Over the next few years “courses” became a way of life at the Cheltenham Church of Christ. I decided to run a series for people who had been married but were getting bored with it. I used the same principle … Continue reading →

All of my life I have been doing courses. Even during High School I attended classes in athletics, boxing, wrestling, weightlifting, rugby and swimming, in singing, piano and on Saturday mornings in learning the Italian language. I attended evening classes in learning the life and teachings of St Paul and for a couple of years attended classes in the principles of teaching to fit me for Sunday School teaching, and in youth Club leadership for the youth club in which I was involved. Continue reading →

Many of us garden just for the sheer joy of it. My wife gardens because she really loves it, the digging, the planting, the propagating, the weeding, and the harvesting. I do not enjoy most of that. But I love reading about it, seeing it, talking about it, walking in it, and above all planning out what we can do, how we can do it better and how we can make a significant capital improvement to our property. Continue reading →

I have told you previously that Beverley and I are keen on our garden. In the article “Grow Your Own Veggies” I described our two vegetables boxes, waist high and four metres long by a metre wide. That is so that, as we grow old, we do not have to stoop or kneel to tend the vegetables. The boxes are built from thick, rot resistant timber slabs, and filled with a layer of rocks for good drainage, then a thick layer of soil, then a layer of composted soil, then a layer of cow manure and finally some mulch. Continue reading →

Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri’s painting “Warlugulong 1977” sold for $2.4 million earlier this year, which set a new record for Australian Aboriginal art. The sale of Tjapaltjarris’ painting, and others like it, has been part of a remarkable success story, with art collectors all over the world eager to purchase Australian indigenous art. That industry is now estimated to be worth about 400 million dollars per year. Continue reading →

Not long ago we finished building our second veggie box. Like its companion, it stands nearly waist high, is three metres long and a metre wide. We filled the lower half with some excess soil, then filled it to the top with good compost that had come from our recycling bin, then a layer of cow manure and finally mulch. Both have good drainage and plenty of sunlight. Continue reading →

Water is a basic element of life. Our scientific generation can understand water in its three basic forms. It is the only substance of earth that is a liquid we drink, a solid as ice, and a gas as steam. Its molecular structure is the simplest a young student learns: H2O. Water consists only of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen. Yet we cannot make it simply or cheaply. Continue reading →

Most Saturday mornings, as the sun is rising, I set out into my territory, (an area about five kilometres radius from my home), with the pocket full of coins left over from the week and a few notes in my wallet, to attend about a dozen garage sales. The next two hours will bring quite a few surprises. A garage sale is an informal, irregular, advertised event for the sale of used goods by private individuals. It is not a regular sale of goods as in a shop, but a sale of goods being cleared by the home maker. No GST is paid and those conducting it are not paid. Continue reading →

From the time I was eight years of age, until now, sixty years later, I have always kept chooks in the backyard. Chooks and a veggie patch have followed us wherever we have lived. When I was young, we seldom ate chicken. It was expensive meat to buy and when it was eaten it was usually at Christmas time, following a visit from an adult in the extended family who took my late father’s place, sharpened the axe, and killed and dressed a chook for Christmas. Continue reading →

The Major Mitchell cockatoos arrived and started eating all our persimmons. The tree is too big to net, so we picked about eighty of the best. The tree looks like a large orange tree covered in oranges, but they are persimmons. They will go through their final ripening inside without trouble. Continue reading →