The House(s) of Fran_mart

Most of this post will be about stuff I acquired at the Lifeline Bookfair on Friday.  Some of it will be nature related and other bits.not. Before getting there however I will talk about "Green Philosophy" by Roger Scruton .  I became aware of this guy when he talked on Counterpoint on ABC Radio National.   He is a philosopher currently located at the American Enterprise Institute - which made me think of him as Paul Wolfowitz's new best friend forever.  Not so: while he wears the label conservative he doesn't like neocons as much as he doesn't like controlling statists from the Left.  His view is that local activity is what should drive policy and particularly preserving local beauty, which encourages conservation.  Seems good to me.  I have started reading the book, but it requires more attention than can be given to a library book so one is heading towards me via The Book Depository. The Lifeline Book fair is a huge event in Canberra where people donate bo

On 11 April the ANPS group took on the challenge of daring the top of the Corn Trail not to deposit liquid on us.  We won, with a great walk on a lovely day.  For those not familiar with the trail, we used the traditional start at the top of Clyde Mountain (between Braidwood and Nelligen) and did an out and back route. This post starts with some habitat shots covering the whole walk and then gets into specifics of angiosperms followed by some shots of non-flowering plants. This first image shows the general habitat at the start of the walk.  After lunch the habitat changed a bit with many Xanthorrhoea australis being present.  At least one of them seemed to be supporting a large termite mound.  Quite a few other ants were around but no-one, including this author, seemed keen to hang around bull-ant or jumping-ant nests to take snaps!  A little further and we started to drop off the ridge with tree ferns and totally different ferns around.  While interesting, we'd done

NB: all US and Brit readers should note Australia uses the Centigrade system where 0 degrees is freezing point not Fahrenheit in which freezing is +32. (The latter scale seemed quite sensible when I was growing up in the UK, but now seems totally daft.) A few weeks back the ABC weather forecast suggested one night - about 4 days in the future would have a minimum of -4.  It was actually about +6 so I suspect someone in BoM got a sign wrong in their forecasting model. However last night the forecast has been consistently for +1 in town which is equivalent to about-1 here.  So it was time to shift the fuschias into the shelter of the potting shed or into the house.  Here are a couple that came indoors. Before the others went into the shed they were pruned, which apparently reduces stress on the plants.  It also provides some absolutely lovely vase flowers. As there was a small amount of frost in the morning, I suspect the forecast was right on the money! Other Winterising

Reasonably early on the morning of Easter Sunday a squeak from Frances' study alerted me to the presence of 2 Eastern Rosellas on our main lawn.  Of course, as I opened the door to snap them thy flew off.  One was kind enough to pause briefly on a branch.  I reckon that beats an Easter Bunny hands down, even though it is a tad deficient in the chocolate egg department. The upcoming flower images, from a snuffle round the block on the Sunday afternoon, are somewhat a repeat of other recent images, some from other places,  but are put here to record recent events on the block.  First is an archetypal Pultenaea procumbens.  Then a Bossaea buxifolia  I found 3 more colonies of Diplodium truncatum (Little Dumpies).  This colony had at least 25 flowers in it, and many rosettes.  A somewhat fresher specimen from another colony.  I had thought that our Eriochilus cuculatus (Parson's bands) had all finished flowering.  Not so: both pink and white forms available.

The title of this post references the title of Paddy Pallins autobiography (as well as being a factual description of a walk).  It also links to a previous visit   - by coincidence at almost exactly the same time of year - to the area in which the members of ANPS became a little innovative in their navigation. The earlier post includes a description of the landform: a very steep escarpment with many creeks running down it. A busy road runs along the bottom of the escarpment.  The top of the escarpment is pine plantation rather than eucalypt. It is probably not possible to get truly lost since: going down will get you to the road eventually; or  going up will get to the fire-trail along the edge of the pines.  It is possible to get a tad misplaced if one doesn't pay attention however and this happened to  us this afternoon.  I will claim this was because I was paying too much attention to nature.  Combined with the steepness of the tracks this meant I misjudged how far we ha

On Good Friday the full moon was rising just on dusk.  The condition of the moon was hardly surprising since the Full Moon defines the date of Easter .  However its time of rising was a matter of serendipity.  Quite a few photos were taken! This is the first time I have managed to get images showing the detail of the moon: usually it is just a shiny white disc.  Presumably this is something to do with the amount of contrast with ambient light and the elevation of the moon.  Note that in the first 4 images much of the difference in light in the sky is an artefact of me playing around with exposure settings!  A more traditional (by my standards) snap, taken about an hour after the others.  I like the silhouette effect. The next night (Saturday 7 April) the moon was still full and a couple of shots with silhouetted trees were captured.