Bear and I were just taking a pleasant, post-prandial perambulation around the block, while being divebombed by half the mosquito population of the area nothing in particular on my mind [ can’t speak for the dawg ] when I was quite suddenly very happy that I was carrying the camera.

Okay… Nice. Peaceful. Rural vibes a plenty. But hardly anything new. So why the happy? How about this next one? I realise it’s not very well focused but it was zoomed to the max and no tripod a family [ tribe? flock? ] of Australian White Ibis Four that I was able to photograph, but five or six originally, and while they’re not rare or uncommon in Australia as a whole, I have never seen more than one at a time here, [ ‘here’, as in, on my own acreage, as opposed to ‘here’: Castlemaine, or ‘here’: Victoria even ] So colour me happy.

Mosquito bitten … but happy

PS Less than four weeks till Christmas. You may now proceed to panic.

and yeah, I do realise this is kind of a drive-by post. Just keeping in touch folks 🙂

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The Joys Of Life In The Bush … NOT!

Personally I blame Nadie

‘T’is she who only a day or so ago happened to mention on one of the Ravelry forums that we hadn’t had any snake sightings so far this Summer.

So  –  of course –  you all know what happened next, right ?

11 am yesterday Bear and I decided to take the wheelbarrow for a leisurely wheel up /over the block towards Pete-formerly-next-door’s side fence to gather some edibles for the goaty girls.

Bear was blazing the trail ahead when his attention was diverted … much the same as it was a week or so ago when he discovered the echidna.

So over he went, leading with his inquisitive little black nose, as dogs do.

What I saw next was The Beariness leaping back slightly as a very unhappy Brown Snake* reared up on its midsection and lunged at him.

I screamed at him to come while simultaneously abandoning the hapless wheelbarrow to whatever fate might befall it.

Bear did what he was told and ‘came’ unlike the last time

I ran with him back down the path to be met at the door by Nadie and The Boy who’d heard the commotion, and we all proceeded to give his furry little body a comprehensive medical exam.

The reality is that, had he been bitten by a brown, there probably wouldn’t have been time to get him  into town to the Vet.

This time we were lucky.

Bear is fine – although a little miffed at being taken out for toilet breaks under armed guard – and the cats are singularly unimpressed at my locking of the catflap.

In a day or so, I’ll relax and go back to my normal level of snake season vigilance

not yet though

and there are no pix to go with the post … strangely, grabbing the camera was the last thing on my mind.

*and before anyone asks, all snakes around here are highly venomous but rarely encountered

and what the heck do I talk about …

for my 1000th post ?

once again it’s been one of THOSE weeks – or more accurately, fortnights.

So much has happened and each day I’ve thought about writing but it just hasn’t quite happened.

So:

here’s the bullet points version with no attempt at coherent segues:

• two weekends ago, Nadie’s BFF Natty came up on the Saturday, stayed over [ hilarity ensued ] and then joined us and a cast of several for our monthly craft day, otherwise- and variously-known as Stitch ‘n Bitch, Sit ‘n Sew, UFO [Unfinished Objects] and/or WIP [Works In Progress] Day.
• Nat has caught the highly communicable quilters disease, S.A.B.L.E. Her family have been warned to watch out for signs of stash accumulation beyond life expectancy.
• I have the fabric, fibre and yarn strains of this debillitating condition and poor Nadie has not only succumbed to these three but also the slightly rarer spindle-acquisition syndrome.
• I WAS going to do a post on the Great Goat escape of 2012, and how The Boy and I bonded over some fence mending.
• Then we had Goat Escape 2012, the sequel, and Goat Escape 2012, part 3
  

  goat paddock to the right, not-goat paddock to the left

• By then I’m pretty sure both The Boy and I were over the whole fence mending bonding experience.
  

  Robbyn demonstrates where the fence and straining wire have parted company

• There have been no, repeat no, goat escapes this week.
• last weekend was Nadie’s 30th Birthday Bash. Major barbequeing was done involving a cast of thousands … er… several dozens … who had voyaged from several points of the compass and distances varying from 4 km up the road to halfway across the state. Friends and rellies helped us celebrate the major milestone augmented by three Japanese Farmstay students.
• NOTE Three teenage boys are three teenage boys regardless of country of origin. The amount of food that they put away was roughly equivalent to their combined body weight. The rest of us just watched in awe.
• Brenda [ of Pete-and-Brenda ] and I attempted to transfer her pair of Guinea fowl into my large cat cage for the trip to Capricorn Cottage.
• One escaped.
• Half the guests were deployed to ensure that we did not have a repeat of the Great Guinea fowl escape of 2012.
• Fowl were eventually conveyed to their new home, much to the amusement/bemusement of the farmstay boys who had to share the back seat with the cage. Apparently the average young urban Japanese male is not intimately acquainted with raucous odd-looking wild fowl. Funny that 🙂
• Bear discovered an echidna down near the road and generously shared his marsupial find with the remaining guests.
• Echidnas are nocturnal and very very shy
• This is only the fourth one I’ve seen here in seven years.
• Sunday morning/afternoon involved a PCCB [ proper cooked country breakfast ] of scrambled eggs – nearly 2 dozen of them – bacon, tomatoes, toast and spinach, a trip to Maldon for a raid on the quilt shop and the Ice Creamery, followed by more quilting.
• Wednesday was Ms Tara’s birthday. She was duly showered with pressies as is her due.
• one of them came in the form of an I.O.U.
• There may have been a modicum of knitting, spinning, baby snuggling, and new kitten cuddling indulged in.
• My week since then has involved cleaning up post-party detritus, gardening, goat wrangling, more gardening, more knitting,
• and after that lot, I’m sure that you now realise why I made no attempt at all at a carefully crafted post.

• postscript: I almost forgot. Dance class started back this week as well. Should’ve been last week but as we all had a funeral to go to, class was cancelled.
• post postscript: Nadie and I took ourselves off to see the new Muppet Movie at the historic Castlemaine Theatre Royal. Great fun and probably the best since Muppet Treasure Island. If you have fond memories of the original show and/or the original Muppet Movie, you will probably enjoy this revisit.