Almost goodbye to Tawny frog-mouth baby

The tawny frog-mouth chick is growing daily. While it still needs to learn to sleep during the day, and to practice its 'pretending to be a log' routine a little more, this babe is close to the time when it will fly away to make a life of its own, leaving the parent birds to hatch a second family.

The frog-mouths are acutely attuned to the weather. To my knowledge they have at least three varying situations where they roost during the day. One can tell which way the wind will blow just by ascertaining where they spend the day.

Their most popular residence is the old gum tree over the way ... the gum tree that looks as if its days are numbered as several branches are bare. Never mind ... the frog-mouths like the forked branches, settling down for the day on two near the trunk. Sometimes, when the wind comes from the opposite direction they choose the rear bedroom ... the branch from the other side of the trunk.

Yesterday they perched outside the kitchen door on the branches they occupied during two or three months of winter. The wind was strong yesterday, but their perch was relatively sheltered.

Today they moved to their shady motel behind the laundry. There the shade of the house, plus a greater abundance of larger trees helps keep the temperature down, though at the moment [temperature at 40 degrees] their wings are puffed out in an attempt to keep cool.

Tomorrow? I don't know.

I am aware, however, that the days this chick stays home with its parents are numbered. Soon it will be taken away, and the age-old caper of reproduction will recommence.

Tawny Frog-Mouths and Blue Tongues

Almost daily the blue tongue lizards roam our, and their, area. The larger two frequently wander indoors, their tongues flicking in and out in search for a tasty morsel. The two smaller lizards are not as opportune, though occasionally wander through the kitchen. They all appear to realise that we are friends, not foe. Dave no longer picks them up as they really didn't appreciate the handling, even though it was meant kindly. Instead we set out small pieces of food [they love Granny Smith apples chopped into small pieces], and scraps of meat off-cuts. Bread isn't all that popular, though they do condescend to eat that once the meat or fruit has disappeared.

The larger two lizards show little fear and the other day as I sat at the computer one almost walked over the top of my feet. I noticed it first! I moved!

Ever since I have lived in the mid-west we have watched the tawny frog-mouths raise their families. Last year it did seem as though one of the adults had died; only one adult sat on two eggs, both of which hatched out, but the babies died within two days.

Anxiously I watched the lone adult. Would he/she find another mate? Weeks later it did. For weeks over the winter the couple perched in a tree just outside our back door. One day they disappeared; they didn't come back.

I wasn't worried about their none-appearance as I assumed; rightly as it has turned out; they were adding to the tawny frog-mouth population. Just on daylight one day last week we heard the tell-tale noise of the owls calling. Bed time!

I searched the trees. Two adults, and one young frog-mouth sat in a gum tree.

If we take particular notice of the perching habits of tawny frog-mouths during the day, we can tell if the wind will be strong [the youngster is then placed securely between the parents], or from which direction the wind will come.

Soon this youngster will be taken away to find it's own place in the world, and another brood will hatch. Maybe there will be two chicks again this time?

Another Visitation

Surprises!! Two days ago Dave was sitting out on the verandah enjoying the warm weather and I was reading the newspaper at the table. Suddenly Dave called out, "Come and look at this!"

I looked up from the paper, adjusted my spectacles, and noticed a blue tongue roaming the kitchen.

"I can't just now," I called. "You come here and see who has come to visit!"

Dave replied, "Grandaddy is here."

"He can't be! He is inside with me!"

Both of us moved towards the door. Sure enough there was one large blue-tongue lizard on the concrete near Dave. And ... there was another, slightly smaller, but not one of the juvenilles, on the carpet near me. A hurried consulation followed. We came to the conclusion that we not only have Grandaddy, but Grandmammy as well. Later we decided that perhaps they might be Daddy and Mammy ... that way the family of blue-tongue lizards will continue to increase.

Since then both lizards have wandered around indoors, eaten apple cores left out for them, and one yesterday stood under the tap looking up as though waiting for the drips to fall, its feet in the plate of water, and every moment or two sipped from the edge of the plate.

This afternoon one came inside and proceeded to act like a mini-vacuum cleaner, roaming around picking up crumbs dropped to the floor in preparation of lunch. It appeared completely unafraid ... until ... I moved across the room. It took of at great speed, racing for cover under my computer desk. Later in the afternoon as I was sitting sewing I noticed it peek out, but noticing me, it retreated. I have a feeling this blue-tongue is sleeping in the corner near to the desk as I type. As it is now dark, no doubt it will sleep inside for the night, and once tomorrow warms up, hopefully will find its way outside.

The smaller blue-tongues roam outdoors, but as yet haven't ventured inside the kitchen.

Lizards love Strawberries

I am constantly amazed at the wild life that abounds around here. I have written before of 'Grandaddy'. He, or perhaps she, as we have no idea how to differentiate males from females in the lizard species, nor does it matter, has truly made our environment his, or hers.

The gas bottles at the side of the house appear to be a favourite place. They sit on concrete slabs, and concrete slabs warm up quickly. In spite of the fact that lizards are wild creatures that probably should not become reliant on the human species for their nutrition, Dave began leaving out scraps of food. Not much ... just a few tasty morsels from his plate, specially cut into small pieces for a blue-tongue lizard.

From the deep recesses of my mind I recalled being told, "Blue-tongues love strawberries." We did grocery shopping in the city earlier in the week. Strawberries were a reasonable price, and make a simple but delightful end of a meal ... I prefer them served with yoghurt and [sorry, but this is the evening meal, and not breakfast] muesli. You haven't tried that combination as a sweet? Scrumptious!!

One of the larger, juicier, strawberries had 'lizard food' written all over its dimpled redness. I nibbled a small part of the top off and tossed the rest of the strawberry out by the gas bottles. Within moments Grandaddy had discovered his treat. As I watched he stretched his mouth wide and tousled with the quite large piece of strawberry, managing to swallow it once he had squeezed and squashed it with his jaw. Grandaddy loves strawberries!

Today he wandered indoors. As I sat stitching my swap hexagon flower, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a movement. It was Grandaddy strutting across the floor completely at home. I was crunching a Pink Lady apple at the time. Being of a scientific mind [a synonym for nosey] I wondered what the reaction would be if suddenly a piece of apple landed near him. I bit a small piece off and tossed it to where Grandaddy was sniffing at the chair leg. It took less than ten seconds for him to pick the apple off the floor and swallow it. Now we have Grandaddy eating healthy!

Of course water is an essential for life. Grandaddy isn't keen on being picked up and offered a drink from the bird bath. Yesterday he found his own drinking fountain. Dave is growing tomatoes and has a drip feed watering system set up ... Grandaddy found the tap where the hose is attached drips when the cycle is on. He stood under the tap; water dripping onto his head, which was held up allowing the droplets to run down his face. He stuck his blue tongue out capturing the life-saving water.

I think it would be a truth to state ... Grandaddy is quite at home here!

I can add that there are two other blue-tongue lizards that frequent our yard as well; one is quite small, while the other is larger, but not as large as Grandaddy. It is the presence of these other blue-tongues that makes me wonder if perhaps Grandaddy is actually Grandmammy ... it doesn't matter ... what is important is the fact that we are privileged to share our space with these lizards.

A Clearing Sale

To me, October seems to be hot this year. Little rain has fallen in the mid-west, and while the crops are looking OK around the district, farmers further south and inland are finding it a difficult situation. It does appear they may be given an option ... choosing between hay or a grain crop.

Yesterday we travelled north east to Tardun where a clearing sale was held at what once was Christian Brothers Agriculture School, but has recently closed down. The clearing sale was mainly 'odds and sods' ... bolts, garden tools, tyres, and numerous sundry farming items that would fill a page.

Once Tardun was an offshoot of Catholic Orphanages, and an amazing account of one student's days there is recalled in "The Bush Orphanage" by John Hawkins. He was an English lad, 'seconded' to Western Australia, and after spending time in an orphanage [for younger children] in Perth was sent to Tardun to complete his education. His recollections make enthralling reading. Scary in that what happened to him as regards his being shipped to Australia simply should not happen to anyone, little alone a small boy. Thankfully his story did have a happier ending ... Tardun was a good place for him.

So when the subject of a clearing sale at Tardun was raised I was keen to go. Not to view rusty old farming equipment, but to get a feeling for the place.

We drove along narrow country roads, some sealed, some not, arriving a little over two hours after our departure. Few others were there ... as is usual we were early. The little bush flies were active! Open windows were, to them, an invitation to enter and nose around. It was too hot to close windows, and instead of concentrating on a cryptic crossword that I had brought to while away the time, I decided to view the items for sale. Dave had looked around, and although he is an avid clearing sale/garage sale person, nothing captured his attention.

We departed ... however the day was not wasted.

I found Tardun to be a place of immense peace [apart from those flies, which I don't think I will ever get used to]. The air was clean and fresh. The birds, corellas and galahs, and a few 28's flew around content in the knowledge that this was their place. [Incidently John Hawkins has a fascinating antedoct about the ancesters of these birds.] The buildings, some in need of a lick of paint, probably have changed little over the years. We didn't drive past the main buildings, considering we had no right to be nosey ... but they looked imposing from the near distance. I was rather amused to see a multi-purpose TV atenna boldly pointing its shiny exterior to the heavens. Tardun is many kilometers from the nearest town, but is part of the modern world.

Our trip to Tardun was made exceptional! Not far from the 'farm' turnoff we noticed a triangle of logs on the roadside. Pieces of bright pink ribbon fluttered in the strong breeze. It was obvious this was a marker of some type. We turned back and there, growing within the triangle, on the roadside was a wreath flower. I had seen one before in a hall in Mullewa in a wildflower display. Never did it cross my mind I would see a wreath flower in the wild!! The roadside for some distance was colourful with displays of blue and yellow flowers that pushed their brilliant blooms up out of the red dirt.

After leaving the as-yet-to-begin auction we cruised around a side road discovering the remains of the Tardun General Store. Perhaps it is being done up as there were signs of activity, or perhaps it is in the process of being completely demolished. Presumably this General Store was once the place where local farmers collected their supplies. Now, when travel is quicker, they must travel to a nearby town, or perhaps every so often to the city.

The day of the Tardun clearing sale was a gem of a day ... spoiled by the amount of traffic we encountered on the Midlands Road on the way home. A bushfire on the Brand Highway closed that highway, plus the new Indian Ocean Drive, putting all traffic onto a detour via the Midlands Road.

Reading and Books

I remember the first moment I could read. After several weeks of studying 'Janet and John' the primer readers of my era, and after several weeks of playing a guessing game, one morning it suddenly came to me ... I don't have to listen intently to the words of others in the circle [we sat in circles for reading, and it was easy to work out what sentence each had to read ... out loud]; I knew what those squiggles on the page meant.

Anyone who has ever watched Oprah will recognise that moment as a 'light bulb' moment [no, not a daffodil bulb, or a tulip bulb moment, but a light bulb moment ... illumination shines forth and all that]. It is a moment of great interest, and life is seldom ever the same after that momentous discovery. We are free to read and go on journeys, in the mind via the written word, to exciting, scary, exhilarating, and educational trips designed to increase our understanding of the wide world around us.

At the moment I knew, though I will confess that the picture alongside may have aided that discovery, the text I was to read on the page, said, "Janet saw the aeroplane."

Our school had a library. Now a library is one of the most fascinating buildings in any town, and any home that has a whole room full of books on shelves is to me, the height of luxury. When I began school the building was elderly; it was decreed a new school be erected on the same site. However part of the playground would need be sacrificed for the boys' toilet block, and the boiler house. Three massive oak trees were cut down! These trees were not taken to the local tip, nor sold to the wood and coal merchant for winter fuel, these oaks were carefully sawn into timber from which tables and chairs were constructed. The library at our school was fully furnished with oak table and chairs.

It wasn't until we reached the age of about seven that classes were taken to the library once a week and the taking out and exchanging of books encouraged. Milly Molly Mandy was a favourite ... I have forgotten what it was about, but do still remember that name ... doesn't it just roll of the tongue! I read Sue Barton, Nurse, books; somehow they didn't entice me into the nursing fraternity; I read about ballet dancers, and boarding schools in far off England; I read the story of Heidi in the mountains and her grandfather and friend Peter, I devoured the Anne of Green Gables tales delighting in the adventures of a fellow red-head. It was a simple task to exchange Anne with myself, though perhaps there were just a few too many adventures for me to handle!
Of course as one grows the variety of reading material alters. I do remember reading P G Wodehouse and his adventures of Bertie Wooster, though must confess to not remembering much detail about them either.

The other day, after several weeks of suffering from hay fever and its attendant miseries [stuffy ears, itchy eyes, a scratchy throat and a raspy cough] I decided to spend time indoors, away from pollen and dust. A book to read! I searched through the bookcase. Many old favourites lay there, some having been read from cover to cover several times. This time I desired a 'new read.'
We attend garage sales and fairs; both excellent sources of exciting books at a reasonable price. Some have inscriptions in the fly-leaf that lead to conversations bordering on gossip. Who would write that on an inscription? Oh! this book is over 70 years old! Often there are as many tales to be told in an inscription as within the pages themselves.

This particular day I chose a P G Wodehouse book. I began to read. I had forgotten his wonderful ability to describe a situation, a humorous description that leaves little to the imagination as to how the character looks.
Even today P G Wodehouse is giving me as much pleasure as he did all of half a century ago as I follow the improbable, but made plausible by seemingly simple narration, times of the main characters. Oh yes, there is a lot to be said for that moment of realisation when I first recognised the simple sentence, "Janet saw the aeroplane

Grandaddy

"Some days are diamonds, some days are stones", so goes the song. For many of us our day falls somewhere in between, though if we look closely enough at stones most are extremely beautiful.

Mondays are wash days. Mondays have been washdays for as long back as I remember. My Mum boiled the copper, dunked treasured articles in starch, hanging them on the clothesline to sway in the sun and breeze [on a good day], bringing them in and sprinkling those starched items with water before ironing carefully. Wash days have changed. For the housewife of the 21st century wash days are much simpler ... thankfully.

I have kept to Monday for washday, though do 'put through a load' other days as well. Today I washed, and have ironed, but not starched. As part of wash day I wash floors as well ... laundry and bathroom. This too is so much easier than in times of yore. A bucket and mop! No getting down on knees and scrubbing!

As I was mopping the laundry Dave called out. "Come and have a look here!" It was said quietly, but never-the-less from his tone I ascertained it was important that I go THEN. The sky hadn't fallen in, chicken licken was nowhere in sight!

"Look behind the battery."

I looked, and there hiding behind a tractor battery was Grandaddy. Now Grandaddy has probably resided here longer than I. I made his acquaintance not long after I arrived at this place. At first I was dubious, almost afraid. You see, his skin is old and wrinkled. He has beady eyes, and if approached too quickly, he will scuttle out of the way. Sometimes Dave picks him up; carefully from behind his head. Grandaddy has tried to nip, but most times he waits patiently to be put down on the ground.

You see, Grandaddy is a Blue tongue lizard. I have noticed smaller, and obviously younger lizards around. Sometimes they come indoors. Grandaddy is more cautious, though he may enter when I am not watching! Grandaddy has a brown mottled skin. Once I found his 'cast' skin at the side of the house. It looked like a piece of parchment, with the shapes of a lizard.

Last year while Grandaddy was meandering around the yard I hurried inside, grabbed the camera, and took his photo. This time he was agitated, showing me his tongue as he opened his mouth in an act of defiance. However all I wanted was his photo ... the vast array of animals and birds make most days, a diamond.