The House(s) of Fran_mart

Our morning walks still go past the tent city in Commonwealth Park (aka Floriade).  The steel fences around the site make it extremely unattractive at first glance.  It makes me think of a detention centre. Looking across Nerang Pool - before the camp gates are opened - all that is initially apparent is a tent and some plastic artifacts.  Finally a flower bed emerges. We had to leave by a tunnel under Parkes Way.  This is probably one of the main entrances to the event so having to get through more prison camp fencing surrounding a building site is another unpleasant experience.  Coming in from Allara St is also ugly as the bridge over Parkes Way looks into a dump site for old construction material. Fortunately Nature still produces a good look at sunset.  The following images were taken off our deck.  The first one was 1730. Some colour begins to arrive by 1756.  And develops to spiffiness 4 minutes later. Then afte...

This is not another book review although the subject does suggest references to the work of Roger Hargreaves  (Mr Grumpy)... .. and Hans Christian Anderson (The Kings New Clothes). That is actually a farmer celebrating getting some rain! What this is actually going to be covering is the topic of Taxonomy and particularly the use of DNA sequencing in that Dark Art.  The reason I am writing this is because a number of people whose knowledge and views I respect have a rather different perspective on these topics to me, and it behooves me to try and get my ideas straightened out.  Trying to write about them is a good way of doing that. The view of others is that DNA sequencing enables researchers to examine more clearly how the process of mutation has led to new species developing and the relationships between species.  The value of that knowledge isn't questioned. In some cases these studies are based upon an assumption that mutation rates are constant ...

Clean-Up Australia (CUA) and QPRC appear to have combined to block cleaning up rural areas.  I was thus very annoyed to receive, on about March 1, an email from CUA saying Clean Up Australia Day 2018 is this Sunday 4 March and we wanted to ask you to join us to make a difference this weekend! It's easy, fun, fast and free to get involved! Simply head to www.cleanupaustraliaday.org.au/join and search by postcode or suburb to sign up to a site near you.  After a range of other irrelevant and misleading comments it concluded with: If you can't get involved this year, please consider making a donation to Clean Up Australia. [I have removed the link as I don't want people donating to this mob of bums.] My reply was: "I find this deeply offensive.  Your organisation has refused to support our site because of stupid concerns about OHAS.  And now you send me this message.  Get your (expletive deleted) act together. Then this burble from QPRC appeared on their ...

I thought I'd start with a spiffy view from about the mid-point of the walk. 22 Members (I don't think there were any guests) arrived at Glendale Depot after car pooling at the Namadgi Visitors Centre.  It was fortunate that some of those present had recently visited Glendale and were aware that the gate is often closed: a change in policy.  It was open when we arrived but closed when we left (although it may not have been locked. Our route was essentially a figure 8 starting by walking towards the Mighty Gudgenby River and then up towards the Depot itself.   This image of the route is from eBird, where Peter had the track function turned on. An early Good Bird was the pair of resident Sacred Kingfishers.  They were soon followed by 3 Southern Whiteface which obligingly perched on various fences, wires and   Verbascum   stalks allowing most of us good looks.   One was very cooperative in perching next to a Dusky Woodswallow (of ...

We are currently experiencing a disgusting spell of hot weather.  I am reminded of a couple of lines from the poem "Integrated Adjective" by John O'Grady: ".... drinkin' beer and arguin' an' talkin' of the heat,  An' boggin' in the bitumen in the middle of the street; " This post started off "talking'of the heat,"and in particular the heat of December but then wandered off into general issues of maximum and minimum temperatures.  I have discovered that there appear to be a few anomalies in some of the temperatures recorded for Carwoola between 2000 and 2006(ish) but they appear to vary somewhat according to the variable being examined.  My conclusions thus far are that there seems to have been a change of an unknown nature to site conditions in the early noughties; in most cases, more recent data appears to correlate well with data for Canberra airport; for the principal use to which the Carwoola series is appli...

Much of the black is disappearing from the countryside as the grass begins to emerge.  The leaves on many of the eucalypts  - I must investigate which haven't changed colour - are all brown, and will presumably fall off. Perhaps we should make it a Fall Leaves a tourist attraction as in the US although: our colours are a tad monochromatic, in the matter of light brown; and  we don't really want people on ghoul-tours in the area. However the smell of charcoal is still very evident, at least outdoors.  I can't offer you a button to press to get the smell while reading, so I thought adapting the words of Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore (played by Robert Duvall in Apocalypse Now " was a fair title to the post. The massive progress has been on the insurance front, where NRMA , and their assessors, are continuing to be brilliant.  The claim for loss of our camper-trailer has been settled and agreement reached (subject to formal sign-off by the accounting are...

There was a bit of growling last evening (15 December) before we went to bed, but no disturbance during the night.  In the morning a fat boy was located in the usual tree next door.  In the afternoon as we came back from a short walk loud growling was heard and Frances spotted another Koala waving its head around on a tree half way up the (major) hill. Then I spotted one slumped in a fork, doing its best to promote the myth that they are always stoned.   Apparently this is no more than a myth: they just have to work very hard to get nutrition out of gum leaves so need a lot of rest.  Our friends have asked that we keep the koalas out of the house as they'd scratch the floors.  I think this is the sort of thing they are worried about: This was the first time I have seen several Koalas so close together.  This map gives the idea: it is about 120m from 1 to 3. On the morning of the 17th one koala (I have been chastised for using the b w...