Category: palm trees
Warmer Days Return
After a few days of spring-like weather, the warmer weather returned today. The chores we needed to get done were mostly inside the house – thankfully – where the ceiling fans kept us cool.
I’m glad every week is not as busy as the past week has been. Between one thing and the other I have hardly had a moment to spare, which has kept me from visiting my blogging friends. I keep thinking about you all, hoping you are well, wondering what you have been up to. I know tomorrow will be another busy day, but on Monday I will be couped up in my office all day …
… couped up with my computer, that is, so I plan on having a blog visiting day then.
So why will I be couped up in my office? I’m glad you asked …
We are (finally) having the floor coverings replaced in the main living area and hallways of our house, so I will need to make myself scarce so as not to get in the way of the workers. This week preparations began, including emptying cupboards ready to be moved, and removing tired old skirting boards that we have decided to replace.
Also this week I minded little Aurora for two days, and have had two extra dogs here for four nights while my daughter and family took a few day’s holiday. Tomorrow I will have four-year-old Braxton here for half a day as well. It’s little wonder I nodded off at the computer the other night while posting my daily photo of Mount Warning – I’m feeling tired just writing about the week that was. 😉
Between the heat, the mess, and plain old tiredness, we had takeaway pizza for dinner tonight, which was very nice for a change. 🙂
Living up to its name …
The Cloud Catcher.
Changing Weather
Even the setting sun couldn’t break through the clouds today.
The day started as another early-onset hot weather day, the valley covered in heat haze and no sign of Mount Warning. By mid-afternoon, a southerly wind blew the heat away, and for the first time in days the temperature was positively brisk! But still no sign of the mountain.
It looked like rain in the valley, heading north towards us, yet the rain never arrived. Thankfully though, the morning temperate of the low thirties plummeted to an afternoon temperature in the low twenties – bliss!
On Palms and Kookaburras
Today I made a point of taking a broader view photo of the mountain, showing the nearby palm trees. In yesterday’s post, I explained that we had lost a few lower leaves on our palms during the recent gusty storms. One significant leaf, which usually appears in my Mount Warning photos, is gone. Now when I take phtos of the mountain from this particular position in the garden, it feels like the photo isn’t complete – now I have to get used to a new normal!
The broad view photo adds context to the height of the palms, and why one very large drooping leaf always appeared in my camera lens. There is a bunch of seeds below the leaves on one palm, and the leaf that always appeared as an “extra” prop in my photos was growing between the leaves and the seed bunch.
This next photo shows a different cluster of palm trees. Most of these trees – except for the one on the far left of the photo – are growing near the pool. As the lower leaves drop, new leaves are forming above, and adding height to the tree. Along the trunk of the tree, as each leaf drops it leaves a ridge in the trunk of the palm where the leaf once grew.
Surprisingly, palm leaves are incredibly heavy! When they crash to the ground they make a very loud sound, almost like thunder. The palm on the far left in the photo above has two leaves which could fall at any time. As the trees grow taller and the dying leaves are higher, we simply can’t reach them to cut the leaves down, so until they drop they look a tad messy dangling from the tree.
Every morning around sunrise, the kookaburras wait in the palm trees, keeping a watchful eye on the back door, waiting for me to go out and feed them. They rarely wait around the garden at night, probably because they know I won’t feed them. Tonight, however, I spotted one kookaburra sitting on my clothesline, watching the back door. What really struck me was the position of the bird in front of a gorgeous orange sunset.
I rushed outside with my camera and took a few photos, and seeing as the kookie had been such a willing model, I made an exception and took a tiny treat out to him. I couldn’t decide which photo I liked best – the black silhouette, or the one that shows a glimpse of his features. So here are both photos. 🙂
In My World 