On the trailer.

One of the nice things about the location of this current house sit is our closeness to our family. Most of them live within 45 minutes’ drive and from time to time we have the grandchildren over for the day to play and sometimes they stay the night.

One of the best things from their point of view is the space to run around. Peter has been busy cleaning up the back part of the block, whipper snipping all the long grass, tidying up some of the rocks and logs up there, and the girls were up there the other day helping him out. He cut down another small tree that had died, more firewood for the winter, so they were up there helping him load it into the little trailer behind the ride on mower. As a reward for their efforts they got a ride on the trailer.

 

Up the back he also found some nasty looking plant with these big thorns.

Riding in the trailer

Around the house too.

Down the drive and around the front lawn.

 

Time to get out.

  Now that they are getting older they are also getting better at some things. They have been learning to skip, especially inside a big rope. They kept landing in the wrong place so Peter needed to make a line on the concrete where they should stay.

Practicing the art of skipping with a big rope

Easier to stay in the right place with the line on the ground.

 

So many children these days miss out on this sort of experience, town living has taken away so much that we used to have when we were young.

Land mullets

Amongst the wild life at this house sit, we have found some really unusual things. Sometimes we know what they are and sometimes we just have no idea.

Peter found some little snake like things, we have found several of them which is unusual, because even though there is a lot of land around this house we have not seen much snake activity at all.

So Peter, with his trusty little laptop found that they probably are land mullets. Considering a mullet is a fish we thought this a funny name, but they are a kind of lizard apparently. They just look like a small snake though, with tiny legs.

Peter kept one and our daughter took it home to her girls, two very inquisitive little things who love animals and insects too.

Chim Chim Chiminey Chim Chiminey etc....

Do you remember this song from Mary Poppins? One of the favourite movies from long ago  now…I am showing my age. But I couldn’t help thinking of this yesterday.

We got the chimney swept yesterday. You might think that living in tropical Queensland, no one in their right mind would have a fireplace. And when we moved her we thought exactly the same. But now, having acclimatised the winter nights get cold, and the house we are house sitting is not at sea level but at the foot of a high range of hills and the air is cooler here. So we know we will use the fireplace frequently.

In years gone by, in New Zealand, everyone had fireplaces, and the inbuilt type of fireplace was installed in most homes. They are clean, confine the fire so safer and nice to look at too. This house sit has one of those contained fireplaces, but we had no idea when the chimney had last been cleaned. Even here in Queensland houses burn down every winter due to negligence, often with heaters and fireplaces. So we thought we would get it checked out.

The chimneysweep of today is a much more sophisticated kind of chap, with a nice four wheel drive car, good equipment, and in our case yesterday was also an installer of these fireplaces, so he knew all about them.

 

The fireplace inside. Works a treat and heats the whole house.

 It was reassuring to hear him say the fireplace in this house was in really good condition and safe to use for years to come. I'm sure the home owners have looked after this too, and the appliances etc in this homesit are all good quality.

So now we can rest assured that the fire is safe to use for the coming winter.

Wow! Look what's out there

We found this in an online page. The photos are just wonderful. Take a  moment and have a look at what’s out there. They were taken by Hubble. There are only a few pics, but worth checking out.

Feeding the birds.

We have such a soft spot for all the birds around the house we are currently house sitting. I have previously told you about the butcher bird I call ‘baby’. He still comes every day demanding food, usually in the large potted tree by the back door or sometimes in the breezeway beside the kitchen window. He sings his little heart out for us.

We have the usual daily visitors, the rainbow lorrikets, galahs, and when they deign to bestow their presence, the king parrots come quietly eat and glide away again.

Then there are the cockatoos. More and more are coming to visit in the late afternoons and they are getting more used to Peter. He has patiently spent time with them, and now can feed one or two by holding a block of seed and they will come right down and feed.

He spent quite some time out there with his camera in one hand and a block of seed in the other. These are the results.

 

He has to remember that they are still wild birds, and especially the sulphur crested cockatoos have beaks that could probably go right to the bone on your finger if they wanted to hurt you.

I went out to the kitchen the other morning, and on the bench lay a kitchen paper towel with some blood on it.

 

Yes….guess who got nipped when feeding the birds….only a minor bite fortunately.

He spent quite some time out there with his camera in one hand and a block of seed in the other. These are the results.

Birds are a beautiful addition to our life....imagine no birds.....how dull.