Saturday's Rain... & a Garden & visitor update

A couple of weeks back when it rained, we had a playdate planned for the park. So we went anyway. All the children and all the adults had a great time in the warm rain at a beautiful park - it was brilliant. Warm rain is great - it doesn't happen here that often (or never used to)... so I took these yesterday at home. We had a great time and it was lovely to have a brief bit of relief from the warm humid day we had been having.



Puddles and rain are so much fun! This is my blonde curly boy having a great time! ~ Mr Dark Hair, Mr Clown and Ms Rain also played outside in the rain - as did Mum! I also wanted to up date a little bit on the garden. Here's the pic I took when we first put our fruit trees in down the back side fence on 4th Oct 2008.


and here's the same spot now...


The passionfruit needs a new trellis so it can spread out further (it already runs the entire length of the fence). The fruit trees are a good 2-3m tall and this year would be their third year of fruiting. We've lost one apricot and worked out it was a bad idea to have the compost box at the end of the row of fruit trees (der to us). So in place of that this year two more fruit trees will go in. I like to think we're improving things not just for us and our food miles, but also for the local living things. For example, this year for the second year in a row, we had birds nest in the tree by the fence. We've been here a long time and it's never happened before that. Whether it's due to loss of habitat elsewhere or the extra food and no chemicals in our garden, I of course don't know. We also have FROGS yippeee in our garden and most nights you can hear them croaking away. Last night of course after the rain they had a ball. This is the first year I can remember hearing them...

Funnily enough too... the day I buried Jemma, two magpie larks came - and I don't mean later but I mean the instant she took her last breath. They came that day and they and their friends have been coming ever since. Jemma used to only chase away the birds that ate her biscuits, pigeons and the like she never bothered with and would just raise one eye as they walk-walked past her. Since then, two djidi-djidi (willy-wag-tails) have joined our garden as daily visitors. We've always had birds coming and going, but these guys are now regular daily visitors.

Also... this is another of our garden visitors - he comes once in the morning and once in the late afternoon. He is very interested in the chooks but hasn't bothered them and they stand face to face with him through the fence and are almost cackling 'nah ne nah ne nah nah'



It's as close as the kids will come to having a cat for a pet... one because even if I wash my hands afterwards, it's the airborne hair etc and I end up a red sneezing mess... and two beacause I'm not comfortable with the idea of free ranging outside cats... I know it's how they're meant to be in their wild environment but that's not Australia... so for now, the kids enjoy someone else's roaming cat and he's definately fun to be around.