BACK IN THE STUDIO!

VERY HAPPY to be painting,  working on sonja's portrait, and the first of a number of small still lifes, same size as my self portraits - 20x20cm.  days are getting cooler, it's cold in the house and i don't want to be heating it all day so working in the studio is ideal - it's warm, no heating required.

looking a bit dodgy but i'll see if i can

fix it up today

i can't resist a dog in a ute - here at the supermarket

it's good to see some easing up in the isolation restrictions, but i hope people are sensible, we've done so well so far.  i drove over to have a coffee with anne at Tara,  her home.  we sat out in the sun amongst the olive trees and had coffee and anzac bickies :0)

Shirley the dog was busy rounding up the geese 

 sunsets have been pretty gorgeous, in fact the weather in general is beautiful, i'm loving being here in autumn, sunny days that are perfect for outdoors, beautiful sunrises, sunsets,  the moon looking
fabulous as ever

 my iris garden, happily mulched with mushroom compost, rhizomes exposed so hopefully they'll flower well this year

as the weather gets colder the cormorants begin their annual mass fishing expeditions, gathering in huge numbers and travelling down the murray in masses, fishing and leapfrogging over each other, the back of the group flies over the rest and lands in front and they continue this progression right down the river  - you can hear it, water thrashing.
they also fly in huge flocks just above the water, a few days back i saw them from the window, they continued to pass, flock after flock until i could see about 1 km of birds right down as far as the view allowed

 birds on wires, can't resist them either

 THIS MORNING as i sat in bed playing WWF the mother kangaroo and her young one bounced past my window. of course i had to race out with the camera, now i'm back in bed with freezing fingers and toes :0)