Social Distancing,Isolation cautiously suspended and Insects Carry on as Before....

This monstrous centipede was wandering in our sitting room the other afternoon. I managed to capture it under a plastic food container, which I also use to capture big spiders, which frequently like to come into the house and nosy around too.
This centipede to me looks like a Chinese Dragon with its orange legs and banded body.
Its proper name is" Ethmostigmus rubripes". They are found all over Australia but in different colours. It eats snails and spiders and anything else in the insect world. Its bite is painful to humans but not fatally poisonous. This one was about 6 inches or 15/16 cm so they are quite large.

So you can see I didn't want it wandering into a bed. The house centipede is quite different.
The other thing that intrigued me, is the wasp which has built this very large mud nest on the clinker bricks of our patio. It was a large orange/black wasp with dangly legs. When I looked it up on the net (where would we be without the "net") it is called Mud dauber wasp, its official name being "Sceliphron formozem".
In the left hand corner of the photo you can see some other mud daubing wasp's nest....
I guess they do a lot of good in the garden....

The weather has become quite cold and we have the wood heater going day and night to keep the house reasonably warm for both Brian and the two little tropical fish. The Guppie and the Gold barb which live in the fishbowl on the breakfast table, are fascinating for me to observe. They are very active on my side of the bowl in the morning where I sit to have my breakfast as I feed them then, at the same time each morning.What intrigues me is the fact that after they have eaten the flakes I give them, they become quite aggressive towards each other. One morning it is the Guppie which attacks the Gold barb and the following day it will be the other way round.....

The wood which is to be burned can be quite beautiful with this lovely orange/yellow lichen on it, and I am reluctant to use it up.I have in the past used sticks with this lovely lichen on it for my fiber art booklets as anchors for the binding threads.
The neighbour on the East side of us has put sheep in his vineyard which brings back fond memories of my earlier life involved with thousands of the dear creatures in the Mid North....
these sheep are doing very well in cleaning up all the weeds in between the vines

Yesterday we actually had a sunshiny day for Friday and Kym was able to install the solar panel for the little pump to work in the bath/pond. It works a treat and the different fountain fitting now gives  a mushroom shape water head which will prevent water from being thrown out of the bath and so I won't have to top up the water too often. In fact when it rains I have to bucket some out, to stop it from overflowing and make the surrounds too wet.
Last week when we had an inch of rain I had to take out four bucket loads.
This morning I put in some stuff which will help to keep the water cleaner and clearer and we will be able to see the little goldfish in there a bit better.
Of course it will also mean the White Faced Heron can see them better too.....

Social Distancing, Isolation V and Weird Creatures Observed

This puff ball fungus has been growing in our drive for the last couple of weeks and it amazes me no one has driven over it.Just goes to show that isolation is working here doesn't it...
 The black surrounding it  though, was an earlier one and has now left a stain in the form of  map of Australia with Tasmania just below it....
How these living plants (is a fungus a plant?) manage to push their way through such tightly compacted earth is a mystery to me. 

 The other weird thing I found was this creature floating in the fish bowl one morning a few days ago.It didn't seem to be alive but it did look like a bug of some sort. A little later another one appeared so I took a photo of that one next to a match stick to show its size.
There have been no more since and I now wonder if it is actually a seed from the Ludwigia
branch I stuck in the fishbowl to give the two little fish something other than their yellow plastic plant to look at....

 Last week too, I found this weird , dumpy little moth clinging to the kitchen window one morning and popped it into a plastic container to photograph and then carried it outside and put it on the vine. It was quite pretty with lovely warm, brown colours and cute little antennae.
It would have made a nice little breakfast for a magpie but I hope it survived and lived to full fill its purpose in life. Probably to lay eggs on some poor plant for them to hatch and chew holes in it...

 The  mornings have been so still and beautiful I couldn't resist taking a photo of the little mermaid's reflection surrounded by all the blue coffee mugs that leak and the jug which is a haven for bugs. The cement frog was a gift from a dear friend who also loves frogs.
I tried to crop the photo which I thought I had successfully done, but then couldn't find it in the gallery, so the picture is wider than it is meant to be.

One of our friends visited yesterday, now that restrictions are being lifted somewhat, to come and walk through our garden and brought us these glorious golden Chrysanthemums.
I adore Chrysanthemums and found some cuttings with roots on the Post Office porch where people sometimes leave produce from their gardens. I left some quinces there the other day. So I took these cuttings home and have planted them in the old rose garden and look forward to some wonderful flowers ...eventually..