and the heat goes on

So hoards of galahs come to drink at the water trough in the bulls' paddock. I tried to get closer but the galahs saw me hiding in the bushes and stayed away from the water, shrieking noisily about me, till I had gone - they are not that easy to fool.

the big heat and the big wind

The big wind came last Thursday night/Friday morning. The Brolga tried to fly away but is now safely back on his perch. We are having some warm weather just now, we have to expect it - it is summer after all.

sick cicada

He must be sick, he was resting on a pink chair outside the Doctor's surgery. The pink chairs are in the centre of the photo below - useful for people who prefer to wait in the fresh air rather than the germy air inside maybe.

I tried to identify this cicada and searched through 200+ Australian cicadas with names like Roarers, Clangers, Twangers, Screamers, Dingers, Clickers, Tree Creakers, Drummers, and Scrub-buzzers but couldn't find one that looked like this one that should live in this area. If it happened to be a Golden Knight his song would look like this (it's an oscillogram):

bicycle touring the Aussie way

The cyclist pushed his bicycle and trailer into town on Friday.

The trailer has solar panels which power a fridge and freezer inside and everything else he needs to survive is strapped on somewhere... and he has two dogs for company, one harness trained for when he needs help on hills.

His map show some of the places he has visited.

the local library, for local folks

And anyone else who needs free internet, a book, magazine, DVD, to send a fax, make a photocopy, needs something laminated or a multitude of other services while surrounded by "historic original wood railings and Judge's stand which have been left in place for all to admire while browsing the shelves in a relaxed atmosphere".

It's all a bit cosy (or cramped) packing all this usefulness into an old wooden ceilinged building so a new library is being built.

tomato harvest!

The first lot of homegrown tomatoes have ripened, only they are a little on the little side. It's not caused by lack of water or too much sunshine - I was given the seedlings so didn't know what type of tomato they were.... it turns out they are grape tomatoes.

flowering gums

The most spectacular of the flowering gum trees, the West Australian Flowering Gum (Corymbia ficifolia previously Eucalyptus ficifolia) are doing their colourful best - here are some of the trees round and about.

I collected seeds from the dark pink flowering tree above and managed to get some seedlings to grow. One survived long enough to produce flowers, only to find it had very unexiciting off white flowers - I don't have it any more.