TODAY'S FLOWERS ~ Me and my Shadow

A simple Geranium casting its soul on the pavement.

Click on the Logo to visit a world of flowers.

A big thank you to Luiz Santilli Jr. for dreaming up this beautiful

meme, and to his great helpers for keeping it going.

Super Sleuth's Sordid Saga Sequel

Surprising events in the mansion on the mount unfold ...
too many clues spoil the broth, although yours truly
suspected a third nigger in the wood pile ( pardon the
political incorrectness), both of us being exhausted from
the last few days of slash and burn policy before it turns
to total fire bans, we braved the hour's drive home in the
storm.

Last night, another call from the alarm people, dining room
again! So, back we go this morning for an exhaustive search
of the fugitive. All possible dark places were investigated to
no avail ... not until it started raining dictionaries from the
high shelf above the doorway did I hit pay dirt.




















The poor little mite was hiding behind the books and I had
to act quickly before he brought down the whole set of the
hundred year old Chamber's Encyclopaedia.

The Prof obligingly fetched a tall ladder, we have 12'6"
ceilings and possums love heights. I managed to lift him out
of his hidingplace but he also managed to latch onto my arm.

Nothing major, but I did let him go, and go he did ...
jumped down like lightning, across the room and squeezed
himself into the inch and a half space between a bookcase and
the wall. Luckily part of his tail was visible and so, grabbing
the tiger firmly by the tail ( now wearing rigger's gloves which
the Prof had forced upon me), I hung on for dear life while he
pulled the fully laden bookcase a little from the wall.

Voila! Quasimodo (not the most flattering photo of yours truly
ever seen) holding the catch of the day!


























Possums have prehensile tails, so it was a safe and secure
way to hold him.
Here is a close up of his beautiful feet, just like ours, with
four fingers and a thumb.

This was the fourth possum episode we have sustained, the
first time we did not find it tor two weeks until I finally located
the emaciated little thing in the bottom of the grandfather clock!



















All photos can be enlarged.

Storm, Mystery, Mayhem and ... Murder

It was stormy on the mountain ....

we unlocked the door, went in to turn off the alarm ......

the dining room was unrecognizable, the floor strewn with

the rose petals of the bowl of potpourri, the board blocking the

fireplace on the Persian carpet, soot everywhere .... and

two charred bodies in the fireplace!

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Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Inspector Morse, Inspector

Barnaby and Frost arrayed themselves behind me to solve this

mystery. I could have used Inspector Rex as well ...

I started rubbing the little grey cells together, discarding all

unnecessary information a la methode Holmes, put my nose to

the ground and my fingertips together.

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The small sitting room opens from one of the three doors of the

diningroom. Near the open doorway, a number of antique books

had fallen from the high shelf over the doorway scattering across

the floor.

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While the Prof toiled at restoring order, your trusty correspondent

deducted .... two dead possums in the fireplace, one brushtail, one

ringtail. The alarm people had rung us the day before that the alarm

in the dining room had gone off. We had been there less than 24

hours previously.

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So, what had occurred?

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Regarde mes amis! Only one sulution applies ... an act of God.

You do not believe me? But it is quite obvious. Lightning strikes the

chimney, the two possums are blocking the flue in an angle thereof,

the force of the lightningbolt propells the possums into the fireplace

and chars them and blasts out the board covering the fireplace. The

blast shakes the the wall so the books fall down.

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The mystery is solved, the storm prevails, the rain comes

sheeting down.

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SkyWatch ~ Clouds in a Sky of Blue

This week I photographed enough skies for three posts.

I loved the stairway to heaven and the fluffy clouds next to
the solid sheet across the sky. I also delighted in the way it
all grew over a space of a few minutes.

At the end, the sky was quite different again.

enjoy the skies of the world by clicking on the Logo.

Thanks to the SkyWatch Team our eyes have been opened to

so much beauty in the sky.

MY WORLD ~ Fun With a Pen

This week I had some fun and let my pen off the chain
of restrictions to roam along the path of my imaginings.


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Click the Logo and check out what the rest of the world is up to
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Thanks to the My World team for hosting this great meme.

TODAY'S FLOWERS ~ Raindrops on Roses

Raindrops on roses to brighten the day,

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and shadowplay hiding our blues away.....













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Click on the Logo to see wonderful flowers around the world.

A big thank you to our host at Today's Flowers for
bringing us this very beautiful meme.

Like the Arabian Nights, my 301 st. Post!

Michelle of Rambling Woods has bestowed this
beautiful award on a number of us who care about
our planet with the proviso of posting on how we
make a difference.



I have just surpassed 300 posts so on this milestone
it is only right and proper that I tell you a little of why,
where and how we live.

We live on a 500 acre farm and keep breeding cattle and
sheep and grow some timber. We set aside a portion of
land to plant to trees every year as well.

All animals are pasture or hay fed and have the bare minimum
of vaccines or chemicals. The sheep need a vaccine annually but
our cattle are healthy without intervention.

We grow our own food as far as weather conditions allow.
One yearI cropped a hundred weight of strawberries from one
strawberry bed and we had raspberries by the bucket load.

Last year, at the end of our 6 year drought, I lost each

and every atrawberry and raspberry plant as well as

all our currant and blueberry bushes.

I do not mind a few grubs on the outer layers of my

vegetables and only use companion planting and natural

pest deterrents. Onions amongst the roses confuse aphids

so they do not breed, any that do, are taken care of by the

lady bugs.

Needless to say, fertillizers are supplied by sheep. cattle

and horses, What better source could there be? The

vegetables have supplements from the poultry run.

All our water comes directly from God and we store it
in many very large concrete tanks with lids. This year

we added two large tanks, an extra 32,000 gallons.
We now have sufficient stored water to be able to be
stretched over 2 years for our two households.

One can, after all, never know what the future holds.
We have lived off our own water supply now for 38 years.

In good years we have given masses of fruit and vegetables

away. We keep a small orchard of various fruits as well as
just over a dozen citrus trees, oranges, mandarines, blood

oranges, ruby grapefruit, pomelos, limes, both for gins and

tonics and Kaffir limes for their aromatic leaves, as well as
cumquots for marmelade.

Our air-conditioning is provided by curtesy of the grapevine

and rose covered pergolas the length of both sides of our

long and thin house. We only heat the one room we live in
and sleep with open windows all year round.

We buy as little as possible from supermarkets and augment
our food supply from the farmers' market insead.
Our daughter is a fibre artist and natural dye maker.

Her dyes have no toxic elements to be disposed of. They

are truly natural and any residue goes on the compost heap
as she uses the metal of the dye pot as a mordant.

Her book ECO COLOUR by India Flint is being reprinted

in the USA next year. Here it is already in its second edition.

Both these ec0-prints are from her last exhibition.

Needless to say , her two daughters are also conversant

with her methods and are given to designing and making

their own clothes mainly from recycled preloved clothing

from op-shops.

Each garment and each piece of dyed cloth is unique and

a piece of art in its own right.

We also prefer to wear natural fibres, wool, silk, hemp, jute

and cotton although cotton uses chemicals in its production

which we do not like at all.

You may have noticed that I am not a shopaholic
except perhaps where oldfashioned roses are concerned.

To sum up, we have to date improved the degraded barren
land we bought 17 years ago and have native animals like

kangaroos breeding here where there were none before.

Finally, I would like to pass on this lovely award to the
following bloggers, all of whom I admire. You all deserve it
and are in random order.

To:

Kathie of Kathiesbirds

Celeste of Celestial Ramblings

Weaver of Weaver of Grass

Nina of Nature Remains

Carol of Photo Phase

Gaelyn of Geogypsy

Montanagirl of Montanagirl

Mary of Faith Fabric and Photos

Tammie of Spirithelpers

Tom of Wiggers World

Isabel of A Room of One's Own

Please keep on making the world a better, cleaner place.

SkyWatch ~ Yet Another Sunrise

Enlarge if you wish...

Every day the sun rises, just not like this ...

using an immense range of the colour palette

the more you looked, the more you got.

Blues and pinks and purples, switching back to
glowing golds.

Reflecting on the insulation of our new shed and

accentuating the view from one of my studio windows.

Back to clear as well as burnished gold in the East.

Another super hot day in our heatwave has begun.

To visit the skies around the world, click on the Logo.

Thanks to the wonderful SkyWatch team for keeping this
meme week after week.

Nature Notes ~ The Cycle of Life

Spring



and
Autumn

closest to each other in nature, yet furthest apart.

Both seasons of change, one glorying in the newness
of rebirth, the other baring its soul in preparation,



just transmutation never ending.....

To visit other participants or join in, click on the Logo.

Thanks to Michelle hosting this post, we all become a
little more aware of the world around us.

MY WORLD ~ The Grampians, mainly Flora

All photos enlarge with a simple click.

The only reasonable shot I managed of this Corella,
note the extra long beak, the main difference between
him and his smaller cousin, the Little Corella which
has a short beak and is generally smaller.



Anyone for a fried egg?



Half inch long blue bells dancing in the breeze.



The stars of heaven have drifted down to earth.



Bouquet of gold on impossible looking stony ground.

Little wildflowers anyone would be proud of in their garden.

Bright orange glowing on this dark and rainy day,

and a three foot high bush of Rice Flowers.

There were dozens of wildflowers still in bloom.

The Grampians are a great drawcard in the springtime

for their veriety of wildflowers, koalas, kangaroos and

prolific bird life.

To see what the rest of the world looks like, just click the Logo.

Thanks to the MY WORLD team, we can learn so much about our world.

TODAY'S FLOWERS ~ A violet

The gentle violet at my feet
sweet perfume wafting
on the ambient air
like love long lost
that vaguely lingers
reawakened
in the early spring.

The scent in passing
holding memories so sweet
oh gentle little violet
blooming at my feet.

Sky Watch ~ At the End of the Day

This is the promised conclusion of last week's post.
Do enlarge them and be rewarded by the shifting colours.



As the afternoon wore on, a war between good and
evil erupted in the sky.



They fought like tigers, advantage shifting from
minute to minute.



A brief respite as the setting sun beat them into
submission,



yet still, while the light lingered, the battle raged on

spilling blood upon the virgin moon.

The last two pictures were taken on arrival at Horsham

in the pouring rain.

To fly the world, click on the Logo.

Thanks to our marvellous SkyWatch tem for continuing this

wonderful and stimulating meme.

Remembrance Day....

1918...my parent's wedding.



Today would have been my mother's one hundred
and eleventh birthday...
unlike the weddings of today, no designer dress or
multi-thousand $ reception. Just two very serious
young people, my mother, a university student, my
father just discharged army surgeon.

Life ahead .... uncertain.
Prospects ..... non-existent.

Medical positions were all filled ... they worked at
anything they could find. Father had perfect pitch
and tuned pianos for a while. They farmed but with
the arrival of children, ends refused to meet.

The depression of the thirties did not make things
easier. Father joined the police force reaching the rank
of inspector, mother worked as international telephonist
since she spoke 5 languages.

Their story of the years between the wars is worthy
of a book by itself. It was mother's fortitude that kept
her fledglings safe and together after the terror of 1940
when my father was deported to Siberia.

In 1944, her elder son already twice wounded and sent
back to the front, with the imminent threat of another
Russian invasion, she bundled up her brood and fled.

The story of flight, famine and 5 years of being displaced
persons, fills yet another book.

Starting again in Australia, a strange land, a strange
language and cusoms, even the seasons upside down
and not a penny to scratch with, at 51 years of age was
not exactly a picnic either ... yet she brought us all up
safely and helped each one of us to get a good start in
life. We owe her so much more than life itself. She was
a philosopher and poet who spent her working life in
Australia hunched over a sewing machine in an army
uniform factory just to put a roof over our heads and
send me to university.

Mother was truly a remarkable woman, see also her
granddaughter India's post.

Please Make a Difference

Dear blog friends, like this tree standing tall
in a fire-ravaged forest and surviving, aNNa
of Nature Trail needs our positive thoughts
and prayers for her wellbeing. She has been
through so much in the last few years caring
for others and now it is her turn to be the
recipient of our support.
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Please visit her and show you care.
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aNNa has responded to the big C with a very positive
attitude creating beauty and peace around herself but
just now there has been another change in diagnosis.
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So , it you can, please send positive thoughts, offer up
your prayers, wrap her in white light or spend a little
time sending Reiki.
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Please offer your help for Anna's wellbeing rather than
something specific, lest we meddle with the greater
workings of destiny.
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Thank you to all those who care and respond to this plea.
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AnnA dear, my support of course you can take for granted.
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With love and light to all.....Arija
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