids so turned out a really great day.

How is everyone doing with their time in isolation? Hope you are all OK and not going too stir crazy where ever you are in the world.

While being restricted to home with no training or meetings and only being able to go out to shops and firecalls I seem to have found a lot of time to be able to sit at the computer so decided to try a challenge using PSP, something Ive not done in a long while.

Although I sit and design as much as I get a chance, Ive not just been able to sit and relax and get back to the old days when I first learnt how to tag and do digiscraps just for fun.

No expectations, no deadlines, nothing other than just enjoy, so when one of the sites Im on decided to have a challenge I thought Id give it a go.

It was a ton of fun looking for each new challenge daily and after 25 years of doing all this graphic stuff, I even learnt a couple of new things!

That was really fun after all these years to still be able to learn something……….

Just got to remember it now!!! So going through old photos and bringing back memories was a bonus too. The photo is some of my results over the past week

Well Mother Nature is surely continuing to surprise us during this Corona Crisis. Was sitting out the front of the house last week and saw what I thought was a hummingbird. Only thing is we dont have hummingbirds here in Australia.

I watched this little creature flit around the flowers in the garden till eventually it flew off. Then in the local gardening page on Facebook someone else posted about seeing the same thing. Another poster then said theyd seen them too and had taken pictures and after contacting the museum this little thing was identified as a Hummingbird Hawkmoth.

This species of moths are only found in Australia although there are several species in SE Asia. They only feed during the day (diurnal) and the tongue (proboscis) is long enough to reach down into orchids for them to feed.

They feed from flowers. Also known as a clearwing hawkmoth they are not a common sight and because they are so fast are difficult to photograph.

So of course the challenge was on in the gardening group to capture these out of the ordinary moths. This photo is one of the moths feeding on a bottlebrush in the garden. So weve had a lot of things lately that weve not had previously like the Blue Tiger butterflies, the Fruit sucking moths (posted about in previous news) and now these hummingbird moths.

Is it because we are all locked down at home and looking at the world around us more closely or is it because without the pollution they have come to delight us?

Whatever it is I am enjoying what Mother Nature is giving us at the moment.

ANZAC Day this year will be very different around Australia this year. All services and marches have been cancelled. Traditionally there are dawn services, followed by Gunfire breakfasts and then big parades later in the morning.

The last post is played at all services and wreaths are laid to remember members of the Defence Forces who gave their lives in many different wars.

It is not only those who died in World Wars but more recent conflicts including those of current times. It honours all our Defence Force personnel. For me I attend our local service at River Heads, wearing my Fire Service uniform at 5.55am.

I then change from Fire Service to Emergency Service Cadet uniform and march in the parade in town at 10am.

I have been the wreath layer for the Fire Service for the past 10 years. Two cadets lay the wreath at the main service. So this year the RSL (Returned Services League) have asked that everyone go to their front gate at 6am and stand and have a minutes silence.

People are encouraged to put a wreath on their gate or fence, light a candle and many radio stations, local musicians or downloaded app with the last post, to be played in streets and suburbs.

I made a wreath which will be placed on the front fence as we live on acreage, but at the lower end of our suburb on the smaller blocks, people will be playing the last post where the whole street can hear.

Hopefully next year the lockdown will be lifted we will be able to once again attend services as normal.

I hope everyone is still sane while self isolating. Us Aussies can get up to some fun stuff when we have to amuse ourselves!

Hervey Bay included, so much so that one lady decided that shed bin (been) isolating long enough and that shed start a on a popular social media group called Bin Isolation Outing.

She got all dressed up and took a photo of her outing. Aussies jumped on board and posted funny photos putting the bin out. Soon the rest of the world saw the antics we were doing and started also joining in.

Now people are doing videos of their Bin outing. ( We are only allowed here out for essential reasons like work, shops and exercising) People overseas find us amusing but love our sense of humour and its amazing to see just how the world has come together on the page.

People have celebrated Birthdays, Anniversaries and theres even been a couple of Weddings and of course the Bin was there also. (Can only have 5 people at a wedding here, the bride and groom, the celebrant and 2 witnesses….. not sure if the bin counts as an extra!).

Sadly there has been a few deaths too and people have come to share their story. One lady said she still had to put her bin out even though shed lost her Mum but she didnt have any costumes but wished she had.

She asked if someone could do something so I dressed her in a fairy costume.

The photo shows just a tiny few of the pics posted. If you want a bit of a giggle look up the page. Really will help with the boredom to have a look. Stay safe everyone.