It's the Little Things #2

Go on... you know you want to ... sing it .... 

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree

Merry, merry king of the bush is he

Laugh, Kookaburra, laugh

Kookaburra, gay your life must be!

These are a few of our resident Kookaburras that come to visit us each evening to roost in the big Spotted Gum by the stables. They arrive just as the last of the light is fading, laughing and calling to their family to come roost for the night. They number between two and six, and come most nights.

They leave at first light, saying goodbye with a laugh as they head off to hunt for the day. 

It makes us smile to know they like our home enough to make it theirs.

A few interesting facts about Kookaburras and the Kookaburra Song

• They are an Australian Kingfisher
• The song was first performed in 1934 at a Girl Guides Jamboree
• The tune is the same as a Welsh song about a Blackbird
• The song featured in a 2006 episode of Dr Who, Fear Her
• The laughing kookaburra is not native to Western Australia
• The laughing is to mark their territory
• A girl wrote the lyrics to the song!

Bring it on ..

Bring it on ... the last words on the last post. Did I really challenge the universe with that?

Swapped my office at Basso to a nook at WG ... so much nicer

Well I did, and I got what I asked for. 

Today is the first day in months that I feel I can lift my head and see the progress we have made. (as in we have been head down, bum up working for what seems like an eternity). Remember that move in date we had? 1st December if you forgot. Well it kinda got shunted forward by a month and I am typing this from the desk in the corner of my lounge room at WG. 

Yep. We are IN!  I could just now say that the Journey to Contentment is over, we are living in our little bit of paradise and all will end happily ever after.

Except, we all know that life is not like that.

There is always more to the story. 

The move began as a temporary measure when we had painters come to paint the granny flat and persuaded us to paint the rest of the house as well. Wow, as I write this I realise there are so many things that have happened which all need an explanation. Now that I have time and energy and a desk I can go back and write the posts that will explain all the happenings.

So, painters invading the house, the WG house is now empty of tenants and my folks had booked it as holiday accommodation for 10 days. We gatecrashed their party and wickedly put them to work helping us to move. Small price to pay for a free holiday!  Not a full house move, just enough to live and be comfortable. The idea being that Basso house will be left mostly furnished so that it can be 'staged' to sell. We have the very great indulgence of no time limits other than those we self impose. 

In a way its an annoying way to move house, in dribs and drabs, but I guess its not nearly as bad as trying to live in a house while its being painted. The other advantage of moving bit by bit is that it gives you a chance to find homes for all the stuff as you go. The logistics are that we are moving from a 5 bedroom 3 bathroom house to a 3 bedroom farm house. The name of this game is Decluttering.  We go to Basso, fill up a car or a trailer with stuff and come home and locate homes for it. 

Being an old house, there are no built in robes or linen cupboards at all. We have purloined one whole bedroom (just as well we have no kids at home anymore) as a walkin robe. Wall to wall IKEA has created the ultimate in wardrobes. (When I walk in there I feel like some rich mans wife with a whole room to store her frocks!)

My girls in their new home ... happy hens

The chooks have moved in, the doggies have their beds, I call this place home now. It still makes me smile during little moments - looking out to the trees as the sun comes up, watching the ducks and their ducklings on the stream, the kookaburra's that come at dusk and laugh hysterically, cleaning the beautiful jarrah floor - even pegging clothes on the line makes me smile.

This is still a journey, I guess life is like that. Contentment is still not 100% but it is certainly closer than it was last week. 

So yep, Bring. It. On.

Minty has found her contented spot.

Argh Monday

Wish I was where the little geriatric dog was.  It's 9.20am Monday morning and she is still in bed!  I served up her breakfast 2 hours ago, but she does not want to get up.  Worried, I went in and patted her, she is fine, stretched out, licks my hand, wants her tummy rubbed.  Is perky and alert, just wants a sleep in. Fair enough.  She is, after all, retired.

PS: She HATES the camera.  It clicks and beeps and even though she is blind, she just knows I am taking her photo.  That's why we never get a photo of her looking anything but worried!

Dogs, cats and interuptions

Cat : "That dogs just a suckhole"

It used to be my kids that would stop me working/reading/crafting/being quiet.  Now its the three amigo's - Tommy the border collie, Minty the Maltese poodle and Tyler the mongrel cat.  I swear they get together and plan this out..

I sit down to write.  It's morning, I have an hour to write before I have to start work.  I have fed all three of them.  I have a coffee.  Mr K is still asleep, the neighbours are quiet.  

And it starts.  Cat starts to meow, loudly like he wants to be fed (I am sure he has developed Alzheimer's).  He comes into my office, jumps on my desk and proceeds to walk across my papers, books, keyboard, behind the monitor.  Me telling him off and his backchat just cause Tommy to rush to my office window, jump up on the window sill, scratch his paws down the fly screen and yip.  

Now I am telling off both the cat and Tommy.  They both think they are self appointed police animals and tell each other off as well.  This starts up the geriatric old girl Minty.  She starts yapping and running about in circles.

My once peaceful, quiet morning is now a cacophony of meow, yap and yip with the occasional well timed bark from the baritone.  This is the point I give up, go outside with them all following and bestow attention.

Just like I used to do when my kids were little and I was studying and they wanted my attention.  

Do I have to wait until the animals leave home until I get my own quiet time, free of interruptions?  Or by then will Mr K be retired and wanting me to find his glasses or make him lunch?

I have 4 blog posts, ones that need to be written carefully and thought about, to finish, and every day this performance goes on!! 

"I tell you, its all lies - silly human, I have been in bed the whole time"

"Don't make me get off the lounge to tell you lot off!"

"I am the good boy, yes I am!"

Family - a story from my Mum

Had to send this picture of the maned duck family. The parents stole the chicks from other ducks, even though there was a few days difference in ages. It was hard to count them but I think 32 or 33.  I would see them  on the mothers back and they took turns under her like penguins do in their huddles. The dad doesn't cover them but stands guard and would even attack me if I got too close 

Love Mum xxx

My mum and dad have the joy and privilege to live in the south west, where the soil is black and rainfall plenty.  This picture was taken in their backyard.  They have a little dam that they look after so that the ducks come to breed and raise their young.  I am sure there is a story in this picture, one day I will write it.

Where my time not blogging is being spent

This weeks assignment for a writing course (the one I will finish the same week Uni starts!)  was to write a character description, and link this to a life lesson.  I chose my Grandad as he was such an enigma to me.  The parameters of the essay were it had to be 400-500 words (so hard when I had much more to say), we had to use words to create the character, put the character in a physical situation and then join in the life lesson.  It could be essay or fiction.  I might try and write this again as a fictional story.

The upshot is that I am really enjoying the challenges of the assignments.  I start at Curtin Uni next Monday, the first unit is online. But it does keep me away from my blogging, I need to retire from work so I can just write all day!!

Grandad and Grandma - he always loved cats!

My Grandfathers Gift (or Don’t look a Gift Horse in the Mouth?)

My grandfather scared me.  He was gruff and looked like a small wiry pirate. With his ginger, long beard, sea swept face, and thick glasses, he always looked ancient to me.  His fingers were all bent, one of them at right angles, and he always smelt of wood putty and pipe tobacco.  He evoked an air of distance, like the leader of a dog pack, us littlies approached at our peril, especially when he was eating his sharp cheddar and bread.  He was fond of the saying Silence is Golden, something that I never really understood at the time, but I got the gist when he growled it.  Sometimes, he would pay me attention, by picking me up to show me the little blue cuckoo that would spring out of its carved wooden door when the hour hand struck.  If he was in a good mood, he would indulge my request when I said ‘again Grandad’. 

Grandad rarely gave us kids presents, and certainly not when it was expected.  Christmas, Birthday, Easter - we learnt to not ever expect gifts from him.  I never really thought of this until I was older because what we didn’t know did not hurt us.  As I got older, friends would show me amazing gifts they had got from their Grandparents.  One time my best friend received from her Grandma the biggest Easter egg I had ever seen, nesting in a cardboard box with cellophane and ribbons. I wondered why I never got such things.  It was a fleeting thought, certainly never an issue. 

No, Grandad did not spoil us with material things, but as we grew into more independent beings, and I dare say less silly, noisy and sticky, he was more than generous with his time, his careful teachings, his wisdom.  By the time I was a teenager he treated me as a grown-up. I knew this was given as a gift, so I acted as such around him.  I loved just being in his calm, quiet, contemplative company.  He was always doing something interesting, making things with wood, tinkering with tools, in the garden, reading, debating politics or religion.  Even watching him prepare his pipe, was engaging.

He took a keen interest in my horse riding.  He was a man who loved animals and appreciated the skills in handling them.  One day, he turned up at my parent’s farm, with a very pretty little palomino mare, in foal.  She was way too small for me to ride, but he wanted me to teach my little cousins to ride and care for a horse.  This was his gift to me – the temperament and tool to guide and teach the young as he had done in the ways of quiet, steady, consistent patience.  A horse was the perfect gift for this lesson. 

  

My kind of day

It's overcast and wintry and cool today.  It looks like rain.  There is a mild breeze.   It feels like a winters day. A little wintry holiday in the middle of a hell summer.  All the plants in my garden are smiling, the birds are more chirpy, the dog and cat are curled up on the carpet and not sprawled out panting on the tiles.  I can look outside and feel content, just for this small day of reprisal.  

Yes.  Today I am happy.

My little Christmas visitor

It was such a hot day, a hot day following many other hot days.  I had watered the garden early, filling the two big bird baths that sit on my fence outside the dining room window.

Later that morning our neighbours on the other side of this fence, were having a scrap - loud enough to bring my mother-in-law (MIL) from her flat, Mr K from his office and me from my office - to see who was being murdered.  (This incident is a whole new blog post, but I needed to set the scene!)

As we all stood near the fence, eavesdropping, my MIL pointed out with sign language, that in the bird bath was this frog.  We were both thrilled as we have been trying to get frogs in the garden for years.  I don't use any nasty chemicals on my garden and we try and have water for them -  although, we do have to be careful of leaving water around due to mozzies. 

But here he/she was (not sure how to sex a frog!) having a lovely cool down in the water and shade.  He/she stayed there all day, and all night.  By the next day it had gone, not sure where, but I hope its OK and onto larger ponds.