Possum Galore
A life ‘Down Under’!
"What's Trumps?"
I was brave today and headed off further afield on my own in Roxy. I only went to Algester which is a neighbouring suburb but it felt like a solo adventure. Pepsi Max was on special offer at the supermarket there according to the junk leaflet left in our letterbox. Dulcie also wanted 2 large packs of chicken legs going cheap (not cheep) on the same leaflet. I had been before with Will but felt very impressed with myself for making it on my own. We drive on the same said as the UK here but ordinary main roads can be three lanes wide and you are allowed to overtake on the inside and speed restrictions change with the wind and the police lurk in unmarked cars...so it can be a bit stressful.I was shocked to find the Pepsi Max was not on special nor were the chicken legs as cheap as we expected...I found a copy of the promotional leaflet by the entrance and it was completely different to the one we found in the letterbox. I guessed that those offers were for a later date. I got the Pepsi anyway and the chicken legs and headed back to Acacia Ridge. I got some more shopping at our local supermarket before heading back to Celtis St.Checking the leaflet on my return the offers we had seen start tomorrow...Dulcie was still pleased with the legs I got which turned out to be enough for 10 meals.We had two games of Euchre after lunch. She normally watches 'The Virginian'. She loves it but she turned it off today. It was not a good episode. "I can't stand crap!" She said.The euchre games were  wipeout, she stormed to victory very quickly and went for her shower.Trace and Jen arrived at 3.30 pm."How are you?" They asked her."Oh, not good," she said."She's well enough to beat me hands down at euchre!" I said.We had another game after tea, fresh steamed mullet...that's the tea, not the game. We played five handed euchre. It needed some concentration which was decidedly lacking after partaking of the last bottle of Will's ginger beer. Having now been cellared for over a month...it was practically rocket fuel!Every hand started with someone asking "What's trumps?".... and then again at least twice before the hand was over...it was 9.30pm when Dulcie got to bed....two and a half hours after her normal bedtime.With Dulcie locked in upstairs as we go to bed....Trace and Jen are sleeping in their van under the house in the garage. Trace said "Look, I have to be honest with you...we pee in the garden if we need to at night.""So do we," we admitted." Perhaps we should divide up the garden then," she said "so we don't pee on each other in the darkness?" It was a good plan...you can see why they chose her to work in the Prime Minister's office.What an unexpected boon that my pee is fluorescent! No one will wonder where I am!
Australia Day!
Yesterday was Australia Day. The 26th of January is the annual celebration which marks the anniversary of the 1788 arrival of the First Fleet of British Ships at Sydney Cove, New South Wales and the raising of the flag of Great Britain by Governor Arthur Phillip. For many it is known as 'Invasion Day' or 'Survival Day.' I can see their point. If the day falls upon a weekend the following Monday is a National Holiday...which was the case today. I hardly noticed it
We travelled from Frogknot to Toowoomba. We visited our friend Julié (pronounced Ju-lay). She used to live in Stanthorpe but has now bought  house in Toowoomba. It was a lovely house which has a fabulous pool. We sat and chatted on the verandah. She loves her pool.
"I just float in the noodle," she said.
I thought she was saying she swam in the nude. The pool was not that secluded and I was thinking she was brave but she explained a 'noodle' is a long thin cylindrical float.
She had a 'cunning plan' for us...we put up some pictures, and carried two large bookshelves from her garage into the house as well as some boxes of books. Will passed a box of books to me and in picking up another brushed off a spider clinging to it.
"Was that a red-back?" asked Julié. He nodded. I dropped my box and checked it thoroughly before picking it up again.
It was lovely to see her and we hope to go back and see her again soon and avail ourselves of her pool and float in the noodle.
We stayed the night at Andrew's who also lives in Toowoomba and caught up with some great British TV including some of the new 'This is Jinsy' series.
We are back now in Brisbane. It is feeling a bit cooler than when we left. The school holidays are over and the new school year starts tomorrow. Trace and Jen are coming up to stay tomorrow and a week tomorrow we fly to Fiji.
Good times!
The Fabulous and Flippin' Fauna of Frogknot.
We had no rain yesterday and it was much warmer than the day before when we had lit the fire.
I was happy to see the turtles are still there (fabulous)...I was getting worried after seeing the snake and yesterday spotted the white necked heron (flippin' fabulous) in the tree...but I spotted one peeking out of the water later in the day.
A frog  hopped into the house just before we went to bed in the re-vamped bedroom area. It was only tiny but it couldn't half jump. Of course it headed straight under the bed and Will had to crawl in after it. It evaded him and got away and was crossing back across the lounge when I stunned it by shining one of the solar lamps on it. Will grabbed it and took it out nearer the dam.(Fabulous at flippin'?)
The froggies have been very quiet of late...I have heard one or two at night as I go out to rid myself of fluorescent water but they are definitely not as loud as they have been.
I slept okay in the new bed...I love the net ( Will hates it!) but I really would not be able to relax at night without it. I saw two huntsmen spiders yesterday, granted they were not that big but they are fast and seem pretty clever. One  was underneath one of the futon chairs that I had taken outside to clear away the cobwebs. I turned the chair over and there it was...it ran and hid out of sight. Turning the chair again to find it..the spider ran again and hid again just out of sight. I tried to swipe it with the brush and it actually jumped! (Flippin'.)
I know it was more scared of me and probably would do anything it could to keep away from me but I am glad I am under that net. There was also this weird looking wasp  that was crawling all over one of the wooden posts. I caught it in a glass and slipped a bit of card underneath and carried it outside and let it go. I went back in and you would not believe it...it was there again back on the pillar. I caught it and carried it out again and this time took it further away and set it free...the stupid thing came back, so I squashed it! It had its chance and blew it! (Flippin') Never mind the spiders and wasps...I missed taking one vitamin B tablet and was bitten twice by a mosquito! If the net was not there...I would have no blood left by morning! (Flippin')
It rained again this morning for a couple of hours before we got up. Will found 11 mm in the rain gauge. I didn't think it had rained that much.
There was no more rain for the rest of the day. We just lay about reading. We did do a 'dump run' this afternoon to get rid of the stuff Will had decided to throw out from 'The Pit of Despair'. Driving down the track, Will suddenly stopped and we watched a black snake  slither across in front of us. That's two!....in just a few days! It seemed a bit shorter than the one we saw by the dam. I wish I had not seen it because now I know how fast they can move and it is a lot faster than I had imagined! (Flippin')
Just a bit further on two 'wedgies' flew off the trees...(Wedge-tailed Eagle...fabulous!)
Back home we went back to laying about punctuated by short wanders outside. I think we both felt a bit guilty by doing nothing. I noticed on one of my wanders that Will had built a tripod of sticks for something in the garden to grow up. I wandered down to the dam to have a close look at the stick I put in at the waters edge the other day. I went very slowly looking carefully for snakes. I saw a kingfisher (fabulous) sitting on a branch shaking its feathers before it flew off. The water was perhaps a little higher than I remembered it a few days ago but not much.
Just as the sun was setting...my guilt at a wasted day got the better of me and I had a sudden urge to fix the gutter at the back of the house. We did it together, tested it with the hose pipe and it worked great. I am happy now that just a little more water will be directed towards the dam rather than sink into the ground at the back of the house. I just had time to clean out some of the other gutters before it became too dark.
I was just startled by a little beetle crashing into my laptop screen. It is either a cane beetle or a dung beetle...I hardly care...but I evicted it. If I was to choose from the pictures I googled... I would say it was a cane beetle...but there might be some who say...'crashing into your laptop screen? It was surely attracted by dung!'
(Flippin!')
"You made your bed, now lie in it!"
Rain!
It is 5.30 pm and it has just stopped raining. It has pretty much rained all day from 9.00 am, steady rain. The rain gauge shows there has been 18 mm. If only we had some tanks to collect the rainwater off the roof. We would have filled them today. I kept going to see if the dam was slowly filling up. I had stuck a stick in the mud at the waters edge this morning but it does not look as if it has risen at all.It was awful to see so much precious water going to waste. Because the wall at the front of the house had sunk the angle of the corrugated iron roof was more shallow and the run off was curling under the edge of the corrugated iron, dripping and missing the gutter completely. Quite a pool of water was gathering under the verandah at the front. I discovered that if I laid small sticks in the valleys of the corrugated iron over the gutter it stopped the water from curling under and missing the gutter altogether. The pool dried up and the water ran along the gutter and into the pit at the end which drains into the dam. But still the dam did not seem to rise.When we had initially seen how cloudy it was we had decided that today we would clear the rest of the cassinia from the 'chook' pens but with the rain we decided to stay in. There was only one big job left to do in the house...'The Pit of Despair!'Will made a start on it.  There was not much I could do as it was up to him to decide what to keep and what to throw away. I would have whizzed the lot! I removed all the cd's, books and magazines from one cupboard, wiped it down and then we moved it into another corner and I put most of it back, leaving a pile of stuff for Will to sort through. I sorted the magazines before putting them back. There were gardening magazines, poultry magazines (!), permaculture magazines and  some called Grass Roots with interesting titles like "Making Money from Muesli". They all looked very old.On one of may wanders out to check the dam I spotted a white necked heron flying up away from the waters edge.
There was no sign of the snake today....perhaps the heron ate it.
(It was strangely quiet in the night...we did not hear any frogs...I hope the heron and the snake have not eaten them all...I could not see any of the turtles today either.)
Back in the house Will was sorting all the clothes hung up under the loft bed. It was a slow process as he kept on modelling some of the more wacky ones...things people had left after dress up parties at the house in the past. He cried out at one point as a mouse scuttled out from somewhere giving him a shock. We know a song about that....
"I saw a mouse, where?
'The pit of despair'
Where in 'despair?'
Right there!
A little mouse with togs on,
Well, I declare
Going scuttling off in the pit of despair
Oh yeah."
While sorting through all the stuff Will found this lovely picture of his Mum and Dad...
It was all cleared and swept out by about 6.00 pm.
The plan is to lower the loft bed to a more normal level. There is no way that I can sleep up there as it is just a few inches below the ceiling!
Into The Pit of Despair.
