A Dog with a Mission?

                        An early morning walk, I wonder what is around the next corner!

Butterfly.

One of the last butterflies of the season, a female Common Brown. It looks pretty big in 2 year old hands!

Helping Grandad.

The little weir on one of the creeks had become all silted up, so it's time to clear all the silt and allow the water to fill it again.

Balancing .

It's good to know that there is a steadying hand close by when you are balancing on a log and are only 2 years old!

Pink Lichen.

                            I've never seen pink lichen before, but here it is, as pink as can be.

Mushroom Soup!

It's been a bumper season for wild mushrooms. This is just a small corner of the ones that I found this morning.

Morning Walk.

                It was a lovely morning for a walk along a path high above the Yarra River.

Although the river runs through bushland it's actually very close to the city as you can see by the high rise buildings on the horizon. You'd never know it though, with the sounds of birds all around and the peaceful river meandering through it all.

Beetle 4.

                  Almost finished carving the stamp, needs more detail on the back I think.

                                                        Another possibility for stitching.

A Lovely Day on the Water.

 Melbourne is experiencing it's usual beautiful Autumn days, and yesterday was no exception. We boarded the Tramboat at the Victoria Harbour, Docklands and proceeded to travel along the Yarra River then into the Maribyrnong River.  The Tramboat  is painted exactly like the old Melbourne trams and appears to be made out of various old bits and pieces of trams. It's a very comfortable vessel and the cruise was most enjoyable.

 

We passed a Temple being built for worshippers of the Goddess of the Sea, Mazu.

 

                                                      Here she is, all 16 metres of her.

Beetle 3 and Gelatin Printing.

          No fancy angles this time, just a 'seen from above' angle on the new beetle stamp.

        Using the new stamp and some pressed gum leaves on a gelatine plate. Has potential I think.

Beetle 2.

           I set out to carve a second beetle, but this one is definitely headed for the rubbish bin.
       I wanted a different angle, perhaps walking along a branch, but I couldn't quite work it out.

         The legs are missing as are the antennae, and it looks like nothing on earth! Reject, reject!

Olives.

Today we picked all the olives on our tree that we could reach, plus a few removed from some branches that we pruned so that we could reach the olives better over the next few years. This is what 3.9 Kg of olives look like, but now to cut a slit in each one and get them pickling in brine. It will take 10 days of soaking with a change of solution on each of those 10 days.  Labour intensive, but delicious when finished in 6 months time!

New Project.

                      Well, I'm into beetles now, although this one looks a bit like a cockroach!
                                    I've traced an image and started to carve a stamp from it.

       Here is the stamp with it's first print out. Not too bad, although there are some slips and gouges.
                              The middle legs are way too long, so a chop off is needed I think.

                                           I quite like it in sepia after a dose of Photoshop!

OOooops!

I think that it has been too long since we ate sweet potato, as I found this lurking in the cupboard.

I don't think that sweet potato would grow in Melbourne, particularly since Winter is not that far off, but maybe I could put it into a pot in a sheltered corner and see what happens.

Last One.......... I promise!

                                              One more set of fangs to identify if you can.

Some knitting.

 You might remember that a little while ago I was given some yarn to make a scarf for someone in a group to which I belong. See here The yarns were in sealed bags and those that put in a bag of yarns took another one and undertook to make a scarf................no matter what the yarns were like! Well I ended up with 3 balls of very textural yarns, to which I added one more for a bit of contrast, allowed under the 'rules'. I took the knitting away with me to do without checking very carefully, only to discover that the circular needles that I had chosen were not quite large enough for the highly textural yarns.

 I pressed on anyway, with a cast on of 171 stitches! The colours in this detail photo are almost correct, while the colours in the photo above are a bit too blue. I think the scarf is wearable, though a bit too dense really.

I've almost finished this boy's size 6 jumper too, ready for the cooler weather, should we ever get any!

Mary Wins!

               Yesterday's photo was of the teeth in this very old horse or perhaps donkey skull.

                              What about this set of choppers, what animal do they belong to?

Now What do You Suppose this is?

A Quiet Corner in the Creek.

Millipede off for a Paddle.

It seems to be millipede season as they are everywhere, inside and outside the house. This one is off exploring the edge of the dam.

More Birdy Visitors.

                                                            Yellow faced Honey Eater.

                    A Crimson Rosella looking for a drink in the gutter rather than the bird bath.