Welcome to Ridgy-Didge!

Ridgy-Didge is Australian colloquial for 'just right' or rather 'fair dinkum!'

When we bought the property over 7 years ago, it only had a number and no name. It needed a name as the place certainly has a personality. Well, it sits on a ridge with a grand view northwards to the Bunya Mountains, so what could be more 'all right' than sitting on the veranda with that view, whilst you have your breakfast or in the evenings with a glass of Australian wine? Or even watching the amazing stars at night or the tail-end of a storm as the lightning flashs in the vaste banks of clouds. Or maybe seeing a pair of Wedge-tail eagles as they soar in circles in the high thermals of the vasteness of the azure sky?

This house is a 100 year old Queenslander cottage. Quite small and unpretentious, but it has a gentle atmosphere and we have had many friends and family members come to stay and have enjoyed the peace and quiet of the place.

Sunday 18 January 2009

January Sky.





Recently we have had some magnificent sunsets.
Here are some pictures taken one evening.


There aren't many trees close to us so we see so much sky! To the north we see 50 miles or do to the Bunyas which is due north. So because we have lots of sunshine from that direction (being the the southern hemisphere!) we are having solar power installed and it will be done next week. I feel really excited about it as it has been a dream of mine for years. With having our own water from the mill and rain tanks and now the solar powered electricity, I feel we are making fewer demands of the works resources - well some of them anyway.

Saturday 3 January 2009

Happy New Year; 2009

It only seems a minute since everyone was welcoming in 2000. Millennium celebrations and a ring of beacon fires around the world. Here I am in a hot and humid Australia, wouldn't have believed it 9 years ago. Our new year gets under way well before those in Europe.

It is hot and humid and the air is full of the noisy cicadas which rise and fall as an endless chorus all day and well into the evening. After a while you don't notice them until, suddenly you may realise that there is an endless silence and they have all stopped!
There has been lots of rain in this area, a wonderful relief from the 5 years of drought. The land is verdant and green, the trees growing higher and higher and the shrubs in our garden (mostly bottlebrush, callistamin types) are endlessly flowering. The trouble is that you can almost see the grass growing and it could do with cutting everyother day. Text ColorThe weeds are knee high to an elephant too, and there is one called "Cobbler's Pegs." The leaves are similar to a smooth stinging nettle, the flowers tiny yellow ones. These each mature into a head of small needles, each about 1/2 inch long and they stick into EVERYTHING! Socks, trousers, dogs, etc and spread everywhere. With the rain, they seem to be growing thicker and higher than ever. I wish someone could discover a use for them and we could harvest it generously. They can't even be put in the compost if they are seeding. Horrid stuff.
Any way - a VERY happy, healthy and fulfilling 2009 to all reading this.