How Many Avacados?!

G'Day,

We met our next door Neighbour on Tuesday, Oscar. He's from Zimbabwe and was a victim of Mugabe and his army of angry farmers. He had a Tobacco farm on which he also farmed cereal and kept sheep & cattle. A very interesting man, we talked for a while as he regailed his life story and how greatful he was for Australia taking himself and his wife in. After our Zimbabwean experience we played with the Mango trees for the rest of the afternoon. Pruning and removing a disease called Anthrax Nose (I think) The branches of Mango trees smell like Mango's, just an interesting little observation.

So that was Tuesday and wednesday we were invited to Daryll's to do some garden work with him. So we spent much of the morning attacking rogue weeds, removing leaves from paths and pruning climbing vines. Daryll has the most amazing front garden, the previous owners planted a host of useful herbs and such. There is a Bay leaf tree, Verbagne (A lemon Sherbet smelling herb. Good in tea) Aloe Vera, Asparagus, Lemons inclkuding an orchard out back which has a heap of stone fruit trees, fig trees lemon and orange trees. Daryll gave us some oranges, we bit a chunk and emptied the insides. Just like a blast of orange juice. So yummy!
After our lunch we headed to se Daryll's Mango trees. After a frost a few years back his crop of 300 trees dwindled to just 40. Such a shame but his trees are flourishing and are much bigger and healthier than the ones at the farm. Daryll has a series of cave openings near his mango plantation. Limestone litters the ground and in a few areas there are openings which he thinks may lead into a chamber. This area has heaps of caves, 600 in Yanchep area and a load more around here in the bush.
We then took a walk back though his neighbours Avacado plantation. He said that we could take a few from each tree, there were heaps of trees! We have so many Avocados now, There are photos of how many we got. Interesting though, some of the trees were so weighed down with these fruits, it never occurred to me that they grew like that. After clearing his porch area of a rogue climbing vine to which we had to climb up to and over the roof. Yes Holly made it up too and was clearing the guttering. We rolled this vine over and threw it to the ground.
As a small thankyou for helping them out Daryll and Donna treated us to our first genuine Aussie BBQ cooked by Aussies. We had lamb from our farm which was killed and butchered by our friend Len. And a porterhouse steak from Daryll's own herd of cows. With some Asparagus from the garden and a great potato gratin. We had great fun swapping stories and putting the world right over a meal. Donna, who is the co-owner of a renound observatory and the Southern Hemisphere's largest telescope, treated us to a free presentation of the sky. She has this pointer which shoots out a green laser 22kms into the sky. She showed us Jupiter the newest and oldest stars, the fastest spinning star, the two galaxies that look like clouds in the sky. We learnt the differenences between Northern and Southern Hemisphere skies, also learning some basics of Aboriginal Dreamtime Story constellations. Fascinating....
As of our night last night Holly now wants a Kangaroo as a pet. Donna and Daryll raise Joey's that have lost their mothers due to being hit by a car. They take the Joey's home and nurse them, bring them up and release them into the wild. Donna says that they are like Human babies, they like to be cuddled and need to be fed every four hours during the night. We saw pictures of them lazing on the couch and cuddling the kids. They are very gentle and loving animals. They also had a pet Emu, which are very cure when they are young. But the Emu sadly died last year due to its curiosity. Curiosity did indeed kill the Emu.

Special Birthday wishes are sent from the both of us to Ken, (Holly's Dad) Happy Birthday we do hope you had a great day.

We had a slow day today doing some domestic work, preparing for Catherine's return tomorrow. We have an early start preparing black olives for packaging. And tonight is our last night with Prince who is sulking in his little cage. It'll be sad when he goes. I think he'll go home a little fatter and worse behaved than when he arrived (Nothing to do with Me :/)

I think that's it for now, we'll go and play with Prince and get some sleep to combat our early morning. Makes sense doesn't it? hehe...

Thanks for reading,

David & Holly