The House(s) of Fran_mart

I wasn't as involved in the gardening last year as I should have been.  As a result the weeds had infested the areas we didn't really cultivate last year.  In turn this presented a challenge for getting the vegetable garden ready for the coming year.  Digging by hand was going to be a major issue so we decided to invest in a bit of temporary technology. Fortunately the Stoney Creek Gazette came to our assistance with an advert for Rural Hire .  They were able to provide a rotary hoe. Here it is in work. For reasons that escape me now (and that phrase probably contains the explanation) I didn't do a "before" photograph but the areas under the plum tree and between the photographer and me give an idea of what we were dealing with. (Bear in mind that I had also given these areas a good going over with my brush cutter first!) The rest of the area is 'after'.  I covered that area in about 30 minutes, as opposed to several hours of back-breaking digg

A top walk.  Brilliant weather, lotsa pretty flowers and three species of bird breeding (and one pair of insects attempting to). I'll begin with some habitat shots.  First off. a panorama of the Brindabellas from Point Hut.  Thanks again Roger for alerting me to this facility in the camera.  The Murrumbidgee was quite still around the start.  It was well decorated with Acacia sp . as we moved North. As the rapids (or at less 'less-slows') showed here, despite the recent dry period there was a good flow in the river.  This gave rise to some interesting foam patterns in the water.  To plants!  We found several very large clumps of Lissanthe strigosa .  A few flowers were out in one specimen. The ground near the mornos spot was well endowed with these tiny flowers.  Unfortunately no-one could attach any Latin (nor even any Strine ) to them.  During the ingestion of morning tea a large patch of white was spotted up the hill.  So I staggered upto get so

Warning: this post contains images of an ex-snake. I will begins with some matters not to do with natural history.  These are to do with the pre-poll arrangements in Queanbeyan. If the election was declared on the number of placards on Morrisset St, Mike Kelly would be a good bit front.  Judging by the number of people who just took one party's cards I'd say it is a very close call. These posters were in the window of the polling station. Just about all of the artisitic images seemed designed to appeal to indigenous folk (from the desert or the tropical coast).  A little surprising as according to  ABS Table Builder   2.9% of the people in Queanbeyan identify as being of Aboringinal or Torres Strait Islander origin.  Very little up on the Australian value of 2.56 %. I have slightly adulterated this image of a sign on a nearby building site. The following Monday I was back again.  A very pleasant two hours with good company provided by the other two major parties.

As folk will know I compete with the ACT Veterans Athletics Club .  One of the rules is that everyone has to help out at one event a year.  For reasons that escape me this has resulted in me being an event organiser. This is not that big a deal and mainly involves me contacting about 20 other members and allocating them jobs.  I also walk the course beforehand with the other organiser (my colleague Roger) who does the set-out of the course.  No big deal and my efforts seem to be appreciated by the punters. Today was the day for this year.  Brilliant weather: nicely cool but sunny.  Here follow some snaps.  But frst here is a map of the course. Apparently the mob getting close to the start line meant that some folk - especially newbies - found it difficult to hear the starters instructions.  So we put in an extra line of magic cones to keep the chattering classes at bay.  They worked!  Here is a wide shot of the start.  In total we had 161 starters over the three events (Long