The House(s) of Fran_mart

During our recent trip to Robe I visited the Robe Town Brewery .  I sampled 3 of their brews and acquired 2 bottles each of Amber Ale and Baltic Porter.  (The owner's name clearly shows a familiarity with matters Baltic!)  Herewith the comments: Amber Ale: a very honest Ale, with lots of body and good complexity of taste. Baltic Porter: at 6.2 ABV it is to be approached with caution but has all the goodies associated with the Imperial Russian Stout styles of beer.  Strongly recommended when they do another brew! Closer to home I infested Dan Murphy's at Woden today and acquired an 8 pack of Matilda Bay produce.  This is 2 samples each of 4 brews. The Ducks. 4.2% ABV.  The next word after 'Ducks' is apparently 'Nuts'!  A very pleasant, full bodied Ale with a nice clean finish and the usual fruity tastes. Fat Yak, 4.7% ABV. A very fat dose of hops gives it a very grapefruity taste.   A very good sample of Pale Ale. Lazy Yak, 4.2% ABV....

Some of these are growing in containers, which is I believe the current term for avoiding ambiguity regarding some plants which might generate a "substance". The catalyst for this was Frances spotting the flower on a bromeliad.  It is now on the deck, after a Winter in the potting shed. I am intrigued by the Zygocactus flowering now.  It was called Christmas Cactus when I grew cacti as a kid in the UK so why is it flowering now in Australia? This is a small succulent of which I have no idea of the name! These globe artichokes are really hitting their straps.  My guess is they are now about 1.6m high.  They are in the vegetable garden but we don't eat them - too fiddly. Watsonia - I shall try to get a better focussed picture later! Whatever the weather has been up to, it - and possibly a severe pruning - seems to have been to the liking of the floribunda rose. A white Cistius grows in an obscure part of the garden. After some years of trying we ...

Those with decent memories - taking mine as a benchmark, that isn't a high qualification - may remember the song about Captain Beaky and his Band .  This featured a reptile called Hissing Sid.  Yesterday afternoon we had a visit from his relative "Slithering Sid".  Or to be slightly fashionable, Slytherin ' Sid (although our reptile was not leg-challenged). We became aware of our visitor on hearing a slithery noise coming from the garage.  On investigating the noise was coming from an empty beer carton. It had got in quite happily but seemed unable, or unwilling to get out.  However even when I carried the box outside and placed it horizontally the Eastern Blue-tongue Lizard seemed reluctant to emerge.  Eventually it was tipped out and ...  ..slythered (sic) away to hide behind our gas bottles.

16 members gathered on Captains Flat Rd, opposite Clydesdale Rd, for the first half of this double header.    It was not frigid as we climbed through the fence.  For a change we went to the left inspecting the most Western part of the Reserve.  Members of the family Asteraceae were very obvious from the start with a smallish patch of  Leucochrysum albicans var tricolour   encountered very soon after starting. Here is a shot of a much larger colony found later in the walk. Some specimens of  Brachyscome aculeata  (normally found in the higher areas) were also identified,  a nd swathes of  Xerochrysum viscosum  provided a nice touch of yellow.    Purple was offered b y both  Brachyscome rigidiula  and  Calotis  scabiosi folia var. integrifolia .  Most of the members of the family Fabaceae seemed to grown beyond the flowering stage. Occasional blossom was noted on  Bossia...

The Coordinator of Waterwatch in this area announced a Bug Blitz on 24 November.  I joined her for the last site of the day, where the Molonglo flows under Yass Rd near Queanbeyan (its actually just in the ACT).  I helped a bit by doing some netting in the shallow bits.  Here I am emptying my catch into one of the buckets.  Deb wore waders so got somewhat deeper ...  .. in fact a lot deeper. She was keen to sample from both the reeds in the area.  So what did we catch.  A good range of things.  I didn't photograph the one sort of fish we found (Gambusia sp. a feral pest species known as Mosquito Fish or Plague Minnow - the latter gives a better feel for its depredations on frogspawn and tadpoles, as well as clearing up mozzies). Here is an insect which was scooped up from the reeds - not an aquatic species.  The rest are some of the wide variety of aquatic invertebrates we found.  I could barely identify any of ...