Gerald

Meet Gerald.  Gerald was a squawking baby magpie when we first moved here six months ago.  He is now a gangly teenager, still with lighter tummy feathers.  He used to be surrounded by a family of 5 but they seem to have given him the flick, perhaps turfed him out the family door to become independent. 

Anyway, he has now decided that we are mugs and if he hangs around enough and makes sweet little warbling noises at us, that we will feed him.  Here he is looking plaintively in the window as I do the dishes.  He is very sweet.  I have turned to mush and have even been seen down at the creek with a spade, digging up worms for him.  Only once mind you.

And this is Durrell, his nemesis, who as you can see has no respect for makeshift television aerials and the keeping of an acceptable picture to watch the Olympics.  Durrell is mean to Gerald and chases him all over the place.  We watched Gerald hiding amongst my pot plants the other day while Durrell stalked around the pots looking for him.  We would see Gerald's head poking up over the top the pots every now and again, watching Durrell's every move.  Very interesting watching their behaviour.  I was pleased to see that Gerald had a friend with him yesterday so he is not always a Lonely Larry.

Some of the kangaroos have taken to grazing right outside the shed in the last few days.  We are wondering if this is the joey that was in the massively bulging pouch from a few weeks ago, it looks a lot smaller than the other joeys.  I love how they stop mid-chew, with grass hanging out of their mouths, very cute.

I dug up the sweet potato crop yesterday.  The weather is too cold for them now and we planted them way too late and weren't sure what happened underground.  Not too bad for a first attempt at growing them.  There are lots that are obviously still immature as they are very skinny and pale, but I figure they will be okay to eat, if not a little bland.  I've pulled all the plants up now and taken cuttings ready for the new plants and this time will get them in the ground nice and early.

The house is coming along really well, we've had the plumber and electrician in to do their first fit-out.  Here is a lovely photo of the plumbing pipes in the laundry.  It's been really interesting watching how everything fits together actually, I should think tradies love framed houses as all the pipes and wires can get put within the framework quite easily.  The house is officially at "lock-up" stage now and apparently the next huge delivery of the the rest of the house is arriving on the 20th August - it will be all the good stuff like the tiles, doors, cupboards, oven, bath, etc. 

Externally, the building of the house is finished, all the boards are in place and the roof is complete.  We are now collecting rainwater in the big tank from the roof which is very satisfying.  The plumbers still have to come back to do the septic system but apart from that I think that's the last of the digging necessary.

We have started painting the weatherboards of the house now.  Well, first Steve is putting filler in all the screw holes then sanding it back, then we are painting.  We were originally going to have the verandah posts white as in the photo below....

But we've changed our minds and painted them the same colour as the roof and gutters.  Bushland, it's called.  What a bizarre colour, it looks different all the time.  It's a light khaki colour in reality, but sometimes it looks grey, sometimes green.  But we like it, we wanted a gentle looking house that blends in rather than a loud statement.  In this photo we have barely started painting the weatherboards so the colour you see is in fact the primer.  But the actual house colour is only a little darker than that, if you look at the peak of the side wall you'll see where I've painted the very top, see how it's a little darker than the rest of the wall.  That colour is called Paperbark, another colour that changes a lot in different light.

This is one of the corners of the front patio, that window is my sewing room in fact.  :-)
I love the afternoon sun in this photo, it makes the house look a totally different colour again, but I really like this photo.  It is very satisfying painting the weatherboards, they look so pristine and clean.

 We are taking time-out from house jobs from time to time.  We had a walk on the local beach the other day and were thrilled to watch a big whale frolicking in the shallows, flapping its tail and waving its flippers.  We sat there for about half an hour.  It is such a privilege to see those magnificent creatures.  Unfortunately that was the day I didn't take my camera with me, oh well.

I can hear the spattering of rain on the shed roof, lovely, fill that tank rain! :-)