Peas Unearthed

This postcard from Frank Winkler, where he writes that he has taken up Peas Meal work in the Table Lands, has caused more gossip in Flemington than the recent Atrocious weather.  A few folk at Rose's Cafe say that pile of peas  looks awful like rocks in the state penitentiary. Mr Farmhand declines to say anything but then he was always pathologically reticent.

Photo courtesy of Ingrid Periz.

Blue Ribbon Show Rabbits

Most would be surprised to know that Bart Brassica has a, well, soft spot might overstate the case, but a pre- deliction for Show Rabbits.  This Ticked Flemish Giant, alias Peter, has been known to bite, which might be one of the reasons Mr Farmhand will not come near Bart's  place these days, but despite his temperament Farmer Bart has entered Peter  in the Best in Show category.  Mavis Eggwhistle's bunny, Chequers, is also in the running, so this will a lively event to watch out for.

High Fashion for the Water Table@ the BluesFest, Byron

The festival fashion tide, governed largely by the water table, has produced a bumper crop of Wellingtons at this year's Blues Festival at Byron.  For the complete scene you can skip through to well wellies,wellingtons & gallons of galoshe  and see the lot.  After some consideration, I think this pair, with their harkening to Wonder Woman's electric lasso, their glossy coding that corrupts first aid, their nearly skeletal dance of blood, the inference of laurel wreaths, the recollection of dairy white wellies and their herringbone harkening to fireman's red have my vote. Thanks to all the good humoured festive folk who so graciously agreed to me snapping their low heels.

Atopia, E-Topia, Isotopia, Utopia - Vowellishly Good Food in Bangolow

Bangalow is surely one of the treasures of the North Coast, from the old lady sitting on the porch of her classic Federation verandah, a fancy Zincalum awning over her, porch steps below set out with wellies, the school house with its brass bell, shops for fossickers and cafes for the hungry.  I will admit, upfront, that we went to Utopia twice. The first visit was with my new Fabriano Quadrato notebook. The paper here is lovely but buckles under water colour, heaven knows why I tried to tackle the restaurant mirrors but there you go, fools etctera.  I had the grilled scallops with cauliflower puree and an oversized Cuisinaire rectangle ( for Cusiniaire that is) of grilled polenta with a topping of chorizo shreds and a row of baby cress. Delicious.

The next visit, lunch again, I had the prawns with a 'rustic' puff pastry pizza, a jammy tomato thing with a frissee of leaves and radish on top and five fat grilled prawns that were convincingly fresh.  As I didn't have room for the Mediterrean tart, or even one of those intriguing short bread thingies, I will have to plan another visit. If you can get a seat at the end, so you can stare out at the lavishly emerald lawn and general tropical splendour.

On Targa, Middleton Street, Byron Bay

Oh my, why did I start sketching the back of the bar with all its fiddly bottles and glasses? Mostly I try for something hasty, there is only so much one's fellow dinners will put up with. Still, there are plenty of reasons for loitering in Targa's dark wood clubbiness - most of them on plates. Firstly, the roast peppers with white anchovies, one of which I purloined from Mr  S., rustic red and yellow draped around a tomatoey thing (the peppers not Mr S), with oodles of fresh flavour. For this I had to hand over a large grilled prawn and some sopresso, grilled with rosemary, that I would have preferred to keep to myself.

The salmon was excellent, just pinker in the middle with the crispy skin effect which confounds me. Why is this so good and why do I always leave the skin at home? As I still hadn't finished all those bottles, I had to order tiramisu for dessert. Despite my intention to leave some before I knew it, it was gone. If I lived in Byron Bay I might have to attempt to draw the '60's airport scene dot-matrixed on the ceiling.

Self Portrait After The Blues Festival - Byron Bay 2011

This self-portrait, done in the coffee tent while eating a warm blackberry jam donut, shows that three days of guitar music, dancing on a damp paddock in wellingtons and crowd watching is about the limit of the therapeutic window for me. My favourites?  Naturally Trombone Shorty, who either has a hidden oxygen tank, tardis lungs or has really mastered circular breathing not to mention jazz rock funk and about ten thousand people in a tent.  Aaron Neville was sublime, that faultless lift into the soprano register, the emotional intensity, this man sings like he's auditioning for heaven. Gurrumul, I think this must be history, the only thing to say is Gurrumul.

Rhubarbative Moments in field work in New Jersey

In the worst rush of the rhubarb season Mr Farmhand sometimes teams up with his cousin, Frank Winkler.  Their granny, Hetty Winkler The Third,  knows why these boys have an uncanny likeness to each other, but she is not saying. 

 Frank W. has a penchant for Redhead Matches on which account he is seldom hired by folks who have barns full of straw or hayricks unattended.  Mavis  Eggwhistle says Frank is  his own worst hindrance and he should never have toasted marshmallows on his plastic hoe, even if it did start out life with a wood-grain finish.  Still, if there is a bumper crop of rhubarb flowers to hoe, such as Miss Ingrid Periz who, for insurance purposes,  photographed them here at work in her New Jersey kitchen garden, you could do worse than the Farmhand cousins for hired help.

The Efficient Oval's Good Offices

In one of probabilities ploys the oval shells collected from Belongil Beach, where pebbles, rolled smooth by sand and waves are in greater frequency than shells, are balanced two left, two right, and so make something of a mirror in this composition. The oval, oblated, seems one of  nature's more efficient shapes, but perhaps for both the shells, fated to be ground to grit, and the pebble, on its way to sand, they are just intermediate formalities?

Broken light and pleated water

Walking east along Belongil Beach where it seeps into Byron's Main Beach, in the last direct light of afternoon, the tide out, the low flat beach leaves a landscape of pools, warm water basking in uncertain directions, the tide pulling at it from strange angles, the sunlight dimpled and etched along the curves of water, water purling in three directions.  A tide of small dogs, old dogs, their lady owners lounging along with friends, the last of the swimmers.

Hitchcock Railway meets Petticoat Junction

Slip down Butler Street, on the wrong side of the railwy tracks at Byron Bay, , and you can't miss the gothic splendour of filigree rust and red brick that is the old railway tank.  The baby blue gun-totting 'toon dude impastoed on the ground level makes a sweet offset to the deep blue morning glory which winds its tracks through the cyclone fence. If it's Thursday morning,  you will be baffling for a park to get the local Farmers' Mart, which may just be an excuse for aspiring local thespians to arrive like Puck, flute and all, or show off their coat tails. These markets re-invent fresh, the greens very nearly wink at you.

Sense of Belongiling

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This scene might have come straight out of Newtown circa 1981, but it is the lounge area of Belongil Beach's Treehouse Cafe, 2011. As I don't travel with a scanner ( but I am now wondering about travel scan options) this is uploaded from an iphone photo, which might be a good thing, resolving all shades to a palette of second-hand cane furniture.  It is definitely a study in brown here. Normally I would not sit in a lounge chair to eat, but wholly molly Mr Theo, true teen that he is, made a bee-line ( or should that be a teen-line?) for the squashy velour, laid back , sink in and reading-ness of it.  This might be the diagnostic factor telling teens from adults, the former's ideal meal spot is the couch, the latter, the table. This may be why teens think Table Manners are redundant.

Oh, so much for the decor and erstaz anthropology, what of the food? The coffee was decent,  though on matters of taste I must say the surfeit of tomato sauce on the bacon and egg roll, begs the question was it not a tomato sauce sanger with garnish of egg and bacon.  My only other comment is this: chicken on a pizza.

Vini, Vidi,Vici, - Glass House, Tropical Centre, Botanic Gardens Sydney

Leaving aside the first smallish corruption (veni to vini) ), the title here does not accept that the usual  egocentric  'I'  - ( you know ' I came, I saw, I conquered) . In this arrangment  the vine came first, and it did seem to be winning the race to the top of the glass house, with some very decent competition by other cool high altitude rainforest plants.  As to who it was that 'saw', leaving aside those serrated teeth along the edge of the 'pitcher' , it was obviously myself , as sketcher, who did the seeing.

Crinum Lily and the Four Fishes

It might be just me but that title sounds like a late fifties Jazz fusion band, though it definitely is not. This particular lily had flowered, been photographed in situ, (aka as my garden,) been picked, collaged and here, folded up.  The Four Fish maybe have mistaken Lily for a mic and are humming the back up line. Maybe not, hard to say what fish sing underwater. Some time later I draw the field photograph.All this attention which would have turned any Lily's head.

Cast Iron Case

This cast iron cover for a man hole - that inelegantly flawed term - is a model, very nearly, of symmetry and unwavering design chutzpah.  Walking about Tokyo these gems are literally at ones' feet . Even the notches for the tool to lift the cover are neat. Tokyo might be capital of in-ground graphics.

Bread and Fridges - Is this loafing about?

Why theorise that bread is the culinary substrate of reading when the facts speak for themselves?  If you are curious as to the connection betwen bread and fridges you might visit Kris Hemensley's April 2011   Issue of the Merri Creek Ezine to read my short essay on bread and fridges -The Tassajarah Way or Fridge Number 5. 

Quincings and Eight Feet Pete, the Fruit Picker

Bart Brassica's quince harvest needs some extra hands, and as he hired  Eight Feet Pete, he got extra legs as well. Pete is a veteran fruit picker and a natural at the three-legged race, where he often picks up first and second place, solo, with two feet to spare!

Sun Sun at Crows Nest

In the continuing pursuit of ramen we paid a second visit to Sun Sun at Crows Nest in the shopping centre on Willoughy Road which has Franklins upstairs and a kind of grubby food court downstairs. The unlit basement car park certainly has noir qualities.  The people at Sun Sun are cheerful, the gyoza are good and the Tokyo Ramen is fine. Not Tampopo level but OK if your hungry for ramen and in the locale.  The chopstick wrapper's graphics are excellent, and I wish I had sketched the  drawing they had on the back wall.  Ramen is a tricky customer to draw.  Obviously more practice is needed.

The Sky's The Thing

Rain clouds court Wagga.

The Virtue of Fresh Eggs - Mates Gulley

Many days, in February, in New Jersey,  I lunched on poached eggs, fresh from the hen house and sauted greens. The snow outside, the simple, fresh comfort of the dish, the company, framed these as the paragon of lunches.  So while I might have been predisposed by the recollection, a variation of this dish, and the flowers, made lunch at Mates Gulley so pleasant that I went there twice in three days.  If you're in Wagga, head up Bayliss Street, just after the bridge the lagoon and that vivid 2WG sign.

Lulaba - Best Street, Wagga

Sit under the verandah at Lulaba and study  their tropical cake and the house across the road, both are classic takes.  There is whimsey and substance in each. Most times if you asked me I'd say No Thanks to a cake with pineapple in it, but in thise case, and place, thinking off it like that splash of yellow on the facade of this Federation belle across the street, I happily said yes. Sometimes odd angles are the best, eg the pruning of the tree & the glace ginger in the cake.

Riversdale - the endless possibilities of river fog.

Once  I stayed in Riversdale, mornings the fog rolled in, bright white. Is this reduction or refinement?  The cross, floating in, top right, warns skiers, rowers,boaters of the shoals.  At night the place might be mad with lightning. The Boyd gift is perfect for making things you did not think about at the time.

King Fern Unsprung - Episodes Two to Five

Two to Five seems to imply the odds for the favourite on a day at the races, those minutes of clock-watching for the job you weren't in tune with. But here it's none of these, just the next four episodes of the King Fern's unfurling. For a moment in Episode Three ( 2nd down) the fronds had taken on the look of a slinky, with its capacity for hopeless entanglement ( was this toy really a metaphor for matters of the heart?), but then those frondlets (yes, I am saying frondlets) straighten up, smooth as  waxed fruit.

Doublification and Country Towns - Why Wagga is OK

Monday morning early found me on a footpath table, at the Cache Cafe in Wagga.  It was damp out there, and a degree or five south of comfortable but the streetscape took in the elegant edifice of the Council Chambers.  Perspective and I have not managed so much as an acquaintenanceship to date, and here I've sketched in more than I could chew.  That roof here is badly skew, the upper balustrades partly missing, mostly mangled, neither is so in real life.  The Cache coffee too is something of a lottery.  Wagga Wagga, in the great Australian set of double names, is one of the few that sounds like it doesn't need its twin.

Express Draw MacGraw

In idle moments waiting in queues at the airport  or loitering in the cinema foyer the Express draw app on my iphone is right kind of idle folly for me. There seems to be an element of luck - a louchedemonstration of how clumsy runs into the luck of the draw. These characters are all imaginery, though the top fellow makes some allusion to Rimbaud.

What the fashionable Psychidae wears this Autumn

The Bagworm's cocoon, here, in silk and sticks and sand, might be mocking possum fur. These cocoons, neat houses of the pupae, are always exciting, though slightly squeamish finds. Is it the prospect of the transformation inside that makes these cocoons fascinating, or the deft archictecture of insects?

Bart Brassica and the Mary Jane

One of the more unusual crops on Farmer Bart Brassca's holdings are ladies pumps, or if he's lucky, the shoe plant might throw out a sport like this giant Mary Jane. While some farmers will be entering oversized marrows in the Amherst County Fair,  Bart is buttoning his hopes to gain a blue ribbon with this well-heeled kid-lined beauty. There is a rumour that  he's hoping for a pair, but that's only what Mavis Eggwhistle says.

Sketchabout,, Botanic Gardens at the Lotus Pond

I missed the morning sketching class as I was on the School tennis run where naturally, as you will see, I took notes.  While I was sketching this, five ibises stalked past, two dusky moor hens walked by me, a neat-footed boy came right up and checked this out before I noticed him.  Two Indian ladies, one with a pink headscarf , a crocheted triangle in shell stitch, posed nearby me for a photograph.  Funny how a few weeks back I was drawing lotus flowers in a vase.

Lower Garden – Lotus Pond

Watching the lotus leaves, crowded, flippant,

in a lake subsumed by jostling, a party of flirts

who smile and stare, then blow the other way.

None are perfect, most blowsy

with torn edges, fading patches

and yellow margins, some younger leaves

pruned savagely by insects.

The pond heaves and shivers,

courts the wind, unlikely picnickers

they fill the field, while I try to push

a green puddle into shape.

Then a dusky moor hen steps past, [more timid

than a Coot, tamer than a swamp hen]

red and black feet latent with possibilities.

Agave - a right spiralling phenomena - Sydney Botanic Gardens

Though unlabelled I am guessing this succulent is a member of the family that gave us tequila, the Agaves. Here the tight, prickly right-handed spiral of leaves, still wearing the the impression of their own serrated edges, spin out low to the ground, not unlike the after-effects of tequila itself might have an over-imbiber.

Scrambling Habits of the Heart

Somethings insist on being drawn, this vine, making its way over the top garden bed in the Cunningham Courtyard of the Sydney Botanic Gardens being case in point. It was that exurbant dangling clause- the poddy flower,  that got me in. If this flower were a phrase, it would be bigger than the sentence that contained it. Quite impossible? The seed case proves the opposite.

Oh, yes, the vine's, like most, a scrambler,
wearing it's heart-shaped leaves on trailing lines.

King Fern Unfolds in Precise Spirals of Green

The King Fern in my garden, which I think might be Angiopteris evecta, unfurls like a slow motion ballet, consisting mostly, at this stage, of pirouettes. This drawing is the first in what I plan to be a watching brief.