Sunday Selections # 316

Welcome back to Sunday Selections.

Begun way back in the mist of time by Kim of Frog Ponds Rock and now continued by me, with a drastic relaxation of rules.

Originally meant for showcasing old photos lost on your files, never seeing the light of day, the meme has morphed into photos of your choice, new or old, good or not-so-good, anything you please, but nothing rude please.

If you are participating, please leave me a comment so I can buzz along and have a look.
Elephant's Child usually participates, and her pictures are always worth seeing, but EC is currently taking a break.

Today's selection wasn't planned, I had nothing prepared and haven't been taking the camera out much.
So here's what I've been doing recently:

I emptied my pantry onto every available surface, the blue buckets you see still in there are full of moisture absorbing crystals, without them every cupboard in the house has a very musty damp smell and things like clothes could possibly grow mould. I'm allergic to mould, so I've had these buckets since I moved in and buy new crystals every three months.
What you see here in this camera angle is almost all of my kitchen.

this is the rest of the kitchen, opposite the sink is the fridge and that's all there is.
Anyway, I decided it was time for a clean out. There were things in there that I just don't cook with anymore, I've been kidding myself that maybe one day I'll cook and bake again like I used to. After five years here, I know that's not happening, so a ton of stuff ended up

here. Sago, coconut both flaked and dessicated, flavouring essences and colourings, spices, all gone. I even found a packet of Devil's Food chocolate cake mix from 2014 that I'd planned to use as a base for a Black Forest Cake. That's gone too.  There's so much space in there now. The baking pans and cookie sheets got packed away long ago. Some will be used again at Christmas, then they'll get packed away again, just like Christmas decorations.

Away from home, I've been helping with cutting back shrubbery that is wildly overgrown. 

this beautiful white buddleia is the only remaining one of three original plantings, the white, a purple and a pink.
It hasn't been cut back or even trimmed in 15 years. It's huge!

Here it is fighting for space with the Murraya. When first planted, the tag on the Murraya suggested it would grow to maybe one and a half metres. Now, it's as tall as the house and completely covered in

highly scented, hayfever inducing small white flowers several times a year. Planting this was a big mistake. Not only do the house occupants suffer, but so do the neighbours and of course, me. This has to go.

I started with the buddleia,

with all the deadwood hiding behind the facade of flowers.

I soon discovered the gnarly old base,

and the beginning of the path that runs along the front edge of the original, quite small, garden bed.Still a lot of cutting back to be done here and I've filled the wheelie green waste bin twice already.

Further along are the rocks that marked the end of the bed, taking over where the path finished. Years ago, this is where the lawn grew up to, now it has been covered in deadfall and shade so long the grass has long since died. Hopefully I can get it growing there again.

this is the base of the Murraya. Once I have enough space from cutting back the Buddleia, I'll start reducing this by sawing off the branches that hang over towards the lawn. I'll leave them where they fall to dry and then they'll get sawn up and put in the bin. The council takes all green waste and makes mulch from it, so at least it will still be of some use. I hope to eventually reduce it to the point where I can cut the main trunk and (close your ears plant lovers) poison it. Harsh, but necessary, the elderly neighbour doesn't need to keep suffering from something I planted, not knowing the eventual effects.

Now what could this be? A largish lump under the quilt, which moves when I touch it.

It's Angel of course, and when I walked around the other side of the bed to photograph his pretty face,

he woke up and caught me.
Sometime last week, I told Delores I would take photos of the dry foods Angel eats to control the hairballs.

Here are the foods: the blue edged packet contains salmon, whitefish and olive oil  and is for skin and coat conditioning; the black edged packet contains chicken and turkey with cranberry and is for improved digestion and hairball control.

As well as the dry food, Angel eats two cans daily of wet food, an 85gram can, morning and night, containing tuna and barramundi. He used to eat other flavours, but now he's down to this one only.

Angel also gets these "treats". The red packet has Kangaroo Snackers, the blue has Liver Bites. He LOVES them and gets just a few mixed into his dry food after he finishes the wet fish food.  He has learned to wait for them, sitting in the kitchen doorway after eating the wet food and watching me until I get up and reach for the treats.
 With the food and the treats, I mix both varieties in plastic containers, to be sure he gets a bit of everything.

You'll notice the packets are Grain Free, there is no cereal filling in any of Angel's food; even the wet food, labelled "responsibly fished" contains only tuna, barramundi and a little chicken mince along with gelling agents (so it isn't watery),  vitamins, minerals, and Taurine which is so important for cats although I don't remember why. Eyesight? Nerves?
Anyway, Angel is thriving on this diet, with a good appetite and a lush and silky coat, when it isn't all matted with prickly grass seed heads.