Starry Starry Nose

We have been watching with much delight, each weekly episode of the series Life, narrated by David Attenborough. We have been mesmerised by insects, enthralled by reptiles, and last night we were spellbound by an assortment of animals hunting and hiding.

Featured in the most recent episode is the star-nosed mole. I had never heard of it before, and I definitely hadn't seen one — it's not an animal one is likely to forget.

Isn't it remarkable? Aren't we lucky to be alive at the same time?

Just after the British colonised Australia, a platypus was taken from these shores to the Empire where people couldn't believe their eyes. They thought the animal was a hoax; that the sailors who had brought the specimen might have been playing some kind of joke on them. What would they have thought of the star-nosed mole??

If you're interested in finding out more, here's a great four minute vid:

Got Milk

I woke early thinking about milk today. Perhaps because it looked like our neighbourhood had been dunked in a big glass of it. And perhaps because I had arranged to get some fresh milk today from a cow who's weaning her calf.

I had wanted to find the cow to thank her and snap a pic, but she couldn't be found in the fog. Here is H who looks after the cow, filling my bottle in her kitchen.

Over on PJ's blog, he has a discussion going about the ethics of food that has got me thinking a bit more about what we eat (and drink) and why.

We buy a litre of organic milk a week and I assume that that's good enough. But is it? It comes in a carton from Bendigo, 45 minutes (by car) away, which isn't so bad, although I'm sure a lot of energy is used in the production of that humble litre.

Did you know that due to health regulations it's illegal to buy and sell milk that hasn't been pasteurised? People get around the laws by selling it as 'bath milk'. I don't know the laws in other countries but in Australia, this is the case.

I put the bath milk in my tea today, and can happily say I look forward to meeting Elly the cow next week when I stop by for my litre.

Green Porno

Season three is now available to watch online.

Thanks for the tip, Larisa!

A Pile of Shit

There's a horse riding ranch two minutes away, where I used to go riding as a kid, and where Z had his birthday party a few years back. PJ and I drove out there first thing this morning.

'Is it OK if we collect some of your poo?' I asked one of the owners when we arrived.

'You can't collect mine, but you can collect the horses',' he told me, straight-faced.

And so we got to shovellin'. It was cold out and the shit was hot and steaming, and filled with worms our chickens dined on each of the three times we returned home with a car-load.

I've never been a red roses kinda gal and I've never been one for posed photos in a nice frame up on the mantle from holidays gone by. But I would never have described shovelling shit as a romantic pastime until today either.

But boy was it! The cool air, the steaming dung, no-one in the field except my beloved and I, working hard side-by-side to move the fecund waste so it can turn our clay earth into rich soil to grow good food for our family.

Dinner and movie? Chocolates in the shape of a heart? Give me a shovel, my man and a pile of shit any day.

Bird Head

It's interesting to notice as we age, what we become desensitised to and what we don't.

I'm 35 and it still makes me laugh when I see a statue with a bird on its head. For some reason I keep waiting to outgrow this. I wonder if I will.

The Turtle

I was flicking through the photos on my phone this afternoon and found this. It was on the wall opposite the nurse's station in our local hospital. I snapped it during one of my visits to see PJ when he was in hospital with his chainsawed knee.

When I was growing up, my sisters and I called this pose The Turtle. One of us would get down on hands and knees while the other would jump up to reach a high place such as the cupboard where our parents hid the cooking chocolate.

PJ finished making this step yesterday morning. He made it out of the rocks I dug up from the garden two weeks ago.

When I first became comfortable with the prefix step in stepmother, I visualised myself as The Turtle. I spent the day today writing up my most recent stepmother interviews and every time I typed the word step, an image of this one came to mind.

Lesbian Woolcraft Show

I went this morning, with some of my knitting group friends, to The Annual Yandoit Lesbian Knitting and Woolcraft Show.

Outside the small hall were some gorgeous alpacas who were there to show off their wool. They were so placid and soft, I thought I might skip the show altogether and just spend the morning patting and cooing.

But when I saw this sign, I knew I had to go inside.

And I'm so pleased I did. I have wanted to knit a cosy for a chair like this, but all in red, for quite a while. Dear Meg Later, I am blogging this image as a reminder for you to do it.

I felt like a bit of a cheat, not being a lesbian and not knowing how to knit, but when I saw this knitting nancy, which is all I know how to do, I felt a lot better about being there.

My favourite craft of the day, and the item that received my Best in Show vote, was the Goodnight Darling banner above the kitchen. You can't really see from this photo, but each letter has been hand-sewn onto a rectangle cut out of a blanket and then pegged onto a string-line.

The tea and cake I bought from under it got my vote too.

Self-Portrait With Squirrel

From Abroath:

Melissa Brandts and her husband were exploring Lake Minnewanka in Banff National Park, Canada, when they stopped to take a timed photograph of themselves.

They had their camera set up on some rocks and were getting ready to take the picture when this curious little ground squirrel appeared, became intrigued with the sound of the focusing camera and popped right into the shot.

Two Hours Late

From here.

Pookie

Z loves this book. It was a gift from our friend Vivienne who had it when she was a girl.

Pookie is a little white rabbit who, after a nasty storm, tells Winter to go away and never come back. But then, when Winter shows no sign of returning, and Autumn is followed by Spring, "the Woodland Folk realised what trouble they were in."

"Who will wash away all last year's old leaves and rubbish?" they asked each other anxiously. "Who will spread a blanket of snow so that we can sleep snugly underneath in our cosy homes? We cannot manage with just Spring, Summer, Autumn... and then Spring again! Flowers cannot get ready to flower again without a rest during the Winter! Hedgehogs and Dormice and Squirrels and lots of other Animals must have their winter sleep!"

I used to be like that. If Winter wasn't going to go away, I would fantasise about migrating to some place tropical for a few months. But now that our plum tree is starting to bud and the time we have to lock the chooks up is getting later and later each night, I am sad that Winter is leaving, and that the bushfire season will be upon us so soon.

In this illustration Pookie is asking Winter to please come back to the woodlands, because the animals have realised that they need him. I don't know that I would go so far as to ask Winter to stay longer, but I am surely going to miss him when he leaves.

Writing on the Wall

Yesterday after dropping Z at school, PJ and I trained to Melbourne where he had the job of painting the names of forthplaying bands on the wall outside the Prince Bandroom where my sister Emily works. While he chalked and painted and chatted to inquisitive passers by, I read and journalled on a nearby step.

At lunchtime, PJ munched on a sandwich while I ate in a small café. I cried big dollopy tears as I read the paper filled with updates about the continuing fires, the damage caused and the lives forever changed or forever lost.

Today we watched a video clip of a young firefighter reviving a heat-struck koala by letting it drink from a bottle of water. I cried more plump tears as I watched. Because of PJ's water activism and because we limit what we buy that's packaged in plastic, and especially don't buy bottled water, it seemed too tragic and too ironic to be watching footage of this helpless little creature being nursed by the very thing that helped destroy its habitat. 

Trucks burn up the highways transporting resources that are then encased in petroleum-based plastic.

"How much can a koala bear?" We hear the voice of the man filming ask off screen.

Unexpectedly

I'm glad this echidna didn't read my blog when I confessed that I am not a fan of visitors dropping by unexpectedly.

Crowd Control

From Metro:

He could be forgiven for looking just a bit sheepish, but this shepherd has learned how to control his flock using just a poster of a wolf.

Farmer Du Hebing couldn't afford another dog after his old one died and had a brainwave after visiting a local wildlife park.

"They had a flock of rare sheep and as a joke one of the keepers had put a picture of a wolf in the enclosure."

"But I noticed that the sheep never went near it," he explained.

Now Du has got his neighbours wondering what the flock he's up to every time he moves his sheep.

"People laugh and point but it works - and the poster eats a lot less than any sheepdog," he said.

Dashing Dots

From here.