lovely Rainy Days this month - remembering the flood !

July and we have been experiencing many days and night of rain. we needed it as the paddocks had got very dry, turning wheat coloured over summer.  it only took a couple of days of rain to return to green again and we get these little visitors at night.    image below - link refers to info on the little brown tree frog.

and it was such a nice surprise to find, online, the sound it makes - surprise because i always assumed THIS sound was crickets but it is actually the little brown tree frog. 

It was October (i think) 2022 when the creek flooded - a once in 7 year flood (apparently) ... there is a playlist of flood videos that happened in 2022 on our you tube

hoping it is is indeed once in 7 years ... or longer - we will be fine as the house is up the hill but the studio got flooded and that took 6 weeks to clean up !

a walk by the creek

on a recent walk discovered this lovely flowering - Fatsia Japonica - i wrote about it here.  a winter flowering.  look forward to seeing how big it gets - apparently quite large and wide.

i took photos of this particular part of the creek, from the bridge and came back at night to take shots of around the same area, from the bridge.  

still discovering things along our journey here -the creek has filled a little since we have been getting regular rains - the paddocks have greened over and the wallabies are gathering in large groups during the night to chomp on the grass.

check out this video on youtube of blackfish in the creek 

and i am doing monthly videos (just started this year) - we have been here 3 years and i began the monthly vids so i can notice the differences and changes each year.

a surprise winter flowering

On a walk across the paddock yesterday I found this plant flowering by the creek.  and today it looked like this !

so pretty. This is called fatsia Japonica and is best suited to outdoor growth.  I purchased one last year and have it indoors - it grew so well that i had extras come up in the pot and this one is outdoors growing beautifully by the creek.  The flowers were such a nice surprise - the one indoors is leafy and large-ish but nothing like this one outdoors.

Things I learned from Google today. The name. fatsia Japonica.

• It is better suited outdoors than indoors - i am now planning where to plant the indoor one once we get into spring.
• The location i put the one outdoors is perfect for it - shady with some sun.
• it flowers in autumn (although we are winter here just now) and berries will follow !  great. so good for the birds.
• it will grow 6-10 feet both in height and width!  how fabulous and apparently the new shoots may get eaten but the older ones are not tasty for the critters.  we shall see. i do have it currently fenced waiting for it to expand before i test that theory.
• its also known as the paper plant of finger plant.
• pruning encourages dense growth

very happy to have this one in the paddock.  might plant the indoor one outside the front of the house. 

LOOKING BACK on 7 Days (2)

 i knew it ! ... it comes around so quickly ! It is hard to believe we have been here for 2 years already and now into our third year. I have a small notebook into which i have been jotting down the plants that grow here (if i can identify them), the birds that visit and when as well as the fish, reptiles etc.

The photo i took of the little brown tree frog was when he was stuck to our glass sliding door - so beautiful, really tiny. The (second) slide show below is a collection of the birds i could find online that have visited here with one or two of my own photos included where i could capture them including the little red-breasted robin and a wasp!  I have added a list of the names under the images. where there is a (g) following the name that is my own photo.

                   yellow wattle bird                                   little brown tree frog (g)

                                turbo chooks (Tasmanian Native Hens) in the front yard (g) 

             bottom row :  forest raven.             crimson rosella                              grey fantail

top row:  bassian thrush                           common blackbird.                   ? not sure (a cicada?)

                house Sparrow                        turbo chooks  (g)                                visiting goshawk (g)

                                               male redbreast robin (g)

                              no idea (?) (g)

bottom row:  goshawk (g)                     news holland honeyeater              my outdoor goldfish (g)

top row:      little wattle bird                  goshawk visiting (g)

    bottom row:   spotted pardalote                                          female superb fairy wren

         top row:  grey (?) heron visiting (g)

                                         welcome swallows (bottom).       spotted dove (top)

LOOKINGBACK on 7 Days

 An idle thought but i will give it a go - so many projects on the go its difficult to know when to post anything about any particular one especially since 'we' tend to wait until its done and perfect. You should see my reject pile !

So i am going to attempt to post each Sunday a look back on the previous 7 days - just images of things mostly in progress. Hopefully this will capture more (in a kinda diary way) my activities and provide the discipline i lack in posting regularly. Let's see how we go !

(I am already a day late on the very first "Looking Back"). The images reflect my week - birds visiting, creek walks and printmaking (of the creek and) flora in the garden, George on a coffee morning catchup, exploring photographs without using a camera, stitching (this piece is finally completed), monoprinting, painting, books and cooking. A middle of the night dash to the emergency as V had a terrible reaction to a virus. It was an all-nighter but a week later he is doing well having been given antibiotics.

so ... .till the next 'looking back' .... of course the weeks come around very quickly.

the Glory of the Wattles this year and a surprise visitor to the creek

These are just magnificent this year. last year, there were no yellow flowers - i did notice a couple had small bits of yellow 'trying' to come on but it never happened. at the time i thought perhaps it was a variety that didnt flower ... but nope, happily i was wrong. We are surrounded by them ... thankfully i am more allergic to grasses than pollen

see more about the wattles here and join our youtube channel

Lovely to find these visitors yesterday - went down with a cup of coffee to see if i can see playtpus ... he hasn't been around for weeks ... i am thinking because the creek is running high and fast.

a baby has arrived in the creek

 

so sweet ... today the 'platypus' was not shy and hung around for hours.... then i realised its a baby ... i hadn't seen the platypus (the adult) for nearly three weeks ... maybe this is why ? So much great footage here as this one was quite open to its environment. so good.

and there is a bit of a cleanup required along the creek edge after a night of high winds and trees that have fallen across the creek. see video here

MUSING : how a place contributes to lifestyle

Examples of 'lifestyle' include habits in sleeping patterns, physical activity, hydration habits, sleeping patterns.

Wikipedia defines a lifestyle "as the way a person lives. This includes patterns related to personal relationships, consumption, entertainment and dress. A lifestyle typically also reflects an individual's attitudes, values or worldview."

We 'know' this means tempering things 'bad' and maintaining things 'good'. Bad and good being highly subjective and individual to circumstance, beliefs and choices made. I also want to include a level of privilege.

There are many lists on the internet defining 'lifestyle' to include an active lifestyle, a rural lifestyle, a healthy lifestyle, an urban lifestyle, a solo lifestyle etc.

Its been a long road to this place in the country, in Tasmania - and what a place it is ... we feel most grateful and look forward to discovering all it has to offer. We have been here for 12 months now having spent time here in all seasons, plus the experience of the creek flooding 3 months into our residency.

YES this is my studio ... imagine when we first came across the bridge and saw this magnificent building. We both KNEW it was going to be an art studio - truly, for the months prior I kept saying to V 'I need, I want a warehouse' ! Many around us thought i could never fill it which always made us both smile. 

early days.

I had a long list (about 12 points) of things that 'had to go' or be refashioned, in my mind.

Once we moved in ... not a single thing needed taking out or refashioning - it all seemed to fit once we put our things in - everything we had in furniture and bits and pieces found its place as if it were made for it and everything on my list to get rid of, began to make sense. For example that shelf in the kitchen sticking out in the middle of nowhere holds my coffee machine with the coffee pods in a container just beneath the shelf. The other is the large netted structure out on the front paddock - it had to go ... well 12 months later it is filled with vegetables growing madly. cabbage, squash, tomatoes, lettuce, brussel sprouts ... we had corn that was my 'epic fail'. And so it was revealed with everything on my list.

Being our 1 year anniversary here, I am musing at how 'place' is lifestyle, at least for us at present, and how it has improved many of those things on our list that is considered 'lifestyle'.

And to walk across acres of a mix of native forest, pasture (green changing to beige during summer) with a creek (Claytons Rivulet) running through the whole is just magic. 12 months of the landscape captured, below.

update on dropping my phone in the creek #pixel2

I wrote a post about dropping my phone in the creek here

I go down to the creek daily many times a day to spend time with a platypus and the birds.

Anyway I dropped my phone in the creek a Pixel … its a Pixel 2XL (I know I know, its old) but I love the phone for its camera and reliability - I don't use it for email or fb or anything other than phone, camera, sound recorder, a chat program, the weather bureau, maps/gps to get me somewhere and very occasional checking of fb posts. I was looking to get another phone this past six months and have settled on the Pixel7pro but let me tell you the story ….

I dropped the pixel2 in the creek while standing on the bridge; it has a black rubber backing and fell face down and sank to the bottom - the creek is very clear but where it went in is dark so I couldn’t see it at all. I went down to the creek often at different times of day for a couple of days and saw it exactly where it had fallen - straight down - I could just see a hard edge of black. So my partner and I - like 2 older persons helped each other down a 3 metre high bank to a concrete plinth under the bridge - with a rake, a long pole and a long handled spade. One hanging onto the other spread eagled across the divide to poke the phone - the creek is running and as the pole pushed the phone it flipped over and moved a little further away … BUT IT LIT UP !!! Fully underwater.

We felt like the dear thing was calling out (so to speak) … so we were newly determined to get it out. Ok, so we did - 1.5 hours it took with both of us having one or other sore part of a body - knee, shoulder - you get the point.

When retrieved it was ON and had 15% left in battery … NOW HERE IS THE DEAL - it had been submerged for FORTY-FIVE hours (it went in 4pm on a Friday and we retrieved it 1pm on the Sunday.

Now not only that … I took its rubber back off and there was some water (not a lot) between the rubber and the back of the phone. I held it up and some (not a lot) of water came out of the charging port - I hung it up and left it for a night and a day … I then tried to charge it as it was now down to 5% … it would not charge ! It just didnt connect. So we left it to air dry inside some more for a day and night. The charge still would not grab - we vacuumed the charge port and used a hair dryer a distance from it.

The charge would still not work - and the phone now would not come on at all being in need of a charge. My partner said just leave it for a few more days and let’s see - but leave it with the charge in the port. Next morning I got up and it was at 100% !!!! The sound the charge makes does not happen when I put it in the phone … but it charged overnight. This is how it is at present, the charge doesnt chime that it is connected but when its wiggled a message shows its charging.

I am so pleased … so happy …and we are both amazed. Looks like it will still be a while before I get a Pixel Pro upgrade.

Musing at the spot I dropped my phone and talking about how we managed to retrieve it.

ONE YEAR anniversary of our move to #countrytasmania

 

this one got away from me ... our 1 year anniversary - musing at the bridge ... in the moment

we did make the date  ... our anniversary dinner.

and this is what it makes us feel like !

images from our first year here #countryliving #tasmania

SILENT MUSING BY THE CREEK

 studio break - a coffee and i am east side of the creek again, on the bridge ... enjoying lovely abstract imagery across my camera as i film, silently with just the sounds around me at the time.

MUSING BY THE CREEK - Baby Platypus comes out

 i take regular daily walks to the creek as its so close to the studio and its just a marvellous time out. In this video i begin by talking about the tiger snake we saw in the cat pen today and it was the day i realised we did actually have a platypus living in the creek - east side of the bridge. i had seen it once before for a split second, surfing under the bridge on a high tide. (truly). it was so many weeks later i saw him (or her) again ... and had my camera going.

wait for it ... a glimpse at mine 1.09, then again at 2.21 and then from 3.03 to 3.15 minutes on this recording. makes me smile and i go regularly to the bridge on the lookout. 

another one here. 

more about the platypus on our youtube channel - search platypus.