a bit of this and a bit of that

Firstly, you would have heard that there have been issues with Blogger embedded comments of late — some visitors being unable to leave a comment. My son and I have a mix of Apple, Microsoft, and Android devices and, we tested them all, and the issue seems to only be a problem with the Apple devices. It must be a conflict with the coding. So, as much as I love the embedded comments, I have switched to the pop-up comments for now. Even with that option, our Apple devices had to do their own thing — instead of a comment box popping up on the blog page like it's supposed to, it opens the comment box in a separate browser tab. 

No offence to Apple lovers but I'm not an Apple fan at all. I'm definitely a Microsoft/Android gal however my son is a steadfast Apple fan. I don't even like my iPad and don't use it much at all. I can get quite frustrated with it's limitations. I plan to send it packing in favour of a Samsung tablet in the near future. 

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On another topic, a couple of weeks ago, I snapped a pic of this cloud formation as it was very clear to me that there was an adult bird coming down to feed a young bird while a wolf (head only) looked on. Can you see them too?

 

Two days ago, Brad and I were at the local shopping centre and, as we were leaving, I remembered that I had some coins to deposit in the ATM deposit which was just outside. When we went to the machine, there on the coin belt was a Welcome Swallow. Quite small at around 13 to 15cm (5" to 6") from head to tail tip. The poor little thing lay there panting very fast. Luckily, I always carry a spare fabric bag in my main bag so I gently picked her up and placed her safely in the bag. She didn't even put up a fight. 

 

I quickly deposited my coins and, when we got to the car, I transferred her into a cardboard pet carry box that I always keep in the car, among other animal rescue paraphernalia, for situations just like this. Such a pretty bird with gorgeous metallic colours on her wings.

 

I took her to the closest vet. You may remember we had to do the same for a baby dragon lizard a couple of months back. Vets here are obligated to take in injured wildlife and, if rehabilitation is required, they pass them onto the necessary wildlife carers in the area. They took the details of where I found her so that, if she recovers, they can take her back there. They thought she may have been stunned by flying into something. The vet was checking her over when I left. I sure hope she survived. 

 

*****

 

Now onto an art aid I made a few years ago and it still serves me well today. I like to call it my handy-board and it's 56cm x 36cm (22" by 14").

 

I made it myself by duct-taping 3 layers of Corflute together — a corrugated plastic board often used in sign-writing.

It was getting a little grotty so I gave it a clean up and a new pretty border of duct tape — Owls.

Why did I make it? Well, I found I just didn't have enough workable space when I had all my sketch and watercolour stuff on the desk. My tables form a right angle and I saw a possibility of giving myself some extra surface space. 

Before

And now with my handy-board in place. It fills in that corner perfectly, giving me extra surface space and because I made it with 3 layers, it's nice and sturdy too — no bending.

Sitting on top of my handy-board is my location sketch board. I got that idea from well known Urban Sketcher - Liz Steel. I will do another post soon to show you how that one works when in use. Very handy indeed.

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On another note for your horror fans, just this week I signed up to receive a daily email from Dracula Daily. Bram Stoker’s Dracula is an epistolary novel made up of letters, diaries, telegrams, newspaper clippings, each of which has a date. The whole story happens between May 3 and November 10 and this guy has set it up so that we receive an email according to the timeline of the book. I signed up a little late but was able to catch up via the Archive. It's still early days. I used to love Dracula movies in my teens but I don't think I've ever read the book. It's been fun so far and I love that it's written in journal and letters etc. If you're interested in signing up for it, you can check it out HERE.

 

The rains have eased for now but it will be a short-lived break as they will be back on Friday according to forecasts. I'm not looking forward to that. They did forecast that we would be in for a warm and wet Autumn and they weren't kidding. 

I'll be back on Friday with some sketches so stay tuned...

Love, Light and Peace

floods, more lizards and a catch up

I've been feeling quite overwhelmed of late. 

 

The rains came a few weeks back and they turned Biblical — non-stop torrential downpours which caused major flooding from the Sunshine Coast (including Hinterlands and Inland areas) down to South East Queensland. I'm so grateful to live in an area where we have been safe from flooding despite having a creek at the end of our street. There were a lot of road closures, our region included, due to flooding over the roads. Sadly, so many homes went under with people being rescued from flooded homes and rooftops. In a span of just three days, we received 80% of our annual rainfall which, for a sub-tropical area when not in drought, is a lot! Sadly, 11 lives were lost due to the floods. Not all, but some were due to attempts to drive across flooded roads and then being washed away. People don't account for the strength of the current, not to mention the fact that, once the water or moisture gets into their car's distributor, it dies and they're stuck in rising waters. It's heartbreaking to think that some of those deaths were avoidable.

The rains eventually cleared and moved down through New South Wales where it wreaked havoc with floods and loss of life there too.  A major clean up is in progress now. We have more rain on the forecast but not another deluge, I hope. 

We've had major flood events like this in 1974, 1996, 2011, and 2013. We've had significant flash floods in the years in-between too but the thing I notice is that we've had more major flood events in the span of 10 years whereas, previously, it was decades between major flood events. Add to that our biblical bushfire event through 2019/2020. Bush-fires here are seasonal due to our extreme heat but I believe global climate change is making them more extreme. I know that La Niña has played a role this time with the torrential rains but scientists have also stated the event has been a lot worse than would have been expected.  Some scientists say that it will eventually get so hot here that living on the surface will become unbearable and we will end up moving underground, like in Coober Pedy in northern South Australia where summer temps can get to 52.7°C/127°F. Most of the town is underground. 

 

 *****

During the torrential rains, I had a fall — slipped in the water the doggies dripped after having a drink...didn't see it. My legs went out from under me and I came crashing down onto my butt and hips. I couldn't put my hands out to help as I was carrying stuff. For hours, from the mid-back down and my hips felt frozen with weird sensations, if that makes sense. I wasn't in pain but it was extreme discomfort, pain came later. So I did see the doctor who ordered X-rays and an Ultrasound of my right hip. I kinda knew there would be no fractures as I wasn't in severe pain. I was most concerned about my hip tendons after having tendon surgery in 2019 and the symptoms were much the same as when I tore the tendons. Unfortunately, ultrasounds aren't great for picking up tendon tears. Last time, one U/S said there was no tear yet an MRI clearly showed there was. Anyway, this U/S said 'no tear' but there is Bursitis and inflammation —same as when I had the torn tendons. The plan is to give it a couple of weeks. Do some Physio. If it hasn't helped, my doctor will refer me back to Orthopaedics. I hope that won't be necessary.

*****

After the rains eased, Aaron (son) found a teeny-weeny baby Eastern Bearded Dragon lizard in the large drain we have in the back yard. He must have become trapped and then exhausted himself trying to get out. We thought he was dead at first until I spotted a slight movement in his eyelid. We immediately went into rescue mode. Aaron set up a more suitable environment and we popped to the pet shop to buy heat bulbs and UVB bulbs, and crickets. Reptiles use thermoregulation to manage their body temperatures. This means they rely heavily on external factors, heat from the sun, and cools spots in the shade, so we had to replicate that artificially.

He was about 4" in length so possibly only 2 to 3 weeks old. He was eating the crickets and enjoying the warmth, and recovered very well. Sorry the pics are a little blurry. It was hard to focus in on him as he was so tiny.

 

 

Australia has very strict laws when it comes to their wildlife. It is illegal to take an animal from the wild and keep it as a pet. The next morning, we dropped this precious baby into our local vet who would then have contacted Wildlife Carers in the area and they will care for and rehabilitate him. 

The lizard story doesn't end there so stay tuned for more in an upcoming post. 

This is the problem after being away from my blog for a month. I have so much to talk about. 

 

 *****

 

On a more unsettling topic, I'm sure you are all in shock and disgusted with the events happening in the Ukraine — as am I. Putin is downright insane and dangerous! This war was unprovoked. My heart goes out to the Ukrainian people and my thoughts and prayers are with them. I pray that Putin doesn't succeed. He has made sure that a lot of Russians are being fed fake news. He is telling many lies to his people and they believe him. Remind you of someone else? I've read where Russian soldiers are shocked that they are meeting with resistance because they thought they were on a peace-keeping mission and would be welcomed. More of Putin's lies. I wish there was more that the rest of world could do to help the Ukraine, apart from the Sanctions. Thank goodness, neighbouring countries are taking in the refugees fleeing this horrible and unjustifiable war. It's heart-wrenching! Where will it all end? Scary thoughts...

 

On the home-front, our Prime Minister has committed to setting up a nuclear submarine base in either Newcastle, Port Kembla, or Brisbane (where I live). Scott Morrison said it is to support the future nuclear submarine fleet in partnership with the US. Our relations with China haven't been the best since we agreed, along with other nations, that there needed to be an investigation into how Coronavirus started in Wuhan. China turned very nasty. Our Prime Minister believes that Russia and China are aligning to reshape the international order. More scary thoughts...

So finally I will end this post. Is that a shout of joy I hear from the Peanut Gallery?

I will post again soon. 

Love, Light and Peace

studio, sketches, and a lizard

Hello everyone, 

 

WOW! February is just around the corner — this year is already moving fast. 

 

I've only managed a couple of sketches since my last post. 

 

A pelican sketched in ink from my own reference photo. Sorry it's a bit blurry. It was taken in the early morning, still dark outside, so lighting wasn't the best.

Second sketch was of my cat mug which I have in my studio. It holds all the brushes and combs for Kya and Teenie. It usually holds more than 2 items but the rest is currently in the laundry where I normally do the grooming. 

 

This one was done using graphite, watercolour, and a bit of white gouache.

 

Speaking of my studio, we changed the new layout a little bit more. We turned the end desk so it was right angled to form a U-shape to the studio. I loved it before but I love it even more now.

 

Kya wondered what was going on

 but approved the change

 

Yesterday, I heard some hissing coming from our front entrance. I checked it out and found a poor blue-tongued lizard being pecked at by a young adult magpie. As much as I like magpies, I couldn't allow her to be pecked to death so, I shooed the magpie away, grabbed a cardboard box, and managed to get her into it. While blue-tongued lizards aren't aggressive, they have been known to bite if they feel threatened and she was already stressed enough from the magpie attack. She was approximately 15" in length.

 

I released her into our front garden where she had plenty of plant cover to hide and recover from her ordeal. I did try to get a photo of her blue tongue which she popped out here and there but I kept missing the moment. After posing for a few snaps, she moved off under the protection of the ground plants where I hope she remains safe. As for gender, she could well be a he — I did research it but it's not easy to tell, however, I felt it could be female. That said, I'm certainly no expert.

By the way, last week, I attempted to comment on several of my friends' blogs and Blogger wouldn't do anything at all when I hit the Publish comment button. So frustrating! I hope they've sorted it now.

 

That wraps up my post for today. I hope you are all enjoying a lovely weekend. 

 

Love, Light and Peace

A day outing and some doodles

So! We had dreadful heat and drought conditions, then mega bushfires, then rain...LOTS of rain! I'm talking torrential rain causing flooding in areas. It feels like we've gone from one extreme to another in a very short time — talk about crazy weather Down-Under! I am relieved that the rain helped with the bushfires and also brought a drop in temperatures. Walking across my lawn now feels like walking on a sopping, wet sponge unlike weeks ago, when it felt like walking on dry, spiky straw instead. Extremes, I tell ya.

Anywhoo, before the rains came, Brad (son) and I went for a visit to Forest Lake. It was disheartening to see that they are still battling the toxic blue-green algae and it was sad to see wildlife numbers down.

This poor duck was surrounded by it

There were some bird groups on the rocks but there are usually many more

I loved seeing these small birds on the railings. Sparrows or swallows? 

Always great to see the Little Pied Cormorants. Sadly, we didn't see any of the black swan families which usually live there.

We did have a lovely time out all the same.

And we bought a yummy Zambrero's Vegan Burrito bowl each to take home for dinner. Double rice and beans for vegans — delicious! We love the extra heat from the jalapenos and Verde sauce.

A quick pen sketch of Kya lying on some butterflies, thankfully, not real ones. hehe More on the real Kya in a later post.

And some rough doodles of cartoon-like me...just for fun

And that wraps up this post for today. Hope to be more regular with posting from here on. I hope you enjoy the rest of your week.

Love, light and peace ~

Dusting off the Cobwebs

Where to even begin this post? It certainly has been a while with my last post being back in October 2019.

I hope it's not too late to say HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

For Australia, it was a horrific end to 2019 and horrific start to 2020 with apocalyptic fires burning across the nation. Many were out of control forcing people to evacuate. Some people even ended up fleeing for their lives into the ocean to escape the mega fires. The sheer numbers of wildlife lost is staggering — it is well over a a billion which breaks my heart. 2,400 homes were levelled by the fires and that was just in New South Wales...the number will be a lot higher when all the other States are taken into account. This truly was an event like no other in Australia's history. Climate change is definitely having an impact. I do worry how the destroyed ecosystems will recover. So much of our precious and unique wildlife gone. It hurts my heart to even think about it. Tribute video below - For the direct link to YouTube, click HERE.

We were so grateful to all the International help offered, 157 firefighters and personnel were sent from New Zealand. We were also very grateful to the American firefighters who came to help but so deeply saddened that three of those brave souls lost their lives fighting our mega-fires. See their welcome arrival in the video below (after selecting play, click on the symbol in the bottom right corner to view in full screen). For the direct link to YouTube, click HERE. As of January 14th, 34 people have lost their lives to the fires, including Australian firefighters.

 

I can't stress enough how grateful we are for the selfless work of the firefighters and the emergency service crews who put themselves on the front line. They are true heroes! 

It was bittersweet New Year's celebrations for us with so much devastation happening around the country but we did manage to have a lovely evening at my sister's and brother-in-law's home. We brought in the New Year there, then Brad and I headed home around 2am and stayed up to greet the first dawn of 2020 as is a tradition of ours...a whole, new decade awaits!

The start of the first sunrise of 2020.  It wasn't very spectacular as we did have a smoke haze hanging over us from all the fires...not noticeable in the pic. And yes, the smoke haze did flare up my asthma so I wasn't feeling 100% through November and December.

I lost my mojo in 2019 as losing our two fur-kids really hit hard. When my emotions are hit, it effects my creative output. There were quite a few hardships in 2019 including a major surgery for me and a surgery for Bradley (son). About all I could do well was read my Kindle books and I'm happy to say I did achieve my Goodreads Reading Challenge of just over 80 books for 2019.

I do have creative plans for this year but won't state them here in case they fall to the wayside which seems to happen a lot for varying reasons.

I have been doing a little sketching though. Just some simple pen sketches to help me get back into the creative flow.

We've been having a heatwave which means sauna-like conditions without the luxury of air-con in this household. Thankfully, this week is set to be a little cooler with some rain on the forecast.

I'll leave you with a pic of frangipani flowers which were blooming on the tree in our back garden.

Love, light and peace to all ~

Life and death at the lake

On Sunday, we took a short trip to Forest Lake which is one of our favourite destinations.

Pic below - Aaron walking Bobby, Beau's dog — we are doggy-sitting while Beau (my son) and his partner, David, are taking a short holiday in Singapore.

 We spotted some Australian Water Dragons on our walk around the lake. They are quite large.

I was thrilled to see pelicans at the lake! They haven't always been there so word must have got around. There was like twenty of them, at least. I LOVE pelicans!

An Eastern Great Egret on the prowl.

Ducks.

Ibis. You can't see them in the pic but the family of four black swans were on the little island in the middle of the lake just across from the Ibis.

Lots of birds on the water. You can see blue-green algae in the foreground of this pic.

A Purple Swamp Hen. When the light hits their feathers in certain ways they glisten a purple blue colour — not apparent in this pic.

Now to a sad part —
We were last at the lake in early May for Mother's Day and, back then, we noticed a lot of algae forming in areas around the lake edges. This time, it was worse and I'm very sad to say that there was so many dead fish floating in the water. There would easily have been over a hundred — carp, cat fish and no doubt, other species too. The smell hit us before we saw them.

The white blobs are more dead fish....broke my heart. This was just a small section. This sight was everywhere around the edges of the lake.

There were signs warning visitors that blue-green algae is toxic and to avoid contact with the water. The smell of death was horrible and naturally I'm concerned for how this will effect the bird and animal life at the lake too, including the turtles. I pray the local council will get out there and do something sooner than later.

Life and death are one thread, the same line viewed from different sides. 

— Lao Tzu

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To end on a more pleasant note, I thought I would share a quick ballpoint pen sketch I did of one of the Australian Water Dragons we saw. It is not finished — just the rough outline for now. I sketched this big guy for the Moment Sketchers challenge held on the first full weekend of every month.

Yes, my hip and back did flare up in pain after our big day out but it was worth it. I do love getting out in nature but I'm still very saddened by the death we witnessed at the lake.

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Okay — so where am I going to sleep tonight?!  Ahhh...the joys of doggy-sitting. hehe Maybe I can squeeze into the narrow spot beside Bobby's head?

Wishing you all a beautiful week!

a day trip to the mountain and a birthday

A few weeks ago, 

Beau, Aaron, and I went on a day trip 

to Mount Tamborine. 

Beau had heard there was a 

Local Artisan Fayre 

and wanted to go along for some inspiration. 

We did connect with one lovely artist,
Sharon McLeod,
a Bohemian faery artist. 

I bought a set of Sharon's Animal Tarot cards

as well as some of her gift cards. 

I liked her style.

Afterwards, we had veggie burgers 

and hot chips at a local eatery. 

SO yummy!

Then we decided to take a walk 

through the rainforest.

Aaron (youngest son) was such a sweetie,
he kept looking back to see if I was okay.

A downed tree still clutching a big boulder in its roots.

This is a male Australian Scrub/Brush Turkey
I was SO close to him but all he was focused on
was building his mound (the slope behind him).
The males build huge mounds of leaf litter and debris
to attract a female scrub turkey.
The female will then dig a hole in her chosen mound,
lay the eggs,
and the male will cover it over
and maintain the mound until the chicks hatch.
The mound also acts as a safe haven for the chicks as they grow.

We walked to Curtis Falls

Aaron and Beau

The rainforest has LOTS of tall trees
which act as a canopy and protection
keeping the temperature within the rainforest
much lower than outside.
Perfect for a hot day!

the tree below made me think of Celtic knots

and this tree had formed a ring with its above ground root system

a perfect place to nestle in for the night

here I am
sitting on the edge

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Today, December 23rd, is Aaron's 17th birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AARON! 

You make me very proud to be your Mum.
Love you heaps, my son. xoxo