Australia · clouds · garden flowers · in my garden · kitchen renovation · Mount Warning · native Australian birds · rain · reading · summer · Tweed Valley

There’s been brighter days …

The rain continued today, in fact, I awoke to the sound of heavy rain which hardly let up all day. Husband tells me that according to his trusty rain guage we had two inches of rain overnight.

Given we have had another dismal day, therefore I don’t have a beautiful Mount Warning photo, I have looked through more unpublished photos taken in my garden.

Noisy miner

The birds continue to visit every day, come rain hail or shine. I haven’t been keeping to my usual routine time-wise when feeding them breakfast recently though, as many mornings are completely filled with being on standby for tradesmen who are renovating my kitchen. The birds are extremely patient creatures though, and wait on the veranda for me.

Gaura

I had the electrician here all day today, and he switched the power to the house off (obviously) to install my new range cooker, a single wall oven, the microwave, and various power points and lights. I couldn’t go outside into the garden because of the rain, and everything I thought of doing required power … typical.

Catmint

After I had read through my three new appliance manuals, I decided to read some more of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I’m a late arrival to the Harry Potter series, and I have decided that if I had attempted to read the books when they were released, I would not have fully appreciated them. Reading the books now, however, I find them difficult to put down.

Lilly pilly

For a break from reading, I went onto Facebook occasionally to chat with my daughters on messenger. A quick scroll through Facebook, however, revealed quite an unusual situation, which has  been thoroughly discussed on Facebook throughout the day. Tonight on television, the discussion continues, regarding Facebook’s decision to remove the content of several Australian pages from the website. Many Australians are considering, and have implimented today, alternative options to Facebook.

Again, I am considering the question – do I really want to remain on Facebook?

Australia · clouds · garden flowers · in my garden · Mount Warning · native Australian birds · native Australian plants · rain · summer · Tweed Valley

More rain …

When the rain bucketed down at 7am this morning, there was no sign of Mount Warning. Ignoring the inclement weather, two little Magpie Larks, or Pee Wees as they are affectionately called in Australia, arrived first for breakfast at my back door.

The first photo is a little lady pee wee, with verticle lines of black feathers through both eyes, and white around her beak.

Nearby, another pee wee waited, a male, with a horizontal black “mask” across his eyes, and more black feathers around his beak than his little lady friend. My photos would have been clearer if it wasn’t for the dreary weather, but with such shy flitting birds, I take what I can get.

Later in the afternoon, the mountain appeared from behind the veil of clouds which had hidden it all day.

For days now, I have been trying to take a photo of the new Lilly pilly flowers appearing on some of my potted plants. They will eventually form a hedge in the garden, but for now, I am keeping them near to the house where they can be watered every day – manually, with a hose, (was the plan) although I have rarely used the hose this summer due to our excessive rainfall! Lilly pillys are usually very hotogenic flowers, except on dull days, apparently. I will persevere though. They are very pretty Australian natives and I would like to document their growth more extensively, besides showing off their beauty. 🙂

 

Australia · garden flowers · in my garden · Mount Warning · native Australian birds · native Australian plants · rain · subtropical weather · summer · Tweed Valley

Cute and Curious

How’s that for a crystal clear day? I shouldn’t have gotten too excited, the rain returned a couple of hours ago, but that’s to be expected at this time of year. Our area is known for hot, humid days during summer, ending in a subtropical storm – or heavy rain shower, at least – later in the afternoon. The day began beautifully though, which was a very nice change from seeing mist and haze in the valley every morning.

This morning I noticed the little Pee Wee bird dancing around the top of the fence, clearly trying to get a look at something down below. I watched for a minute, as I was curious to find out what had caught his attention. After a while, a little head popped out from behind my potted Lilly Pilly plant.

Baby Magpie has taken to foraging in the dirt of my newly-potted plants, so I suppose the Pee Wee was hoping for a share of whatever Baby Mags came up with! 🙂