Wednesday 25 April 2018

The Mystery Blob On The Floor

 The weather has finally turned, there is a chill in the air and we've had over 50 lovely millimetres of rain in the last week.  Steve has lit the fire a couple of times as the house has been getting a bit cold.  Neo has been freezing, he keeps roaming around trying to find warm places to snooze during the day.  He is very happy in this photo, have you spotted him yet?  Silly dag has parked himself in the wood basket!
 
 A decent amount of rain is not before time.  Some of the big peppermint trees down the bottom have been suffering badly.  This huge tree has split off nearly a third of itself, the leaves are very dry and sick looking.  The rest of the tree is okay we hope, and with the soaking rain we hope the dry, parched trees will recover.  It's interesting how one big tree is clinging to life, yet another, only 10 metres away is as happy as Larry.  Anyway, Steve has been busy with his chainsaw today, cutting this big broken section into next season's firewood. 
 It took him a while longer to clear up the fallen tree part, because he had helpers.  Helpers that got in the way.  These marauding chicken helpers!  They roam all parts of our property now, it is bizarre to find them right down at the bottom near the creek bed.  They are slowly turning over every square inch of our place, nary a bug will remain!  They are pretty savvy, they ran for cover the other day when an eagle was circling overhead, and when they were caught in heavy rain they all stuffed themselves inside the hollow base of an old Jarrah to keep dry. 
 
 But with all that intelligence, they still haven't quite got the hang of their Treadle Feeder!  They know food is in there, and if I put my foot ever so slightly on the treadle and they see it open the lid a titch, then they will step on it to make the lid rise and thus begin to eat, but they haven't quite made the connection yet that they can begin the process themselves.  Apparently they will in time, I hope!
 
 The kangaroos are enjoying the spate of succulent, green grass that is poking through after the rain.  Here is Elsa having a munch.
I came staggering out from bed minus glasses this morning, to make a cuppa, and in the dim light of the living room, noticed something little lying on the floor.  As I can't see a thing without glasses, I collected it up onto a piece of paper, found my glasses and looked to see what it was.  This is what it was, alas he was as dead as a doornail and stiff as a board.  A tiny little bat!  To be precise, it's a Chocolate Wattled Bat or Chalinolobus morio.  We know they are around as if we sit outside just before dark we can sometimes hear the faint clicks of their echo location and see the hint of something flying by.  Apparently they are known as a micro bat, and feed on moths and beetles.  We can't work out how this poor little fellow got inside the house, we can only surmise that as he is so tiny, he may have squeezed through a minute gap at the edge of the bird-proof cat netting around Neo's enclosure and then got inside through the open laundry door.  I suspect Neo may have had something to do with his demise in that case, although there isn't a mark on him.  Neo is an indoor cat for precisely that reason, but sometimes even that is not enough.  I'm sorry little bat.
 Another crochet project finished, an earflap beanie for Michelle.
 I ended up making quince paste with the 4 quinces from our tree.  Everyone raves about it with cheese, to be honest I don't understand the fuss about it.  It's okay but to me it doesn't quite go, maybe I need to try it with a stronger cheese?

Until next time.... xx

Tuesday 17 April 2018

Tamarillo Thief

Michelle popped down for a visit a couple of weeks ago and she brought a cool little fisheye lens that she can attach to the back of her phone for taking photos.  She kindly allowed me to purloin some shots for the blog.  Aren't they great!
 I love the different way it highlights flowers, and the Magic Faraway Tree looks spectacular.  You can see how dry and brown the ground is under the trees.
 The nosy chicken had to stick its beak in for a look too.  :-)
 A few years ago I attempted to make Michelle a moss garden terrarium.  It was gorgeous, moss mounds, pebbles and Steve made a cute Hobbit door out of wood.  It didn't last very long unfortunately, the whole thing was gobbled up by a white fungi.  So, this visit, Michelle brought it down with her and we cleaned it out and had a go at redoing it.  We added a piece of Maidenhair fern for a tree too.  M reports that it has started to get a bit of white fluff growing again, she's opened the top up to try and dry it out a bit and see if that helps.  It's pretty though isn't it.
 Here are Michelle and Steve at Cosy Corner.
 And Steve and moi there too, we went for a little walk on a pleasant, sunny day.
Does anyone remember these?  They are Chunder Buns, a relic of the seventies.  Grated cheese, chopped celery and tomato sauce mixed together, dumped on halves of a bread roll then popped in the oven til melted.  Very yum.
 Here is the cat.  As the weather is cooling off he is constantly looking for warm places to nap.  He'll be very pleased when we start lighting the fire, which wont be far off now.
 This is what the cat has been getting up to in the wee small hours.  I picked a dozen tamarillos from my tree and dumped them in the fruit bowl.  Neo cannot resist fruit that had a stem attached, and in the dead of night will sneak up on the benchtop, purloin said fruit, then amuse himself batting it around the floor. 
 This is the last of the harvest from the vegie patch.  We are thrilled with the haul of Butternut pumpkins, first time we've grown them.  I made a batch of soup yesterday, it was lovely.  I have frozen some of the corn, I've been slack this time and just frozen them whole rather than stripping the kernels off the cobs.  It will be interesting to see how they are when defrosted and cooked.
 I finally made a start on dehydrating apple slices.  This was a small experimental batch, leaving the skin on.  I wont do that again, the skin goes a bit tough.  Since then I've done another couple of batches with the skin off, much better. 
 On the reptilian front, here is Voldemort who has temporarily taken up residence in the woodpile in the shed.  There are at least 3 big Voldemorts in the woodpile, and we have baby Voldemorts!  Very exciting!  There are three tiny little ones, like mini replicas of their parents, as long as a finger and not even as thick as a pencil.  So cute, and even cuter is that they can sometimes be seen riding on the big ones' backs....I am trying very hard to get a photo of that, not yet though, the babies are very skittish.
 If you look closely mid photo, you can just see the head of a baby Voldemort peeking out from behind the wood.  It is trying to get to the chopped grapes I've put on top, but it's not quite brave enough to come out while I'm there.  I need the parent and child photo to give you an idea of the size difference....watch this space!
 My back garden is very overdue for a big prune, and yesterday I did a bit to start.  The birds have finished nesting now so I figured it's time to get on with it  Look what I found when I chopped down a big shrub near the back door.  At first glance it looked like a mound of dried grass in the fork of the shrub, about half a metre off the ground....
 but when I gently stretched open the tiny hole in the side, the wonder and technical brilliance of the (empty) nest became apparent.  Inside it is soft and watertight, coated with various fluffy bits that feel almost like they've been felted, it was very thick and strong and cosy in there.  I am pretty sure this the nest of the Splendid Wren.
 Here's one of the females peeking at me.  Clever little girl she is to make something so amazing.  No wonder she raised four fine children.
 I am very excited to see this bird again.  It's a White Robin, there were three checking out the back garden last week, and it's the first time I've seen them for about four years.  They are quite a bit bigger than the Splendid wrens and a lot shyer.  I hope they stay around.
 These are lovely birds too, the Western Spinebill, that chestnut colour around his chest is just lovely.  He is a nectar feeder, he's sitting on my Abutilon shrub where he feeds often,
 but he will be pleased too that the Bottlebrush are coming into flower now as well.
 For our records, this is the tank water level on April 1st.  It's gone down since then, gosh we are having a dry autumn although we've had a few little showers here and there, not enough to soak in but enough to green the grass a touch.  The kangaroos will be pleased. 
Until next time.... xx