Jo's Place and the Garden of Death

G'day All. Here's an update on my recent activities, complete with pictures.

I successfully moved out of my flat, got the deposit back and only had to pay an extra 1/2 week of rent in order to do more cleaning that the (so-called 'professional') cleaning women missed. One of the women had recently moved out on her husband and I traded her cleaning for all the furniture she could use. She didn't take that much and Jo ended up with most of the cooking stuff and made the arrangement for cleaning in exchange. Anyway, the era of the flat with the great neighbour Mark and friend Kath is over and it was a sad and emotional close.

I moved 2 streets over into Jo's shed. She has one boarder and since I'm only staying for maybe a total of a couple weeks in between going to Bali tomorrow and taking a road trip or two on my return, she can put up me taking over her shed in exchange for doing some work around the place.

I thought I'd show you one of the more terrible tasks she came up with for me, pruning the palm of death! The first 2 pictures show the finished result and without injury or death detail of the spikes at the end of the fronds which are poisonous. Jo told me she had pruned it before, getting stung 3 times causing her arms to go numb and limp.

The other pictures are of 'the project' to refinish the owner's valued picnic table and benches, the fern garden and jade tree gardens in the back yard, the back porch. In the view from the porch of the back yard, notice there are TWO BBQ's (after all, this IS Australia) and to the right the brick wall to the garden which I turned over for Jo and the chook pen on the left which is the next picture. Finally, Tasha the 1 year old who guards the entire complex. She is a good dog, but does get bored.

The next post will be of the shed I'm sleeping in for now, but only for one more night before heading out to Bali! I'll update with pictures if I can get internet access otherwise, will have to wait when I return to Oz on the 21st. That is, if I'm able to leave. I just heard the volcano in Indonesia has caused flight cancellations.