Our great southern migration

  Apparently Scott hasn't been eating enough apples. All is good now! Above is the view from Scott's hospital window. Scott was diagnosed with a triple fascicle block (poor conduction in heart chambers). This put him at risk of collapse and other heart issues. Not great when you don't live in the country. His doc recommended a pacemaker.  He had been taken to the prep area prior to getting the pacemaker implanted when I took the photo. It was evening as his surgeon was running late and pacemakers are relatively easy to place so get scheduled after more major procedures. Apparently it was another 90 minutes before he actually went into the OR. Since it was late in the day, I couldn't see any updates on the scheduling link that was designed to show me his progress; not great for nerves. Luckily, they let me hang out until he returned to the room about 9:30pm. This made for a very long day since we started the morning in Cobargo, about 3 hours away from the hospital. The p...

  We have been moving a water tank instead of fetching water. But we definitely had hills involved.  Note the two tanks below the retaining wall on the lower right of the image above. There is third tank up by the house. But, since, we are mostly using rain water and we are in a fire zone, we want more water on hand. Those lower tanks are in the spot where we want to put the larger concrete tank. We just emptied and moved the white one. This involved Scott doing a lot of digging to free it from the surrounding grasses (tenacious things) and then careful dragging it to the new site. The new site was on a hill so we moved sand from the first area to the new one and packed it under the tank.  Betty (the truck) again came to the rescue and we were able to tilt the tank just enough to work sand under it.  We haven't yet tried putting water back in it. Hoping the travel across the lawn didn't damage the bottom! My legs are saying it is time for a break.  While Scott w...

  Miss Muffet gets top billing but we all know it is really about the spider. This gorgeous one is a St. Andrews Cross spider. I saw it when coming back from my run one day. [I see things better after a run since I walk REALLY slowly coming up our steep drive when returning.]  A couple of days later, the web looked like this Hence the name. Per the latest ( link worth reading ), the cross reflects ultraviolet light, attracting insects. I think this one caught a moth.  This guy was not so pretty IMHO. A wolf spider . Two were hanging out in the back yard when I was moving stuff around. Not aggressive toward humans but actively hunt their prey (insects) vs waiting for prey to get stuck in a web. Someplace in that head are 8 eyes arranged in 3 rows.  The one below was also spied on a return up the drive.  We have seen several red-backs in the garage and around the house. Those suckers are dangerous so usually go for insect killer vs camera. This image is from wik...

  We have sheep instead. They aren't our sheep but are serving as lawn mowers. They do get around -they must be in great shape as they move up and down the hills all day long.  Their owner has mentioned selling them to this and we might take him up on them. They are dorpers - so have a combination of wool and hair. That means they shed their wool (think about hair falling out on a regular basis). Pretty cool and means lower maintenance.  They like bread. Well, four of the five like bread. I occasionally take out a piece to them to make friends.  Casey has now returned to the USA so I just fed her skink some banana to keep it happy, as well. The house is still coming along. We now have a living room rug! It helps tie the space together, I think. We have been working on the hillside behind the shed. It did house several very flammable trees - not a great idea that close to the house. We pulled those out and have been slowly replacing them with succulents and low flamm...

Photo credit : Casey Madill I didn't remember this poem by Shel Silverstein but there aren't too many kids songs/poems on skinks and lizards. I do like it even though it is wrong in so many ways! Lizard A lizard in a blizzard Got a snowflake in his gizzard And nothing much else happened, I'm afraid, But lizard rhymed with blizzard And blizzard rhymed with gizzard And that, my dear, is why most poems are made Casey has been befriending our lizard wildlife. They often leave whenever I walk by but she convinces them to stay out for photo shoots. This is the one that she calls fierce.  Photo credit : Casey Madill She has also been befriending the large blue-tongue skink that lives under the porch. We thought it had died but it does come out for Casey (and bananas) Photo credit : Casey Madill This is a different one but you can see the appearance differences vs the little guys Even when we leave Cobargo, her lizard charm works. This fellow (lace monitor) happily led us down the ...

  Black Joak Morris was a wandering troupe at the Cobargo Folk Festival. There were not too many like them! We got tickets to the Festival when we knew we were settling here (back in Dec, I think). We thought it would be a great way to meet village folk. It was way too big for that. Generally there were about 5 performance venues going simultaneously (besides the wandering troupe) along with the Renaissance festival type food and knickknack booths.  The bands ranged from relatively local to ones from Canada and Spain. The event was much much bigger than we anticipated. It started with a busking competition at the Cobargo Motel/Hotel/Pub/ Laundry/RV park on Thursday night. This overflowed into the street and had a bus to drive folks to and from local areas. We were off doing more rural fire service training so saw it but avoided it. [We went drafting instead-practice pulling water from a dam to reload trucks.]  We did hear some amazing singers and instrumentalists. We also...