Possum Galore

A life ‘Down Under’!

01/11/2013 01/11/2013

Clearing Out! (introducing Gordon the Gecko.)

(This post is brought to you in association with Bent Road Winery : http://bentroadwine.com.au/ )Did you ever watch ‘How Clean is Your House’ with Kim and Aggie?They would have a ball here at Frogknot!I’m not saying it is a dirty old hovel because it is not. It has just gathered a little dust, a fair few cobwebs and is in need of some care and attention. It has a wonderful feel about it, even as it crumbles and those of you who have visited will know what a special place it is, special if a little untidy! All around the house, under the verandah and around the back are just piles of junk and old decaying furniture which needed to go and today was the day to do it!

Destined for the tip!

We put the seats down in Roxy and lined her with a tarpaulin to keep her tidy and started filling plastic bins with all manner of rubbish. Will went through the old cupboard that stood outside at the corner of the house where we found the mushrooms, and had a pile of things to keep and bins of stuff to dump.Late morning we were visited by Glen and Robert. They kindly brought their trailer for us to use. Glen and Robert own Bent Road Winery, down the road at Ballandean. We shared some chat, gossip and some of Dulcie’s biscuits before they left.With Roxy loaded we went down to the local waste dump at Glen Aplin on a trial run and found that the dumping of large items and furniture was prohibited. We know that lots of other people ignore that and we were tempted too but decided that we would take all the bulkier items to the Stanthorpe tip.We went back to Frogknot and had lunch then loaded up the trailer with an old sofa bed, the ‘mushroom’ cupboard, 2 lawnmowers and a variety of other junk and headed off to Stanthorpe Refuse Tip.

We were halfway down the drive when Will stopped the car and said ‘I’ve forgotten my wallet. We might need to pay to dump stuff.’I said I would run back and get it. I headed back up the road. As always I was on ‘King Brown alert and at the top of the hill noticed some large red ants on the ground. I kept on going but noticed they deliberately changed direction to run at me. Heck! I thought they might be Fire Ants!I got the wallet and headed back. Sure enough at the top of the hill there were the red ants again and again they aggressively headed towards me! They couldn’t catch me though.I asked Will what they were when I got back in the car. He said they were Bull Ants.http://australianmuseum.net.au/Bull-ants(As you would expect...they are quite nasty!)We arrived at the tip and noticed a large price list for dumping certain items. We had to drive through a large covered warehouse type building and here we were flagged down by a chap in Day-Glo orange. It was his job to check over everything that was brought in. He seemed more interested in what he could salvage from us than checking if we were dumping anything illegal. The warehouse had a store area that was full of stuff that people had brought to the tip which this fellow had rescued and was now selling it. I thought he might have wanted the lawn mowers but he didn’t.‘What about that big water container?’ he asked.‘Oh, it’s got a crack in the bottom,’ said Will.‘So have I,’ he said wittily, ‘but I’m ok.’He directed us to the different dumping areas for metal, wood and landfill and we duly visited each one and added to their piles.

At the landfill dump we picked up a lovely rug and a pair of shorts for Will and sneaked them out past the Day-Glo comedian.Back at Frogknot we loaded up the trailer again, with a gas fridge, a very heavy kerosene fridge, a washing machine and an old water boiler. The fridges and the washer we had to drag to the trailer but the boiler we rolled there. As we were about to lift it up a gecko fell out and just sat there. Gordon, for it was he, was missing his tail from some misadventure but you could see that a new one was growing. I think it must have been dizzy from rolling over and over because we were able to get very close to it. I was a little wary at first half expecting it to suddenly roar like a lion or spit venom or even leap up and sink its teeth into my nose but it just sat there. In the end I had to pick it up to move it out of the way. I was worried we would stand on it or it would head into the shade under Roxy and get run over.

DSCN2862 (Medium) DSCN2865 (Medium)

Gordon the Gecko

We piled three old armchairs into the trailer as well and headed back to the tip. Will tried to interest Day-Glo Orange man in one of the armchairs.‘It is retro,’ he said but it ended up as landfill with the others.On the way out we passed a ‘mob’ of kangaroos. How typical of here that they should be called a mob! Why not a ‘cuddle’ or a ‘curtsey’? Actually one did look pretty aggressive, so perhaps ‘mob’ is appropriate after all.

Don't mess with me, mate!

I shall look forward to seeing a ‘killing’ of koalas and an ‘entropy’ of echidnas, a ‘pillage’ of platypuses and a ‘battering’ of budgies.We knew it was going to be a fantastic sunset so decided when we got back to head out to the rocks to view it but as we pulled up at Frogknot we were greeted by someone clearing their throat a little too loudly and out of the bushes stepped Dave who lives next door. He had heard the trailer clanking up the road and had come to chase, whoever it was, off. He was so pleased to see it was Will and gave him the biggest hug. He was followed by his wife, Jenny and little Nate. The mystery of why the area we cleared at the front of the house still looked so good was solved when Dave said he had been mowing it. He and Jenny were shocked to hear about the theft of the solar panel but he did say that he had heard people riding around on motorbikes and had warned them off. They invited us back to their house for a drink. We said we intended to watch the sunset at the rocks but they insisted we go so we did. We walked through the trees a short way to their block of land. They have a beautiful house and their view was just fantastic.Little Nate beckoned me into his bedroom to show me all his books. We ended up reading ‘Wombat Stew’ together while Will, Dave and Jenny caught up.It was so lovely to finally meet the neighbours and they were absolutely delighted that Will was back.

31/10/2013 31/10/2013

Raising the roof!

I did not sleep very well strange because I felt perfectly comfortable under the net. We went to bed about 11ish. The first time I looked at the clock it was midnight, then 1.30, then 3.30 and the next thing I remember it was 6.00 and light. The frogs had been quite loud during the first part of the night but quietened down in the early hours of the morning. How civic minded!I heard no other strange noises, as I have on many occasions before, and put it down to the marvellous sonic repellers we got last year. It turned out, however, that they had not been on. Will had switched them off before getting in bed.There was a bird fluttering around in the house but as soon as I got up to open the front door it flew out of a tiny gap by the back door. It came back in again later. It must have been used to doing it while the house was empty and knew there was always a good supply of bugs hanging trapped in the cobwebs on the ceiling.We had no set plan for the day. We got the gas fridge going and I started to do some more cleaning. The flow of water coming out of the tap in the house is not very strong and when the tap is at a certain angle you can hear it pouring out of the overflow pipe on the roof. I went out to look and said to Will that I couldn’t see where the water was going. It didn’t appear to be running off the roof and into the gutter and I was worried it was running into the wall. Will went up to have a look. It did eventually flow off the roof. It was just taking its time.We looked at the side of the house where the worst of the water damage was. A few years back we had raised the corrugated iron on that side so that rain water would flow off the roof but with the continued collapse the roof was now lower nearer the wall and so rain water flowed onto the wall. Will decided we should raise it even further so went off to cut some posts while I did a little more cosmetic enhancement in the kitchen.After awhile he came back for me and we went to collect the posts he had cut, and so the repair job began. It was not easy. We had to remove the raising blocks we had added a few years ago and had to get at some awkward screws to release the strut on which the corrugated iron was fastened, free of the verandah roof beams. There was a pile of junk in the way which needed to be cleared. We did this carefully just in case it was a King Brown palace! We saw no snakes but a couple of centipedes, spiders, termites and ants of various sizes.We ended up with various posts leaning at different angles holding the roof strut up. It did the job we wanted but looked a bit untidy.The worst bit was the north eastern corner. We removed a cupboard that was against it and found strange mushrooms growing out of the wall behind it. Will had the great idea of using the car jack to raise the roof struts here and then we cut a post to fit exactly under it. It worked really well and the post was vertical. We decided to go back and refit all the other posts this way.After much effort we were finally happy with how it all looked and are sure now that rain water will flow away from the crumbling walls, that is, if it is gentle rain...a storm might be another matter.It was 2.30pm and we had not stopped to have any breakfast or lunch. We had open air showers and then drove into Stanthorpe to get some shopping.We came back and went for an evening walk out to another rocky escarpment on the property. We came upon a blue tarpaulin all bundled up. Will prodded it and was sure there was something inside. I wasn’t sure what we were going to find but hoped it was not grisly. In the end it just turned out to be a tarpaulin but we noticed a wire between two trees and Will thought someone had been camping there.More intruders!?We walked back to the house, steak, chips and salad for tea.I think we deserve it!