Attack in the light?

So...it was a very strange night last night. There was a foreboding atmosphere about the darkness which made us feel very uneasy. It didn't stop Will from falling asleep though so he didn't hear the alarm call of another hen. I got up thinking it might be one of our hens but they were all ok. When the fox first attacked next door one of their hens must have escaped out of the shed and later in the night the fox returned and found it.There was also a strange, regular, deep rasping sound which Will heard before drifting off which he thought might be a Koala. There were a few other unidentifiable noises that did not help with the atmosphere. Eventually I too went of to sleep. Will was up at 4.00 and off to the Cheese Factory and I fell back asleep and woke at 7.15. I could still hear the deep, rasping sound so got up and went to investigate it.I followed the sound through the bush behind the dam and down the hill to the kiwi fruit orchard. Whatever was making the sound sounded like it was distressed or trapped but I was wrong. Will was wrong too. It wasn't a koala....It was a stag who was bellowing in the middle of his herd. I didn't manage to get a picture of him before he and the herd disappeared into the bush.I let the 'chooks' out before heading off to work at 10.00. I got home about 1.30 and Will was already home. He said that he couldn't find all of the birds. Yudhisthira was outside the house keeping guard over Pacha who was hiding under a cupboard at the front. Sheng-Mu was laying low in one of the nesting boxes in the pen. The Guinea fowl were huddled around the back by the old pen and Arke and the as yet un-named black hen were missing. We did find a clump of black feathers by the dam and everything seemed to point to another fox attack but during daylight.Something had definitely spooked the birds as they were all acting strangely all afternoon. I felt bad that I had let them all out in the morning and felt that I shouldn't have after the events of the night before but Arke and the un-named black hen turned up again just before sunset as they wandering back out of the bush. It was such a relief.We have re-set the fox trap...

Attack in the dark.

So...just as we were going to bed we heard a commotion next door from our neighbour's chooks. We texted them but got no reply and when we heard further commotion we went to investigate. The chook pen door was open, there was one hen on a perch, a dead rooster on the floor and another dying hen lying next to it. There was another hen alive but laying low in the outside pen. We rang the neighbours who were in bed and told them the news, shut the door and came home leaving them to sort it.On the way back to bed we went and checked our own chooks. Scarily the rock and log that hold down the netting at the door had been scraped away. I remember closing it firmly at sunset. Luckily all our birds were safe. We think the fox might have got in but was distracted by the food scraps we had thrown in the pen.We have placed a heavier rock at the door to hold the netting down.

A Room with a View.

So...we have finally finished fitting the upstairs panoramic windows...

Light show.

So....after weeks and weeks of dry weather last night, at about 11.30, we watched a storm approaching us in Blue Moon House. The lightning was constant and we heard the thunder approaching for at least 45 minutes until it was over us. Before it arrived we decided to head back down into Frogknot to sit it out because the lightning seemed to suggest that it was a particularly  intense storm when in actual fact it turned out to be pretty much a damp squib. It was over and gone in about 15 minutes with a short 3 minute burst of heavy rain and then just the drip, drip, drop of April showers.We went back to Blue Moon and to sleep.At 1.55 am we were woken by another aproaching storm. The lightning was less frequent than the previous storm.It never ceases to amaze me how fast these storms approach. I doubt you could outrun one in a car.This second storm had much more substance and we got a fair bit of rain with it. One bolt of lightning seemed to hit very close by as the crack of thunder was almost immediate and shook our little house. It was all over in about 45 minutes but in all we had 13 mls of rain.Everything has been so dry, the grass was crunching underfoot and the leaves on the trees were all shriveled. It was a welcome relief.One thing not so welcome is the effect the rain appears to have had upon one very noisy cricket that started to chirrup after the first shower. It continued most of the night and is still at it tonight. I think I prefer the monotony of the distant yapping thing to this cricket's rhythmic trilling.It's like someone's unanswered mobile phone going on for hours and hours and hours......

A handful of possums!

So...tonight I counted five Brush Tailed Possums around Frogknot on the way to bed and none of them appeared to be one eyed Caliban......pictured here in the tree outside Blue Moon House the other night. So he would make six local possums and that is not including the Ring Tailed Possum that has a nest in the shed.Where are they all sleeping during the day?