Podargus

Louka and I were walking through the trees in the park collecting feathers when we saw something sitting on the path in front of us. It was clearly the bird that had dropped most of the feathers: a tawny frogmouth. It watched as we got quite close to it, and I wondered if it was injured. Then when we tried to go around it, it flew to the nearest branch.

Happy Golden Wedding!

Dear Mum and Dad,

We would like to give you a holiday for your anniversary present. Here are some suggestions:

Paperbark Camp at Jervis Bay

Wollumbin Palms Retreat at Mt Warning

Smoky Cape Lighthouse near South West Rocks

Green Cape Lighthouse in Ben Boyd National Park

Sugarloaf Point Lighthouse at Seal Rocks

Binna Burra at Lamington National Park

O'Reillys at Lamington National Park

We would like the cost of the holiday to be around $2000, and the holiday to be taken within the year if convenient.

Microscope back in action

I finally dug out the microscope and all its accoutrements last week, and on a trip to the beach with Louka collected some seawater to look at. Nothing to see at all, which was rather disappointing. Next day I collected some hair-like seaweed from the rockpools:

and a small pink jellyfish washed up on the sand:

Graham contributed an unidentified leaf:

and a spider's exoskeleton:

I also looked at the wing of a dead moth I'd found ages ago:

The software for the dino-eye camera doesn't work on my new computer, but the software for the built-in webcam does, so all is well.

Flowers from our garden

Broad beans

Wonga vine

Kangaroo paw

Bread

I've been baking bread once a week since Louka started kindergarten. At first I tried the slow rise in the fridge overnight technique, but it wasn't working out for me. So I've gone back to the conventional way, and I'm getting nice bread for lunch twice a week.

Rotten morning

Ugh! First, the internet was down till 9:30am. And our phone is VoIP. So of course I had to use my mobile to ring the tile people to find out why the tiles they'd said would arrive last week hadn't arrived. And they're not going to arrive till next week, after the tilers are supposed to start. Then, Play School was replaced by Parliament, just because the stupid Liberal Party can't decide whether or not to support an emissions trading scheme. Then the fridge has iced up badly and is taking ages to defrost - and I only defrosted it a couple of weeks ago.

Teddy bear bees

There are several teddy bear bee nests in a rocky bank in the corner of the garden. It's lovely to see the furry little blobs flying round and emerging and disappearing into their holes. I'm going to try to get a photo, but in the meantime look at this lovely picture on the Brisbane Insects website.

Edit: I haven't seen them now for ages. I hope someone hasn't decided they're pests and killed them.