Pumpkin vines are looking like vines

I noticed the other day that my pumpkin plants that are planted amongst the corn have grown from little things to actually looking like vines, they even have some flower buds on them so now its just a mater of waiting to see if there are both male and female plants and if they set fruit. Now starts the chasing and training to keep them in the garden.

Someone is not pulling their weight!!!

Monday when I went and collected the eggs I found the usual 2 eggs, only one was much different to what is normally laid, it had been shrunk.

This picture shows the two eggs and a 10 cent coin, the one on the left is normal size.

I guess the heat is taking its toll on them as well. There have been no more "bantum" size eggs since then so I think it was just a once off thing.

Joy to find a catepillar in the garden

Now most gardeners hate finding caterpillars in their garden, but even to my amazement, the other day when I was in the veggie patch collecting the flowering tops of some Asian greens to feed to the chooks, I was delighted to find a fat green caterpillar. Some may ask whywould you be delighted at this?.....well my first thought was "wow!! the chooks will love this, but pity there's only one they will have to fight over it".

What "strange" things do you find enjoyment in, in your life?

I have been lost.

Saturday night I lost my internet, after over an hour of talking to tech support people and changing wires and pressing this and that and resetting this and that, they worked out it was a problem with the exchange, so nothing to do until Telstra fix it up at their end. Today is Wednesday and it has only just been fixed and I am able to access the internet at home again.

I was really surprised as to how much I rely on the internet without realising it, so many times over the last 5 days I thought "I'll just check that on the internet" then "no I wont, its not working" Simple things like the weather pages for how hot it got today or how hot it is going to be tomorrow, or what's on the TV tonight, even recipes, and then there is the internet banking and checking on my favourite sites and blogs to see who's been up to what, all these things that I have started to take for granted, its a bit like in a power failure when we still (out of habit) turn the light switches on and expect it to light up the room.

What do you do on the internet that you take for granted.

Sharing Our Land

I read on Rohnda's blog Down to Earth a comment about even though we may own land it is not entirely ours, we share it with other living things, like birds, reptiles, and insects. This got me thinking about my half an acre and what I share my land with, just of the top of my head I know I have a number of little skinks (who I havent managed to get pics of because they move so quickly) many who drop their tails when they are attacked, there are spoggies that live in the date palm, there are Murray magpies, native doves, and crested pigeons (we call them toppies), normal magpies, galahs, corellas, and I have seen a couple of times a rather large green grass parrot (probably a bit bigger than a rosella)

A few months ago I had a pair of Sleepy lizards stay with me for a few weeks, they made a cosy hole in my shade house and would wonder about the garden during the day. The first time I saw them they scared the crap out of me, I went to check on the chooks and heard a rusting in the dried leaves, but not like a scuttling little skink rustle, more like what I thought was a snake rustle. It turned out to be a large sleepy that I had scared and it was trying to get away and hide. Now I pretty much grew up in the city so never had to deal with snakes and I'm well aware that where I am now is brown snake territory and especially living on the size block that I have, refusing to clear and poison every single weed and keep a perfectly neat and tidy garden, leaving water out for birds and lizards, and having chooks means that there is a fairly good chance that I am going to one day share my yard with a snake of some description, but they do frighten me and I secretly hope that they stay away (or at least stay somewhere where I don’t know about them and am not likely to unexpectedly step on them)

There is a possum around somewhere, I occasionally hear it jump onto the roof with a rather large thump, and it ate my 3 plums

The flocks of galahs, and corellas live in the trees nearby, and go out in the morning to feed throughout the day and then return at night. They make a huge racket both when they are leaving in the morning and when they return at night, my cockatiel often gets into trouble because being a small parrot and a flock bird will "call out" to the others, (she hasn’t realised she is not a galah, or a corella, or a human for that mater) only us humans call it screeching, a very high pitched loud call which gets very annoying very quickly, especially when it is inside.

There are a number of kites that glide around looking for food on the ground below.

And then there is the thousands of flies, spiders and other insects which I would rather found someone else's yard to call their home.

Here is a picture of a couple of galahs in the gum tree next door the other night (it didnt come out too clear because the sun had almost gone down).

And a flock of correllas last night,

And as they took off (there were three kites flying around down the road)

What creatures share your yard, and how do you encourage them?