THINGS ARE CROOK . . .

AFTER I ARRIVED HOME from the south, i got sick - picked up from Etta no doubt because she's coming home from daycare with bugs and wogs as all kids do when they start kinder, daycare etc.  so i had to have a covid test and self isolate for three days waiting for the result, negative thank goodness.  if i'd been positive it would have been a tracking nightmare to trace where i'd been over the past two weeks.  all over the Bellarine Peninsula, Torquay, Geelong and Melbourne, the Grampians and a stay in Wedderburn on the way home.   Eating in pubs and restaurants every day and visiting big op shops everywhere.  Yikes!

good old bob borrowed this nifty little machine from sue and derek and spread the whole large truckload of soil i bought. i now have large new garden areas to plant and i've bought a lot of eremophilas and transplanted a lot of things i already had in pots.  

Walking back yesterday from the newsagent - first time since i've gotten over my yucky cold,  the two lovely black swans at the lock were going through an extreme preening exercise.  They would vigorously run their beaks through the feathers on their backs and wings then duck dive, coming up to stretch and beat their wings in a circular movement, propelling themselves through the water before going through the whole procedure again.

FINISHED! Etta's footie beanie

THE GREAT EGRET has returned to fish from the fallen trees on my riverbank, it's there morning and night but always very hard to photograph, i've managed to creep up on it twice this week

evening

Next morning - we had a beautiful pink sunrise

Poetry in motion

we've had beautiful moons for days now

more visits from the echidna, he hides from

me by putting his head under the chair :0)

DOGS IN UTES  one of the things i love

about living here

SPRINKLERS AND BIRDBATHS the perfect combination for birds to have fun

I've been working a lot in this central garden, installing a new birdbath that's already really popular

at the end of a long day in the garden, a glass of aperol spritz is divine!

    sunrise this morning

 

TIME DOWN SOUTH

 A VISIT TO GEELONG for a doc appointment before my hip replacement next month.  So I managed to fit in a full week of lunches and dinners with friends and family :0)

so many huge

things on the

road, one water

tank took up

almost the

whole width

of the highway

First - a night in 

the Grampians

with Don

Jenny with mockie and his little friend louie on torquay back beach


Highlight of the trip, two days with Sunny, Luke
and adorable Etta

I arrived home to find the birdbaths empty - almost! :0)

SUNSET  -  gorgeous as ever

SUCCESS!!!

ABOUT FOUR YEARS AGO i spent three days saturating a bird of paradise plant that grew in a remote spot of my block, watering and digging to get the whole thing out in a fit state to transplant.  this week i'm thrilled to see this beautiful first flower, now on the front lawn with the river behind it

PATHWAY TO THE STUDIO

IT'S NEARLY DONE - the bricks and pavers are down, now all i need to do is add the sand, brushed into the cracks and dampened down. 

  i'm hoping to get time to start some planting later today, maybe tomorrow

 ETTA - on all fours and ready to take off  :0)

I'M UNDER SIEGE!!

IT MUST BE THE TIME OF YEAR   Everything seems to be on the move. Not only the snake but a fox!  A young healthy fox was lounging on the lawn the other day and only looked at me and strolled away when i yelled and waved my arms at it.  Next day i saw it bounding across the lawn towards the birdbath, luckily the little honeyeaters took off fast. But it appeared again a day later so now i'm about to head off and pick up a cat cage, friend bob says he 'deal with it' when it's caught.

it seems so unfair that stupid colonists brought these beautiful animals out here where they wreak havoc on our wildlife.

Then yesterday i was heading out the back door with an armload of newspapers and bottles for the bin, and almost stood on a brown snake slithering past.   stuff went everywhere and i screamed and froze with my leg in the air, an accident waiting to happen. luckily i didn't miss the step and the snake took off under the house.

these are the little fellas that are at risk and i found a few feathers this morning. 

a new arrival in the garden - i've identified it as a striped honeyeater and it has a beautifully chirruppy song

funny how this little birdhouse hung

here for eight years before the little

wren family discovered it. now a lot

of other birds find it fascinating, this

one is a white plumed honeyeater

the echidna is out and about too, 

i've seen him twice this week

Beautiful moons this week

MY  PAVING is about to start, the pathway is ready and i've been cleaning bricks today.  i have a great pile that bob has collected around the property.  The weather is gorgeous, warm autumn days so perfect for sitting outside mindlessly chipping and scrubbing.