Showering with Scolopendromorpha or Bark Centipede

So, stepping into the shower this morning and adjusting the hot water and getting thoroughly soaped, I happened to look down and there, shock horror, was what I call a Chinese Dragon. It seemed glued to the corner and keeping a close eye on it after that, finished my ablutions...

It is a Bark centipede with a very vicious bite and looking it up it belongs to the Scolopendromorpha group and is found all over the world in different colours...Later I removed it by my usual method of putting a plastic food container over it and then sliding a sturdy piece of cardboard under it and encouraging it to move onto that. Then it gets carried out to the garden and released to do its duty there by eating other bugs.

The other creature I had to deal with this week a few

days ago, was a Shag sitting by the pond with the Wood ducks and eyeing off

the Goldfish, which are already being reduced in

number by the White faced Heron.

It did get the message it wasn't

 welcome and has not been back since I last told it to go elsewhere ...

 And so life in the garden is romping ahead with the little white snails ( where do they suddenly come from??) eating the cabbages , slugs in the silverbeet, and an unidentifiable bug eating huge holes in everything except weeds....

 

Not an Haiku this Time....

Listen to the Magpie's song

So early in the morning

Waking up the world with song

So early in the morning

Greeting with such massive joy

The blessed day with trees so tall

so early in the morning

Showing us a different way

So early in the morning

Of joy and life and such delight 

As sunrise in the morning

The sky is red and pink and blue

So early in the morning

And I will go the whole day through

 Heart ablaze with Magpie song

So early in the morning....

 

A True Garden of Eden...a Snake and Apples

This morning we thought harvesting the Grannie Smith apples as well as the rest of the quinces, would be an excellent idea.

Kym was on the other side of the apple tree and I was just starting to lift the net up over the branches when I noticed part of a brown snake. For a moment I thought it was a left over from the snake I found entangled in the net at the beginning of the season.When Kym came to have a look we realized it was very much alive but totally tangled up in the net.

We could not see its little head so Kym uncovered as much as he could and severed its tail end from where it was sticking out of the net.

We got the net off the tree and dragged it well away. We could not disentangle the poor creature at all so we left it to make sure it really was dead.

We harvested the apples and left the little ones for the birds....when I started thinking about the whole situation it made me smile ....the snake did not say a word....

Later in the afternoon, I carefully cut the net away from the snake and it took some doing as it was tangled up right to its gills, though I don't think snakes have gills do they?

You can see the length of it, spread out on the net after I cut it free, it measured 41 inches which is 3feet 5inches or 104 cm. I gave it a christian burial by the Walnut tree.....

 The apples are stored in layers between newspapers in the bath ( I shower in the en suite so don't freak out, no need to stand upwind from me next time we meet...)

 The apples keep very well this way. The quinces I store in the fridge and they too, store quite well.

 The vegetable garden is starting to look presentable again, the seeds have all sprouted now, it did take nearly three weeks for some of the seeds to emerge, the onion tribe especially. The garlic though is doing brilliantly.

So far I can't say that burying a tin of sardines under a silverbeet plant has had dramatic effects on it...its control plant is further ahead ,I hate to admit...

Sequel to the Micro Bat rescue

It is some weeks now that I wrote about the little bat which found its way into our house.

After we rescued it I kept it safe in a dark shoe box for the day and when it was dark I had been told, it was the best time to let it go.

So come evening, I took it out and put it on the potting table under the Ash tree.

When I went to check it in the morning, to my horror it was still in the same place....

So I thought I would take photos of the poor little creature and as you can see it is quite detailed and you can see it's tiny little sharp feet.

I went to turn it over with my gloved hand( it is important to wear gloves when handling bats)when, with a shock I realized it was still alive as it wriggled when I touched it. So carefully I transported it to the rough bark of a Eucalyptus tree which has a Carob tree for company. So it was a lovely dark, sheltered place for it to hang out.

 It hung there all day and when I went to check on it the next morning it was gone....no bat body under the tree so I can only assume it recovered from its traumatic experience and went back to its clan...it is a Lesser long eared Bat, Nyelophilus geoffroyi

The grapevines have all turned a lovely autumn colour....winter is on its way......log fires...mulled wine.....good books....contentment....

Adelaide Mt Lofty Botanic Park on a Perfect Autumn day

The weather has been absolutely stunning for the last week with clear blue South Australian autumn  skies and no wind and the temperature in the low twenties....

So yesterday a friend and I drove to the Mt Lofty Botanic Park to view the exotic trees in their autumn colours. To start with I missed the turn off for the road I used to take when Brian was still alive and we would take a picnic to the Park quite frequently before Covid hit us. We did and extra tour of the hills as I unintentionally finished up on the Freeway and had to drive through Bridgewater to Aldgate to get to the right turnoff.

The car park was packed but luckily, someone drove out as we drove in and so parked near the amusing sign warning us to keep a safe distance...not a Kangaroo in sight....

Since I was last in the Park there have been wonderful changes and the sculptures on their plinths look great. We took the walk along the lower level which is easy going as the days of climbing the hillsides are sadly gone... we huff and puff too much these days .....There are steps now down to the lake where before you sort of slipped and slid down the embankment. There were lots of wading birds and because there were some people feeding them, this brought a lot of the ducks and divers skiing along at the rate of knots so as not to miss out on food.....

I can't quite remember what the description of this next sculpture said, but it looked so good with the changing colours of the trees in the background.

Also the artist name was not acknowledged which seemed odd and a little sad, I thought , such lovely work ought to be known surely....

The little Blue Fairy wrens are quite a feature of this Park, they are so dear and cute with their perky tails and their quick movements, I was lucky to get this one to stay still for two seconds so as to grab the opportunity to photograph him. I wonder why it is always the male bird that is so attractive and the little females are quite drab looking....though still cute with their little red bills and quick movements...

 On our way back we walked along the bank of the lake which is man made with a very steep bank on the north side. A group of young children were having a wonderful time sliding down the bank on pieces of card board ....obviously they had not bothered to read the sign prominently displayed...such joy though on such a wonderful afternoon as they were rolling and sliding on the grass.....it brought a smile to our faces....

Do click on the photos to get a better view....

Micro-bat Rescue

Three days ago I got up at my usual unearthly hour of the morning to make my pot of tea. When I switched on the light in the kitchen, a creature flew past me and I thought, "by Jove that is a big moth" .There certainly have been a hatch of big moths the last few days but when it flew past again I saw it was a Micro-bat. We have had the little creatures in the house before. They seem to be able to sneak in but then can't find their way out.

For three days I have been hunting in the day to try and find it before it starved to death and I would find it on the floor somewhere as I did once before. I blogged about that too if you care to look at previous blogs....So I looked behind curtains, Pictures on the wall, wall hangings , door frames etc...Each evening it would fly into my bedroom as I was reading in bed and last night it settled briefly on the door frame and left again. I slept with the bedroom door closed not fancying having it fly over my head as I slept which in other times that has happened and it woke me up....

So this morning I finally found it tucked up high on the brick wall above the bookcase. What to do?

 I rang the Aldinga person who had previously put bat recording stations on our place.He very kindly brought a net on a longish pole and as you can see by the pictures he managed to get it into the net and we took it outside to photograph it.

If you click on the photos you can see what fierce rows of teeth it has.

 It looks quite cute with its mouth closed and you can see by the gloved hand how tiny it really is.

You have to be really careful handling bats as they can transmit some awful disease to humans but they do an excellent job of keeping night time insects under control. I can't tell you its name at this stage but I may be able to do that when we have had it identified....

I will release it tonight in the dark and hopefully it will assuage it's hunger by slaughtering huge numbers of insects......

We think it is a Lesser Long eared Bat  Nyetophilus geoffroyi

Haiku for Shalako

                                                Shalako Zuni

                                                Rain God of the Apaches

                                                Horse Aptly Named