Roos in the bush

A few weeks ago, MJ and I went for a walk in the bush and bumped into a few kangaroos. It’s common to see one or two, but this mob was pretty cool. I didn’t want to get too close because they’re pretty bloody strong so I had to zoom.

 

Bee swarms and lavendar

Beck moved house a few weeks ago and the first day I was there I saw the strangest thing.

Bees. Lots of bees.

I heard them before I saw them. At about 12 pm they arrived and filled the back yard. At about 12.15pm they disappeared. There were many more than are visible in the photo.

The next day, at about 12pm. Same thing. 12.15pm – gone.

Nicer things to look at in the back yard include this lavender plant.

I haven’t seen any more bees since those first two days.

 

Jonathan Safran Foer Against Meat

Eleanor just shared the most wonderful article by Jonathan Safran Foer from the New York Times, Against Meat.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/magazine/11foer-t.html?pagewanted=1&ref=magazine

The main theme of the article is vegetarianism, but it also made me think about:

• Living according to your values
• Marriage
• Raising children (I wondered if my generation could selflessly raise children and then I wondered if anyone has ever selflessly raised a child, or is a child always an expression/project of yourself)
• Sacrifice for religion

Here’s the final section of the article. A conversation between him and his grandmother.

“The worst it got was near the end. A lot of people died right at the end, and I didn’t know if I could make it another day. A farmer, a Russian, God bless him, he saw my condition, and he went into his house and came out with a piece of meat for me.”

“He saved your life.”

“I didn’t eat it.”

“You didn’t eat it?”

“It was pork. I wouldn’t eat pork.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean why?”

“What, because it wasn’t kosher?”

“Of course.”

“But not even to save your life?”

“If nothing matters, there’s nothing to save.”

Still on the move

Housesitting for Lara a couple of weeks ago, I saw this view from her balcony.

Around the same time, Beck moved house so we dug up some of her plants.

Last week I was in Rushworth with lots of little girls. One night the whole sky turned pink. We ran out as fast as we could, but it disappeared so fast.

Zoo day

I spent sunny Sunday at the zoo celebrating Ryan’s 2nd birthday. The conversation might have led bystanders to believe that we were actually a gathering of the local Poo Appreciation Society – except that every other kid in the place was talking about poo too. Miles suggested that the giraffe was due for a nappy change.

Sorry, I have no idea what kind of bird this is

An echidna

Birthday cake

Birthday presents

Worms!

From the seriously overpopulated worm farm. I dug some out and put them in the regular compost heap – secretly expecting our one-winged magpie to take advantage of the easy meal. Have I mentioned the one-winged magpie yet?

I’m back in Melbourne this week. Reporting notes:

1. This weekend, 100% of my social activities included Guitar Hero. Yes, that included the new Beatles game, and yes it was AWESOME! WAIT, hold the phones, I was just hunting for Guitar Hero links and discovered that the Beatles game is actually, Beatles: Rock Band. Phew, that was close. Anyway, if that doesn’t reflect something about the zeitgeist then I don’t know what does.
2. Saw A Day in Pompeii at the Museum today. Two of the sections were particularly brilliant – the 3D reenactment of the eruption of Mt Vesuvius in 79AD, and the plaster casts of bodies found preserved under the lava. That last one sounds gross but it was actually stunning.
3. It’s SPRING! Sometimes that means that when you think it’s warm and sunny outside, it’s actually not quite, but sometimes it also means it’s 29 degrees! You all want to say it, hooray for global warming! Does that remind you of Postal Service?

“Again last night I had that strange dream where everything was exactly how it seemed concerns about the world getting warmer people thought that they were just being rewarded for treating others as they’d like to be treated for obeying stop signs and curing diseases for mailing letters with the address of the sender. Now we can swim any day in November.” – Postal Service, Sleeping In

In the backyard today

I was chopping wood today and as I chopped one piece in half there was an explosion of little flakes of wood – it was like sesame seed confetti. I thought this was delightful (as I think anyone who saw it would have) so I looked inside the wood and looked on the ground where the wood confetti fell and look who I found. Shiny yellow grub. When he fell out of the wood he just lay there for a while – I suppose he needed time to adjust to his new circumstances. But before long he found a new piece of wood to chomp down on.

I went back to chopping wood and accidentally sent wood flying right on top of him. He seemed to be alive but possibly angry – it’s hard to tell what his face is doing, I saw little black things that could have been eyes or teeth or possibly something else I don’t know the name of. So I moved my woodchopping elsewhere.

The Sarah Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain

I’m back in Rushworth and channeling my bucolic inner self. I’m loving the new wood fire and have taken every opportunity to use its stove top to cook things like chicken soup (from scratch).

I think the round about path I took to get to Rushworth might have something to do with my love of all things country this week. Greg and I spent the weekend at his family’s house in Jameison, which is all about trees, hills, rivers and snow-capped mountains in the distance.

We set off on Friday afternoon and after getting trapped by the razzle dazzle of Eastland shopping centre in the middle of deep suburbia, we arrived at the house as it was getting dark. Greg made the point of putting out some wild bird seed as one of our first tasks before going inside and lighting the fire. When I woke up the next morning I understood why.

Hello lovely birds! For those un-Australian amongst us, the white birds are sulphur-crested cockatoos and the coloured birds are crimson rosellas.

After breakfast we headed into Jameison town to buy the papers and wander.

I was excited to see this pole in the school grounds that reads, “May Peace Prevail on Earth” in four languages. We had a similar pole at my last work so I took a photo to send to my colleagues. Greg got excited about it because apparently they used the conjunctive in the Latin or something. Did I ever mention that Greg is a Class A nerd? Fortunately he doesn’t mind that I don’t understand everything he says, and sometimes I even learn some super-geeky fact.

When we got back to the house we embarked on a walk.

I wore gumboots because Greg told me we were going for a bit of a walk and my feet were getting a bit wet in my sneakers. Just 45 minutes, said Greg. After about 15 minutes we got to a steep hill.

Sarah: Are we going up Greg?

Greg: Yep!

Sarah: I thought you said it was a 45 minute walk. It’s a long way up. I think it will take longer…

Greg: It’s 45 minutes from here to get to the top and then 45 minutes down again.

Sarah: …

So up we went.

A little bit more

Up the hill a lot more

At the top!

So even though I grumbled to Greg about his false advertising of our little walk, it was a great climb and well worth the gumboot-y effort.

I insisted on taking the slightly longer but slightly less treacherous and more gumboot-friendly route down and we got home just in time for lunch. The rest of the afternoon was spent looking out the window…

…and reading the paper. Lovely!

A visitor to my window

I had an(other) amazing weekend this weekend, beginning with a Friday night to remember. But I have to track down some photos of Friday night before I start telling the story. You will understand later why I wasn’t taking photos myself.

Instead I will offer a picture of last week’s visitor to my second-floor window.

Cat (on the hot tin roof...Har har har)

Another attempt at the secret secret beach

On Sunday Marcus, Simone and I set out to find the elusive secret secret beach. We had REAL directions this time which buoyed our confidence no end.

But before the walk started we had a relaxed and delicious breakfast on Marcus and Simone’s back veranda and had coconuts from the tree that their security guard, the kind hearted Jumadin collected and cut open for us. An excellent way to start a day of rare physical activity to be sure. Jumadin said that coconut water cleans your blood. That sounds like a pretty good thing to happen to your blood right?

We headed out to the same beach we started from last time but this time we were entering the forest from a completely different spot. The beginning of the walk followed a road that was wide enough for cars, and even as it narrowed further up the mountain there was still enough of a track to take a motorbike along.

Simone crossing a bridge

Eventually the vehicle track ended and it was time to enter the forest for real.

Marcus entering the forest

Just prior to this we met a man who had some property along the track and he told us the way to the beach but insisted that it was much further than we thought. The seed of doubt was planted. According to his times we would be struggling to get to the beach and back before dark.

We continued along for a little while until we hit a narrow track on a steep edge that was so dense with vegetation we had to push ourselves through it. At this point our doubts were increasing and enthusiasm waning and eventually we turned back.

On our way back we stopped in for a longer chat with the man who had given us direction.

Directions man

On his property he has fruit trees, tomato plants and some other things I couldn’t identify. He didn’t live on this property permanently, but I think he said he spent a few weeks here and there staying over tending to the farm. He had cacao trees (the seeds/beans of which make cocoa/chocolate)

Seed pod from the cacao tree

And puppies! It’s been too long since this blog has featured baby animals.

Puppies!

We headed back and ended up spending a few hours at the regular secret beach. The secret beach isn’t a secret at all and there are usually groups of young men hanging around (sometimes swimming and sometimes just sitting on the rocks watching the world below). There were lots of guys out that day but miraculously, at one point, we had the beach to ourselves for about half and hour or more.

Our plan next was to return to Joel’s to eat pizza but it was CLOSED! That was a real blow to morale, but we soon found some team building activities to cheer everyone up again.

Simone and Sarah cooperating!

And look who else we met! (that’s Joel’s Restaurant in the background)

Wan, our friend from our previous attempt at the secret secret beach

You may recall Wan from our last walk. He was just about as pleased to see us as we were to see him. We chatted to Wan and some other locals while we waited for our car which arrived as the sun went down. I didn’t do a very good job capturing this, but it gives you a hint.

Sunset over Lampuuk