Chop Chop Chop

Oh what a beautiful morrrrrning, oh what a beauuuutiful dayyyyyyyy......
It's sunny and getting warm, the birdies are tweeting and it can't help but brush away the cobwebs.  My first job this morning was to collect up a barrow load of tiny twigs for the kindling box.  And after the recent storms there is no shortage of twigs and branches lying around, my goodness we have some cleaning up to do!  Steve busied himself with the chainsaw, working on his precious woodpile.

 

We had a lovely sojourn for 24 hours last weekend, visiting our friends Cori and Adrian at their beautiful house in Balingup.  We talked, we laughed, we marveled at the views, we played a hilarious game of Trivial Pursuit, we had fun.  We also went and visited a fabulous place, the Golden Valley Tree Park, website is here - http://www.goldenvalleytreepark.org.au/ It was  glorious, and we saw it when there were no leaves on the trees.  We must go back to the tree park in autumn and see all the beautiful leaves.

Oh yes, before I forget - I've had .a few queries about the fate of Rabbit, the dear little joey who lost half her ear.  Well, she is absolutely fine!  Her ear has healed up completely as far as we can see and she looks healthy and happy.  I was going to take a photo of her this morning but all the roos had scarpered after Steve started up the chainsaw. 

We had a later start to the morning as we were big grownups and went out last night! :-) First we stopped at Due South for an early dinner.

Then we wandered next door to the Albany Entertainment Centre and spent a very pleasant three hours watching and listening to this amazing man.  Tommy Emmanuel can do things with a guitar that others can only dream of.  He plays his acoustic guitar in such a way that it sounds like there is a bass guitar, rhythm guitar and lead guitar all playing at once.  Such talent.  He started chatting to the crowd in the second half which was great, telling us the origins behind the writing of some of his songs, and amused the crowd with anecdotes.  I was amazed to discover that he wrote the theme music for CountryWide, that used to be on the ABC for a gazillion years.  And he wrote it in half an hour!

We are getting right into enjoying performances here, so we've booked our next one already, The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards are coming in November, really looking forward to that one too, nothing like a good set of bagpipes and some kilts :-)

 After I've finished my cuppa I must head back out into the sunshine.  I have work to do in the back garden.

 It's all looking rather lovely at the moment, but it's really overgrown.  I've been loathe to touch it with the clippers but I really must, so today is the day.  Then I think a few loads of cow poo and compost flung around and all will be well. 

 You know how I love my yellow abutilon, and I really don't want to prune that as it's covered in flowers, but it always is and it's looking rather leggy so I must I must I must.  This photo is of my red abutilon that has started to grow quite well now.  I just love the flowers, they look like hanging hibiscus, and the birds love them.  They poke their beaks in between the petals at the top of the flower and drink the nectar.  The yellow abutilon, being very big now, is very popular with the silvereyes and Western spinebills for the nectar, plus the fairy wrens spend a lot of time underneath hunting for bugs.

Most of you know this already but here's one more photo of our new fandangle.... two very nice, efficient men from the NBN (National Broadband Network) arrived and installed a satellite dish on our roof and wired it up to an NBN modem box inside the house, courtesy of the government!  This is because we are in an area that has no plans for NBN internet on any phonelines, we are too remote for that.  We bought ourselves an NBN compatible router, signed up with an NBN provider and all is going well.  We get a lot more data for a lot less cost.  Good one!

To finish up, I have some exciting news.  A while back I mentioned that I'd had communication via this blog from a wildlife artist by the name of Ian Griffiths from Cornwall, UK.  He specialises in parrot paintings, from all countries.  He wrote to me because he was being commissioned to do a large painting of Red Tailed Black Cockatoos, an endangered parrot from Australia, and was trying to find someone who does habitat photography as he likes to be accurate with the trees and foliage the birds inhabit.  I didn't know anyone, but as the Red Tails live in this area and feed in our trees I offered to take some photos of our trees for him, if that would help.  The poor man, I think I exploded his brain as I ended up sending him over 200 photos ha ha.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, Ian emailed me a copy of this beautiful painting.  It's not the commissioned one which he will do later after his studies, this one is his first painting of the habitat.  What is terribly exciting is that I know these trees!!  These are our trees!  This is a painting that Ian will be selling prints of, but what is also wonderful is that Ian is sending us a print as a gift.  We are thrilled and can't wait to see it for real.  We shall frame it and put it in pride of place on our wall.  :-)
Ian's website is http://www.artbygriff.com/  and his Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/Wildlife-artist-Ian-Griffiths-122881387886979/
if you get a chance, do go and have a look at his work, he is a very talented man.