Nearly November

Good Morning to all the readers!
  Well. we have a lovely Sunday morning here in Cow Bay today: it is cool, sunny and breezy. My plan is to finish the mowing today. We do have a bit of a bigger lawn than the usual house and I like to collect the clippings for mulch, that is my excuse not buying a ride- on- mower. But it takes time. Cow Bay Homestay B&B has been busy again with lovely and interesting guests, who all seem to have liked their stay with us and the Daintree experience. There have been very VERY rainy days during the last 3 months, but right now we have great weather and I will go to the beach today! In the last blog entry I was expecting vegetables crops; cucumbers were good, but the tomatoes do ---nothing much. Is it too wet, not sunny enough? Maybe the seeds were no good. Hm.On the other hand the basil bushes are rather frightening in their growth...
With the sunny weather we also see more lace monitors or goannas and a skink has taken up residence under the big tree at the front steps, making quiet a bit of noise in the dry leaf litter. As usual the air is full of bird and insect noises ans it is very relaxing just listening to it all.
Got to do the jobs though...
A great to everyone reading this.
http://www.cowbayhomestay.com/

August News

Hi to all the lovely reader of our blog!
Wow !!what a busy July is has been. We enjoyed great and interesting guests, who all seemed to love their holiday up here in the Daintree and even though the weather was not 100%,  but what is a little rain in this rainforest?
I attach a photo one of our guests took, who said the website photos are not as good as what he found. Thank you for the great photo and I hope it will show what it is like in our house.
One problem having nice photos is: the house and gardens change all the time. Not just by myself rearranging furniture but also outside with bushes growing, flowering and new plants going in.
Here is a funny one:
Sitting on the back steps this morning chatting to a friend on the tablelands, a Kookabarra flew right over from the poinciana tree. sailed past my knee !!, seem to hit the lower part of the mandarin tree, dropped to the ground and took off back to the poinciana tree. This is all flying less than 500mm off the ground! And what eye sight!!!.
It was really good though to sit there with him sailing past ;I could have touched his wings.
Well, that is it for now, very briefly.

Have to plant all the vegetable seedlings, which did take despite the overcast weather.Looking forward to tomatoes, cucumber, melons and pumpkin, also bok choy and rocket.
Have a great day, where ever you read this.
Marion

Back Home in Cow Bay

HI everyone!
 Well it has been a 'bit' busy here after my return from Germany. I sort of just coming up for air after doing a lot of cleaning, gardening and painting. We had some great help from WWOOFers of different nationalities. We also had the first guests for the season and I feel we sort of test driven the new arrangements. We pruned back all the gardens around the house and fertilised and mulched, so the winter flowers should do their thing in due course. Initially we still had some rain and the ground was still very soft, but accept for a little rain the other day it is DRY. We even had some great sunny days, but I still haven't been to the beach for some serious sunbathing. Now that things are a bit more sorted and the big jobs are out of the way, I hope to catch up on that soon. A real great event happed though, Rolli a local painter in Cow Bay has given us some of his paintings to hang in the guest rooms, which can be bought by anyone interested. I am very excited about this and hope he will attract some buyers this way. I have a day off paid work today and better get going. Wishing all a great winter/summer- the Europeans certainly have earned their share of sunshine-

Marion

Flying back

Guten Morgen !!!!
On my last Sunday morning here in Brackel, the sun is out, the sky is deep blue and another cold night will turn into a sunny day. Still, I can do without the really cold nights. Thanks to friends and family I enjoyed lots of outings and sight seeing, walks in forrests and parks. All very different from Cow Bay, and great fun.
This is a small area in Westfalen Park with great sculptues and plants to match.

I think I put on a bit of weight and blame it all on the pastries, cakes and sitting around having great chats and soaking up the sun. I may be able to just get the smell of elder in my nose today; the flowering is a bit patchy still, depending on protection from the wind.
Now I am looking forward to going home to Cow Bay!
We were very fortunate to have two articles in the Dortmund news papers.
http://www.westline.de/lokales/dortmund/nachrichten/ln/Marion-Esser-lebt-in-Australien;art1787,117040
http://www.derwesten.de/staedte/dortmund/Leben-am-anderen-Ende-der-Welt-id2871207.html

Photos from Germany

Hi there,

 Cow Bay has been practically under water after very steady rains since my departure to Germany last month, Brian has experienced unwanted cassowary visits on our veranda and he had plenty of other excitements. Meanhwile I had a bit of a time getting used to rather chilly weather, have lots of fun wearing layers upon layers of clothes, called the 'onion look", and have enjoyed lots of visits from and with  friends and relatives. Here are a couple of photos. The best thing are the daily baked pastries....YUM
Enjoy
Marion

3.time lucky?

Hi there,
 after more than a week of sunny but hot days we are having another non stop rain day today, good for the garden I say, as it did get a bit dry. It is like that here, the soil does not hold the moisture well, lots of mulching is a good way to protect plants from drying out too quickly.
3. time lucky? Yes, well, this is my 3. attempt to write and especially have the picture of our new comfy chairs on record.

Hoorya it worked.

I am busy now preparing for my trip to Germany in less than 2 weeks an hope it will be interesting catching up with a number of travel agents, all aussie specialists, to find out more on the current trends for the next year or so. I sure hope the german broshure will help to show them where Cow Bay Hoemstay is and what we have on offer. Well that's it for now. Have a great day. Marion                                                                  

Solar Eclipse 2012

Hello!
 enquiries are coming in for this very special event on 13th November 2012.  Cow Bay Homestay B&B is apparently a very good venue to see this total solar eclipse. Here are links to some sites, which give good information and tips.
Don't hesitate to book soon. Hopefully we will have good weather, which is usually the case that time of the year. Plus there is the Marathon!!

http://www.tourismportdouglas.com.au/Solar-Eclipse-Marathon-Port-Douglas-20.3299.0.htm
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~jander/tot2012/tse12intro.htm

Hot& sticky, the Wet is here!!

Hello,
yep, the wet is here! It doesn't rain so much but the humidity is enough to feel hot and sticky all day long, even just sitting at my desk here. Good thing I can jump into the swimming hole in the creek any time, and ...I do. Just Bliss!! SO cold!! We had some great thunder storms recently, and on Friday night lightning damaged the telephon exchange, with the result that we still don't have a phone right now. Not to worry, I still have the internet and life up here in the Daintree Rainforest is slow this time of the year anyway. We still have some lovely guest arriving though, but even they take it easy. And that is all one can do really.

I am looking forward to my trip to Germany at the end of March; I just hope the weather there is a little milder than it is now!!!
AND: It is now official we have a new decor in the 2. bedroom, called Queen Room ( sleeps 2), when you book. Hope you enjoy the photo and even get to stay in it.
Have a great February.
Marion

Rain, cyclones, discovery

Hi in January,
 well, we have had enough rainy days by now and more to come. Things are growing rapidly inside and outside , and I think everyone would like to see the sun again for a little while.
We had 2 cyclones so far, Neville and Olga, but fortunately both brought just a bit of wind and rain, nothing too scary.
I made a little discovery the other day, under the mango trees, while checking the water level in the new bridge, and found a Scarlet Vine. This is on a very skinny tree, which has just a little top of leaves and the vine spirals nicely with very fluffy flowers from the ground right into the top of the tree. Beautiful and very fragile.
I am busy planning my trip to Germany at the end of March, and hope the german broshure for this will be great, still at the printer right now. The news is that the Queen Room ( sleeps 2 ) is now ready online for bookings starting in June.

Scarlet Vine

Well that's it, best start the generator, there won't be much power coming from the soalr panels today.
Enjoy, what ever you are doing.
Marion