MONDAY PHOTO-A-WEEK & .......

Firstly, I want to thank each and every one of you for your care and concern for Michelle. Thankfully, she was not facing a life-threatening condition and is doing much better now. She just needs a little time to heal emotionally. Michelle was very touched by all your well wishes and hopes to return to blogland in the near future as she does miss all her blogging friends. Thanks again....xo

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MONDAY PHOTO-A-WEEK

This week, Mary chose - CLOUDS - for our photo theme.

I adore Cumulus clouds and I LOVE cloud-watching! I remember when the kids were young, we would often try to see different shapes in the cloud formations. I still do that. In the lower half of the pic directly below, I can see the upper half of a flying dragon. Can you see it?

Click on any image to enlarge

If you're interested in joining our weekly photo group, feel free to check out the picture link under 2010 Happenings in my side-bar.

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WOW! What a busy week it has been!

We have some unwanted visitors staying with us at the moment....TERMITES!!!....AGAIN!!! The tradesmen only just finished doing all the repair work in December from the last lot. The bad news is that the particular variety staying with us now are the bad ones....the ones that can devastate a house within three months. YIKES! I notifed the Property Manager on the 4th as soon as we discovered the soft wall....the termite guy came to check it out on the 9th to confirm. He said would come back on the 12th to treat the termites and do a full house inspection provided his superiors gave the OK. I'm still waiting to hear back and it's now the 15th! All the while the termites are merrily munching their way through the house. A piece of trivia about termites that I never knew - They actually munch a lot faster if you have rock music playing. Who knew?! Needless to say, all loud bass and drum music is currently banned from being played in the house.

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On Monday, we rescued an injured crow.

Beau had spotted him/her near the bus stop on his way to TAFE so gave me a call. While many people see them as pests, I like them, and I just can't turn my back on an injured animal or bird so I went down and picked it up. It made no attempt to fly away and I couldn't see any outer bleeding so I figured he/she may have been hit by a car. I phoned the RSPCA and they told me to drop the crow into a veterinary clinic where it would be assessed...so I did. All local vets take in injured wildlife which are then hopefully treated and passed onto wildlife carers before being set free again. The vet said that they would do their best so I can only hope he/she survived to scavenge yet another day.

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Over the past couple of weeks we had A LOT of rain which actually caused electrical problems and flooding in some areas. Our back yard is flat so doesn't drain well at all...there is one little drain in the middle of the lawn which does nothing so our back yard always becomes like a swamp when it rains. Even now, five days since it last rained, my back yard is soggy and waterlogged....and smelly from the stagnant water. You can see the water just sitting on top of the lawn......I'm sure the mozzies will be having a hey day!

The Sacred Kingfishers are also having a hey day as the waterlogged lawn attracts lots of insects, such as dragonflies and mozzies. We have three Sacred Kingfishers that come and sit on our fence numerous times throughout the day, all with a keen eye on the lawn...then suddenly they will dive down to catch their prey. Sorry the pic isn't the greatest.....these birds are quick on the uptake and fly away the moment they see any movement so I had to take the pics through the flymesh screen. You will see him/her more clearly if you click on the image to enlarge it.

One night last week, we had another period of heavy rain and I forgot to bring my potted lavender plants undercover and it poured all night. The pots don't have holes in the bottom so this is the mess that I found the next day. I was so upset.

If you look closely you can see the level that the water is sitting at in the pot and I know that lavender hate wet feet. I drained it as best I could without losing all the soil with it. Note to self - Drill holes in the pots so it doesn't happen again.

There's a lot of new growth so I hope they will be okay as it will take days for the soil to dry out.


I was going to post some pics of sketches I've done this past week but, as this post is already photo-intensive, I will leave it off for another day.

On another note, Reece and his girlfriend, Sarina, left for a holiday in Thailand this morning....how exciting! I wish it were me. They will be staying in Phuket, then Bangkok, and will arrive back home on the 27th. I miss him already!

~ I hope you all enjoyed a wonderful weekend ~

Love, light and peace