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Thursday, May 28, 2015

The End Of Renovations!

It is finished!
I do love the butterfly my beautiful family gave me for Christmas

It's feels so good to know that it's finally all done!

Yes, there are still projects. I would like to have some raised veggie beds, and there are a few walls that need a lick of paint. But the renovations are done. So what did we do? First there was the pantry by Tiger and Grandfather, then there was the fixing of the termite damage and at the same time the electrical work and landscaping at the back door, then there was the fitting out in the laundry and now finally the tiling is done.

















I still think my favourite renovation is the laundry. So practical, so usable, so sensible and so well done! A few years of thought was put into it, and if there was a next time I would put the drier over the washing machine (or the other way around) but it didn't work with my plumbing.

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Local Wildlife

We've seen a bit of interesting wildlife at our place in the past few weeks.

Tiger and the boys were cleaning up a pile of corrugated iron and found this little turtle. Yes, we are glad it was such a benign creature, but the weather has been pretty cold so I would have been seriously surprised to see a snake.

We released him into our dam, after taking note of the beautiful pattern the creator made on his back and the lovely way he could scrunch up in his home.

Granny came to visit and deliver some much needed cupboards. As she was unpacking the cupboards we discovered she had a stowaway!

This beautiful, tiny bat travelled with her from near Inverell, in the north of New South Wales, down to us on the southern border of NSW.

We don't know much about bats, except that even my children know that they carry disease. We used to be concerned about Hendra Virus when we had horses in Toowoomba. Thus we got gloves before touching.

We emailed our friendly scientist Dr Danny Wotherspoon, who's always been part of our family. He said: 

"That is a most exciting find indeed! Bats are really hard to identify even when holding one in the hand. There are many small features to look for. Good to see that you had gloves on. That one is in the Evening Bat family, or family Vespertilionidae."

Unfortunately the pictures we took were not clear enough to be able to identify it definitively. But we know that this one belonged to the suborder of Microchirotera or microbat. And he certainly was small, the body was no bigger than a mouse.

Uncle Danny believes that he has probably found other bats in his species and gone into hibernation now for the winter. So it possibly ends well.

Quote from Dr Danny Wotherspoon 
BSc, Dip Ed, Grad Dip Bushfire, MA, PhD, 
MESA, MASH, MEIANZ
Councillor, Ecological Consultants Assn NSW




Sunday, May 24, 2015

Burrumbuttock Babies

We have had our first baby at Burrumbuttock. We came home from church today to find this cute little lamb.

Tiger is our shepherd. He did a great assignment learning all about our breed of sheep a few months back. For the past two weeks he has been carefully feeding our little herd of 12 dorper ewes (and one Ram) every two days, whilst wearing a bright coloured jumper. He has trained them to recognise his voice, so that they happily come whenever he calls. However, whilst they are coming closer to allowing him to touch them, this ewe was not ready for us to go any closer to her and her baby than 5m or so.

Thursday, May 14, 2015

Big Boys Camp: Germany: Travel Day(s) Part 2

This morning we got on the train and went to Albury where we met mummy and the other kids when we got home we gave the kids presents and settled in. We have had a wonderful time in Germany and I can't wait for next years camp.

Big Boys Camp: Germany: Travel Day(s) Part 1

Today we got up and did a thorough clean of the house and then left for Frankfurt. We flew via Hong Kong to melbourne which took about 20 hours on the way we watched lots of movies such as Paddington and Captain America. We arrived back safely in Melbourne where we stayed the night at a budget hotel. Since today was ANZAC day daddy was supposed to be in Jindera but we couldn't make it.