That is quite a big difference in color. Good plan for the ones they don't like eating as much! Pea sprouts, what's not to love.
Great berry patches. I have never tasted most of the kinds you're growing. The Josta looks like a Gooseberry, but our GB's are green.

Yes color difference made it quite easy to pick them out on the vines. These peas got hammered twice by sparrows so I decided to let roughly 1/3 go to seed without picking for eating, by chance with Heather, what I initially thought was 4 plants turned out to be one only after I was able to remove netting and weed. It happens to be one of the darker ones and seeing as I had not tried it, thought I would taste some of the young pods still on the vine and was very happy when they were fiber free. I have kept the seed from this one separate and in a second container I have seed from another dark one that was growing in the 'pick and eat' lot. These will be backups, anything else will get sprouted.

Berry wise, the color in the Josta's comes from the Black Current parent and they are about the same size. We have difficulty getting the better Gooseberries to fruit here, too hot.

So nice to see these coming in now, as our NH garden sits waiting in the cold. Hope you remain safe despite the temps and devastating fires across Australia. Take care!

Fortunately for us the closest fires are about 3 hours by road. A lot of the area in Victoria and New South Wales has not burnt for something inexcess of 50 years, and in the type of bush that we have in this country that relies on fires for regeneration that length of fuel build up in a dry year like this one is like setting off a series of incendiary bombs. Talk on the news that a series of fires will join up to form a front over 300 km wide.

Evacuation of the south coast of NSW from Batemans Bay south to the border of Vic has been ordered

My thoughts and cares are out to all those in harms way. Stay safe, things can be replaced.

I hope you are still safe and far from the fires. The footage on the news is just devastating to watch. Take care Woz!

Thank you Peebee. We are well away from where this lot of fires are. The burnt country in the south east of Australia is one area where we have often gone on holidays and we are planning to go through it again in late June and July on the way upto northern NSW to visit friends. Fortunately everyone is now accounted for with 25 lives lost, over 2000 homes burnt so far. Expecting bad fire conditions late in week

Only real way we will get the volume of rain these areas need to control the fires is for a cyclone to come down the east coast dumping rain but not actually crossing the coast

Had yet to set up the Cubby House we got for the Kids for Christmas, set about doing that Yesterday (Thursday 9/1/20). First had to move some piles of grass that had been sitting for a couple of days and found this beauty This is a Striped Marsh frog, and a very large one at that, found it Wednesday and it was released into the dam for a swim and so it was safe.

Thursday early afternoon went up to Mum and Dads to pick up trailer and cubby, was talking to them in the house and heard a chirp from the attached garage, where this beautiful fellow had flown into and landed on the pack-rack on their car. He also has a habit of going around some of the windows, landing on the outside windowsill tiles and calling for his food. A King Parrot, the light green on his wings denotes a male.

Back at home we started to un-wrap the cubby and assemble it. It was one we had custom made for the kids and they love it. Here is the young fellow inspect what has to be done The stack of plastic pallets and sleepers is where the cubby is now assembled, it will remain there for a short time until I get some stumps in the ground and a proper sub floor set up for it.
Partially unwrapped At this point my helpers turned up and inside an hour it was fully assembled, beauty of having it flat packed ready to go. When it gets moved onto its stumps a covered deck will go out the front
Nice bright and colourfull and on the North end is something a bit different A raised deck will be made to fit under the shutters , which will have a slide attached to it, a rope ladder maybe and it will be high enough for a sand pit to fit under if so desired.

Dimensions are roughly 10 feet long by 7.5 wide with a 6 foot side wall

Love the frog and the shed!

What a great playhouse for the kids, and the young man sure is on top of it!! Your frog is about the size of my garden toad and similar colors.
Are these parrots wild? Spectacular color there!

Yes Bower, totally wild parrots that have gotten used to being feed. Could put my hand within 30cm/1 foot of that fellow without him flying. There is a group (extended family?) of them that hang about the are dropping into Mum and Dads and my older Brother and his partner who are about 500m up the road and several other houses in the district. Have always known them to be about up there but they rarely used to drop in for a feed. One year going back 35 or so years now when we 3 boys were growing up, they found the seed potatoes that the folks had out on the veranda. We wound up setting up some boards in a triangle with nails in and feed them potato during the worst of the winter and we could walk around and under the boards to add more potato while there were 20 or so parrots on the boards, either 13 or 16 nails well spaced, so there was plenty of squabbling between them in full view of the kitchen window

Regina Red Micro,

I do not normally grow Micro tomatos, but grew Tiny Tim last year on account of a certain young girl thinking it was "Cute" when seen on a local growers stand. Received some Micro seed and had Regina Red survive the media stuff up. Potted two plants into a 12 inch self watering pot and they are doing well. Been flowering for several weeks and has the first fruit on it.

While at work tonight, one of my colleges walked out side about 10pm and had an unwanted surprise, very nearly standing on a (roughly) 2 foot 6 inch red bellied black snake. The snake ducked into a gap between one of the walls and the footpath and was very difficult to initially spot.
here it is located under a light where I suspect it was getting the odd moth to eat

Wow! Great playhouse. The kids next door love the one their granny got for them, too.
That's a wonderfully fat frog! The snake? Well, I don't know. Poisonous?
I've heard on the news that smoke from Australian fires has traveled as far as Argentina. Are you noticing any effects from the fires? We are worried about you all in Australia and the animals!
And last but not least, 'stuffed up' ? I learned that phrase while watching McCloud's Daughters, a series I thoroughly enjoyed. Also heard the birds (magpies of some sort?) in the background noises in that series and now always know when it is a film made in Australia when I hear them again. You live in a marvelous country. Thanks for sharing some of its wonders here.

Red bellies are poisonous, but unlike the Tiger Snakes, are not aggressive and hence are not really considered a threat by most people. That little one was more worried about me than anything else and I was less than a yard from it. A Tiger would have been raising it's head off the ground in a threat mode, and the Browns of NSW and Queensland would have been on the attack.

Aside from putting the playhouse on stumps, which has to be done to prevent the bottom rotting, gere will be a covered deck go on it over the door and windows, with a raised deck and slide and climbing net on one end, accessed through a ladder in the Cubby.

Stuff up: Aussie slang for gone wrong

Oh yes, I got the slang from how it was used in the show. It wasn't too often that I would have to replay words to hear them properly, either.

Whwoz, is it not a concern that unwanted snakes might take up residence under the playhouse?

GC, Snakes are always of concern during the summer here. As we will be putting the Cubby on stumps there will be nothing under it to hold snakes so they will hopefully keep moving rather than taking up residence

Picked our first tomato of the season, a Yellow Pear. Have lost the plant of "Blueberries", something looked to have scraped away the outer stem layer at ground level.

Picked some Zucchinis yesterday from a plant of Goldrush x Jade Numbat, a cross made in Maffra by Mcsee's (some of you may know him from TV or Ozgrow) wife. These are turning out to be prolific fruiters with one or two fruit per leaf and very few male flowers on them. Yellow fruit overall with a yellow stripe on them, weigh roughly 250 grams for an 8 inch fruit.

Picked a few more tomatoes today, a Bloody Butcher, a couple of Yellow Pears, some Red Mini Roma's and a couple of Old Ivory Eggs.