The weekend that was

My weekend really began on Friday when I took the day off to do a Few Things Around The Yard in readiness for our visit from friends Warwick and John from Melbourne. Warwick is presently in second place after Piglet for the number of visits he's made to maryville with his total standing at 3. Friday was another blue sky, hot day and I was glad to finish the mowing (with the help this time of Rita the rideon until she threw a hissy fit and belt at the same time) by lunchtime. I watered the plants and prepared a rather tasty massaman curry in our 21st century crock pot aka the slow cooker during the arvo.

Oh and I fed kimba our woma python with a nicely thawed sub-adult rat which I was very happy about. The pic opposite is of Kimba being held by Kel, the son of friends of ours, Trevor and Julie. (Kel is a bit of a snakey, too). Prior to his slow down period when he hadn't eaten anything since May, Kimba had been steadfastly refusing to eat anything other than weaner rats (which on the ratty growth scale are next down in size from a subadult). However, he would eat three at a sitting and these were expensive at $22.00 for 3. The sub-adult rat is only $7.00 and one of these keeps him happy for about a week to ten days.

Anyways, Warwick and John arrived courtesy of their hired red convertible, Miss Penelope, around 8.30 that evening and we enjoyed the curry and wines before heading to bed at a fairly sensible hour.

I was a bit grumpy the next morning because the day appeared to be grey, overcast and cool, but the clouds burnt off by mid morning giving way to another blueskyhotday. After buying veges and fruit at Kyogle and enjoying breakfast at the Box and Dice Cafe, we spent the rest of the day doing ranch-type activities while W and J toured the northern rivers, ending up at Bangalow. Steve and I meanwhile were busy preparing for a bbq that night. Glen arrived just before sunset and all of us except John enjoyed sunset and champagne (yes real champagne) in the hot tub before enjoying the bbq.

Sunday was spent at work for Glen while W and J and S and I enjoyed the drive along the rim of the volcanic crator across and over to Uki where we had a cooling beverage at the Mt Warning pub before enjoying a delicious lunch at Mavis' Kitchen at the foot of Mt Warning/Wollumbin. Our position on the verandah gae us an excellent view of the ancient volcanic plug. Warwick and John then continued driving up to Coolangatta airport while we headed back home via Khungur village and Khungur Creek just because it looked interesting.

With emails like this, what's not to like about working here...

Hi All,

Please be aware there are at present 3 snakes near the top of the wooden ramp at R Block. One is a green and the others are possibly brown. Exercise caution in this area!

Regards
Christine
Christine Scarvell
Receptionist/Administration Assistant
Office of the Executive Dean
Faculty of Business and Law
Southern Cross University
PO Box 157Lismore NSW 2480

It's another scorcher today - it feels even hotter than yesterday. My students conducted a guided tour of the campus this morning and we saw a couple of water dragons reluctant to shift off the path (these lizards are usually very wary of people) and a blue tongue sliding it's vinyl-like body through the mulch.

We often get emails such as the one reproduced above during spring...last year I would rush to the spot immediately but didn't ever see any.

37 degrees today: black snake tragedy

Photo" Ken Griffiths via Google Images

Well it climbed a little higher than the 30 degrees that Fran Kelly had announced this morning. Lismore recorded 37 degrees. Not bad for a late winter's day.

Reptiles are now starting to roam around a bit and soon it will be breeding season for them. Which means more reptiles on roads and more reptiles killed. Last week I spotted two bearded dragons, a long necked tortoise and a lace goanna on the Rock Valley Road and this morning on our way to work we saw a dead red bellied black snake. Which is both good and bad. The good is that it's great to see that there are still some large adults around which haven't been wiped out by the cane toad. The black snake likes eating frogs and so is highly vulnerable to ending up with a gobful of toxic toad which usually leads to the snake's death. The bad news of course was that it had been run over and so wouldn't be breeding this summer, or for that matter, ever again. It was a nice thick snake a bit over a metre.

A Weekend in Newie

Pic of Newcastle looking from the north east
Just doing a spot of blogging during my lunchbreak on Monday. It's quite warm up here today...Fran Kelly on Radio National (who wakes Steve and I up and who travels down at least as far as the uni with us - never quite sure what happens once I'm out of the car) said that Brisbane would reach 33 today and I suspect we are around 30. Apparently the weekend was very similar. I say apparently because Steve, Glen and I jetstarred down to Newcastle on Friday afternoon for a weekend in the old country, staying with our friend Graham in Mayfield. Later in the evening we gathered a group of friends (Kerri, Geoff, Graham, Richard and Piglet) to gorge ourselves silly at one of our fave eateries, Le Dynasty, in Darby Street. Vietnamese is hard to come by in Lismore and even harder to come by in Larnook, so we gobbled down the salty squid and tom rim thit (braised pork and king prawns) like madmen. Possessed madmen in fact.
After a breakfast in Beaumont Street, Hamilton, on Saturday morning, we popped in to say hello to the kindly ladies in Pina's Deli in Lindsay Street before taking in a tour of some of the changes along the foreshore and up around where the Royal Newie Hospital once was. A spot of pre-lunch dessert was then taken with our friend Libby McD at 3 Beans cafe, again back in Beaumont Street, before hightailing it across the road to Richard's for lunch.
Then I had to haul Ike Gayland screaming and kicking out of his plastic bag and together with his idiosyncratic brother, Hal, spent an hour or so being photographed by the talented Lauren O'Brien for a forth-coming television series pilot. Shhhhh! Can't say any more than that at this stage.
Home then to start preps for the.....

which was an extraveganza in all ways. Congratulations to Lee and her team at Rainbow Visions for again putting on such a wonderful night. Delicious meal, great entertainment and fun dancing, catching up with friends. Steve and I hadn't had enough of the dancing so together with Glen I and Glen II we headed down to the Gateway Hotel, but only lasted an hour or so before we started to falter but luckily our friend Bubbles was able to give us a lift back to Graham's around 2ish I guess. Glen I and Glen II stayed on.

Sunday was spent visiting with my mum and dad, admiring my mum's outrageous magnolia tree and then lunching at Graham's before a quick en-route drop in to Geoff's fabulous salon de art deco further down Mayfield. Then onwards to Williamtown for a fly out at 2.30.

Flight out on time and I silently thought how good it was that both flights had kept to schedule. Alas, no sooner than the rather young-sounding first officer gleefully promised us they'd have us disembarking 10 minutes ahead of schedule that we then aborted not one but two landing approaches and were then told that because of smoke from adjacent fires we would be diverting to Brisbane. Bugger. When we landed the flight attendant, Kye, who was not someone unfamiliar to me, announced 'Welcome to Brisbane, ladies and gentlemen. You don't want to be here and neither do we...' I thought that was a nice touch. Anyway, Jetstar managed the whole thing pretty well. We were shuttled back to Coolangatta aiport at 5.30 (we had landed in Brisbane just before 4.00pm so that was a bit of a bugger) and got back there just after 7.00. Hopped into the suzuki and arrived at Maryville just before 8.30. So there you have it...And now I must get back to my marking.

First toad of the season

This is partly for my own record keeping so I can keep track of things like this. Anyway, went out to pick some Vietnamese mint last night (17 August at about 7ish) to add to Steve's chicken curry and my torch light picked up a mid-range but somewhat skinny cane toad resting in the vege patch. Loks like spring has definitely arrived.

Picking up Piglet, running over Brer Rabbit

Image of Piglet

Image of bunny no more

Last Thursday morning, like I'm really talking about morning, as in 3.50am, we drove down to Kyogle station to pick up our friend, Michael, aka Piglet, who endures an 11 hr train trip to reach the sanctuary of maryville, every six months or so. Unfortunately, the train was running late so we sat at Kyogle station car park for half an hour or so waiting for the train (with Piglet) to arrive. After we'd packed Piglet away in the Suzuki we trundled back down the deserted main street of Kyogle heading home. A couple of kms outside of town, just before the Murwillumbah Road turnoff, we all sighted a cute little bunny rabbit on the left hand side of the road. 'Aw look at the...thud, thud, squelch'. Silly rabbit, should have been content to stay by the road and not leap out in front of me at 4 in the morning when my reaction time is not the best.

The distribution of rabbits is interesting in our area. Judging by roadkill, they occur in the Rock Vally, about 10kms from our place, and also in the Kyogle area (judging by my own recent contribution to roadkill) but so far we have not sighted any on our property. Calici virus, anyone?

Our new wardrobe doors

I know that some of you are interested in such things...here are the new wardrobe doors we had installed a couple of weeks ago...much nicer than the hideous white enamel with floral knobs that were there previously.

The Weekend Report

The weather up here this weekend was amazing - high 20s, blue skies, sunshine. Weekend began well on Friday night with Steve and I watching one of Steve's recent importations (via the Rock Valley post office) of dvds. We chose Wilde which we hadn't seen when it had been released because it didn't make its way to Newcastle. After we had Kyogled on Saturday morning, we were visited by Jan and Barry MacFarlane, parents of our friend, Geoff. They were staying at Evans Head and bravely travelled inland to visit us and check out our new tree-change lifestyle. Barry was particularly pleased because Steve gave him boxes and boxes of radio valves that were in drawers in our shed. Jan was less impressed (with the boxes of dusty valves that is - she liked the place). It was lovely to have drop in visitors like J and B.
Steve cooked a lovely chicken curry in the slow cooker which we had on saturday evening with crusty bread and our friend, Glen, after spending what seemed like a couple of hrs in the spa downing two bottles of champers.
Today - more fertilizing, watering, mulching and painting for me. Steve busied himself with preparing the downstairs bedroom for painting.

Jacarandas on the turn

The Jacarandas, of which we have 6, are on the turn now, their feathery leaves turning a lovely golden colour before they drop off just before they are transformed by mauve blossoms in late October.

Weekend update

In a word: busy. But delightful weather. We Kyogled on Saturday morning, then I spent up until lunchtime doing some fertilising, watering-in and mulching over as well as painting our front fence. Steve on the other hand was busy with door-related activities. After lunch we went to our friend, Gio's place at Clunes which is on the way to Bangalow, for an afternoon get together. Gio's partner, Michael, who was a mental health care worker was stabbed to death by one of his clients about 6 weeks ago, and it was his birthday last week. So this was a get together to mark his birthday. I first met Michael and Gio through my friend and colleague, Mieke. Michaels' death was a very tragic shock. But the afternoon was lovely with lots of friendly people.
Didn't do much last night. Steve watched the Beverly Hillbillies dvd but I ditched.
Today, more fertilizing, watering, mulching, painting. Steve fashioned a round table for the corner of The Good Room as well as replaced a door between The Good Room and the downstairs bedroom. I cooked lamb shanks in our new best friend, the slow cooker. Um and that's really about it, I think. Oh, and we finally found out what breed the girls are: Lohman Browns. Found out through a chook seller who sells live poultry out the front of the rural produce store in Kyogle. Friendly chap. Knows his birds.

Quixotic quail

Photo: Google Images
I'll try and get some pics of the little group of Brown Quail that live down near our letterbox. We often see up to half a dozen of them when we are heading off to work when they'll be on the side of the road looking for well whatever brown quail eat: grass seeds I guess. We also see quail and also buff banded rails along the roadside as we scoottle off down Cawongla Road which is the main roasd from our place down into Rock Valley before we get to Lismore.

Spring is coming

OK, so Cymbidium orchids typically flower at the end of winter anyway, but we are starting to see the onset of flowering in a bunch of plants including our mango trees, jasmine, various grevilleas and callistemons and our Dendrobium orchids. I'll snap some pics in the next few weeks once they are out in their glory. Yet to see my first reptile for the new season, though.

WFH

One of the benefits of working as an academic is that you don't necessarily have to be in your office and on campus to work. Mostly, however, I do go to work, but every so often I like to WFH (work from home). And that is what I've been doing today. Working. From home. It's been a damned beautiful day (yet again) and I've been working on chapters for the reptile park history that I have been writing with a colleague, Nancy Cushing, for the past few years. We've had a bit of a radical change in our approach to the book's format which means paring back the chapters into smaller bite-sized bits of around 4000 words each. Anyway, so I've been doing that. The Man came to put in the doors on our wardrobe today and they look great. [Pic to follow in a few days.]
I'm also slow cooking today. 4 pork chops, some Border Ranges honey. Chicken stock. Curry powder. Onion. Potatoes. Carrots. Been simmering away for 4 hours with another 2ish to go. Smells very delicious. I have also just come back from fetching the mail and I took the opportunity to grab a dozen or so lemons from one of the trees at the bottom end of our paddock. What shall I make?

Bloody galahs!

Shane watched a few weeks ago as a galah shamelessly nipped off a small branch of one of the wattles that we had planted. When I was mowing at the weekend I noticed that the galahs had done some more damage. This is a young native frangipani with a few of its branches bitten off. Ouch.

And a grevillea. Not sure why the galahs do this other than having a bit of fun. At our poor plants' expense. Anyone for galah fricasee?

OK so I'm obsessed by our lawns

The weekend up here was again brilliant - blue sky, warm and sunny and perfect for saddling up Rita the Ride-On. only problem was that Rita didn't want to play - again. Just between you and me and the gatepost, I think her days might be numbered unless she starts being more cooperative. Anyway, our Rover push mower is always up for work, so I mowed our several acres of lawn by hand. OK, so it took me 7 hrs over the two days but I was very happy with the result. The pic above is taken between our shed and the chookery. This is one of my favourite 'secret' areas on our place for some reason.
The little 'toilet' like structure is a pumphouse for the pump that pumps bore water up to our second tank. If you visit us you'll actually shower in that water and it's also used for the toilet and washing machine.

Looking back towards the vege garden, shed and garage, with the end of the lower pavillion just visible.

Anyone for bowls? Perfect grass, hey.

Vegies

I'm waiting until we get our last frost, hmmm, not sure how I work that one out, actually, and then I'll put in a new crop of vegies. I was just thinking about what we've grown so far since we arrived and some of you know my OCD tendencies around lists, so here goes:
cucumber zuccini
pumpkin eggplant
broccoli tomato
corn bok choy
spring onion garlic
rhubarb silver beet
potato chinese cabbage
lettuce zuccini
carrot

Slow cooking, anyone?

Meet our latest purchase, a kambrook slow cooker, purchased at Kyogle Retravision on Saturday morning. Our friend, Glen, swears by his, yesh he constantly stands next to it and cusses, [boom tish], so we did a bit of comparison shopping and by jingo, Kyogle had a deal going that we couldn't refuse. Can't wait to use it. We have a number of friends visiting Maryville this month, so the slow cooker might get a bit of a workout.