For some obscure, perhaps for secret and mystical purposes, the local Shire Council has placed yellow posts alongside many of the local roads. The yellow perils proclaim the words: ‘Protected Area’, with a tiny little stylised Koala bear with an arrow pointing downwards. They haven’t been in place for more than a week or so. And to add to the mystery I never observed any council workers installing them. The posts kind of, just turned up. Perhaps the little magical elves installed them on behalf of the local government?
Given my property taxes pay for the various activities of the local council, an explanation as to the purpose of the posts might be warranted. In an amusing side story, upon first encountering this mystery whilst driving home from a visit to the local General Store, I turned to Sandra and remarked in my best drawl: “Well, they don’t mean nothing’!” The words seemed appropriate at the time.
It’s such a busy time of the year for our business. By Friday I was in sore need of a day off work. I’m of the opinion that a degree of flexibility with work schedules is the main advantage of small businesses these days. Sadly, the authorities are turning the screws and applying all sorts of pressure upon such enterprises, almost as if there’s the perception that we’ve got nothing better to do. On Friday, there was some work which had to be done, but then, like a bolt out of the blue, a government agency, Austrac, sent an unsolicited email saying that we now had reporting obligations to them. This was all news to me. And yet again, there was no offer of payment for the additional work. The thought of doing even more free work combined with onerous obligations, was producing a headache. Had to get out of there…
Sandra was heading out that night to see a comedy gig with friends, so there wasn’t much free time that day. Still, we bought a tasty old school lunch at a local bakery, had a pleasant chance encounter chat, and then walked around the Black Hill Nature Reserve in the warm spring sunshine. Being snake season, meant staying alert. They’re OK, if you leave them well alone, but otherwise they’ll probably kill you. It was on the drive to the walk, that we noticed that the local council had installed the yellow posts along the roadsides there as well. What’s going on?
Still don’t know what they’re all about, but the brightly coloured plastic looks pretty sturdy, so wouldn’t have been cheap. The quality of the printing looked pretty decent too. Hmm. Presumably there is some unknown plan afoot with onerous obligations for land holders, combined with no offer of resources to meet these demands.
The old brain began considering the matter, and thinking back upon the first encounter, it was near to a boundary line which had a strip of land a few feet wide which was very recently cleared. The road ran alongside thick forest, and because the immediate area appeared as if nobody owned it, townies used to drive up and dump their rubbish. Guess, tip fees are expensive these days. Economists would nod sagely at the rational behaviour whilst describing it as: ‘externalising one’s costs’. Anyway, presumably the land owner was going to install a fence to put an end to the townie rubbish mischief, but who knows? The yellow posts turned up, the work has stalled, and the facts are suggestive. Left a bit of a mess though. I’d initially thought that the two incidents were related, but seeing the posts located elsewhere, apparently it wasn’t.
Thinking about the stylised animal, and casting my mind back a few years, I recall a Koala survey was conducted in the area. The local population of those marsupials seems well spread apart to me, and pretty robust. Elsewhere in the country, the angry little critters are under population pressure, predominantly due to habitat destruction. And I’m not kidding around when using the word ‘angry’. Anything which can consume a toxic diet of eucalyptus leaves and survive, is to be applauded for it’s stoicism, and studiously avoided for it’s famous mood swings. Eucalyptus oil is a strong chemical which can burn skin, and there’s an embarrassing first hand story involving the more delicate parts of the anatomy. Turns out it’s a bad idea to use the aromatic oil in a relaxing bath. Take it from me, that stuff hurts.
So houses, farms, factories, human activities of all sorts, encroach upon Koala territory. But here, looking out the window, there is forest to the horizon. There are plenty of big old trees, with lots of leaves for those cuddly marsupials to get drunk upon, then sleep a lot of the day away. Hardly the Protestant work ethic, is it? Anyway, with all that lazing around and bad attitude, makes me wonder how they reproduce at all! So what gives with the new posts?
The colourful roadside signs suggest to me that change is afoot, with no identifiable direction. So, I’m going to go way out on an explanatory limb and resolve the mystery:
- Stylised Koala in crouching position; plus
- Arrow pointing downwards to the ground.
These two indicators can only mean one thing: Drop Bears! A closer look at the post suggests I’m right.
For those who don’t know, a drop bear is the more malignant form of the cute cuddly marsupial (watch out for claws and appalling attitude). Legend has it that they drop out of trees onto unsuspecting humans, usually tourists, and it’s always the brain which is consumed first. Zombies are bad, drop bears are the whole next level.
A person can only hope that the local council has finally taken the over-tourism problem seriously, by scaring the hordes away using these unique signs. Anyway, if a you read in the news about unsuspecting tourists losing their brains to the drop bears, what with the sheer volume of new signage, they can’t say they weren’t warned!
Drop bears are bad, but then so are the Red Deer, which the dogs and I scared off the property that same day. The large dog Ollie, in particular took the alien incursion poorly.
The cheeky scamps are huge, and it’s like having a couple of horses dining upon the fruit trees in the orchards. They even managed to avoid the deer fencing surrounding the citrus enclosure, by jumping over the lower gates. As an emergency response, we then draped some heavy duty hoses across the entrance so that the height of the gate was increased to over 1.8m / six foot.
Using the hose as a gate height extender was not ideal, and slightly damaged the plastic, which will now no longer enjoy the promised thirty year lifespan. Oh well. Something more permanent needed to be installed, and quickly. Some scrap metal, spare stainless steel cable, lot’s of metal fabrication, and the gate height now exceeds six foot. Dame Plum provided advisory services, then assisted and inspected the work.
For those astute readers, it’s not just you, I’m also wondering whether the deer will attempt to jump through the tiny gap between the post and the gate wire. It won’t end well for them.
There’s been a lot of rain over the past fortnight, and the ground is now quite damp. Some of the storms have been epic, and brought some thunder and lightning. Nature sure can put on quite the show when poked:
Not every day has been wet, just most of them. One sunny day however, we got to put in a few hours on the new path project. The garden bed is now complete. And many power wheelbarrow loads of suitable rocks were brought back up the hill. Some of them were even installed on the uphill edge of the new path. The entrance has now been clearly defined.
Observant readers will notice the small yellow power wheelbarrow just to the right hand side of the above photograph. The soil on the new garden bed was given a good feed of, stuff. We should be able to start planting it out over the next few weeks. And the recent rainfall has been excellent for this process. The video this week shows how the garden top soil is created.
Here’s how all the different materials ended up looking on the new garden bed.
At this time of year, there are simply not enough hours in the day, but at least we have a cache of useful rocks near to the entrance of the new path.
Much of the winter vegetables in the greenhouse were cleared out. We were hoping to collect seeds from them, but with the growing season under way, the summer crop seeds needed to be started in the slowly warming soil.
Alpine strawberries were left in the beds, and we’ve been enjoying the plentiful berries with breakfast. Also the large Babaco which holds many weeks worth of tasty fruit, are slowly beginning to ripen. You know that they’re OK to eat when the fruit turns entirely yellow. They taste like lemon sorbet to me, and are absolutely worth the growing space.
Asparagus continues to go feral. I’m uncertain why the plant grows well in these conditions, but I’m suspecting that having the roots in raised beds which warms quickly, is part of the reason. Plus, maybe the small bag of sea salt we add to the soil in the three beds each year. Presumably the wild ancestors of these plants originated close to the ocean.
With all of the recent rainfall, the apricot crop which survived the recent frost, has gotten larger, with even some blush.
Salad and cooking greens are plentiful at this time of year. The garden beds for those are really pretty too. At this time of year, we enjoy meals of rice, vegetables, massive quantities of silverbeet and a couple of fried eggs from the chickens. Yum!
The potato crop appears to have recovered from the recent frost. Hopefully it is a good harvest because the tubers are in short supply in this country due to the hot and dry weather last summer and autumn. The last price I saw for them was $5/kg. Not cheap.
Onto the flowers:
The temperature outside now at about 11am is 11’C (52’F). So far for this year there has been 727.8mm (28.7 inches) which is up from last weeks total of 682.8mm (26.9 inches)
Comments
47 responses to “Safe Forever”
Yo, Chris – Sooner or later, the bush telegraph will probably reveal the mystery behind the yellow posts. Or, local newspaper? Council website? Or, you could just call them. Although, perhaps, it’s best to let sleeping councils lie. 🙂
Or, maybe someone is “mom-ing” the koala. Wouldn’t want them eating road side garbage. Although with their very narrow dietary habits, the chance of that is probably pretty slim. Other than a yearly date night, koalas are pretty solitary.
But there’s always the possibility of Drop Bears. Now if you could just get the Drop Bears, to go after the deer and eat their brains …
How do you know the unsolicited e-mail, REALLY came from the government agency? The scams out there are really getting elaborate.
So, you have two kinds of deer. Both introduced by the toffs, I suppose. They’re after the iris! That’s an ingenious gate fix. Both the temporary, and the more permanent.
The new path is really looking good. Its configuration very clearly indicates, “Enter Here.” Your cache of rocks? You’re lucky you don’t have to put up with the likes of health and safety inspections. Because clearly, they’re a trip hazard! 🙂 How’s that for mom-ism.
The video was very good. Might as well bang away on how important good soil is. It’s where it all begins. The greenhouse beds are looking all clean and tidy. I suppose you’ll amend the soil in there, with something similar to the video.
Will the apricots turn yellow? Our apricots are yellow. Your salad greens and potatoes are really banging along. Apparently, the little tip of frost didn’t harm the potatoes.
The flowers are really pretty, especially, the chestnut. Any bee action, there? I saw a single, European honey bee, today. We still have quit a few things around, that are blooming. Including my Scarlet runner beans. You’ll probably get a kick out of this article on a very special honey.
https://www.cnn.com/travel/mad-honey-deli-bal-turkey-black-sea
Or I should say, it’s a honey with a kick. :-). Lew
Hi Lewis,
That’s my plan, wait and hear what the bush telegraph has to say about the matter. Whenever calls are made to said authorita, they’re recorded in a what is known as a ‘Customer Relationship Manager’ database, which is basically a list of ‘who done what, and when’. Impossible to claim ignorance when there’s a record… Fortunately this particular road seems to have been ignored for the nonce, and I do wonder if that is because we regularly maintain it? Dunno, really.
Hehe! There’s no way a Koala would pick through road-side bins. That’s not an option. Man, the marsupials barely need to even drink water, and can apparently get by without it, but do need large old trees which themselves have drunk water from the depths of the soil. And funnily enough, the forest kangaroos, the smaller ‘wallabies’ are also solitary creatures which have extensive territory to roam in. I’m sensing a date-night pattern here, and it’s very suggestive as to where the ecology has gone in the past.
That’s an awesome thought about the drop bears eating the brains of the deer. They could so do it too. 😉
Well, yeah, that is a valid concern about the unsolicited email, so I went to the source to check out if it was real. Seems like I’ll be doing even more work for free. It hardly surprises me that the old timers in the profession are retiring, whilst at the same time there is a dearth of new comers. Working for free is just so appealing a prospect. Why wouldn’t anyone be onboard with that concept?
Toffs, yeah, they were the ones which introduced the deer species, purely for hunting purposes I believe. Interestingly I was talking with a local this morning who mentioned that over in the more fashionable western end of the mountain range, there was some talk of a cull. Might have been just big talk, but you never know. Some of the farmers around here do that, but have to shoulder the cost. The forest is pretty thick and much of it is privately owned, so only a very concerted effort – beyond the competency of the locals – would clear the deer out of the forest once and for all. They’re here to stay as far as I can ascertain. I’m just trying to ensure the herbivores realise that the pickings are easier, elsewhere.
Thanks! And it took me a while to work out the gate height fix. It’s an odd problem because the solution has to be strong enough to deter the deer, but not so strong that if the critters try something stupid, they’ll break the gate and injure themselves.
Glad to hear that the entrance to the new path looks good to you. Hehe! Such concerned safety folks can naff off and trouble someone else. 😉 You did well with the mommy warning, and I’ll take your words under advisement.
Ah, the soil in the greenhouse was added to a few months ago, so I reckon it’s mostly good right now, maybe. I believe that the faster growing summer crops will strip more mineral stuff from the soil than the slower winter plants, but that’s a guess. The soil mineral additives in the greenhouse were sort of similar to the new garden bed, but with agricultural lime instead of the dolomite (which has magnesium). Planted a volunteer Japanese maple seedling in that new garden bed today, and so far it hasn’t died. That’s something to be grateful for.
Yes, the apricots will turn from green to yellow when ripe, but a few of the varieties will retain the red blush. Such a great fruit, and we’ll bottle as much of them as possible for winter breakfasts. And that’s a relief about the potatoes and frost. At $5 for 2.2 pounds, they’re expensive. I’ve bought them at $10 for 11 pounds for so long now from the local farm gate (who are also out of stock), the current prices are a bit alarming.
The many wild hives of bees are doing fine, and enjoying the conditions – if it isn’t raining, which it seems to be the case right now. Bees are amazing how they can get out and about and do their thing whenever conditions are appropriate, so I’m unsurprised that you saw one today. Although, it’s really near to the end of the growing season for you. Two or three weeks at best now, I reckon, although hopefully you’ll have some greens in the ground which go into suspended animation for the next few months. Cloches would work really well where you are, and here too. Did you ever see any of the glass ones when you were in the tat trade?
The article was awesome, and how could I forget the many honey warnings from readers due to all of the Rhodies planted here? 😉 Sounds like a chill out honey, unless over indulged.
Oh poop about the DVD! It happens. If it doesn’t work after your cleaning, it’s tech-dead on arrival.
When there was a local hardware store in the closest town, the folks there used to say the same thing when a once per month market took over the streets. Good for the market, dire trading conditions for the hardware store, although they’d have avoided the toilet issue you had to put up with. Not sure how I would have felt about that bathroom demand, and a simple ‘no’ may have been my response – they’re not your customers, so why pander to them?
And I’d not thought about it until you mentioned the issue, but yeah, there is a public holiday for both the football final and the big horse race. Neither event holds any appeal, and being self employed it’s not like I get paid for them either. A few public holidays have disappeared in my awareness, so I’m guessing these new sports ones took over? Dunno. But when I was a kid, public holidays for Easter Tuesday and the Agricultural show used to be a given. The recession of the early 90’s killed both off.
It’ll be about the same weather here tomorrow, but with lots of rain. The sky looks dismal and grey outside now.
It was dry, cool and cloudier earlier, and so we did a shandy day of paid work, and work around the place. A couple of steel rock gabion cages were full and needed sewing up. Also I cut up all of the various steel sections of welded mesh so that we can construct another gabion out of the rain tomorrow (which will probably be another shandy day of work). Right now, we’re rock wealthy, and these things come and go, so it’d be nice to fill up a few more cages whilst the good times roll.
Very funny about the parrot. Yes, all true and Long John Silver has much to answer for. Interestingly, apparently the inspiration behind the fictional character, one William Ernest Henley has eyes that remind me of Nicholas Cage’s. Further reading lead to references of the ‘Immortal Hawke’, a handy bloke to have in a battle at sea. Interestingly, there were references to his contemporaries who’d lost battles and were subjected to court martial and execution. Ook! The thought of that consequence would keep a person sharp, or dead.
And of course, The Orchid Thief. Don’t talk about the orchids, far out! 😉 An early start, and a long career suggests great talent to me too. The title of the Bullfighter book was a hoot. People are interesting.
Thanks so much for the brief text from the book. What a delightful beginning of a journey. For the record, I’ve read it five times, no six, or maybe it was seven. Couldabeen more. Who cares? A beautiful introduction to which we can all aspire too, then fail, and maybe get back up again and give it another shot. 😉 I really appreciate your lovely words, and the inclusion of this astounding text.
The parrots would entrance your good self, and the inmates, at first. Buyers remorse would soon set in as the crafty avian’s destroyed the garden beds, systematically, and with a deep sense of purpose. Drats, another get rich quick scheme foiled. When will our chance arrive? 😉 Back to the drawing board!
It was a fine observation on how a person goes about dialling the serious-o-meter down in group settings. Very cheeky, and I’ve taken notes.
Was Uncle Carl present this time around? H must learn to take the good with the bad, which is of course difficult for a canine.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – But was it REALLY the site, or some bogus mock-up? Why one should never follow a link, from an e-mail. I get phone calls, or e-mails, claiming to be from, The River, my credit union, maybe some government office or another. Usually, outlining some horrendous problem (just to send you up). I never follow up on the phone calls, or e-mails. I go to the source, and discover there’s no drama. The best they get from me, is an eye roll. 🙂
There’s some justice in the more fashionable end of the mountain, being responsible for a deer cull. The sins of the (grand) fathers. But, as DJ said, deer and elk seem to have a sixth sense, as to when hunting season is, and which areas are safe. Hopefully, a cull won’t stampede the deer, onto your place. Meet them with guns blazing!
Speaking of the green house, I might be mistaken, but the small plant next to the Babaco looks like it might be a tomato volunteer. I took H out for a walk, this morning, and just as we headed back in, I could hear rain falling on the dry leaves. I went down later, and the Master Gardeners were here. In the rain, doing a propagation class on multiplying hydrangeas. I got a small handful of cherry tomatoes. Last night, I scattered more blood meal around the Brussels sprouts, and finally got around to laying down some soap chips. There’s still a lot blooming in the gardens. Bachelor’s buttons, and even my Scarlet Runner beans. One lady has Cosmos, in her bed, and they’re still putting on quit a show.
I was aware of those old glass garden cloches, but never ran across any, when I was in the tat trade. I’d often see them in old glass company catalogues.
Before I tossed in the towel and closed, when there were special events on Tower Street, I’d just tell people the bog was broken. The Club has signs on the doors, “No Public Restrooms.” After some “incidents.”
Our high yesterday was 64F (17.77C). Our overnight low was 52F (11.11C). Our forecast high for today is 57F. The rain is supposed to clear off, this afternoon. And, also a nice day, tomorrow.
Orlean also wrote a book about libraries in general, and the Los Angeles public library, in particular. In 1986, a fire tore through their main branch. Arson was suspected. I think the only book of hers I haven’t read is the one on the dog, Rin Tin Tin.
Speaking of dogs, our night manager has gotten a new dog. You may remember, the last one had to be re-homed, due to barking. This one is a Whippet, and on the quiet side. H has met him once, and it didn’t go all that well. But, it takes awhile. I’m sure they’ll get it sorted.
I was thinking about it, this morning, and besides cultural literacy (books, movies), we talk about so many other things here. Plants, animals, history … food. 🙂 Cultural differences. “We cover the waterfront.” 🙂
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/312735/to-cover-the-waterfront-usage#312776
Yes, we saw Uncle Carl, yesterday. H was happy. Carl lives out toward where I did, before here. The boonies. He said there’s been a lot of changes, out that way. Now that I’ve had my truck maintenanced, I might take a spin out that way, just to check it out. If we get a nice day, and I’m at loose ends.
Well, German bread and then French. Apparently, there’s trouble in French bread land.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/08/travel/france-baguette-uncertain-future
When my Dad passed through Paris, at the end of WWII, he was gobsmacked. By the sight of French women (who didn’t shave their armpits, at that time), peddling past on bicycles, with bread tucked under their arms … and the sweat running down. -) Lew
Hi, Chris!
So, according to the hieroglyphics on the post, the koalas have gone underground? But, wow – I see that it is actually Drop Bears. What a scourge. Possibly worse than the Killer Rabbit. You need the Knights Who Say “Ni!”. Actually how about scanning the QR code? Seriously, that is one more horrible thing that you have that I don’t.
I applaud the fix on your gate; nice. Those Red Deer are big, bigger than our White-Tailed Deer, I am pretty sure; probably they can jump higher. I am pretty sure that they will not try to jump through the small space on the gate. They would realize that it would become a case of hara kiri.
You had sounded very business busy lately. Thank you for keeping up with the blog anyway. What do the authorites say is the reason for the extra requirements? Have you asked within the Accountants Guild, like when you meet at the Guild Hall?
Be-utiful rock edges in your video! That’s a lot of wood ash; maybe I don’t use enough. And that’s a beautiful soil recipe. Any ideas of what to plant there?
You have cleaned house in the greenhouse and it looks so tidy. I see the Alpine Strawberries and they look great. Mine are still producing a little bit, but it is supposed to be 28F (-2) tonight (our first freeze), so we’ll see what happens to them. Not much, I expect. The figs have been covered up, but are not in a greenhouse. It is supposed to be 73F (about 23C) again in a few days and they must be kept dormant, but not frozen for now (because of taking cuttings and other things).
Your potato crop looks very healthy. Thanks to you, I plan to plant twice as many next spring. Partly because I am worried about shortages and partly because they cost a lot in the store as I am only buying organic ones now since potatoes showed up in this year’s list of top ten fruits and vegetables that are most heavily sprayed.
The hellebore flower looks delicate, sort of like an orchid. Neighhh! The horsie chestnut IS showy! Can’t top the rhodies right now, though. Thanks!
Pam
Hi Chris,
Drop bears – who knew?
Those are some big deer. Like Pam, we have white tail deer and frankly too many of them though we do enjoy seeing them. Luckily they mostly pass through our property mostly now through winter going from one larger wooded area to another. They have done some damage to a few trees with their rubbing. You may remember that the buyer of our old property is using it to expand their Christmas tree farm. They get a lot of damage. Doug still goes deer hunting on the property to the west of our old property.
We’re still in a drought though got the first snow on Saturday. Only about an inch of slushy stuff which then prompty froze as the temperatures dropped quickly. Parts of the Chicago area close to Lake Michigan really got socked today – up to 12 inches. Anyway there’s been hardly any precipitation for months. The pond and creek at the end of the road is mostly dry though a Great Blue Heron must have found something to eat as we saw it every morning in the small pond (really almost a puddle) until a few days ago.
Have continued to cut my online time drastically and am finding it positive for the most part. There’s more than enough to keep me busy. I have 2nd cataract surgery on Monday which really isn’t that big of a deal. I did the first eye about a year ago.
I’ve also been trying my hand at sour dough bread. What synchronicity – there was Simon’s blog on the same subject. Having a gluten intolerance traditionally fermented sour dough bread is what I eat. I was buying it at the farmers market but took a class at the community college this summer which was only for an evening and mostly just taught us how to make a starter. I’ve made about 1/2 dozen loaves and it’s still not quite right but fortunatly it’s edible and pretty tasty. As Simon wrote there is definitely a learning curve here. Have to say I was getting a bit discouraged but reading his blog gave me incentive not to give up. I’ll get it eventually.
You’ve probably read about the situation here with the immigration police. The Chicago area is one of the regions of the country heavily targeted. The town nearest us where I taught is heavily Hispanic – probably 60% and many are scared. Carla lives in Chicago and said many restaurants are closed or have very reduced hours due to the fact that employees are afraid to come to work even when they are legally here. It’s a very tense situation.
Hope your workload doesn’t continue to increase but that seems the way of the world now. I’m glad and feel very fortunate I’m out of that rat race.
Margaret
Hi Pam,
Whoa! You’re equally correct, and perhaps it’s destined that one day Koala bears will leave the trees, and head to underground bunkers, possibly those already constructed by their subterranean relatives, the wombats. My mind is now completely blown by your alternative suggestion. 🙂 On a serious note, I believe that Koalas and wombats are of a similar heritage. Oh my! So a bit of gargle searching produced some hints that the close familial relations is very true, and then there was that video with the title: How to distinguish between the two, which of course might be difficult for a person who’d never seen, and probably never will see, either forest critter. Completely different looking! But yeah, both are super cuddly looking, but with a strong bite, sharp claws and bad attitudes.
Oooo, great point, and which would win: A drop bear, or the legendary killer rabbit? Candidly, I’d not want to be anywhere near that nasty little encounter for the fur would go flying. Hehe! And that’s funny, thanks for the laughs. Ni! Sorry, just practising there.
I like how your brain works, and in fact did exactly as you suggested from my phone web browser on privacy mode – which hopefully dodged some tracking. Needn’t have worried, the website gave ominous hints, and few if any details. These things are a true mystery, which I seem to have paid for. Is it value for money to warn tourists against the risk of mutating Koalas and / or Drop Bears? Sounds like the premise of some dodgy 1980’s sci-fi film only available on VHS tape. 🙂
I envy you your White-Tailed Deer for their diminutive size. You got me wondering though, how tall are these Red Deer, and the interweb suggests a similar height to the biggerest of your species at 120cm / 47 inches. And to my eye, the ones here look bigger than that. There was some note about selective breeding in this country, so who knows what has happened. A few weeks ago I encountered the largest wallaby that I’d ever seen. Must be something in the water.
Fingers crossed that the herbivores are smart enough not to impale themselves on the steel fencing. And that’s my take as well, it would have that falling upon one’s sword kind of effect, sorry to say. Pam, there are times I wish I could engage in a conversation with all of the various forest critters and set out some boundaries and limits, and then only punish those whom are foolhardy enough to ignore the sensible advice. What can a person do?
Work is something to do with the time of the year. 🙂 And thank you so much for your words of appreciation. Music to my ears, or is it eyes? Whatever. I wish there was a Guild Hall where I could tweak the guild masters collective noses. On that note, today I spent two hours doing ethics training, which yielded not once cent, but was I believe the result of a very large and prestigious consulting firm revealing goobermint secrets. Last I checked, this was not my issue. Those rotters wouldn’t dare poke their noses ’round here for fear of them being tweaked, roughly. 😉
Wood ash never goes out of style when one has access to a forest. Thanks, and I’m very much enjoying this path project. It was wet again today, so work may not continue on that for a couple of days.
A Japanese maple volunteer seedling has already been planted in the new soil, and I should get some of the local hardy ferns in there too. Why not?
Fingers crossed that your alpine strawberries outwit the frosty morning, but my gut feeling suggests that they’ll be fine, maybe. Best wishes for the fig cuttings, and I won’t need to mention rodents. Truly, I’d lend you an owl or four, but the authoritas would get really annoyed with me.
Well, Pam, I dunno much, but I do know that planting those tasty tubers in the same soils, year after year, takes a lot of stuff to achieve. A shame really, because as food they supply everything a body needs. Probably worth thinking about that issue, yeah. This year we moved the lot to a place they’d not grown before. And $5 for 1kg / 2.2 pounds scared me silly. Things are no doubts cheaper in your country?
Hi-Ho Pinkie, the Horsie Chestnut! Dunno where that came from, but it’s funny. Won’t mention that the forest spider orchids are beginning to produce flowers… Ooops. The Rhodies are in their early days, so there is more to come over the next few weeks.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Margaret,
😉 Well, tourists can’t say they weren’t warned of the risks of drop bears.
I dunno whether you recall the restored mansion we visited a year or two back, but apparently it was those wealthy folks who introduced a herd of the Red Deer into this part of the country. Here’s a photo of the pile:
And that rubbing of the stags velvet on tree trunks is a real drama here as well. They’ve killed a couple of decade old olive trees, which annoyed me deeply. Respect to Doug, and I’ve got a long way to go on that front. Oh well.
Whoa! I’d not realised that things had gotten so bad where you are (and Claire), and the US drought monitor map made for some uncomfortable reading. Hope you get some rainfall, and soon. The snowfall would have been nice, although a bit light on for your lands needs. Hope your daughters were unaffected by the heavy snow in their part of your state.
Birds are amazingly adaptable, and glad to hear the heron is getting by in the adverse conditions. I leave a huge elevated reservoir of water for the birds to use all year around. All the birds in the area know about it. The Gang Gang Cockatoo pair that take a drink and bathe each morning and night make for a funny sight. It’s difficult to take a charcoal grey bird with a red head seriously, especially when they sound like squeaky doors.
Go the Digital Detox, and respect. How’s the eye feeling after the surgery?
I’ve missed that Simon has posted an update. Thanks for mentioning it, and I must rectify this matter, he’s got authority as he makes a pretty good dark rye loaf. After a delightful lunch a few years back, the Editor now emulates this rye loaf whenever I’m elsewhere for the day. It’s true too, all of this stuff is complicated, and respect for your stoicism. If I may suggest, it might be worth trialling different bread flours as they’re not all the same. Nope. High protein flours may work wonders with your starter, although take longer, but be much easier on the digestion. As a civilisation, I can’t recommend the many unusual practices we’ve done to the humble bread wheat plant merely for convenience.
Ah, things are tense in your big smoke, and we’ve heard about the goings on down here. Yup. May I remind you, that it was only a few years ago that I had the fun experience of regularly having to show my papers and identification to heavily armed persons, whilst having my movements questioned. That went on for almost two years. Hmm, I comprehend the fear and difficulties, and can only suggest that it is a wise practice to have one’s paperwork in order – and convenient to hand at all times in public, and with backups. The times be strange, yup. Once I forgot my paperwork and was in a bit of a state, let’s put it that way.
As people leave the profession, and are scared away from it, there’s less people to do the work. Dunno what to make of that.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Very wise, and of course I followed your most excellent suggestion to go to the source. Appears that the demands for my free work are real, and it’s about anti-mad-cash-laundering. But I don’t deal with anyone who does stuff like what was being suggested on that inertweb site. This of course does not suggest that I can avoid reporting to them, with serious consequences for getting things wrong. It bothers me how little room for error there is with all this stuff nowadays, and the things I see which I can’t write about on this, or any other public forum.
I hear you about the eye-roll, and am doing my best on that front, but the demands in this case are all too real.
Your amusing observational powers are in full display today! Well done. In the reply to Margaret, there is a photo of the nice pile that the alleged deer introducing folks lived in. They weren’t broke, put it that way. 😉 The state goobermint restored the mansion after the Catholic church used it for many decades as a monastery. It’d been a bit run-down apparently, but now is beautiful inside.
And yeah, the deer will go where they are not hunted, and that’s why they’re here now as you rightly guessed. Some farmers culled the herd a few years ago, so they sought refuge in the nearby forest. But they have to keep moving with the available food and water. If all the neighbours don’t get together and sort out the deer, then it’ll be like playing a game of whack-a-mole.
Correct! The small plant next to the Babaco is indeed a volunteer tomato seedling, but get this chunk of weirdness – it germinated in autumn and then went into serious shut down during winter, before now starting to grow again. I’ve never seen a tomato over-winter before and wouldn’t have believed it to be possible. It’s not like the greenhouse is heated. By the way, last I checked it was 3’C / 37’F outdoors. What’s going on here?
Thought it had been cold recently: Melbourne shivers through coldest November day in 80 years Today was filthy cold and wet outdoors, but with odd intermittent patches of sunshine.
Go the master gardeners sticking with the propagating course despite the rain. Were you tempted to hang around and learn? You’re having a good tomato year getting fruit this close to the start of winter. That can happen here as well, but by June it’s game over man. Any further deer damage to your Brussels sprouts? Cosmos are delightful easy going flowers, and they do well here too.
I’ve never seen glass cloches either outside of old photographs. Probably one day I’ll have to make those much larger boxes with clear lids which are in effect mini-greenhouses. Like the ones in that Victorian Farm series. We were talking today about the logistics of milling up some of the trees for lumber. Might need a lot of planning to do that activity.
Hehe! Yeah, those sorts of ‘incidents’ you mentioned were of the type which would make me post such a fake toilet sign as well. Nice solution too, Sun Tzu would no doubt approve of the strategy! People can be careless with such commons, and this seems to be more something of recent decades. I don’t recall public bathrooms being filth-pits when I was a kid.
Ha! It was warmer in your part of the world today. Far out it’s cold here tonight. Brr! It’s warmed up a bit, and is now 4’C / 39’F. Not quite shorts and t-shirt weather though… Hope you and H enjoyed some late fall sunshine on a walk.
Did paid work today. And got a two hour compulsory ethics course out of the way. There’s a story there. Some big consultant in the profession is alleged to have divulged goobermint secrets they were working on to clients for possibly selfish motives. So now, rather than them being probably chucked in the slammer, everyone in the professional body has to do ten hours of ethics training over three years, which is audited. I do wonder if these folks appreciate that I have to earn a living.
There’s a special place in the underworld reserved for folks which burn libraries.
My memory of the barking dog incident has sadly vanished. Age is a hard condition, for there are things which are in wanting of remembrance, and now utterly forgotten! H is probably full of youthful high spirits, and the whippets I’ve encountered over the years are a bit anxious seeming. But I reckon that breed could run hard. Like you’re saying, I also reckon they’ll be fine. H was probably setting herself up as the alpha dog in that relationship.
Although some dogs are naturally aloof. Dame Plum tends to ignore all other dogs (outside her immediate pack) as if it was beneath her dignity to acknowledge them. Mind you, she’ll crack it if they’re rough with her.
We do indeed go places, and truly, I never know much in advance what I’ll write about every Sunday night. The Editor is forever telling me to write something which is funny, so I do try to make her laugh, at least once each week. 🙂 Thanks for the link to the phrase (which I’d never before heard used), and even the many opinions expressed could ironically be described as ‘covering the waterfront’. And I also learned that the Cold War (… ran on long presentations). A very amusing observation, also proving that not much has changed with that lot!
Yep, housing estates are spreading over the land down here like a bad case of the pox too. I’ll be very curious to hear what you say should you decide to go on that adventure. Sometimes it can be confronting to my senses those types of journeys.
All depends I guess on how intimate a person is with the youthful French ladies. 🙂 The world is a strange place, and some folks may pay a premium for the bread. Personally I’d prefer the Vietnamese approach to locally distributing freshly baked baguettes which involved bicycles and clean looking baskets for the bread. Far less chance of encountering unusual flavours at certain points in the long loaf. What was interesting to read was that the baguette is a fairly recent innovation, and there is a return to much older styles of loaves. I tend to bake a heavier and denser multi-grain loaf and it fuels me for more of the day. If I may add, dudes don’t eat enough grains.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Chris,
Yes, cold and dry here. The low was 25F yesterday morning, 23F this morning – and it isn’t winter yet. We have some autumn color remaining, though less than last week following two cold windy days, along with today’s less cold winds as a warmer air mass starts to move in. We got some rain in October but none so far this month, so we are stuck in moderate drought. Maybe some rain late this weekend or early next week? Please? Asking for the trees …
The yellow posts are both intriguing and disquieting, since their installer and their true purpose remain unknown. I’d not heard of drop bears (apparently I don’t get out enough), but at least I haven’t heard of any around here – so far. The brown bears are bad enough, and they are encroaching upon the metro area. The white-tailed deer are already eating my vegetables; the brown bears may have an eye on the fruit in my fruit trees.
When the wind drops to a manageable level tomorrow, I’ll start raking some leaves to mulch the allium patch and to save for making the next few batches of compost. Today I’m staying inside!
Claire
Yo, Chris – Surely those yellow posts are made out of recycled plastic? 🙂 One might inquire. Might cause embarrassment, in certain quarters.
Which blog is Simon’s? I also keep trembling on the edge of the Wonderful World of Sourdough. I have a small bottle of dry starter, that I got from Nichol’s Garden Nursery. I keep moving it, from here to there. Such a commitment! Like having another pet. I wonder if I’ll have to pay the pet deposit $100 fee, to the Institution? And, I’m not supposed to have more than one pet. I might have to give up H! Although one woman here has two dogs. Claims their emotional support dogs. Yeah, sure. Maybe I can claim the sourdough is my emotional support pet.
The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, might come in handy for the Drop Bears and Deer. Check at your local Catholic Parrish church. They might have one kicking around.
It’s good you had the ethics training. You won’t be tempted to divulge a secret desert recipe or a copyrighted coffee combo. 🙂 Organized crime is deeply into coin op launder mats and adult entertainment book stores. Due to the mostly cash basis, they can launder a lot of money. Through the launder mat. 🙂 There was an ongoing story, on “Young Sheldon.” Grandma bought a launder mat with a video rental store, next door. And ran a gambling operation, in the backroom. Both the Accountant movies has quit a bit about hiding or stashing money.
Someone mentioned birds. I’m currently reading “Birding Under the Influence: Cycling Across America in Search of Birds and Recovery.” (Anderson, 2023). Birders have this thing called a “Big Year.” They travel around North America, and see how many species they can spot and rack up. Usually, it’s done by flying around, or driving. This guy decided to do something, that hadn’t been done, before. He did his Big Year, on a bike. It’s pretty interesting. Not only the other birders he met along the way (who tend to be a pretty gregarious and helpful group), but also other interesting people.
Monks seem to be hard on buildings. 🙂 Or, perhaps since a lot of them run schools, the students. That pile looks like the pile in “Downton Abbey.” Or, the piles in either of the “Brideshead Revisited,” movies.
There were deer tracks in my garden, this morning. Apparently, maybe, the blood meal and soap chips have put off the deer. The plant is accessible from a path, on that side of the garden. But, it looks like the deer was trying to reach the other side of the plant, where I really can’t reach. Looks like, neither can the deer. The way is blocked by large tomato plants and cages. 🙂 Hubris, hubris.
That’s quit a cold snap, in Melbourne. There won’t be much swimming at St. Kilda, today. Our midwest and east coast is also experiencing a cold snap. Margaret mentioned some of the results. Our high yesterday was 55F (12.77C). Our overnight low was 37F (2.77C). The forecast high for today is 53F. Today will be the last day for dry walks, with H. The rain is coming back, early in the AM, tomorrow. And, it will rain as far as the forecast goes.
My uncle, who had a small farm, had cold frames. He made them out of old windows. The Master Gardener propagation instructions looked pretty simple. Take a cutting, in the right place and at the right angle, dip in rooting hormone, and put it in a pot with really good soil.
When you were a kid (as, with I), a lot of public bathrooms had attendants. Gone, now, along with a lot of other maintenance costs.
Our night manager had a little dog named Suzie. One of H’s buds. But Suzie was a barker, and no matter what the night manager tried, Suzie continued to bark. There were complaints. So, Suzie had to be re-homed. A sad day.
My father remembers very little of Paris. He was on a troop train, and remembers entering the outskirts of the city, and then everything is a blank, until he woke up on the troop ship home. 🙂 So, about a week fell down a black hole. But, he had some interesting phrases. I found out from my high school French teacher, what they meant. Luckily, my French teacher was a nephew of the author Christopher Isherwood, and a “man of the world.” The phrases later popped up in a very popular pop song.
T minus two days and counting. Til inspection. Oh, I’m not too wound up about it, as all the major furniture moving has been done. And they really don’t care about dust, and stuff like that. But last night I cleaned out and organized my pantry closet. In practice, as long as the sliding doors move freely, and nothing falls out on the hallway floor, it’s ok. But it was a mess. I keep my canned goods, in there, and boxed stuff. Also, any tools I have, canning supplies and my gardening stuff. It’s hard to organize, as the shelves are very deep. Can’t see, and almost can’t reach, the stuff in the back.
After that, we went down to the Club to take a break and get a cuppa. Will probably do the same, tonight, as I need to swing past the Yuppie Discount store, for a few things. Jane won’t be there, tomorrow. She’s having a little bit of surgery, unconnected to the cancer. Lew
Chris:
This Yellow Post thing is quite a drama, and rather inscrutable if one can’t read hieroglyphics or doesn’t have a smartiephone. I’ll bet one in a hundred people don’t try to figure out what the darn things mean and so we can expect the local medical services to be overwhelmed once the bears start dropping. And I would not have guessed that koalas and wombats are related. If the truth be told, when I was a little girl someone gave me a stuffed koala – not a fake plush stuffed animal, but a real, not-live koala. I loved that thing and wore it out carrying it around.
I would not say diminutive. I looked it up and our White Tail bucks weigh 200 or 300 hundred pounds. When they are randy in the autumn, I steer clear of them (even without a car), whereas at other times I might shake a finger at them or bark. It said that your Red Deer stags weigh 350 to 530 pounds.
Try carrying that out of the forest. That’s a lot more meat, though.
I have had many a talk with the forest critters. I don’t think they speak English. If not that, they’re all just mutton-headed.
Methinks somebody is getting a biggerer paycheck than you, and it’s their ethics I question. Did you learn anything you didn’t already know?
I’m used to buying the organic potatoes now, but I think I used to buy a 5 pound bag of standard, sprayed potatoes for $5, pretty often on sale for $3. For organic ones, I pay about what you are paying.
I expect Pinkie “Hi, Ho’d!” because he is so used to you riding him in fox hunts, which they still have in my county, though I think that there are only two Hunts left now. There used to be more. It is probably much harder to get access to open ground these days. We still have steeplechase races, too.
It got down to 27F (-2.7C) this morning. That did in the morning glories (I had 40 feet (12m) of fence covered with blue morning glories, still blooming a lot) and the zinnias. All the greens look fine, but I forgot to check the volunteer potatoes that I have been watching. The figs seem okay, too.
Pam
Chris,
Okay, you’ve brought up several things this week. Yellow signs appear mysteriously. How? When do koalas have time to reproduce? Will the red deer be stupid enough to try jumping through that tiny slit? And the deer themselves were wondering if Ollie will be friends with them. So many questions and mysteries! Naturally, I have some opinions. 🙂
As far as Ollie and the deer? Well, yes, of course he will be their friend! It simply depends on the relative definitions of “friend”. If the red deer think that Ollie will be all nice and cuddly, they might be in for a rather rude awakening. I’ve seen how Dame Avalanche is a “friend” with things she has caught. She is having a great time with her new “friend”, but typically the lifespan of said “friend” has seen a rather dramatic reduction in its length as a result. 😉 And feasting on said “friend” might be involved. My guess is that Ollie would view the deer similarly to Avalanche’s mouse and squirrel “friends”. In fact, something primal would likely take over and Dame Avalanche might lead the, er, “friendship attempt” were she there with your Kelpies and Ollie. Red Deer look like food to those wild canines after all.
Will those large deer attempt to jump through that smallish slit? Hmmmm, my answer is another question: do drop bears eat brains? Of course they will try. They might even be successful. Or it might give them incentive to try to jump over the 2 meter tall fence. Don’t be surprised either way.
Then, well, that difficult question of koalas and reproduction. There are two possible answers. One is that those signs were telling you that koala seeds are planted in the ground and some weeks/months later a baby koala and its mother pop out of the ground. The more mundane possibility is “Those who know, know.” 😉
Finally, the purpose of those signs. I just hinted at one possibility, that the signs are locaters for where koala seeds have been planted recently. Another possibility is that the signs are there so that people will call up the wildlife folks to ask what the signs are for. That means that there will have to be people available to answer the questions. So, some people got jobs placing the signs, others get jobs answering the questions about what the signs are for. Job creation!
Then there’s the imagery on the signs. Either, as alluded to above, the sitting koala atop the arrow represents where a koala seed was planted. I have another theory. Perhaps that is simply a visual aid for the sign installer. The arrow POINTS down so that the “pointy end” goes into the ground. It is then pounded in by the specialized hammer, which is constructed in the shape of a sitting koala. So, pointy end on the ground, koala hammer pounds on the bluntish end and the sign goes in. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
How the signs suddenly appear is one of those unexplainable mysteries of the universe. The question and the answer cannot be known simultaneously in any single space-time continuum. Otherwise, the wave function would collapse, and we would most likely all cease to exist.
Your drop bears remind me of an episode from the Winnie the Pooh stories. Pooh and Piglet are walking through the hundred acre wood. Suddenly, they her a voice yelling “Halloo!” Pooh finally decides it belongs to a jagular, because that’s how jagulars get the unsuspecting walkers to stop walking, then the jagular drops out of a tree right atop the unsuspecting walker. Dunno what was supposed to happen then. Jagular, drop bear, similar idea.
More rain off and on the past few days. It was foggy today. After a busy Monday afternoon of errands galore, neither the Princess nor I wanted to be around people today. We both needed down time. Reminds me of my working days when I would write on the erasable board “I can’t people yet.”
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
Inscrutable is such a mysterious word. Last night a vivid dream interrupted my otherwise quiet repose. A very old friend hails from Hong Kong but is Aussie-as having been in the country for almost five decades, and in the dream we sat in a Japanese restaurant, which was clearly located in an inner urban area, because from out the windows you could see the towering apartment blocks. At the table we were joined by the chef, and discussion revolved around the subject of sake (Japanese rice wine). Candidly I woke in fright, and the memory of the ghostly visitation from earlier this year was very much at the forefront of the mind. Hmm.
🙂 That’s really sweet and Koala’s may be grumpy, but they look super cuddly. Had a stuffed Otter my grandmother (the nice one on my fathers side) made, and still have it.
Of course, sorry about that and thanks for the correction. 🙂 300 pound critters are not to be trifled with. The young rutting snakes in spring have that similar problem, and your solution of avoidance is my take on that local situation as well. All very true, and whilst we may not have a metaphysical steering control thingee for our lives, maybe the best we can do is nudge the life’s ships wheel here and there, a bit. Events have a ponderosity to them which is hard to push against, and why risk injuring ourselves even trying?
Now that is a problem I’ve considered, and would have to use the heavy duty steel towing chain (I think that is what it is called) and drag the carcass down to the forest edge with the 21hp mower. It could pull that weight, just. The dogs would be a nuisance, for at least a few days. There would be no waste though.
Agreed, the forest critters act as if they’d not heard a single word, but then you see a glint of comprehension in their eyes and a look of defiance. Like today, a young roo mum and her adolescent joey were lounging around on the grass enjoying the afternoon sunshine. They know not to be here during the daylight hours. Those two have been regular visitors for many years, they know.
Alas I’m unable to answer that question due to legal considerations. 😉 Did more ethics training today, and it was a farce. Possibly the five presenters got paid.
🙂 That’s funny, but yeah, such things do go on but are falling into the less fashionable realm due to the demise of the rural aristocracy. It’s all tech-bro now, and they probably do such things in the virtual world.
Yup, such cold mornings suggest that the end of the growing season is nigh for you! Figs are tough trees, and hope you get them all under cover for the winter to come.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Claire,
Far out those are some cold frosty (?) mornings, and I wasn’t going to say anything about winter not being even there yet. The old timers used to quip from around these parts that ‘dry years, are cold years’, and I’m in agreement with that wisdom. The rain here tends to turn up in large amounts of late, then not much, rinse and repeat. Hope you get some rain and moisture into the soil before the soil freezes.
There was a Koala survey conducted a few years ago, and at the time there was loose talk of slapping on an additional planning scheme overlay onto properties. Truly, the marsupials have no interest in such legal matters and only require large healthy trees with deep root systems. It’s not too much to ask that the forest is cared for, is it? I have a hunch that the yellow perils are a demand to do-nothing, which makes no sense, thus why I never participated in the survey in the first place.
Well, now you know about the risk of drop bears. Can’t say you weren’t warned… 😉 Oh my, Claire, the thought of having brown bears roaming around a garden would give me an attack of the vapours. Cuddly and sweet looking, yes, deadly, a real possibility. Did you know that during the shut downs from you-know-what, deer occasionally roamed through some of the inner city streets? Almost post apocalyptic watching the images of those scenes.
Cold winds chill a person, and those are my least enjoyable outdoors days. Hope the winds die down a bit and you can enjoy the soil building activities!
How did the growing season work out for you this year?
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Man, that’s what I wonder about as well with those marsupials, but then I guess all of them are consuming a toxic diet of eucalyptus leaves and might believe that a hazy sort of outlook on the world is normal. Candidly, long ago I’d read that our ancestors, the ones from that small island, used to not realise that it was a bad idea to pollute the waterways with err, human wastes. Thus the habit of imbibing cider instead, and well, the facts of reproduction need not be investigated under those conditions, because after all, we’re here today.
Ah, thank you so much for considering and resolving the Ollie / deer / friendship conundrum, and thus providing us with the definitive answer to end all answers. In this instance, it might be impolitely reduced to the simplest form of: ‘It won’t end well’. Agreed, Dame Avalanche would be a champion and show the fluffs how things are done properly, although Dame Plum knows a thing or two. My understanding of the local deer is that dingoes form a pack, and then drown the deer. Canines are clever.
Far out, I do hope that the fencing is tall enough to deter those pesky herbivores. There’s plenty of other stuff to eat, the focus on the plum trees is an unseemly obsession which only serves to embarrass us all. 🙂
Oh no! A totally new monster – the dreaded Koala seed. Whoa! My mind is now completely blown away, and respect for unearthing the clear and immediate threat. And agreed, now you’ve told me of this, there’s no going back. Ever after, there’ll be a before moment, then an afterwards where the world is just kind of different seeming. No wonder I never saw anyone putting all those signs in the ground…
Hehe! Did more ethics training today and earned a total of zip for doing so. Thus your observation as someone else getting the paid job for the same, is only too true for me. 😉 Job creation indeedy!
The specialised Koala shaped tool for the signage is possibly the way things rolled, and you’ll get no argument from me. But! Who gone and done it? That’s another question. There’s so many loose ends with this unfolding drama, and hopefully it is not one of the 99 cogent reasons for the decline of Western civilisation. Yes, the Koala seed years will be talked about in hushed tones by historians long into the future. The invasion was only just the beginning… Did I rip that line from a movie trailer? 😉 Should copyright it if not. Our fortunes could be made?
Ah, quantum physics has fooled us all again, well maybe just some of us, a list in which I’d include myself if only because it involves talking about subjects which are way outside of my depth. Ook! Man, I’m drowning in these heady technical waters. 😉
Jagulars are cut from the exact same cloth as drop bears, and I am unfamiliar with the Pooh Bear world, although the character was apparently introduced as a concept around the same time as the local legend came into being. Hmm, makes a person wonder. Hey, some cheeky wag even gave the drop bears a Latin cognomen of Thylarctos plummetus. Very amusing.
Glad to hear that you’re getting some good rain before the ground freezes. The trees will definitely appreciate that gift. Respect for knowing when to take some down time (and in the long distant past I’ve failed in that regard, oh well, learn and move on, as you do) and trust that it was good for the internal batteries.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
I like how your brain works, and yeah, that’s a good question to ask about the use of recycled plastic. Certainly it will make some folks uncomfortable, and I’d not thought of that Sun Tzu approach. Hmm.
Simon’s blog on the subject of sourdough bread is here: Give us this day our daily bread. The title, I’ve heard that line used before, and always assumed it harks back to the ancient Roman, bread and circuses gig? But truly don’t know, the meaning of bread may have changed over the millennia, and it could well be a metaphor. Requests for daily circuses on the other hand doesn’t really sound like it will fulfil a basic human need, and frankly sounds all a bit weird when spoken quietly.
Man, starters are like having another pet, and that’s a great way of putting it. They have to be fed and maintained. And who knows if the local yeasts are any good? The wild one’s here we’ve tried are terrible, and you should see what they did to a batch of apple cider years ago. Not good. However, we’ve used a lot of bakers yeast, and I can’t say it any more, but also champagne yeast (now referred to in these PC days as sparkling white yeast) over the years, that those two will be out there in the local wild cultures… Need I mention San Francisco sourdough bread, and it was probably so named for a very good reason.
Hehe! You could give it a try. Someone had a service alligator, and that was beyond my understanding. A starter culture would be less problematic don’t you reckon? And yeah, people make all sorts of claims to get around rules.
Surely nobody would ever asked for such a thing at a Catholic church? Maybe… The day was all going well, until someone asked for the use of the Holy hand grenade of Antioch!
Pah! We had to do more ethics training this morning… Oh well. This time was a total farce. The first couple of minutes were lost due to err, technical issues, as in there was no sound. I almost felt like writing a complaint to them about using software which does the intended job, but then they might make me re-do the course. So I decided in the interests of ethical-pragmatism to let the matter rest there. See, I’m learning!
Fortunately I have no involvement with cash heavy businesses, thus avoiding the entire issue. 😉 Learned my lesson there a quarter of a century ago and have no desire to ever encounter such things again.
Presumably some folks in recovery take themselves out of their usual habitué, so the guy was possibly onto something there with the years journey. Birders are nice folks, or at least the one’s I’ve met are. To be honest though, it’s a bit like mentioning the orchids due to the sheer diversity of avian’s here. Collectors of records may soon follow.
The photos I saw of what the mansion looked like when the state goobermint took it over, did not suggest that maintenance was a high priority. In between cogitating upon the divine ineffability, one must first see to the leaking roof. Long ago I took guitar lessons, and the bloke told me that even longerer ago, he used to take piano lessons with a nun. The story went that she’d whack his fingers with a cane whenever an incorrect note or chord was played, and he lived in terror. Thus why he played guitar. Quite a talented musician. And you’re not wrong, the original inhabitants were clearly well off.
Ook! Hope the deer continue to be foiled in their activities at your place. Not a fan, and perhaps the tomato leaves are toxic for deer? Wise to acknowledge that your words may be overheard, but I reckon there’s some benefit to pointing out the hubris elements so as to deflect undue attention.
And who can ever understand the mind of one of those polar bear swimmers? However, for all we know, they may be training for the unlikely scenario that they, one day in the far future, will find themselves on a ship sinking in the Atlantic Ocean? Or! That episode could have been in a past life, and now they’re beefing up that side of their skill set? So many questions, so few answers…
Did you two dodge the rain today? The weather was glorious here, and during the middle of the day we took a break and constructed a new steel rock gabion cage. There’s a lot of rocks to re-home.
I’ve never seen cold frames in use, but they’re such a good idea. I’d have to work out some way to keep rats and mice out of them because they’d see the insides as a winter home. Never figured that bit out.
That’s actually true down here as well. The bathrooms in the city and in city shops did have attendants, and the places were always clean and orderly. You’re right, the loss was about reducing costs. Like gas station attendants – remember those? Fill ‘er up, was the general instruction.
Alas Suzie was unable to bend with the circumstances. It happens. The dogs here are usually pretty quiet, although I do have set times when they can ‘get it out of their systems’. Ollie was just having a good snore in his dream with legs flouncing around, as canines do.
Ah, yes, what happens in Paris, stays in the city. Understood. 😉 A lovely way to learn a language first hand, and always handy to have some ready phrases for just the right occasion – which may not include polite company.
I’ve noticed that too with deep shelves. Things can get lost in the general inky haze of the murky depths. However, I should add that neatness is a lifestyle choice here, but we do probably have a lot more storage space than your arrangements, so it would be easier. Sending you some positive energy for the impending inspection, and hope it goes smoothly, or gets missed this time around.
Good luck with the hunting and gathering expedition, and hope that Jane is doing OK.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – Like fruit, is there a season for Drop Bears, dropping? So many questions.
That’s interesting about koala seeds. I thought, that like babies, they were found under cabbage leaves. Or, brought by the stork. 🙂
Sort of a similar situation … when I was in the Tat Trade, people would drag in things for me to identify by research. It finally got to the point where I’d just say, “No, it doesn’t put a dime in my pocket.” Sometimes, I’d just make poop up. 🙂
Well, no wonder. I don’t see a link to Simon’s blog on your blog roll. I’ll give it a look, soon. “Give us this day our daily bread.” the Bible. Big J’s Sermon on the Mount.
There’s probably some lead time, required, to request the Holy Hand Grenade. To organize the religious procession, and all.
The birding book … well, sometimes when I’m talking to someone new in recovery, we talk about all that time on your hands, that you used to use to pursue whatever high was a person’s flavor of choice. I’d often say that maybe look at hobbies or interests from their youth. The author of the book was quit the little birder, when he was young. But, his interest fell by the wayside, as he got older and life and addiction, intruded. He also wasn’t much of a bicyclist, before he set out on his journey. He learned along the way. Oh, my does he learn. 🙂 I’m at the point in his book where he’s tackling the Rocky Mountains, and trying not to get hit by lightening.
Maybe your mystery banana bread was left by a birder, who strayed onto your land. Better that, than an orchid hunter.
There’s many a tale of nuns who whacked students with canes or rulers. You can always spot a lapsed Catholic. Those are the folks with scar tissue on their knuckles. 🙂
The deer had another go at the Brussels sprouts, and were once again stymied by the tomatoes and tomato cages.
Usually, there’s a flurry of articles about Polar Bear groups, around New Year’s Day. That seems to be sort of the traditional date, for them to take the plunge. At least here in the Northern Hemisphere. We even have group or two, here. Hmmm. I wonder if they do it to commemorate the Titanic victims, who went into the water. Tossing a wreath upon the waves seems more prudent. Then again, perhaps they follow the example of the baker, and are well lubricated.
Our high yesterday was 54F (12.22C). Our overnight low was a steady 45F (7.22C). The forecast high for today is 59F. Well, it was supposed to start raining, around midnight, last night. So, I took H out for her walk a bit earlier. Just as we were heading in, I felt a drop or two. But then, no rain. Looking at the regional radar, it looks like all the action is far north of us. But, they’re predicting rain, again, after 5pm. We’ll see.
Poor Suzie just couldn’t get with the program. I’m lucky H seldom barks. She goes crazy, when we play our daily round of keep-away. But we’re careful to do that before 10PM. And, she’ll bark a bit, if she hear’s someone’s step, in the hallway, that she doesn’t recognize. We had a meet and greet with the Night Manager’s dog, yesterday. His name is Drago. Yup. The Night Manager is a Harry Potter fan. H was all friendly tail wags, but Drago is still standoffish. She’ll melt his heart, eventually. She has her wiles.
I found the pop song, with the French phrases in it.
https://youtu.be/t4LWIP7SAjY?si=zMfDd9oy0r7sAkvo
Inspection is tomorrow, and I have a few little things to do. Nothing major.
I see a painting by one of my favorite artists, is coming up for auction.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/11/style/klimt-elisabeth-lederer-auction-sothebys
It might set records. I wonder if it will be bought by an institution, or will vanish into someone’s private collection? At least, the previous owner lent it out, so people could see it. Lew
Chris:
My goodness, the mansion in your Margaret response isn’t just a mansion – it’s a palace. And that’s somewhere in your area?
I have dreams like that sometimes, too. An old friend that I haven’t seen for decades will show up and things get strange. I don’t know what triggers those dreams, but probably not ghosts – I hope.
Your grandmother made the stuffed otter herself? Was she handy with crafts? Maybe some of your handiness comes from her. I still have a stuffed dog named Doggie that someone gave me the day I was born.
Yeah, but I can comment on the smell because once some hunter shot a deer and it ran onto the neighbor’s property next to us and died and for some reason he never claimed it (I think they are allowed to by law). After a few days the odor became very unpleasant and my husband helped the neighbor drag it WAY far off till things ate it up.
We have always had does that act like the mama roo. They give birth on the uninhabited property behind us and then spend a lot of time hanging around and their fawns are hidden close by. The fawns are usually pretty fearless because the mothers are. This did not happen this year, with all the construction going on. There aren’t as many places to hide either with all the trees that have been cut.
It’s funny, but having just heard of Drop Bears for the first time, I chanced upon an article about Drop Crocs. Note the AI picture at the beginning. Seems rather improbable to me.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2lpyrnjleeo
Pam
@ DJSpo:
I could see koalas sprouting from the ground. We know they are marsupials, so what happens is the tiny koala baby is climbing from wherever it is to get to his mother’s pouch, but since she has taken to dropping on people from the trees, some of the time she hits the ground instead of the people and the baby koala gets knocked loose and burrows into the ground and emerges later?
No, maybe we’d better stick with jagulars.
Pam
Hi Pam,
The pile is about an hours drive from here, and is a delightful place to visit – it being now owned by the public. I’d imagine that back in the day, we’d have been forced to use the side entrance! It’s closer to Simon’s place, and here is the page with a few bits of information and some better photos: Werribee Park
Those are odd dreams, and hopefully in this case as you note, it can mean nothing. Sent a text message, and so far have heard nothing.
Oh yeah, my grandmother had a sewing and craft room, although it wasn’t what you’d call flash, but more full of stuff. Lots of stuff actually, but in reasonable order. I recall the Christmas cakes full of brandy which were left to hang in cloth bags from the ceiling, whilst presumably the flavours err, matured. Those were some pretty tasty seasonal cakes and consumed with custard. Presumably a lot of things were made and done at home in those days. She was very down to earth, but whip smart at the same time, with a decent heart. In the 1970’s that area was pretty working class, but nowadays has long since been gentrified and is now spoken about in hushed tones. 🙂 People forget their history, which in some ways is quite amusing!
Doggie is a great keepsake, and they sure don’t make toys like that any more. Have you ever had to make repairs to Doggie?
Agreed, the smell would be epic from a deer carcass, and what a story you all went through. Revolting. Some folks are thoughtless, and maybe just wanted to record the kill. Who knows? That’s why I keep the option as a last resort, and prefer to clear them back into the forest. Like your experience, any carcass would be picked clean in days, and I’d have to do the same dragging it to the forest edge. You get to see the local clean up crew critters in action with any road killed which has been neglected to be picked up.
In some ways I’m a bit undecided about the local council picking up the road killed animals, because it produces some sort of pretense that everyone’s really nice and the area is lovely. Dunno, because it doesn’t represent what is actually happening, and people don’t slow down.
The roo and joey are like the Doe and fawn you described. Lovely creatures, and yet all they do is eat the grass. What’s not to like about that? They’re more active at night, because they’re largely a nocturnal critter anyway, but I don’t want them around during the day with the dogs learning to chase them. That’s a problem, and so far, the Kelpies haven’t met, but it’s a job Ollie (on a lead) and I do.
Deer are adaptable and will probably know every hiding place in your area, so not really a drama. As far as I can comprehend things, the environment can change, so it’s not a fixed thing. And if conditions are the same in your part of the world as they are here, more people seem to be letting rural land go unmanaged. Economics drives that process I reckon.
Pam, how have I never heard of the Murgon fossil site? Thanks for mentioning it. And drop crocs… A new way of being killed by yet another critter down here! 🙂 Fortunately they seem to be a creature of the past.
Took today off work which was nice. Went on a walk in a nearby town which overlooked a river gorge, although it was massively windy. Could barely keep the hat on my head. The 72’F felt nice.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Pam has introduced a new fearsome critter, the drop croc. Yikes! Fortunately they now only exist in the fossil record, which is something of a relief. The thought of one of those huge reptiles dropping out of trees gives me an attack of the vapours. About a decade ago out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a rather large lizard bounding for the cover of the Echiums. My best guess is that it was a Lace monitor, as they are present in this area and can live on the side of trees. You may think that they’re no big deal, but the reptiles can reach almost 7 foot long! Plus they’re venomous with a neurotoxin, as you’d expect.
🙂 Adults used to tell me such stories accompanied by serious faces. Those storks sure were busy don’t you reckon? Only occasionally have I observed herons / egrets dropping by here for a drink of water.
I see that you have encountered the most dire of all customers, the dreaded tire kicker. 🙂 We are of one mind here, and your conclusion was the same that I came too: all talk, no mad cash. Long ago we once owned a 1974 Porsche 911 with a targa vinyl roof, and it was fun vehicle, not too expensive to purchase (at the time), but ruinously expensive to maintain. It’s all fun and games, until you want to sell the machine. What a load of drama, and yeah, the tire kickers were out in force for about half a year. Ever afterwards I’ve been careful as to the material things which have come into my sphere of influence, and I do wonder if your experiences have lead to a similar conclusion?
Took today off paid work, and went for a walk in a nearby town. It was one which we’d been meaning to do for a while now, and today was the day, despite the strong winds. The walk took two hours and we climbed up to a ridge line and then followed a river gorge. I must say, that at the bottom of the gorge were super fertile river flats (probably a flood plain) where an exclusive school runs agricultural lessons for students. It looked really bucolic and made me wonder what expectations the students would have been left with. Rupertswood. The place even had it’s own private railway station which operated until about 2004 when the entire line was upgraded for faster trains.
Very good, and the Big J had some relevant things to say. Hopefully folks were listening, but you never really know about such matters. Easier to observe peoples actions, I reckon.
Candidly I may not be able to wait for the correct religious processions to get the Holy hand grenade of Antioch. Is this an act of impatience, or, sheer pragmatism?
Can a person actually cross the Rocky Mountains upon a bicycle? At least the altitude effects would be lessened as the bloke took the slow route up and over. Ook! My those are some impressive altitudes, and likely to mess with a persons head. The Bear Lake pass in Utah is suggestive that being winded may not be fast enough to escape the big furry munchy creatures. I reckon altitude sickness becomes a possibility after about 8,000ft. Not good. One pass indicated as being OK for bicycles was Hoosier Pass and that’s 11,500-ish ft. Far out! Which point did he cross?
You might be right about the banana bread mystery, but at least the miscreant could have asked permission. 😉
When I ran the graduate program for the big corporate, it never even occurred to me to motivate the assistant accountants with a cane and zero tolerance for errors. It’s an intriguing mindset which could devise such methodology. Being cheeky I might suggest that the usage would be OK if it were a reciprocal arrangement. No doubts the nuns would be outraged at the suggestion! I’d heard that the police are trained with tasers by feeling the jolt of electricity themselves firsthand.
Go the tomatoes and their security deer repellent cage. My experience suggests that the forest critters put far more thought into these matters than you or I ever would.
Oh man, there’s a nude winter solstice swim each year in Hobart, which is a long way south of here. Part of the Dark Mofo festival I believe. I’m not man enough for such bracing swims! Still, 3,000 people can’t be wrong, or can they? Thousands take a nude plunge for Dark Mofo winter solstice swim in Hobart Agreed, the commemorative wreath is a warmer gesture.
72’F here this afternoon – we appear to have re-taken the warmth batten. Hey, almost forgot to mention, but in the last two hours of light, we zipped around with the ride on mowers chopping and dropping the grass and seeds. Looks very neat now. Good to read that both of you dodged the rain.
Well, yes, everyone has their particular literary enjoyments, although the cover art for the Harry Potter series turned me off. Didn’t seem right to me, so I never understood what all of the hype was about. And whenever I mentioned the cover art, people got real weird with me. It’s probably me, maybe… 😉 Names aside, the dogs will soon settle their differences. The pecking order is very real in the world of canine.
Ah, Lady Marmalade. That’s a classic. About a lady of the night apparently.
Ook! How did the inspection go? Or do you have to wait to find out?
Did you notice how striking the eyes were in the depiction of the heiress by Egon Schiele? That intent gaze would make me nervous, and yet there’d be no reason to feel that way! Klimt’s paintings to me look as though he revered the face of his subjects, whilst the rest was background. That’s the thing with private collections.
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – LOL. Pam beat me to it. I had a note to mention the drop crocodiles. Here’s what the US press had to say about it.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/12/science/australia-ancient-crocodile-hunting-trees-intl-hnk
Well, now the ancestry of the Drop Bear has been cleared up. I also had the thought that they must have had sturdy trees, back in them days. Or maybe, it was just the juveniles.
That’s sort of cool that you have the Lace Monitors, around. By the way, they sell for between $300 and $1,000 in the US. I wonder what people do, when they start getting so big? Drop them off at the local park, I guess. I see they’re edible. Probably taste like chicken. In Florida, if there’s a cold snap, Iguanas fall out of the trees in a stupor. Not native, by the way. They started appearing in Florida, in the 1960s.
Herons and cranes are so cool. I don’t know why, but I always feel it’s a lucky day, when I spot one.
Material things re: sphere of influence. Like, what?
Exclusive school in the river flats? You may have heard of the terrible floods, recently, in Texas, that wiped out a camp for children. Many children and camp counselors, drowned. The old guy who built Rupertswood was probably the toff that brought in the deer. You seem to have a lot of those old piles, around Australia. I’m sure I’ve seen some of them in “The Miss Fisher Mysteries.”
The birder was very particular about doing the entire 17,800 mile trip, only by bicycle. He never “hitched a ride.” Some of the passes he went over were Molas, Red Mountain, Monarch, Loveland, Guanella, Teton and Washington Pass. And, yes, it was punishing. I wondered if he’d mention places in Washington State, I was familiar with. Aberdeen. Hometown of Kurt Cobain and I worked in the library there, quit a few times. LOL. He had arranged to stay with another birder, there. So, when he gets to town, and contacts him, the dude announces that he’s a nudist. Our bicycle birder took a pass. Which brings us to the Hobart Plunge.
You neglected the trigger warnings. 🙂 Seems like harmless fun, and when I lived in S. California, I availed myself to the “free” beaches. It did remind me of a book (doesn’t everything?). “The Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds. (Mackay, 2018.) Haven’t read it. Sounds interesting. Not to be confused with “The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity.” Which sounds like a real snooze.
Our high yesterday was 54F (12.22C). Our overnight low was 50F (10C). The forecast high for today is 59F. H and I got a bit damp, but more wet, than wettest. 🙂
Well, if your at lose ends for a couple of hours, might as well chop and drop. 🙂
“Never judge a book by its cover.” George Eliot. “Mill on the Floss.” 1860. In the book trade, we’d occasionally get best seller paperbacks, with four different covers. I think the publishers were trying to figure out the exact formula, that would cause you to pick up a book and buy it. I must admit, the Little House on the Prairie books, were illustrated by one artist, just about forever. Then they were re-issued, and I didn’t like the illustrations and cover art, near as much. But that might have just been an attack of nostalgia. Which brings me to this …
https://www.npr.org/2025/11/12/nx-s1-5599179/nostalgia-origin-etymology-homesickness-swiss-soldiers
I had just started this missive, when Little Mary Sunshine showed up to do the inspection. As I opened the door, H did a runner. Bad dog! I moved fast (still got it), and caught her at the top of the stair well. Anyway, it was a pretty … cursory inspection. Instead of testing some things, she just asked me if they worked. LOL. She was also curious as to why my electric bill is the highest in the building. Who knew they had reports on such things? She wondered if I had grow lights. For my mara-hochie plantation? I explained that I ran the AC all the time, in summer, and, also the dehydrator. Mystery solved. The stopper in my bathroom sink doesn’t entirely close. That will have to be replaced. Otherwise … I think after all this time, she knows I at least make an effort, to follow the rules. And bend to the will of HUD, no matter what craziness they throw at us. Well, that’s done, and I can go back to living at my comfort and convenience.
When I was a wee small lad (9), and saw the traveling Woburn Abbey show, they had three Rembrandts. No matter where you stood, the eyes followed you. Must be some trick that artists are privy to.
Well, they minted the last pennies, the other day. I’m sure there are millions of people, all over the US, buying rolls of them and stashing them away. For their retirement, or to send the kids to college. We’ve talked about collector manias, before. See: Madness of Crowds, above. Lew
Chris:
Werribee Park looks even bigger in the photo in the link. Ah – I just came across why it is so big: it was a Catholic Seminary for 50 years and a large part was added on. I am very impressed; they seem to have everything there from horsies to zoos to a rose garden. I’ll bet it is a very fine rose garden. Where I am confused is where the original two brothers who built it got the money to construct it. The article says they were “pioneering pastoralists”. I know what a pioneer is and I associate pastoralist with sheep or cattle, things in pastures. Does that sound right?
That cake sounds just like what we call a “fruitcake”. It is a special thing for Christmas and rather difficult to get just right. Your grandmother sounds lovely.
I never had to make one single repair to Doggie, though eventually the sawdust in him settled, so he’s about half as fat as he originally was. He kind of droops over sideways where he sits.
As far as I can tell, no-one ever picks up the roadkill on the little highway into town. There are always bodies lying about, but not for too long as the vultures start clearing things really quickly. Then everything else comes along.
A river gorge – something else neat that y’all have. You never have to go far from home to see something interesting.
Last time I was in town I purchased a cheap plastic sled, just in case. With all this cleared area and a road from the top of the property to the holler at the back, it was just too tempting. If I was younger I would ski it, but I don’t want to give my son a heart attack. Besides which, I gave my skis away. Now we just need snow, which has been in short supply the last few years, unlike in the past when we might get several feet a winter.
Pam
@ Lew:
I have always wanted to see a painting with eyes that follow you. The closest I’ve gotten was an episode of The Andy Griffith Show, where Barney and Gomer go into an abandoned, reputedly haunted house in Mayberry to retrieve a baseball that Opie accidentally threw through a window. Of course, a painting over the mantle had eyes that followed them, so they ran to get Andy and he figured out that a moonshiner had a still in the basement and was trying to scare people away.
I have been saving my pennies, but it won’t last because I only shop with cash and so am using them up pretty quickly. Some stores now have signs that say: “Please try to have correct change”.
Pam
@ Pam,
Agreed, we better stick to jagulars. Otherwise things might get very confused. Lew mentioned drop crocodiles. Tennis has a drop shot. I dropped an egg the other day, hence egg drop. Or someone might add jackalopes and wampus cats to the mix. Or even the dread Loup Garou, known in both eastern Canada and Cajun country. Jagulars are more than enough.
DJSpo
Chris,
True story. My uncle’s wife was more than half Hispanic, grew up in an area of New Mexico with few Anglos/gringos. Uncle visited that area once to do family research on aunty’s family. Uncle was VERY pale skinned and got a bad sunburn at the very word “sunshine”. After a day of research, mostly in records at the county courthouse, he was enjoying his dinner. Two local gentlemen sat down at his table, asked if he was, indeed, “the gringo who was asking questions”. He said that he was. He was then told, “Senor, a lot of things happened on Saturday nights that nobody wants to have known. Maybe it is best to quit asking questions and leave town.” He was able to finish his dinner, get a good night’s sleep and a breakfast, then he left. He asked no more questions. Cider, tequila, beer, well, we are all here, although many memories of how we got here may be hazy.
Ah, yes, well, glad to help. And “It won’t end well” is the official end result for many things. My uncle rather rapidly understood that if he kept asking questions, “It won’t end well” would have happened to him. 😉
Interestingly enough, my aunt had written down what she knew of her mum’s family. She showed it to me when I was visiting once during a break between terms when I was in New Mexico. I noticed a surname and a location. Our department secretary had married a gent with the surname in question. I mentioned the itty bitty town, and she said, yes that was where her husband was from, from “along the river”, which matched aunty’s family. The secretary and I called one another “cousin” ever after.
Koala seeds. Red Deer. Your Red Deer appear to be larger than our mule deer, which in turn are somewhat larger than the white tailed deer but smaller than elk. The bull elk I got one year, after we had butchered it, etc, had 404 pounds of meat. Big animals. Moose are much larger yet, then there’s the American bison. Huge critters, bison.
Anyhow, the year I got my elk, my brother-in-law’s brother had also gotten an elk 10 days earlier not 100 meters from where I got mine. My brother-in-law shared in the meat from both animals, but he didn’t even get a shot at anything other than target practicing that year. Following a visit to an outdoor store, I found him the perfect birthday gift: elk seeds. Yup, elk seeds, authentic elk dung packaged like vegetable seeds. “Plant in the yard and elk will appear after a few weeks” said the package. Well, not in my relative’s yard. Wrong kind of soil or something. 😉
Coo! Ethics training? Say it ain’t so! That’s a few hours of your life you’ll never get back. Condolences. We had occasional weird classes at work that were mandatory. Boring, of little value, but mandatory. UGH.
Okay, I figure out who planted those yellow signs. Ninjas. Nobody ever sees them.
Thylarctus plummetus? How funny! Guess that means you need to look up whenever you’re wandering through trees, right?
Ground is soaked. More rain. Dame Avalanche is getting so used to the rain that she has taken to standing in the rain and getting soaked. Naturally, she prefers shaking off the wet AFTER she enters the house. Her towels are getting used a lot now.
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
It’s a beautiful rose garden, and in fact it is the state rose garden. There must be thousands of roses in there, and it’s quite extensive. The aroma from the combined flowers on a sunny early summers day is really quite something. You guessed right, those two brothers leased (on the cheap) enormous tracts of highly fertile land. They ran sheep on the country. Sheeps are a funny critter in that they can thrive on marginal soils by consuming the plants right down to the root systems. An impressive achievement. And the fleece was sent back over the waves to old Blighty to feed the ever hungry textile mills. The meat was cured in salt (which was plentiful) and likewise sent to far distant shores. My best guess is that it took about four decades to consume the entire soil fertility which had been laboriously built for tens of millennia, but hey, look at the profits! Mad cash was clearly no problem for the mansion builder, but weirdly, legend has it that he took his own life. Perhaps proving that wealth is an illusory goal? Fertile soils are my particular interest. One of the early explorers, Major Mitchell, who had a sharp mind, recorded soil organic matter of around 22% at best. These days we’re talking about 1% or 2%, and how far the mighty have fallen. Oh well, we all do what we can.
Did a bit more mowing tonight – chop and drop being one way to build organic matter. It’s looking neat. But earlier today we placed more rocks on the new path. May have run out of appropriate rocks…
Ah, that was indeed the cake, and it resembled an aged fruitcake soaked in brandy. It was pretty tasty, and forget about what the puritans may say, go with the liqueur option. 😉 Every now and then, a solid person comes into your life, and the lady was like that. Actually, she was one of the only adults who were honest in the assessment of her son (my dad).
🙂 Lovely, and Doggie would be a special treat, even if slumped over ever so slightly in a slouching posture, which adults in the long distant past would have had a fit of hysterics about. You can almost hear the admonitions now. The stuffed toy could not blame such matters on too much phone usage! I reckon we can cut some slack for the venerable elder which is Doggie. Otter lost an eye, and a tail once, and those were repaired.
Ah, isn’t that an interesting difference between here and your part of the world. Did you know that down here, volunteers spend countless hours checking road kill for joeys, and the local council picks up the carcasses? Mind you, the dirt roads are only graded once per year, so it becomes a question of economic priorities.
Pam, I should have taken the camera with me on the walk, but maybe next time. The wind was feral and drying up on the ridge. But down on the river flats conditions looked positively lush. The land is old, so the river gorges have cut deep into the rock.
🙂 Go the snow sled, and may the most excellent and appropriate haulage contraption enjoy a good work out this winter. The local General Store was selling toboggans, during last winter, but the snow failed to eventuate here as well. Wise to not distract your son with daring escapades of ones youth!
PS: Heard back from the old friend today. Possibly a poke to organise a catch up?
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Thanks for the laughs, and your uncle and aunt sounded to me like a fun (and situationally alert) couple. The warning is probably best heeded, and from my perspective, there is no shame in running away so as to live another day (which coincidentally rhymes). Sometimes in matters of antecedents, it can become a discussion which is not considered fit for polite company. 😉
It is well known that to ask too many questions in the wrong places, can lead to being disappeared. This of course is the gentle state of becoming lost, but is not conducted on an entirely voluntary basis.
Go back far enough, and we’re all one big happy family! I’m pretty sure my highland lot (McLeod) as well as the lowland lot (Dewar) were happily raping and pillaging your ancestors on the borderlands, and vice versa. Keeps the genetics strong all that new / ancient blood.
A mule deer stag can get pretty big, and the upper estimates are 150kg. Elk on the other hand are insane, they’re so big. Exactly, such an animal can provide a lot of meat. There were some interesting photos on the interweb of wolves tracking and hunting a lone Elk. Very funny too, but nobody would want Elk roaming around their gardens, gifted elk seeds or otherwise. 🙂
Man, on my boundary patrol check walks with Ollie, we’re always checking out the various scats to see what had been going on in different locations. It’s interesting too, because as we’re cleaning up the place, herbivores are having to cross more open space, so we’re getting more predators visiting, like owls and foxes. More balance to the land.
Got more rocks installed on the new path today, and then later this evening as the sun was setting, we did some more mowing. By late afternoon, even though the air temperature was only 18’C, it sure felt hot out there in the sun. Best avoided.
All I cared about was getting the nice email which noted that the course had been completed. 😉 The professional body tends to audit such things from time to time. We have to do about 40 hours per year of training, which is quite a lot in terms of both time and costs, not to forget the opportunity cost. It’s a bit outrageous really, and looks like unpaid work to me. Do they expect that I don’t learn on the job?
🙂 Ninjas, cool! The best explanation yet.
I always look up when working in the forest, as much as physically possible. If the drop bears don’t get you, the tree and branches might. I’m very polite to the trees in the forest, but do they take such matters into account?
Your winters are starting to sound a lot like the one’s here. Wet, more wet, damp, fog, wind, and then just for good measure, more wet. An enviable estate don’t you reckon? 🙂 Towels can always dry out, but yeah, that’s the big question isn’t it? Why do dogs shake themselves off once they’re indoors? A bit like wondering why they barf up on rugs, instead of on the more easily cleaned timber floor boards?
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Imaginary drop bears are one thing, actual drop crocs are the whole next level of scary. If you go out in the woods today… The threat of one of those landing on you, would keep a person sharp.
🙂 The rainforest trees are still around, and from what I can tell, they look sturdy enough to me and can grow to enormous heights and girth. Plenty still around the forests here.
The thought of a six foot long lace monitor would be kind of frightening, especially if the bite has a neurotoxin. Nobody wants that, although it is rarely fatal, apparently. Man, I reckon it’s like people dumping pet crocodiles and alligators when they’ve grown too large. Imagine working on a fat berg in a sewer, and encountering a crocodile? Talk about a bad day, getting heaps worse! Down that part of your country, haven’t released pythons become something of a pest?
Those are graceful birds, yup. Took a photo of the gang gang cockatoo tonight, and it’s a little bit fuzzy, but such a strange combination of colours. Anyway, you wait and see.
Oh, apologies. I was waxing lyrical and failed to get to the point. I don’t take on new machines (or other stuff for that matter) without first having the ability to look after the things.
The school was in an old mansion which looked to me to sit well above the flood level. It’s a deep gorge though, but then a lot of rivers around here produce that look mostly because they’re so old. Surprisingly, the deer folk were from another family. Years ago we almost considered buying such an old place (although on a vastly smaller scale) but it would have meant a mortgage and the repairs may have been eye watering. There’s even one over on the eastern end of the mountain range. Oh! Here you go: Mintaro
The birders journey by bicycle sounds punishing, but may have worked wonders with him. Makes you wonder if Kurt ever visited the library? Ah! Oh well, not everyone is up for such a visit are they. 🙂
Sorry for the lack of trigger warning, and it would be harmless fun for those winter solstice folks. The waters and air would have been warmer in Southern California, at a wild guess! The book sounds like a lot of fun, and wouldn’t the world be more interesting if the Drummer of Tedworth was real? The other book sounds only suitable for academic audiences, and sucks to be them.
You’re sliding into winter… 18’C / 64’F today and truly delightful. A finer day, you’d be hard pressed to err, find. Placed more rocks on the new path, and used the excavated soil to really smooth out the gradient. Looking good. The dogs ran around all day long in the sunshine, and are now happily a-snooze. And an hour or two before the sun set, did some more mowing. It’s a pleasure to see the neatness. What’s this loose talk, of, err, loose ends? 😉
Hope you and H could warm up after the rain?
All fine advice, except not only did I judge that particular book by the cover, but also the hype surrounding it kind of didn’t gel with me. Might have been busy at the time too. Oh yeah, 1998, I was busy. No wonder I didn’t give the series a second thought, sorry to say. Too late now.
The cover art for the original Little House series was lovely. Ooo, there was some seriously awesome looking leather bound collected sets. Probably expensive. Thanks for the article link. Home-woe. Makes a lot of sense. Dude, I bought an audio CD the other day, and for poops and giggles had a look at the sales, and truly, the album did really well in vinyl, and get this: cassette. Who even uses that format these days? But apparently people do.
Glad to hear that nobody was bitten during the inspection, and maybe that’s why H fled early on? Grow lights! Far out… They use far less energy from what I understand of dehydrators and coolers. 🙂 What a thought, and welcome to my world where people jump to the wrong conclusions, for the wrong reasons.
Oh yeah, Rembrandt is a master. You’ve been lucky to have seen some exhibitions of great artistry.
Good luck with that. The old fifty cent coins down here were made of silver, and I believe that they’re now worth I believe, $14. Big whoop. Agreed, it’s the madness of crowds thing.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis cont…
PS: Those images of the old video games should have come with a trigger warning! 😉
Cheers
Chris
@DJ – Making egg drop soup? :-). Lew
@ Pam – There’s a lot of old spooky movies, where the eyes in a painting, move. Usually, some dastardly villain, in a secret passage, behind the painting. They even pop up, in comedy scary movies. Abbot and Costello made several of those. Lew
Yo, Chris – Crocodiles in the sewers. Urban myth, or reality? Crocodiles do pop up in odd places. I think I mentioned the one discovered under a trailer in Idaho. Then there’s the movies. This one, that went straight to video, and also “Lake Placid.” Both had sequels.
https://youtu.be/kK-N8tr5s4U?si=uxhRyYAUuEg7Tp-D
Florida. The land of introduced nuisance species. Every time there’s a hurricane, more are released into the wild. Yup. They even have python hunts, now. And, bounties.
Once I was up rock hunting, in a fairly, heavily forested area. I saw a huge heron, silently gliding through the woods. Sort of wonderful and sort of spooky. I wondered what he was doing in the deep forest. They usually stick to rivers. But on reflection, I was rock hunting along a stream, that had a pretty robust population of crawdads. That might have attracted him.
That was quit an article about Mintaro. The phrase “money pit,” comes to mind. 🙂 I used to follow a magazine, called “Old House Journal.” It had plenty of good advise, for renovations. And, stories of people’s adventures and misadventures of bringing old houses back to life. I see they mentioned Minton tiles, in the entry. There are people who collect old tiles.
But, oh, my, the links to other articles, down the side. What a rabbit hole. I read the article on “Hollywood Regency.” The auction in Olympia, from time to time, has pieces that they describe as such. Anything with over-the-top theatricality. Although I find that auctions style descriptions often … problematic.
The Aberdeen library was an old bank building. I often thought of it as “the bunker.” 🙂 Though it was quit bright and inviting, inside. We often had Curt tourists drop by, wanting to take a gander at his high school yearbooks. We kept those under lock and key. Though they were often disappointed when we told them that there’s not a single picture, or mention of him, in any of the years he attended the local high school.
https://trl.org/locations/aberdeen/
The Drummer of Tedworth was an interesting story. Just goes to show, don’t mess with the gypsies. 🙂 When I was a wee small lad, I read several books by Hans Holzer, that I got from the main branch of the Portland Public Library. He wrote a lot about “the most haunted house in England. Borley Rectory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borley_Rectory
I was surprised the article didn’t mention Holzer. But, it looks like I misremembered. He didn’t start publishing until after my early library days.
Our high yesterday was 59F (15C). Our overnight low was 52F (11.11C). The forecast high for today is 56F. H and my last two walks have been dry. We are getting wind gusts, this morning, around 20mph.
I read the first Harry Potter book, just to see what all the fuss was about. I was working in libraries, then. It did get a lot of kids reading, who previously, had not been readers. I don’t care what they read, as long as they read. Reading is a habit. Plow through all those books, and you probably have a reader for life. Once they were all out, I did watch all the movies. I found them quit entertaining.
Well, the inspection is over, for another year. Though I’m sure they’ll find half a dozen, or more, reasons to enter our apartments. If we’re home, or not. Next up: yearly recertification! Piles of paperwork and trips to the bank. Around next spring, for me.
People collect old video game counsels, and the game cartridges. Some can be quit pricey. After my time in the tat trade. It’s probably one of those collecting areas, where you really have to specialize, to know what you’re doing. Lew
@ DJSpo:
I know the others, but what’s a wampus cat? Oh, wait – like cattywampus? Something not straight?
Pam
Chris:
Well, your rose garden is absolutely gorgeous and a lot of love has gone into it, besides which it gives all of us here pleasure when we see the photos. I appreciate the explanation of the brothers and their riches. Funny how some things stay the same. They wore out the soil to get what they wanted; here our society goes on like a rabid dog, not only wearing out the soils, but using up all resources, doing what will only cause misery for most in the end. I say “misery” because most of us will have a very hard time coping without those resources. It’s like when we have a power outage here, which used to be very frequent. It was hard because we were not used to managing without power, especially with no water since the well pump is electric. But as we learned to be better prepared ahead of time, it got easier and after a few days we kind of got into a groove. The other day I found an old note that I had written to myself (that was not original with me). It said:
Preparation, not panic.
I have been chopping and dropping, too, in a small way, since you first mentioned it so long ago.
We very, very rarely see roadkill on our dirt roads. I think it’s because most people don’t want to shake the heck out of their vehicles by going too fast over them; they are not very well maintained. Except maybe for the delivery folks . . . My goodness, the dust. Speaking of dust, I think we are now officially in a drought like Claire and Margaret. I haven’t needed to water my garden beds for a long time because the nights are cool and they are well mulched, but I think I’d better tomorrow.
I am so glad that you heard back from the friend.
Pam
@ Pam,
I think this will explain wampus cat better than I can. A coworker of mine from Montana mentioned them. Clark Fork, Idaho has some stories about them, also.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wampus_cat
DJSpo
@ Lew,
Good one, the soup.
DJSpo
Chris,
Uncle was very situationally aware and had life experiences to rely upon also. He kept the fun side of him hidden, but it was there. Aunty was the sweetest and nicest person you could ever meet. And yes, uncle’s experiences and ability to read people served him well.
My highland ancestors lived in the MacGregor area just east of Loch Lomond and shared some ancient ancestry with the MacGregors. I’m sure they were in the midst of the MacGregor raiding and pillaging. That’s from my mum’s paternal side. My dad’s maternal side came from near the highlands, from the lowland side just west of Loch Lomond. In other words, mum’s ancestors likely plundered dad’s ancestors regularly. And my border ancestors raided and pillaged everybody everywhere. Scotland was a rather wild place to be well into the 1700s.
Pam mentioned avoiding the male deer during rutting season. They can get VERY aggressive when riled up. Elk, too. But moose are in an entirely different world of cantankerousness. Bull moose appear to have been born irritable. And they’re so big that they think everyone and everything is supposed to get out of their way. Even the cow moose are bristly. Whenever I was backpacking or Nordic skiing, if a moose was spotted, we quietly and warily retreated.
I’ve had moose and deer leave “calling cards” in my yard here. A large elk herd used to frequent parts of Spokane’s south hill. It was one of their main migration routes. That particular herd ranged from Mica Peak in the southeast part of the county, up to the high uplands on the south hill, all the way to the Turnbull Wildlife area south of Cheney in west Spokane County. That herd’s eastern and western ranges intersected with other herds. Well, people who built ritzy houses on the elk migration routes periodically get up in arms about the elk entering their gardens and eating flowers. But they built on where the elk had lived for thousands of years.
I always enjoyed looking at the various animal tracks when Nordic skiing. A neighbor and I did this together for a few day trips. He taught me a lot about the different tracks and who made them.
Good job on more rock placement. 18C in the sun can be hot, especially when working hard. Heck, 18C would feel hot to me now. Getting used to the +2C to +10C wet weather. But no snow yet except in the mountains. The average date for first measurable snowfall is November 13 in town. Snow is getting mentioned in the extended forecast for around the 28th.
Why do dogs shake the wet off indoors, not outdoors? Why do they barf onto rugs and not the easily cleaned wooden floors? Actually, I DO know the answer to these questions. These are corollaries to the Buttered Side Down Law. You know, a piece of toast when dropped will always land with the buttered side on the floor. Actually, I think these are ALL corollaries of a Greater Universal Truth: stuff will happen in such a manner as to maximize the resultant mess.
DJSpo
Hi Pam,
With enough land, some days are just all about weeding. Oaks + Sycamores – done. Potatoes – done. Grapes – Done. Blackberries – done. Corn – done. Me tired, me done. 🙂 As to all of the roses, weeding those two beds is on the to-do list for tomorrow. It was positively tropical here today, really humid this morning with a build up to a monsoon. The rain was very heavy late this afternoon, but brief, and the individual drops were so large that at first it sounded like hail, but no just rain. Bet you’re glad that the roof at your place is now done, and if I may say so, such work makes houses last a lot longer.
The historical story of the soils down here is sad, and one of great loss. Still, is there a finer act than restoring fertility to the land and enjoying all of the subsequent antics of the forest critters? Had the friendly King Parrot stop by for a chat this afternoon. I’m sure the colourful creature is trying to communicate the way it acts. I do also wonder if the bird is thanking me for the currants I noticed it was scoffing down?
Forgot to mention, also spread around wood ash from the most recent brazier burn off, and threw a couple of hundred pounds of coffee grounds on top of that. It was on an area where the the clay looked a bit sun baked and was in need of restoration. Things grow. Weeding needs doing!
Exactly! Pam, it’s truly lovely to be put to the ultimate test whilst having the ability to learn from the experience, then sort out systems. What everyone else is doing, is a mystery to me. As DJ would perhaps quip as something of an in-joke: Don’t Panic! Good advice too…
So good, and are you observing any changes with the plants when they grow with all of that chopping and dropping technique? My understanding is that it provides feed for the soil critters both on the surface and underground, which in turn builds top soil.
I’m envious of that lack of road kill. Sometimes it looks like a war zone around these roads, and when encountering people driving at insane speeds on these dirt roads, I pull over and just let them go by. Dunno why, but I always had the impression that dirt roads were better maintained in your part of the world. It’s a good year here if the local council grades the road twice. In the old days of the Cobb and Co coaches, they simply didn’t venture into this area during the winter months.
Oh Pam, the other day I looked up the drought monitor map for your country and was alarmed to say the least. Hope you get some rain, and soon. Plants need water, there’s no getting around that fact.
It was good to hear from him, and maybe a catch-up is in order.
Cheers
Chris
Hi DJ,
Oooo, what a most excellent relationship you had with your uncle and aunt. The ability to read people, and without you saying it, guessing at another’s motivations and then forecasting future behaviour, is a subject which is of considerable interest. If I may say so, it’s nice to fly within the sphere of influence of a positive role model like those two you mentioned. Hmm. Had a bad experience about a quarter of a century ago which forced my hand to learn deeply upon this very subject. Nobody wants to be a baby harp seal, cute, yes, clubbed to death, also yes! 🙂
It’s funny too, at the time I booked an appointment with a psychologist and just asked the hard question: How can you tell if someone has bad intentions? The lady was very dismissive, so I paid for the consult, and then took a really good long look around me and journeyed to odd corners. Nowadays, sometimes I’m wrong, but more often than not, my gut feeling is to be trusted. It’s been a very odd journey that one, but well worth the time. It would have been easier with some guidance from knowledgeable folks, like your uncle and aunt, but then, would the lessons be taken to heart?
Yes, ancient Scotland, a place the Vikings dared not tread! 🙂 Or maybe it wasn’t worth their while. It was pretty feral from all that I’ve read about the area, and look at how much resources the Roman Empire had to chuck at the problem simply to quell the unruly locals. It’s why I’d never expect an invasion of your country. I’d describe that outcome as in the highly improbable category.
Yeah, your lot were on the boundary with the lowlands, which would have been more fertile, and thus a tempting proposition. The highland scenery is epic, but hardly the sort of country which will support a large human population. Blood feuds and competition for scarce resources would have run deep. Compared to there, down under would have been like a tropical wonderland, but of course a lot of dark history with incentivised relocations for crass economic reasons occurred. Ain’t it always the way?
Far out, please spare us all from an encounter with an irritable moose! Didn’t Rocky and Bullwinkle try and show a nicer side to those critters? Snakes in spring are best avoided, for exactly those reasons.
Hehe! Sucks to be them with the migration routes. All that fertile soil resulting from millennia of accumulated moose and deer poop which produces wonderful gardens, doesn’t mean nothing, does it? Man, wombats are the same, and no fence is safe – they break what they don’t like. I don’t mind the wombats and just adapt to what they’re trying to tell me. Best to listen though, yup.
It’s endlessly interesting isn’t it? And tracking is a real skill which shows a deep knowledge of the species in question. Ollie and I are complete beginners, but it’s those with eyes closed that don’t see. How do you reckon we found the bread that day which had only been dropped on the forest edge within a hour at most, maybe even less time than that. The birds should have got it, and that itself was instructive.
Ooo, it’s getting exciting this talk of snow in the forecast for you! Hope Big Bertha is ready and raring to go? The weather today was positively tropical feeling, at a humid 20’C with a late brief monsoon. Crazy weather. Some of the tomato seeds finally germinated. A bit late, but oh well.
That’s genius and I’ll mention the buttered side down law to the Editor. Man, the universe is clearly training us to clean up mess.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Hard to know isn’t it? Myth or reality? Certainly there are rats in sewers, no getting around that rodent business, but crocs, maybe not. And yes, I recall the Lake Placid film, but the Alligator trailer was a hoot. The up-market party scene was exciting, and certainly would have made for a memorable occasion, as did the guy with missing legs being dragged from the lake into the boat. Sharks wouldn’t stand a chance in those circumstances. Imagine what they could have done if the film makers had enjoyed the Alien film budget from around the same year?
Oh! I’d not thought of that aspect with hurricanes, but it’s so obvious from hindsight. Yes, why would fearsome critters hang around a destroyed home and former enclosure when they’re hungry? The thing with bounties is that they have to be high enough so that hunters are encouraged to make claims, but not so high that the pesky critters can be imported and a new industry is spawned. Always a fine balancing act, and there was that fox task force for the big island state to the south of here a while back. Hmm.
Etymology always has many things to say about a particular word, but ‘crawdads’ would down here only ever be described as ‘crayfish’, which apparently has roots in old French. Yabbies are of a different family, but look and act the same. Who knew? Sorry for the digression. Beautiful and graceful birds, but a bit slow to take off. The last time such a bird arrived here, presumably to enjoy a drink of fresh water, the dogs were out and about. The command ‘leave it’ has a lot to recommend it, and the bird ponderously took off and away. There’s a lot of inland water at various times of the year, so presumably the bird was heading north and inland.
Everyone discovers their kryptonite project! 😉 Agreed, the minton tiles are stunning, and were very much a feature of Victorian era houses. I’ve seen a few over the years, particularly overlaid on concrete verandas. Beautiful work, and the effect is very pleasing on the eye. You know, I was just about to ask the hard question: Why would anyone collect old tiles, then thought better about that line of inquiry!
That’s my take as well upon the Hollywood Regency style, it’s a bit over the top and intense. I’d feel uncomfortable in any of the rooms returned by the search images relating to the form. A bit of restraint is possibly more to my taste, although I favour the Victorian era style for dwellings. Well, aren’t the auction houses trying to err, ‘talk up’ an item? Borrowing from sort-of higher valued eras and styles is all part of that game.
What an unusual design those arches are with the library building, and one thought crossed my mind was that you’d hope the engineering on those arches was good. But like what you said, based on the images, the interior is really bright – and large. Quite impressive actually. And absolutely, I’d keep such things under lock and key as well. Tourists have been known to thief off with mementos which have not been adequately bolted down. It’s been suggested elsewhere that folks with drams of the old fairy blood coursing through their veins, hardly make for decent bookworms and may never set foot within the confines of a library.
Naughty gypsies, but then why did the bloke want the unlicensed drummers drum (an absurd layer of bureaucracy if ever there was one) in the first place? Although, Count Dracula was clearly in cahoots with the local gypsies given their support for his activities.
Maybe it is just me, but the construction of Borley Rectory and fourteen children, suggests a fine income stream. Hmm. Nun. Skull found of young woman in brown paper packaged. There’s a lot going on in that quiet little story, sounds more like a police matter than hauntings. Yeah, look, it perhaps does not reflect well upon the powers of the priesthood to settle the poltergeist matter once and for all, for that is their kind of area. You’d imagine the pressure would be on to resolve the haunting! All the same, the article was fun.
68’F here today and quite humid with a late afternoon monsoon – that’s what the brief burst of heavy rain looked and felt like. More rain tomorrow. Stay out of the wind, or at least don’t lose your hat in the strong gusts!
Spent most of the day, weeding, and will continue on that work tomorrow before the rain hits. The plant growth over the past three weeks has been feral, and there is simply so much area to maintain. Ate the first of the seasons Babaco, and the alpine strawberries are producing half a cup every two days. Breakfasts are a real treat now!
Agreed, anything which can get people reading, kids or adults, is good with me. The storyline just wasn’t to my taste from all that I heard about it, and absolutely I am in the minority in that matter. The series was enormously successful. The cover art didn’t help my decision. 🙂 I prefer my heroes journeys to be a bit earthier, even in a sci-fi or fantasy setting. There was no real doubt that Harry was ever going to fail.
Hope you dodge all of the many potential intrusions and experience ‘quiet enjoyment’, which is an enviable estate. It’s good you passed the inspection with flying colours. Yes, and it really does come down to what’s in the paperwork with these arrangements. Stay strong, and all you can do is your best.
I sold my old console games years ago, and was surprised by the sheer interest in them. The machines all worked too, but by now given their age, I reckon there’d be some need for some overhaul – like what I do with the old stereo equipment. Actually, forgot to mention it, but recently bought an LED ring light with a magnifying glass on an extendable arm to help with that sort of work. My eye sight is good, but far out, why the persistence in using 1 point font for important details is beyond me!
Cheers
Chris
Yo, Chris – It seems like most (but not all) movie sequels that get more money thrown at them are not near as good as the original. Some manic, creative spark, is lost.
Seems to be enough pythons, to go around, without importing them. New records for length are set, every year.
Crawdads and Crayfish. I think it’s sort of a regional thing. I hear both. Probably because this part of the country saw inward migration from all over the east coast and midwest.
Why would anyone collect old tiles? Because they’re there? 🙂
I don’t know. For anyone with a bit of background in furniture styles, the auction descriptions just look ignorant and … stupid.
“…old fairy blood.” I am not rising to that bait. 🙂
Our high yesterday was 55F (12.77C). Our overnight low was 50F (10C). Our forecast high for today is 57F. H and I have been lucky in our walks. Shhhh! Don’t say that out loud.
So much for “quiet enjoyment.” We got a notice, yesterday, that they’re replacing all the fire sprinkler heads, in the building. From Monday to Thursday. So, for four days, I’ll be on edge. Not a clue in the memo as to when they start of finish for the day. If they’re going to start at the bottom floor and work to the top. You know, minor details that could help me organize my life.
That pantry closet I was so proud of organizing? There’s a sprinkler head, in there. I’ll have to rip out half the stuff, so the guys have room to work.
We have a case of human bird flu, the next country over. The guy is in hospital. If that stuff ever mutates to pass between humans, in an aerosol form, the recent unpleasantness will seem like a walk in the park.
After several weeks, I saw Sam the Snail, night before last. Last night, I noticed two fat earthworms, stranded on the sidewalk. I pitched them into the strawberry bed. Poop little worms, poop! 🙂 Lew
@ DJSpo:
Wow – I hope wampus cats aren’t around here, though I bet they like mountains. Do they eat marigolds? Something ate most all of them. I like how they are school mascots some places.
As for cattywampus: I stepped on one of my knitting needles today (no, not into my foot) and it is now all cattywampus. I can’t get it straight again no how.
Pam
Chris:
Always there is weeding. I kind of like it as a lot of the time I’ll do it in short bursts and then go do something else, then come back to it. I have been able to cut back on it, though, with the cardboard boxes, with or without mulch on top. Sometimes I put that over the chop and drop and it seems to break down just fine.
I watered everything in the garden today that still had green leaves and also the several hundred small persimmons and pawpaws that are in my care because they are in pots in the upper garden.
You are the King of Coffee Grounds (take that, Dame Plum!) and thank you for reminding me about the wood ash. I do use it quite a bit, but sometimes forget it and have to go back over a bed.
The fire danger is very high here; also the winds. Come rain, come!
Pam
Hi Pam,
Yeah, like most jobs they’re best tackled a bit at a time, otherwise it would be overwhelming. Glad to hear that the cardboard is working for your area and the soils. Retains a lot of moisture that technique. Did a couple more hours of weeding today, then the rain swept in from the cold Southern Ocean. It’s been that sort of day. Gave up, and went to a local bakery to nab a sausage roll and lamington. Noticed that lamy-flation has become a thing because it was much reduced in size, and when cut five ways, well, the portions weren’t all that large.
This is news! Are you diversifying into persimmons and pawpaws? I’d put in an order for the pawpaws, but there is reasonable doubt they’d survive the journey, or get past quarantine.
🙂 It’s a lovely thing to divert soil-sized waste from landfill. Who knows what goes on in such places, and the state goobermint is talking about constructing a waste-to-energy facility in a nearby large town (AKA incinerator).
Sending you positive energy for some rain, and the burn off restrictions here come into play at midnight tonight. It may be dry in your part of the world, but is it as dry as parts of the state of South Australia? Amid ongoing drought in South Australia, these women are redefining resilience
Cheers
Chris
Hi Lewis,
Agreed, look at the original Terminator film, which was done on a budget, and shot several scenes sans permits (why not?) and yet had that raw edge to it you suggested. Years ago I read an interview with a local musician who remarked that a notable music video was done on the cheap, and yet the for the same mad cash, the more recent videos that cheap budget wouldn’t have covered the catering budget. Hmm.
Pythons kind of remind me of the story of an enemy which kept pursuing the prey long after the reasons for doing so had been forgotten. The Count of Monte Cristo, but without the moral concerns…
The very successful book on the Crawdads was about the only reason the word had been heard in this corner of the world. Interestingly, the Editor thoroughly enjoyed that book but was disappointed by the film because the sets and cast were simply too clean and wholesome looking.
Who are we to question the tastes of the collector? 🙂 I had a memory of those tiles, and the more recent versions came with a sort of woven acrylic backing sheet so the pattern was laid out in the correct order. I’m sure the originals required an element of care and attention to the aesthetic conclusion.
I defer to your knowledge in that matter, and note that hyperbole is actually a thing. Such talk is lost on me though, and I freely admit that this property is located in the less fashionable end of the mountain range.
Hehe! He probably did you know. Lot’s of creativity, massive charisma, discomfit with the spotlight, then monster burn-out. Smacks of old fairy blood to my caveman senses. 😉
Hubris! Hubris! How did you two fare today? I was not so lucky and when doing some serious weeding on one of the rose garden beds, the heavens opened and dumped a bit of heavy rain. Gave up work after that, and headed off to enjoy a sausage roll and lamington. Lammy-flation was very much in evidence. Far out, almost half the size, and when cut five ways, the portions were quite small. Of course, some cultures thrive upon portion control and would be well pleased with the outcome – I on the other hand was left reaching for the missing lammy. A sad tale… It’s not warm here tonight, and in fact, very close to your temperatures.
Oh poop! Hope the sprinkler upgrade project isn’t too problematic, but hey, at least the place would be clean and presentable after the recent inspection. That’s the thing with such matters – your convenience is at the bottom of the pile of things to worry about.
Far… I was almost going to type something else. Why would a sprinkler head be located inside a cupboard? And yep, that’s how it will roll.
Yeah, most transmissions seem to be with blood contact, but stuff evolves. That one is a never ending risk, and who knows what the future has in store. We might be lucky! But what can’t be sustained, generally isn’t.
That’s a lovely gesture with the earthworms, and I do the same when digging and uncover such hard working critters. Their worm poop is a gift from nature.
Cheers and better get writing.
Chris
Who, Chris – Somehow, it all hangs together. The musician’s comment about the catering, the ever shrinking lamington. And, my DVD player. Looks like I need a new one. It turns out that “The Postman,” played just fine on newer machines. And, last night I was very much looking forward to watching “Mars Attacks!” also a new copy of an older movie. No dice. Seems like something “shifts,” in DVDs, from time to time. And then you need a new machine. Have you ever seen “Mars Attacks!” ? What a hoot. A one minute clip.
https://youtu.be/Y7UoySeX95A?si=vwCLWYgE_5vDIto5
You know, I never much cared for any of that early 19th century French literature. Or, the movies. Dumas, etc.. Maybe something is lost in translation?
I agree with the Editor. I always thought a lot of historic films just portrayed people as too neat and tidy. Monty Python got it right. 🙂
Which reminded me of something I was going to say about nostalgia, the other day. And the whole idea of “golden ages.” Even the ancient Greeks moaned a lot about how things were better in “the good old days.” I think some people who yearn for yesteryear tend to forget that in the past, a lot of people got the poopy end of the stick. And there would be no guarantees that they would be among the “elect,” and not among the poopy stick people.
Our high yesterday was 57F (13.88C). Our overnight low was 52F (11.11C). Our forecast high for today is 54F. The weather gods are still smiling on H and I. My tomatoes still have a lot of flowers on them. Not that many of them produce even green tomatoes. And fewer and fewer of the green ones are ripening up. My Scarlet Runner beans are still blooming.
I suppose someone, somewhere, stored something flammable in that closet. Also, about the same time we were told we couldn’t have anything within 3 feet of a heat source, we were also told that we couldn’t put anything on the top shelf of that closet. Because it might block the sprinkler. More lost space. Oddly, there’s no sprinkler head in the comparable bedroom closet.
I started watching a new New Zealand mystery series, last night. “A Remarkable Place to Die.” Takes place in and around Queenstown. Away from the coast, some of the characters wax lyrical about the scenery. All I see is pretty barren hillsides, with lots of scrub brush. As dry looking as Arizona. Not my cup of tea. Ah, well, to each their own.
H and I are headed down to the Club, for a cuppa. See if Carl’s around. Lew