What a hot day it has been today! We’ve had a series of days of higher than expected temperatures since the new year began, and I’ve had enough!
In keeping with my word for the year, authentic, I am staying true to my feelings, and announcing that I’ve had enough with this heat. I’m not happy.
About 5pm, after the rain, with the thunder still rumbling in the distance. This kookaburra wanted his dinner!
The truth of the matter is, I’ve tolerated our hot summer days rather well for the last two summers, although they have been unusually cool for here. When I say cool, I mean less humid. Temperatures have still reached up to over thirty degrees celsius, but with less humidity. This summer though, the humidity is back, squeezing the oxygen from the air and leaving us all dripping with sweat!
The Noisy Miners were all atwitter on the clothesline.
Today, I made a decision of mammoth proportions, totally out of character for me, whilst at the same time being authentically me ~ I’ve ordered a small, portable air-conditioning unit, which will live in my office/sewing room. The cooler air will make me feel a lot happier.
The sky had an eerie yellow-green glow as the sun began to set.
How can anyone be expected to work with a clear head, whilst battling to think straight with their melted brain? It’s simply impossible to do so. I have work related sewing to do and so many sewing and craft projects that I can hardly wait to begin, but not in this heat!
The Butcher Bird had flitted back and forth for food all day. I think he must have stocked his larder, knowing there was a storm approaching. Here he is at 8pm.
I’m not a big fan of air-conditioners. Ceiling fans cool the air very nicely, however I don’t have a ceiling fan in my office. Tomorrow, however, I will be collecting my mini air-conditioner. The money spent on the unit and the extra electricity used to operate it will be earned back tenfold through work production, which has currently ceased, and peace of mind; no more being agitated by the hot days. And I’ll only use it on the hottest of hot days.
One of the kookaburras enjoyed a view of the sun setting from the clothesline.
There is often a display of something very special indeed to be had after an unbearably hot day, and that is the cooler relief that an afternoon storm brings. And even more special is the sky….just look at those colours!
A picture paints a thousand words! This sunset is straight out of the camera, free of any editing.
No one can control the weather and it’s no use trying to fight the heat. I think I may have just worked out a solution to staying busy, which I want to do, whilst tolerating the heat….perfect! 🙂
A lazy Sunday afternoon, just the right day to hang around in a tree.
As promised, here is the follow-up to my story and photos of the kangaroos I saw at South West Rocks. But be warned, you may not hear what you expected to about our cute little koalas!
Early in August my daughter and her boyfriend moved out of the house they had rented for the last year and of course, mum and dad’s assistance didn’t go astray in helping them move! It was a long, exhausting weekend, but by Sunday afternoon we could see that we had the biggest part of the task behind us.
Just after lunchtime, Ryan went out onto the balcony and when he came back inside he asked me, “Did you hear that bird screeching just then?” I told him that I had, then he said to me, “I think it was attacking a koala!”
“What?! Why didn’t you yell out to me; I could have taken a photo!”, amid thinking “they have koalas around here?!”
And here’s a back view, see its fluffy ears?
Throughout the afternoon we continued to hear the screeching bird, which sounded like a cockatoo. But the weird thing was, we could also hear a pig snorting! Emma wasn’t at all surprised by the pig snort sounds though; apparently at a house nearly, they had a pet pig! (hmm, of course, a pet pig in suburban Gold Coast….why not a dog like everyone else?)
After a while it got the better of me and I told Emma that it was time for us to take a break from the packing and cleaning. Armed with my camera we went on a search for this pig, or cockatoo, or koala….whatever it was, I was determined to get photos!
It didn’t take too long for Emma to spot two koalas up in a tree, just across the road from where they lived. I asked had she ever seen koalas here before, seeing as they had lived here for a whole year I suspected there may have been a good chance they had.
The male koala chasing the female up the tree.
“No, never”, Emma told me. How incredible that their final day living there (when I happened to be there with my camera!) was the day we saw them. This was my lucky day!
Suddenly the pig grunting started again, then the cockatoo screeched! And just at the same time as one koala chased the other up a tree!
Chin up exercises?
What I have since learned is that during the mating season, a male koala will often make a loud grunting sound! Did you know that? No? It was news to me too! And if the female is playing hard to get, or not appreciating the males advances, she will screech like a bird! And here you were all thinking that koalas were quiet little cuddly creatures, weren’t you?
Well, that’s what I thought about them. I didn’t know they even made a sound at all! But they are very cute, rather bulky and fury as can be. These photos are a tad fuzzy as the tree they were playing chaseys in was a distance away from me and with other trees in front of the koalas it was difficult to get a good clear shot of them. I hope you can see them clearly enough though to appreciate just how adorable they are.
They move surprisingly fast when they climb the trees.
So there you are, both kangaroos and koalas do live in the wild in Australia! We may not see them every day, but what a treat it is when we do. 🙂
A typical image of a cute and cuddly koala, just what we imagine they should look like. 🙂
An intense moment for Bella, the Border Collie and Porter, the Border Collie cross Cattle Dog.
Last week my daughter phoned me, quite early in the morning, to see if perhaps, just on the off-chance, I might like to go with her when she took her two gorgeous babies for a swim in the river.
We’re a-ready……
She didn’t sound too confident that I would say yes. I’m not usually a “make plans on the spur of the moment” type of person, but what she suggested sounded like fun, so around mid morning I headed off to her place, we loaded her babies into the back of her car and off we went.
……we’re gettin’ set…….
A couple of days later, I saw that Kathy, at Lake Superior Spirit, was sharing photos and adoption stories of her own “grands”, Kathy’s being grand-kittens!
Go Porter!!
What is it with us women with grown children? Here we are referring to our children’s animals as our grand-pets! Is there a secret longing that we are holding deep within our hearts that perhaps this addition of fury-grands may soon lead to “The Real Thing”? Or are we collectively heaving a sigh a relief that these grand-pets of ours, if they give our own babies any sign of trouble, can be unceremoniously put out the back door to give our children some peace? We remember the trials we have been through with our own real babies!
I can do it!
It is so easy to recall the joy I felt when my children were on their way into my life, the anticipation, the planning, decorating the nursery, choosing baby clothes and contemplating names. What a joyful time it was. And yet I simply cannot get my head around the idea of having an real human grandchild, one without the fur!
No Bella, it’s MY ball!
I keep on telling my children that I’m too young to be a grandmother, but that story is getting old, way too old, especially considering my eldest is now twenty-eight years old!
And I’ve got it! I always get it! Porter wins again!!
When the time is right for my children, when they can almost smell the soft scent of a baby near to them, when they long for the feel of a babies gentle skin touching their own and when they know, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are ready to love another human being to the ends of the earth and back again, then I guess I’ll be old enough to be a grandma.
Yep, Porter got it….again….
But for now, like Kathy, I will enjoy the long-furred, heavy-breathing, doe-eyed, unconditional love of my two grand-pups, Porter and Bella. Oh, and did I mention that I have two grand-kittens too? Like Kathy said, “Gosh darn, the important things we forget to blog about”!
“To hear never-heard sounds, To see never-seen colors and shapes, To try to understand the imperceptible Power pervading the world; To fly and find pure ethereal substances That are not of matter But of that invisible soul pervading reality. To hear another soul and to whisper to another soul; To be a lantern in the darkness Or an umbrella in a stormy day; To feel much more than know. To be the eyes of an eagle, slope of a mountain; To be a wave understanding the influence of the moon; To be a tree and read the memory of the leaves; To be an insignificant pedestrian on the streets Of crazy cities watching, watching, and watching. To be a smile on the face of a woman And shine in her memory As a moment saved without planning.” ~ Dejan Stojanovic.
The first day that a flock of Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos invaded my Pecan Nut Tree was indeed a happy day for this bird-loving, photo taking blogger. For weeks I had listened to their raucous screeching sounds as they flew through the ether, bypassing my garden and heading off to parts unknown.
These are large native Australian birds, and whilst some may regard them as pests, there are many more, including myself, who love the personality, character and appearance of cockatoos.
During one of my early morning photo session I could hear my next door neighbour calling out “shoo, shoo” and when I looked towards her garden, there she was, running around her yard, waving a stick and obviously attempting to remove these angelic beauties from her garden. Not that she had many in her yard, and they were my pecan nuts they were munching on.
I chuckled to myself and continued clicking away with my camera. The cockatoos ignored the stick-waving human. The stick-waver gave up.
We planted our pecan nut tree about eighteen years ago, so you can imagine how large it is now, and we have enjoyed many seasons of munching away on the pecans ourselves. In fact, I’m sure I have a post, somewhere in the archives, of my delicious Pecan Pie…..
“Wanna share….?”
…..Here it is! And look at that, I added the recipe on June, 18th, 2010, almost three years ago to the day! And I’m more than happy to share my pie recipe with everyone, unlike my cockatoo friends, who are very possessive with what they regard as their own, as you can see here!
“Gimme that now!”
During the silence of the early morning, with around two dozen cockatoos breaking open the hard shells of the pecans, the collective cracking of shells being broken open resembles the sound of a fire burning. You know the crackling sound a fire makes when logs are burning in the fireplace? That’s the noise that the cockatoos make with the shells.
Their white feathers are so pristine in appearance and with the birds being so large, between fifteen to twenty inches in length, when their wings are spread they seem to look as I imagine an angel in flight would look.
Oh okay, yes, you’re right, I don’t imagine an angel with a rounded beak and black beads for eyes, but you do get the picture, don’t you? Their white wings look like gossamer, cascading through the air. I suspect in reality those wings hold power, though my heart wishes to believe they are gossamer.
A white flurry of gossamer wings….
Cockatoos can be tamed and kept as pets, even taught how to talk. Apparently they are very demanding pets. I’ve also read that they are very affectionate birds, which doesn’t surprise me, after having been privileged to watch them interact with one another in the wild.
Pretty Cocky!
The long yellow feathers on their head, the crest, has its own set of muscles, allowing the bird to lift their sulphur crest when happy, excited or playful. As I have watched them, I’ve noticed that when something catches their eye somewhere in the distance, they will raise their crest before flying away.
My neighbour, who also feeds the wild birds, (not the stick waving woman!) has a huge pine tree in her garden and the cockatoos love chewing on the pine cones too. In captivity, they can destroy furniture, as they love to chew on wood. Perhaps the stick waver thought they were plotting to destroy her trees…..?
They seem to be quite partial to the exotic orange blooms of my African Tulip tree too. I’m guessing there must be seeds inside the flowers that they enjoy eating. I’ve also watched and wondered, as they shake their heads back when they have a mouthful of delicious orange-ness, just as this next cocky is doing.
I must admit, I wondered whether the cockatoos had left me any pecans on the tree at all! Not that I needed any, as I already have two buckets full on the veranda, waiting to be shelled, so I took another bucket down to the tree last weekend only to find that there were heaps of pecan nuts left for me! These gorgeous white-winged angels are not greedy at all. 🙂
Signs of winter have crept into my part of the world this week and last night really was rather chilly indeed, with the temperature dropping down to around eleven degrees Celsius. Believe me, that’s quite cold for this area!
There are definite advantages to cool sunny days though and last night we were treated to another beautiful autumn sunset, so while I share my world by answering Cee’s questions for both weeks 19 and 20, I will also share last night’s sunset with you all. 🙂
WEEK 19 ~
On a vacation what would you require in any place that you would stay? (This was a suggested question for Cee to ask, from my blogging friend Carol.)
Usually I have an automatic response to Cee’s questions, but I had to give this one some thought. Coffee making facilities came to mind, but I could go out for coffee, I can live without a television, easily, and all places you stay in have a bed….but what I really would dislike sharing is a bathroom. So that is my answer, I would require an adjoining bathroom in any place that I would stay on vacation.
If you were or are a writer do you prefer writing short stories, poems or novels? I don’t believe that I would have the patience to write a novel, but short stories I can do, and I enjoy writing them. When I think about it, every blog post I write is a short story really. I do enjoy reading, and writing poetry too, but short stories are top of the list.
What’s your favorite song of the moment?
Oh that’s such an easy question to answer, it’s the song that is playing on constant repeat inside my head! The Australian version of The Voice is being shown in Australia right now, and one of my favourite contestants, Luke Kennedy, sang a duet of the song from Les Miserables, “I Dreamed a Dream”. It hasn’t left my head since that night! I’ve loved this song since I first heard it sung by Michael Crawford.
If you were to buy a new house/apartment what is the top item on your wish list?
If I were to buy a new home, my number one criteria would be that it had to be old. I’ve always wanted to renovate an old home, a one hundred year old home would be ideal, and I would like to restore it to its former glory.
Now onto Cee’s questions for WEEK 20 ~
Do you like winter, or not, and why?
Winter, oh how I love winter! I’m a cold climate girl. I grew up in The Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, where it actually snows during winter in some of the higher altitude towns. There are four definite seasons in the mountains, each with its own individual beauty, and during summer it doesn’t even get dreadfully hot. I love it!
Are you a listener or talker?
Definitely a listener, especially when I first meet a new person and don’t know them very well. I think that everyone who knows me well would agree that I’m a very good listener, but I can talk once I get going too!
What is your favorite juice or fruit drink?
Is there such a thing as chocolate juice? 😉 There should be, but seeing as there isn’t, I think I would have to say pineapple juice. It’s a juice that I don’t drink often, but when I do, I love it.
What do you have to be so happy about?
My four children. Sure, there are other things that make me happy (like beautiful sunsets!) a day at a time, but ask me any day, of any year, for the last twenty-eight years (‘coz that’s how long I’ve been a mother) what makes me happy, and I would consistently say my two sons and two daughters. They are the highlights of all of my life’s happiest days, and that’s every day.
In My World 