Winter Solstice: Colour & Inspiration Tuesday

Desert winters are nothing if not unpredictable

Winter is a funny thing in the desert. The nights are mostly bitterly cold, while the days are pleasantly warm. But very occasionally we get a wind blowing in with heat from somewhere, and the night can stay ‘balmy’ for many hours after sunset. We had one of those evenings on Friday night. While the freezing cold nights (think frozen water pipes) are bug-free, warmer evenings bring small collections of brave new winter visitor species we haven’t seen before. Mostly lazy moths decorated in interesting patterns, like this pretty little thing that reminds me of a seventies carpet rug.

On a tree or a bush, I reckon this little guy could teach the Chameleon a thing or two about camouflage. Instead he seemed to be taking lessons from the Chameleon on standing out. Why let all that wonderful patterning go to waste?

What a load of……

Ummmm….. Ox?

Year of the Ox that is. I’m halfway through the sewing of the Lunarcy quilt and still accelerating. You will have to forgive me if next week is a bust though, as the kids have an itinerant teacher visit for the next few days. All bets are off as to what will or won’t get done.

But, as promised, the top half of the Lunarcy quilt is done this week (except the flower centres). Also, another promise: I am not going to beguile you further with insect stories today. Ok, maybe one butterfly birth. But nothing scary or creepy. How about a short walk around the southern side of Griselda Hill into a slightly damp microclimate instead?

The southern side of Griselda Hill

A little while ago I took you up the tourist track of Griselda Hill. However, Griselda Hill has many faces. The southern side in particular is very steep and protected from heat, and any water that finds its way there lasts longer than in other places. So it’s quite different to the northern side with the walking track. A few days ago we explored this area a little – it is quite rough going, but the discoveries were worth it.

First, as we walked up the footslopes, we looked back across to our house, only to see two emus. We know these guys have been around the village, thanks to their large and distinctive calling cards. But we rarely see them, and certainly not within 30 metres of our back door. It makes you wonder though…. our big windows face the other direction and the emus could be sauntering past our back door regularly for all we might notice.

Turning back to Griselda Hill, the footslopes are covered in native pines and shrubs that are a bit worse for wear from the drought. The landscape is fascinating even so, with lots of colours and textures.

Native pines are not actually true pines at all, even though they look a lot like cypress pines. They are a family of species called Callitris. One of their special properties is termite-resistance, an important quality for wood up here indeed.

A tiny microclimate

Up against the southern rock face of Griselda Hill, the drought has been less effective. The trees are in better shape. And under them we found native mistletoe still in flower.

And there are yakkas all up the rock wall.

Some of the yakkas even have fresh flower spikes. This one actually reminded me of Frédérique’s Australis quilt in last week’s features, with all the little quilted stars in her Milky Way.

Like a lot of arid plants, the yakka has many small flowers in a cluster (in this case on a spike) rather than single showy blooms.

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There was also this interesting plant below, which I have no idea what it is… my gut says it’s a weed, but then my gut is often wrong out here. It has the most curious seed pods.

Heading home

On the way back down the scree, we noticed a native orange tree (not related to citrus (or pines) at all btw).

And pausing to inspect it revealed a newly hatched Caper White Butterfly and the shell of its chrysalis. It wasn’t able to fly yet, and it had a great deal more black on the underwings than I have ever observed before.

Caper Whites are quite polymorphic in colouration, so I don’t know whether this was just going to be a particularly dark one, or whether the wings lighten some as they finish maturing. Below is a much older specimen in a very light version of the more common pattern for you to compare. It was quite clear that native orange is a local host plant, so we’ll have to keep an eye out for caterpillars (no touching – they have little hairs with poison apparently!). When I got home and looked into it more, I also discovered that native orange is also known as the Tree Caper (Capparis mitchellii), and hence the butterfly’s name in the first place.

While I was inspecting the newly hatched butterfly, there was a sudden loud outbreak of notes and song in the dead tree behind me. The culprit of the pleasant but considerable racket was this. Another new to me bird.

The internet says it is a Singing Honeyeater, a very apt name, if not lacking a little in imagination.

So with all those pleasant little surprises, we called it a day. I hope you enjoyed another taste of Griselda Hill.

Year of the Ox Lunarcy Block

As promised I have six of twelve blocks done. This quilt is going to be as least as loud as that Singing Honeyeater!

Disclaimer: Island Batik supplied these fabrics to me free of charge to create the prototype Lunarcy BOM available here soon at Clever Chameleon for the remainder of 2020.

As promised, the latest block is the Year of the Ox.

The next row has the Dragon, the Snake and the Horse. Two of my favourite blocks in the next three. 🙂

Party features perfect for midwinter

Like a campfire on a cold evening, here are our Winter Solstice features to brighten your day and warm your heart.

Visit the links for more information in each featured project.

And a shoutout to Jean of All Points of the Compass to Get Well Soon! Jean has been so kind and encouraging here over the years, and on other quilt blogs too, but now could do with some support in kind. If you haven’t caught Jean’s news, she had a stent inserted at short notice, and hubby Hugh had a mishap of his own. Heal well, both of you, and hope to see you up and sewing again before too long Jean. xx

And now show us what you are working on….

Because it’s Party Time again!

• Link up your latest or recent quilt/sewing excitement. All quilt construction stages welcome – finished quilts, quilt blocks – even fabric pulls! Or inspiration sources!
• You have 50 characters in the link description…. tell us who you are and what your fantastic project is.
• URL links are not necessary to link up…. non-bloggers 100% welcome! If you don’t have a URL, you can link up with just a photo.
• Take a moment to visit some friends who came to the party – leave a little love and make their day. And a link back to Clever Chameleon is always appreciated.
• Do it now……. before you forget!

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