The Simple Life

Despite the less-than-rainforest-green color of our surroundings, actually it's a greyish-green with lots of brown, and the ever-present smell of smoke as wildfires and controlled back-burns smolder all around us on various parts of the station, we're enjoying the drier climate. There is no mold in sight! Things smell better! And it is exciting to think that the The Wet will not be the muddy, mildewy mess it was last year. At least until we hear the cries of, "Bushy's-gon-ovah!" meaning the creek between here and the schools has flooded. The peace and quiet is greatly appreciated too. During the day the rustling trees and birds are about the only sounds and at night it is occasionally completely still. There is very little road noise from the lightly traveled highway that is close enough to see, usually it's a huge road train roaring past when the wind is just right, and very little air traffic. In fact when we hear a helicopter or plane, it is so rare that we bother to look up and see what's going on and wonder who it is (because there are only a few helicopters around and we might recognize them) and whether they might be going to land here. Not like in South Florida where you know it's either the cops or a news 'copter and think, oh god, what now...

Being so much drier, the sky is clearer. It's pretty cool to look up almost every night and see the Mlky Way hanging right overhead, or watch shooting stars and satellites fly by. It must be really impressive, almost oppressive, out in the desert where there is nothing but flat, uninterrupted horizon to stargaze. That has been added to my To Do list.

We have made friends with the magpie family that lives here. I know now that I'll never be fit for a return to suburbia, not when I can open the back door and gleefully throw the remains of a meal, whatever the dog doesn't eat, right off the balcony into the yard. The birds love it and have become accustomed to me providing treats, unfortunately, they see my mizuna lettuce and cherry tomato plants, in buckets on the front porch, as one big buffet. To persuade them not to bother the dozens of tomatoes that have set and are trying to ripen, I sit in the living room with the sliders wide open and a handful of small rocks at the ready. They think I am feeding them and do not fly away. I'm considering a slingshot. If I ever do return to suburbia, I'm afraid I might end up as the crabby old lady with the yard the kids are afraid to retrieve their balls from.

In addition to the magpies, we've recently been visited by the black cockatoos. There are about half a dozen or so out this morning and now I will take a short break to try to capture this phenomenon...

Okay, here you go... Pretty aren't they? See that flash of red on the underside of the tail? There's another under their wings but it's not so obvious in this shot.



We used to get excited to see the clouds of white, yellow-crested cockatoos that live here, like Fred from Baretta, all cute with the "Freeeeeeze" and the head bobbing (the ones around here do not spout police jargon), until we began to realize what a nuisance they are. Farmers shoot them. A small flock can decimate a fruit crop in a matter of minutes. And they are loud. Constantly, screechingingly loud. So we are not as excited to see the big bullies as we once were. The black cockatoos so far have not lost their ability to charm. They are less common in these parts, less aggressive, and less squawky (more of a gurgly shrieking caw.)

Even though we are farther out of town than we ever were, friends still pop in unannounced. Lulu spent one lovely afternoon racing around with her sister, Asha (on the left in the brown collar), and doggie friends Muffy and Rosie. While the moms relaxed with a cuppa and and the littermates collapsed in a heap on the porch, the sweaty kids cooled off with icy-poles. Living out here where Lulu has plenty of room to roam has greatly improved her behavior, where before, at the other rental, the only flat-out exercise she got was chasing our landlady on her four-wheeler all the way down to the horse paddocks while trying to jump on the back to ride alongside landlady's dog.





Grice is off on a traveling adventure with her bestie and bestie's dad. They are at the stage when touring around with your family is not quite interesting enough and pals must be procured for back-up companionship. They are going out to see some dinosaur fossils and visit a gorge before school starts back next week. Sarabelle is planning to attend a music camp Thursday through Sunday and we are trying to figure out how to work this around the scheduled removal of her stitches on Friday. Being a DIY kind of girl, I've got my own highly unpopular ideas on how this can be accomplished. Elle, demonstrating the powerful catalyst boredom can be and cheerfully adapting to her parents' stubborn refusal to participate in the mass consumer world of children's toys, crafted her own set of building blocks from end cuts of wood Jorge was using to build us a computer desk. They were not as eye-catching in their natural state, so she took out her paint set and began decorating them. At first they were just solid colors, then some sported spots and stripes. A few became caterpillers, ladybugs, watermelons, books, others had humans on one side and aliens on the other... Her sisters thought it looked like so much fun they eventually joined in, and the three of them spent an entire afternoon, hours, out on the porch painting, sharing, cooperating, without one bit of bickering.




Poor and content is rich, and rich enough.

-- Shakespeare (Othello)

Trauma and Drama

Today, the first day of the two-week school holiday, we had our first blood and guts trip to the emergency room. Not bad for three kids in fifteen years, if you don’t count that one late night hospital visit for stomach x-rays when we found a two-year old Elle gagging on a Lego she had swiped unlawfully from her sisters’ room and refused to say whether she had swallowed another one or not…

Sarabelle was out speeding around on the runway with Grice’s bike, standing up coasting, when the chain snapped and she wiped out on the very sharp sealed gravel. It was not particularly bloody, road rash from her head to her feet, but the wound on her knee was gaping and meaty looking.

I was very proud of the way Grice and Elle stood by their sister, helping her up the stairs, retrieving the broken bike, even insisting they stay with her in the treatment room (at least until I noticed Grice had gone white and was on the verge of fainting during the suturing procedure.)

Eight stitches and a tetanus shot later, we are home again.


Blood is thicker than water.

-- John Ray (English Proverbs)

Wild Kingdom

Jorge has always been a stop-the-car-and-save-the-animals kind of guy. He found this one on the way home from work recently and rescued it from an untimely, messy highway death. The kids named it Smacky. I don't know why.





In case any of the authorities are reading this, we are not going to keep it, we know you need an "Official Government License" to possess these creatures. Relax, Smacky is merely recuperating from his traumatic near-miss and will be released one day soon.

Here is our temporary, illegal visitor demonstrating the reason for the appellation "blue-tongued lizard."



My three-year old nephew could not believe his ears when I told him we have kangaroos out in our front yard nibbling the grass every morning, so, see for yourself, B.! Aunt L is not telling tall tales. Except these three were actually in the side yard...



And here's a mama and her joey racing us down the driveway. You can glimpse our humble abode in the background.



Late in the afternoon, just before the sun sets over the mountain, it blazes the most intense orange. This shot's a little blurry, I had only a few seconds to try to capture the effect of the color blasting down our hallway (We're losing the light, people! We're losing the light!) but Lulu was on fire.



Yesterday honking horns alerted us to the fact that some of the unfenced stock were out wreaking havoc on the road. Elle, Lulu, and I watched amused for awhile and then went back inside. Ridgebacks, though they are hounds, are known for their lack of barkiness, being highly intelligent and discriminating with their warnings -- Lulu usually just jumps to attention, stands like a statue, and gives a little "BUH" when she hears something that disturbs her normally napping state -- but she started barking away at the back door so we got up to take a look. The cows were in our back yard. And fortunately Lulu was there to save us.



Then our fearless dog ran them off.




All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

-- George Orwell (Animal Farm)

Catch Up

Sarabelle's first public appearance with the strings ensemble last night went very well, in spite of an attack of pre-traumatic stress syndrome when Grice commented that her sister makes weird faces when she plays and the uniform she had to wear made her "look like an old lady." After the music when the group took their seats for dinner, I gave her a subtle but enthusiastic thumbs up and in reply she shook her head slowly back and forth. She confided later that she had faked it on one piece, one she had not yet learned, and her friend the cello player teased her about playing the tune so well without ever touching the strings. Only they would have known. Sarabelle is very excited because her music teacher invited her this past Friday to take up the electric bass guitar after another student dropped out. "Can you see me in a rock band, Mom!" Um, er, I hadn't really considered it, honey (even though this was always a secret fantasy of mine and even knowing the late, legendary Jaco Pastorius as a friend of friend.) Uncle M will at least be glad to have someone to jam with, and I will at least be thankful that this instrument is slightly more portable. The music teacher, who sat next to me during the remainder of last night's dinner allayed my fears slightly explaining that the instrument is part of the main orchestra and the jazz band. Okay then. Exhale.

She's been on another creative tear lately, running back and forth from practicing her double bass in her bedroom to painting in the kitchen. She made a beautiful wooden tray with dovetailed joints at school and decided to paint it in a mosaic design patterned after a skirt of mine. She would love for me to post a picture of it, and I might, if Lily Pulitzer promises not to sue us for copyright infringement.

Finally, here are some photos from the Broker's visit. Most of mine seem to be from The Blue Hole, where the swimming hole is 99% Croc Free (TM), our cave art bushwalk with Willie up near Cooktown, and the fateful excursion to Chillagoe.


I have no particular talent. I am merely inquisitive.

-- Albert Einstein