Watching Dod
Mum has gone to the airport to collect the Big Brother, so I'm on watch. It's that time again. Puddins are made and distributed, the peas that survived the dog in his efforts to collect mole crickets are yielding a couple of handfulls now and then, the garlic sent up beautiful long pods with bulges in the end that resembled green egrets before getting flattened by the wind (sadly a bloke got uppity and because they were flattened harvested them before they had divided, but still, they are poirple and nice!), the strawberries and rhubarb are giving us enough for pudding once a week, the tomatos are coming on and the apple tree is once again looking like providing us with a good crop. Fran met the possum that lives in the shed the other night when she escaped as I was piutting out the washing. The possum seemed fairly unfazed, but the cat shot off like an electrocuted wild thing and ended up back at the back door demanding to be let in away from the horrifying beast that crept up behind her and sat for at least five minutes giving her tail a good sniff without her knowledge. The forest is full of birds. A family of owls are living in an old rotten acacia on our property line, the three babies sit in a clump and thrum throughout the day like a slightly muffled cow, while one of the adults looks on from a perch in close proximity. I know why adult magpies beat up their kids when they are old enough to live independantly. It's the incesant, demanding 'me me me' scrarking when they are full-sized juveniles, shadowing their parents begging for something to be stuck down their gob! It's enough to send anyone bonkers! There are heaps of crimson rosellas, sulpher crested cockatoos, black cockatoos, wattle birds that hang off the fuchsias and bend them double, black birds, corellas, and this year a flock of gang gangs, that are driving the territorial local birds mental. Considering that the Gang gang is Canberra's fauna emblem, it's a bit weird that I've seen more gang gangs here in Victoria in seven years than I did in Canberra over 33. The bats haven't started breeding yet, but I remember the first year we were here the delight we felt when the babies first started piping from the trees as the nights grew warm. This wore a bit thin a few weeks later when it became an en-masse thing in the dead of those breathless summer nights. When all you want to do is sleep and there is a constant cacaphony outside the glamour doesn't last long. BTW at this point in time it's the neighbours' young dog, Gypsy, when she breaks in to the yard to play with Whitless at 2am and maul any of our shoes that have been left outside. I've been fairly lax keeping this journal up to date, mostly because of a good stint of work over the flast few months and getting a nice bit of time in the studio. Loving the new BRONZclay, not so hot on the other brand as it's a bit hit and miss to sinter. Is sooo much cheaper than PMC too. Been indulging in sculpting horses. After being told to give the horsey arty thing away as a teenager I haven't really gone there for the last 25 years, it occurred to me how stupid that was a short time ago. In hindsight I should have just stuck with what knew and loved. I've met some bloody awesome equine artists. More intersting news bits: Chris and Andrew are up the duff, Big Guy home on holidays for 7 weeks and 1 day (whos's counting?) New roof = long wait. Got depressed so went and bought a new toilet seat. Gave me a lift. Looks like a new loo! Gotta go. Scrotum pus is home and bashing me with the junk mail