The House(s) of Fran_mart

In 1990-91 we had the great pleasure of living in Ottawa, Ontario.  One of our Canadian friends commented that there are two seasons in Canada: Winter and roadworks. I have come to the conclusion that the Local Governments of the Monaro are 50% more efficient than that, having reduced the number of seasons to 1: roadworks!  I cannot remember the exact dates but it seems that for more than 50% of the time there has been one major set of roadworks between Carwoola and Queanbeyan CBD. The current lot are on Captains Flat Rd (CFR) and run for about 1200m from Briars - Sharrow Rd to the bridge over Whiskers Creek (thus blocking the entrance to Widgiewa Rd.  We were originally told this would start in late May and run for about 6-8 weeks.  This was good as we would miss 4 weeks of this through being on vacation.  This was situation a few days after we returned. Looking from Widgiewa down to Briars - Sharrow. At least they were working: On 18 July I took anothe...

I have just been on a 4 week trip to North-Eastern NSW and had a lovely time with lots of birds, whales and scenery.  Also 250mm of rain in 24 hours! I have compiled a blog covering this adventure : the post titles are sometimes obscure but are usually explained somewhere along the way.  I have tried to label the pages so that folk can focus on items of interest to them.  Enjoy! I will continue to fiddle with it a bit: add to a page planned for plant photos;  add a few photos that I seem to have overlooked after referring to them in the text; fixing any outstanding and egregious typos. but basically WYSIWYG. Readers who are fans of Terry Pratchett may recognise the title of this post.  The Discworld novel " Interesting Times " is based around a book with that title covering the travels of a cowardly magician, a seeker after knowledge, and a fierce thing with little legs.  Seems quite appropriate to co-opt it!

This is going to be a very mixed post, as indicated by the Title. Let us begin with the Raven topic.  In the area we live there are two possible species of Raven, the Australian Raven ( Corvus coronoides ) and the Little Raven ( C. mellori ).  Both are firm believers in 'basic-black' as the colour for feathers, and the size is not really much help for distinguishing them.  In most situations the key identification variable is the call: Australian Raven has a rather deep, long drawn-out call, which I could render as Caaawwwwwwww; Little Raven has a somewhat higher and much more rapid and clipped call - Kakk, Kakk, Kakk. The number of birds in a flock is also often helpful.  If there are more than 3 or 4, I expect it to be Little Raven, but would generally expect this judgement to be confirmed by call.  It used to be the case that Little Ravens were rarely seen in Canberra urban area, but there have been a few recent sightings - possibly birds moving across t...

This is my usual trick of listing those posts to which possibly interesting stuff has been added.  The animals of May page has been updated progressively.  Some more pictures of rising fog were taken; A later snap of the Dotterel has been included; Some icicles (or images thereof) were added to a gardening page ;  Life in Palerang   has been updated with the Election results; The question about Frogmouth roosts has been answered in part at least.  Additional traces of wombat have been added.

It being out of fire-ban season and the weeds having grown alarmingly during the wet of last year we had a big pile of stuff to ignite. We compost most of the weeds which we collect (my guess is that over a year that heap is almost the same size as that pictured, but it gets recycled back into the garden beds).  However some things are just too invasive, long lived or woody to be composted.  The invasive component includes Serrated Tussock, Brambles, Sweet Briar, Hypericum (both the garden variety and St John's Wort) and Periwinkle.  The woody lot include prunings from our fruit trees and vines.  Bits of willow meet both criteria. The weather for 2 June looked excellent: cool. cloudy and light winds, plus we had showers forecast for the previous day. So I rang the RFS on Tuesdayand let them know I planned a pile burn for today.  I also let the neighbours know things were likely to get a bit smoky. One of the things that has interested me in previous years ...

I cannot recall why Black Mountain acquired its name.  It certainly had it before the process of  habitat , sorry hazard, reduction incinerations gained political imprimatur.  Despite the best efforts of the fire people there was some interesting stuff around today. As usual I will begin with some snaps of angiosperms.  I'll begin with a nice set of burls on a Scribbly Gum ( Eucalypus rossii ). Moving right along, to plants in flower rather than stress.  The first is notable, because I can generally recognise a Hakea !  This one is - according to the authorities - H. decurrens . Next up is Coronidium oxylepis lanatum .  This wasn't the best specimen we saw today - and there were quite a few evident - but I had the camera out, pursuing a very uncooperative Hymenopterid , so snapped the flower Towards the end of the loop we came across some Cryptandra amara .  One might say the androecium is certainly cryptic! Seeing as we have moved into 'wh...

This is a rather disparate post, simply recording a couple of moments in our life that I thought were worthwhile expending a few electrons on.  At least twice a week we take a tour around the perimeter of the property (on the other days we go for a run along the roads).  Our progress has been impeded recently by a fallen dead Acacia dealbata .  So, on the afternoon of the 30th of May I decided to remove it. On the way up I noticed that some of our olive trees were laden with fruit (the type of fruit is a drupe).  So after 4 years here is our first olive harvest. We shall re-find the recipe for processing them!  In the meantime we will continue to purchase olives-for-eating and olive oil from established retail locations! In the evening (about 8:30) we were watching TV when we became aware of large moths (possibly Oxycanus dirempta ) fluttering at the window. In the shot from indoors (showing the underside of the moth) I find the headlight effect of the fl...