(no subject)

[kiwisue]

Picspam post

First up, thanks to people who joined in with my joining in on the "one word" meme. It was a good one. I won't reply to individual comments, because I would be saying the same/similar thing to everybody, but I thank you very, very much for sharing (and if you missed the kick-off, the bar's still open).

Secondly - I haven't shoved my RL in your face shared much RL with you lately. So beneath the cut be pictures taken in the last couple of months. Warning for arachnophobes - I'm posting a couple of pics of a lovely Golden Orb spider and its web, taken outside our house mid-January. And lots more besides, so just scroll on down...


B's best mate, Steve, and his newish girlfriend came up from Hobart to visit us over the Australia Day long weekend. Steve and B were once known as the "Glimmer Twins" of Australian 17th century reenactment.



We drove up the GWH, pausing at Lawson for lunch, then on to Katoomba and a tourists-eye view of the Three Sisters and the Jamison Valley.



It was windy.



Summer has treated us relatively kindly. The hot weather didn't arrive until mid-January. Late December was a good time for small critters: this golden orb spider spun its web across our driveway one Sunday night.



I'm not mad keen on spiders. I barely tolerate a couple of house-type ones that have their webs high up on the kitchen ceiling near the back door, because they catch flies and other insects and don't move away from their filament homes. But isn't this a pretty one?



We had about three weeks of really shockingly hot weather, from late January to early February. With the lagoon just across the road we didn't end up with any parched wildlife in our backyard, apart from a much pecked-upon outcast swamp hen we named 'Tatty':



'Tatty' was attacked a lot as a young bird. I don't have a picture of her from back then, but she really was a mess, and the other birds missed no opportunity to harrass and peck at her. As a result she spent most of her days hiding in our back yard. We started feeding her, first with muesli, then with wild bird seed mix. She was starting to recover, then the attacks renewed, possibly because a lot of the other birds were nesting or rearing young chicks. She lost a lot of her flight feathers in early December, but bounced back and is now almost indistinguishable from the other swamp hens (called pukekos in NZ).



I remember conversing with Joan about my backyard birds.

For Valentine's Day we went on a picnic to a bush area we'd never been to before, over kilometres of unsealed, bumpy road.



It was raining, so we had a car-picnic (anyone else familiar with those?). Then we wandered about the area, and B took a picture of me next to a pool. The tree was dripping drops of water down my collar, what can I say?



It's been raining a lot recently, as this newish addition to the lawn can attest:




So there it is - my life, or something like it.

Comments

[iibnf.livejournal.com]

Nice spider - and poor Tatty!

[kiwisue.livejournal.com]

Golden Orbs are rather cool - they have this bad habit of webbing across footpaths and other places people go, which is quite disconcerting when you run into them, but they do help keep the flies and mozzies down.

And Tatty is doing just fine ATM, thanks.

[mab-browne.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed the peek. Thanks. :-)

[kiwisue.livejournal.com]

*heh* glad you found it interesting.

[draycevixen.livejournal.com]

Lovely pictures and that spider is huge!

[kiwisue.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked the pics.

That spider would be about middling - and not all that scary. Scary is big hairy huntsmen - although they're quite harmless, they're related to tarantulas & basically have "evil" written all over them.

[draycevixen.livejournal.com]

As you know, England doesn't have any dangerous spiders and in America the dangerous spiders are tiny, the Black Widow and the Brown Recluse.

[kiwisue.livejournal.com]

Yup - we have the Redback, about which songs have been written, Funnelwebs, Mouse spiders and white-tails. To name a few! And mostly they're fairly small.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Oh, your life looks good, you know? You're also still one of the few people who post pics that make me miss Aus - look at those views! Mind you, I suppose I'm bound to visit one of these days, now, so... *g*

Love the spider - how gorgeous is his web! And poor old Tatty too, why ever did they decide to pick on her I wonder? Not just humans who can be right sods then...

[kiwisue.livejournal.com]

*g* We're also one of the few places in Australia with greenery - everywhere else is all brown dust - and worse. And you will visit too, I'm sure of it.

I don't know why Tatty in particular got picked on. Supposedly an imbalance between the sexes can trigger that kind of behaviour. It looks like things might be settling down now though, now that the baby swamphens are up and running about.

[magenta-blue.livejournal.com]

Small critters?!! That spider is massive!

Lovely pics! Poor Tatty, but at least he had your care and attention, she looks quite happy with her own water bowl.

What is that thingie on your lawn? I want to guess a spore, apart from that sounds like the beginning of a really bad 80s horror movie. *g*

[kiwisue.livejournal.com]

she looks quite happy with her own water bowl

Yeah, she seems to enjoy paddling. I think things are getting better for her, she hasn't been harassed lately, probably because the other birds are done mating/nesting.

That spider is about middling, & not at all fearsome.

The thingie on the lawn is some kind of mushroom... probably not edible. This is what it looked like a couple of nights later:




The object next to it is our "lawn god", aka a left-over art project or something that we found behind the garage when we cleaned up. Excuse the overgrown grass - it's been too damp to mow!

[moth2fic.livejournal.com]

I know all about car picnics.

I hope Tatty does well. We have just been watching a programme about cassowaries in Western Australia - also considering themselves to be yardbirds after severe winds damaged their forest.

Thanks for the pics! I love being able to visualise my f'list and their surroundings.

So my icon here is Jamie, the grandson who is now living with us!

[kiwisue.livejournal.com]

Car picnics are fun! We had sandwiches, cold quiche and fruit, and were quite cosy. I haven't done anything like that for years, but they were a feature of my NZ childhood.

Tatty seems to be managing quite nicely at the moment.

Your grandson looks quite handsome :)

[lukadreaming.livejournal.com]

Lovely photos! I'm not keen on spiders, but that one is very handsome *g*.

[kiwisue.livejournal.com]

Golden Orbs are attractive, as spiders go. I wouldn't want to pick one up though - brrr!

[rosie55.livejournal.com]

Great pics, it did look windy that day! The spider and web are amazing - the web is almost perfect, clever of you to get it at night, webs are difficult in daylight. Must try that in our garden.
And poor Tatty - the "pecking order" writ large!

[kiwisue.livejournal.com]

The Golden Orbs mostly spin their webs at night, then in the heat of the day they retreat to the shelter of buildings or trees. They ingest their own webs too. But yes, I do think it's easier to 'capture' them at night - or with the dewdrops in the morning!

Tatty is doing just fine now, thank goodness - and fingers crossed that her outcast days may be behind her!