During the past week I’ve heard a few squabbles among the kookaburras and this morning they were fighting for top position on the clothesline! They are such funny characters and as you can see, this kookie is acting quite indignant over being challenged to his top spot!

The rain we have had during the last week has brought the brilliant greens out in the cane fields, so I just had to show you all how luscious the sugar cane is looking just now.

I have been working on a uni assignment today again, but during the afternoon husband asked if I could give him a hand with a few things in the back garden. He didn’t need to twist my arm! So after I had finished writing I grabbed my camera and joined him. He was pruning the tropical pear tree in the orchard, which is right down the bottom of the garden near the rear boundary, so I took a photo of the uninterrupted view of the valley from there.

While I helped with the pruning, I left my camera in the fork of the mango tree, wrapped in a flannelette shirt as there were a few spots of rain about. I had to grab my camera again though to take a photo of this little cutie, perched on the corner fence post, eyeing off the ground for sight of his dinner. (The fence is due to be replaced soon!)

The rain became a tad heavier just as the battery in the chainsaw died, so I headed to the shelter of the bar-be-que area to wait for the shower to pass. It was quite late in the day by that time, but I still managed to catch a photo of the raindrops hitting the pool water in the dimming light.

Over the past few days, my blogging friend, Carol, has been on my mind a lot. She lives in Oregon, near where the horrendous fires in the USA are, and she has been on constant evacuation alert. Carol spoke of the red orb of sun, and I knew what she meant as the sun took on that almost glowing, eerily red appearance during the latter months of last year and early this year in New South Wales, where I live. At that time I wasn’t blogging regularly, so I thought I’d post some photos that I took around that time today.

We lived with this strange yellow sky for about two months during November and December last year. The fires blazed across all of eastern Australia, but by some strange stroke of luck, our area remained safe, even though fires surrounded us for weeks.

This is the sun, taken on the 10th November, 2019. I remember the first day I noticed the change in the appearance of the sun. I was driving home, and I wondered why the moon was so bright, and so big, and in the western sky during the afternoon. It took me a few minutes to realise that it was actually the sun. It sure didn’t look like the sun!

Mount Warning looked hazy, and the sky yellow for weeks. Weeks went by without seeing any blue sky and the sun eventually turned into a glowing red orb. Everything looked so scarily unnatural and surreal.

Looking back on these photos now, they are so unreal that they seem as if they were Photo-shopped! Unfortunately, they are genuine. This is just how the sun looked in December last year.

I am posting these photos today as I don’t image – well, I hope and pray – that we will not have another summer the same as last summer. It was unsettling, to say the least. Complete towns were burned to the ground. During the year though, we have heard that fire trails have been cleared. We have also heard that many Aboriginal people, who understand the benefits of controlled burning to rejuvenate the bush and to prevent bush fires from burning out of control are now being listened to. I don’t know why it took a catastrophic event for the authorities to listen, but at least they are listening now. Also in our favor, we have had rain, after living through drought for most of last year. Also, more rain is predicted.

As for Carol in Oregon, I wish her well, and hope the fires surrounding her are soon under control. Carol can be found at Wanderings of an Elusive Mind. ❤