Saturday, January 31, 2009

BOOT

In my centre garden I have some ornamental items and this one is my favourite, an old boot that has been spray painted and then potted with a couple of plants (which was given to me by a great friend) ... so don't throw out your old boots LOL.

Friday, January 30, 2009

ROSELLA

Australia has some beautiful birdlife, here is a photo of a Pale Headed Rosella that visits me most days, they are not as friendly as the King Parrots, but they still come and stay long enough for me to get a photo LOL.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

PLANTS

Just some of the plants we have in our centre garden in the driveway

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

ONCE A YEAR

As you come down my driveway you can just drive straight around a small garden and back out again, so the garden is virtually in the middle of a roundabout lol. In this garden I have many succulent type plants and amongst those I have a plant that only flowers once per year and the flower blooms at night and by the next morning it is dead, so once a year (around Christmas time) I watch out for the flower. It is quite large, as big as my hand. I dont know the name but here is a photo.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

KING PARROT

Australia has some beautiful wildlife and this is one of my many visitors. It is a male King Parrot, when he comes to visit he sits on my back deck and chatters to get my attention so I come out and put a tin of parrot mix on the table I can sit and watch him while he eats the seed and as you can see he is not too shy LOL. We never try and touch them so they feel comfortable around us. Someimes I put seed in my hand and he eats straight from my hand. It is so cool that he trusts me.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

FROG

It doesn't take much to bring the frogs out of hiding, with the recent rain we had there are hundreds of them all around the dam area and a few around my spa LOL. This green tree frog was sitting in the open in a sandy area in full sun and didnt look too good, so I moved him into a leafy shady area and poured some cooling water over him, at least he sat still long enough for me to take a photo.

Friday, January 23, 2009

RAIN

Yesterday we had a deluge of rain, it came down that hard and fast that my driveway was like a flowing stream.

Then it stopped, in 5 minutes it was all over. Later on last night it started to steady rain again and continued throughout the night. Oh boy didn't the frogs love it, they (hundreds), croaked all night long. This morning at 5.30am I got up to check to see if the dam wall was still there, yep it was and so is some nice catchment of water. Checked the rain guge and all up we got 50mm rain (2 inches) my water tanks are full again YAY !!

Thursday, January 22, 2009

MOON Closeup

I had some nice emails about my moon photo posted yesterday and thought I would add this closeup one I also did, sorry its a bit blurry. I love going outside at night and just looking up, the milky way with its millions of stars are so visible, and the ever present Southen Cross constellation is always there reminding me of this country that I love.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Moon

Ever since I was a little girl (which is a long time ago now LOL) I have been fascinated by the stars. We have a telescope, nothing expensive (under $100) and used my canon A560 which is only a 7.1 megapixel digital camera through the eye viewer and took this photo of the moon, it was very difficult getting it just right as the eye viewer is not made for taking photos through LOL but nevertheless we got this great shot so thought I would share it with you.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Water is precious

I had a comment on my photo from yesterday about water. We dont rely on our Dam for drinking water, that is purely for recreation, water plants etc. However as we are so far from town we have to provide our own water so we have a few water tanks attached to the house and sheds to catch the rain from their roof (when we get it LOL) This one holds 5,200 gallons, it is partly dug into the ground. We also have the tanks set so we can pump from one tank to another if one gets too low. We are water wise so dont waste water, it's a precious commodity but if we were to run out completely there are companies we can buy water from, they bring out a water truck and pump 3,000 gallons into your tank, we have been on this property for over 9 years now and only had to buy water when we originally moved here and put the tanks in. Even though we dont get much rain, every drop we do get on our roof areas go into the tanks and although they have been low over the years we havent run out yet. The last rain deluge we had that broke the dam wall filled all tanks so there was a positive after all.

Monday, January 19, 2009

The Dam today

Yesterday I posted a photo of our dam but the photo was actually taken 10 months ago. We had a deluge of rain one night and it broke the dam wall. This is a photo of our dam today taken 10 mins ago. As you can see the wall is fixed but we have been so hot here and little or no rain there is only a very small amount of water in the far right hand corner, just enough for the kangaroos and other wildlife to drink from. You can also see the amount of sand buildup throughout which was brought down the gully by that deluge of rain we had. So if any of you know a great rain dance, just let me know LOL... I want to go canoeing again.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

My Dam

In good rainy times our dam can be a fun place to be, we have a couple of canoes etc. Although the dam is not very deep, about waist high, its perfect for recreation. The rope you can see across the top of photo is the 'flying fox' we have made for the grandkids to play on and to get from one side of dam to the other.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Beauty of Trees

It never ceases to amaze me on how beauty can be found anywhere even in the trunk of a tree. This gum tree, like so many others on our property, is shedding its grey bark and revealing a beautful red trunk underneath, this is a close up of a tree that appeared in my earlier post.


Friday, January 16, 2009

Chicks

Hope you enjoyed my photo of 'dad' yesterday, he is named dad as he has fathered many chicks over the years he has been with us. Here is a photo of his latest brood with their mum, they are 3 days old in this photo.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

'Dad'

Apart from the usual wildlife we have roaming through the property I also have some pets of my own, you have already met Roscoe in my first post and now I will introduce you to 'dad' my peacock. He freely roams here and doesn't stray. Here he is displaying his proud plumage as it was mating season, after mating season they lose all their plumage and then a few months later start growing them again for the next mating season which is only once per year.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Interesting Formation

Today I wanted to display a closer photo that I posted yesterday of the tree root system as I loved the detail in this.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Trees with Character

As I said yesterday we are clearing a lot of dead wood out from amongst the trees/bush. We have a lot of huge trees that have fallen and some are so impressive we are leaving the really big ones where they fell. By impressive I mean have character, like this one. This is the root system of a huge tree.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Goanna

Yesterday whilst clearing out some dead wood amongst the trees, something caught my eye and it was a huge Goanna... now when I say huge I mean he was over 1 metre long (3 feet). Now these are very interesting creatures, you should google Goanna and read about them. I watched it for a while talking to him.. yes I did talk to him/she or whatever gender it was then I said stay here don't go away and I went back to the house and got my camera. When I came back it was still there and seemed to pose happily whilst I snapped away. I didnt go too close as not to frighten it away.. thank goodness for zoom LOL. I have posted two photos today, the close up really shows beautiful markings.. looks like its wearing gloves LOL, I hope you enjoy.


Sunday, January 11, 2009

Kangaroo

What would an Aussie Blogger site be without a photo of a kangaroo. We have them roaming through our property all the time. As Kangaroos are a very nervous type of animal they prefer to roam around and feed at night, but we still see them throughout the day, unfortunately they wander along roadsides and jump across the road unexpectedly and cars can't always avoid them. Here is one that visited.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

The Bush

I live on 40 acres of Aussie Bush in Queensland and absolutely love it, no close neighbours to worry about, especially if Roscoe and I crank up the music and belt it out LOL. Today I thought I would share a photo of part of the property which I took yesterday... notice the reddish colour of the gum trees under their shedding bark, it is exceptionaly pretty during sunsets. Notice how dry everything is, we really need more rain. Hope you enjoy todays photo.


Friday, January 9, 2009

Meet Roscoe

What better way to start off this Project 365 endeavour (albeit starting a bit late) than to post a photo of our pet Roscoe. He is an Australian Sulphur Crested Cockatoo and is 26 years old. My partner Garry has had him since he was only 3 days old when he had to hand rear him. They can live long lives, some have been known to live more than 80 years of age some even to 150 years of age. He likes a cuddle and he loves to join me when I sing and he even bobs up and down dancing to the music along with me .... but we are not a very pretty sight though LOL. He talks and also mimics the sound of a motorcycle changing gears 5 times and loves to show off when we have visitors. Meet Roscoe.