Snakes Alive.....

Well, I hope I am not boring you with yet another Blog when I have blogged very little during this year.....But , this morning as I was watering the vegetable garden before going off to Pilates, I walked past the apple tree to get to the tap when I saw this snake's tail under the net.... shock ,horror and debating whether to let it go, as it would do a lot of good keeping the rodents down, I saw that it was hopelessly tangled in the net. So I thought I better put it out of its misery....

I got the long handled post hole digger and jammed it behind its neck, thinking it would cut it's head off. I couldn't really see so left it to go into Willunga. When I got back ( and I may add I was wearing strong leather gloves and solid foot wear) I lifted the net and here was its little head and beady eyes staring at me.....so yet another go with the shovel, this time behind its head and killed it out right this time. I then had to cut the netting away off it's body and it was surely tangled.

They take a long time to stop writhing, poor creatures.

I later dragged it out on the grass and put a brick by it to see how long it was. it measured about 4ft. Hopefully there will be no more of them as this is the first big one I have had to deal with since we have been here. I know Chrissie next door always seems to have a few each season but then, she has chooks and feeds grain which attracts rodents which attracts snakes..

The other interesting creatures which have been visiting the native pines on our West side of the house are the soft spoken yellow tailed Cockatoos. They have a very gentle squeaky voice so they are not so irritating as the raucous Correllas which come screaming in large flocks from the west to feed on trees near the golf course.

 Last but not least is the flowering parsnip "tree" it is so tall, I planted it when Meredyth gave me a few during the winter...I will have lovely fresh seeds now for sowing in the autumn....nothing like baked parsnip with a roast in the winter.....

An Upside Down Tale of Ducks

Well, once more into the breach ,dear friends .....I forgot that when I am choosing photos to publish in

this dratted new blog site, I need to choose the photos for the top, last....so you will read this not as I had intended, starting with the ducks and ending with the Lavender bottles, but starting with the dear little lavender bottles I enthusiastically made some weeks ago. Because we have had such cool and damp weather this spring, the lavender bushes had masses of flowers. The bottles are quite fun to make and don't take long at all.It was so good too, to see a lot of bees in the flowers as bees have been rather absent these last few years.

The photo on the right is of the garden at the beginning of our southern spring and the Irises were very prolific and lovely. the only trouble is, they don't flower for very long really, so I have started inter-planting with Geraniums and Pelargoniums. Some Pelargonium flowers look like Azelias to me and take a lot more punishment in our hot dry climate than those exotic, acid soil loving plants of the cooler climates. I have also planted out more lavender cuttings I struck over winter.

My neighbour , a few weeks ago, had a mob of timber cutters come in and trim my Gum trees back to our boundary fence. He claimed they were overshadowing his grapevines and of course he was legally in the right to do so.

Nevertheless, I was devastated when I came out in the morning to see men dangling from ropes, manouvring chainsaws way up in the canopies of my trees. The man in charge assured me he was an arborist and knew what he was doing.

No, they would not be unbalanced after the eastern limbs were cut off....well, I do hope so....

It has left me with lots of valuable timber for my future winter fires but of course it all needs to be cut into smaller pieces as I don't have a hope in hell of carting these chunks myself...so my gardening friend will hopefully cut them up and we can stack them then to dry out and cure, for the winter after next.Some of the pieces will make good seats under trees in the garden for sitting on and contemplating the state of the world.......

Our pond keeps on attracting ducks and geese....so here is a photo of a pair of native Black ducks and a pair of Wood duck, which are actually Maned Geese, sleeping peacefully together for a lot of the day. The Wood duck pair only had five ducklings of which only one made it to adulthood, you can just see the juvenile at the back....

A few days ago, I saw a Magpie and Galah having a go at each other in the paddock behind the house. It was most unusual as they don't eat the same thing so, I cannot for the life of me think what they were squabbling over....surely our distraught and mad world isn't affecting the bird world as well...mind you, there are a few bird brains amok on our planet come to think of it.....

Do click on the photos to get a better view