Blue tongue

I try to keep a part of the yard around the house in a nature friendly state with  trees, shrubs, sticks, leaves, native grasses. I augmented nature with artificial logs made from old steps and watering points.

There was a winter a couple of years ago when a fat blue tongue lizard Tiliqua scincoides would emerge from the fake log each morning to sun itself. I would be watching out from the bedroom window. After that I noticed a couple of skinny juvenile lizards sneaking around.

A this point in the story I should mention that Jack the neighbours tom cat likes to visit my place. He sneaks around the undergrowth or naps under the hedge. And likes watching the birds.

To encourage the lizards and help them hide from Jack I have made hidey holes from old pallets. But with leaves and sticks and hidey holes I had not seen any blue tongues for a year or more. But I saw a big one rustling leaves under the steps where its shady and cool. Knowing a blue tongue lizard is living here makes me smile.

Cucumber frown

Having harvested and eaten a few home-grown cucumbers, I am now cucumber free.

The local moths sensed the quality of the cucumber patch and laid their eggs. I awoke this morning to find my cucumbers riddled with caterpillars. They were everywhere. I cleared the patch to protect the adjacent tomato crop. Afterwards caterpillars were crawling out from under the patch mulch. No magpies came to help clean them up and I had to get rid of them myself.

The cucumbers I ate were delicious.

Kookaburra watch

When I wished the neighbours a happy new year, I mentioned that a blue tongue lizard was living under their house. They said that a kookaburra often sat on the gutter watching under the house. So we both learned something.

Cucumber smile

Growing my own vegetables will not necessarily give me all the food I need.
But it makes me smile.
And a bonus - there is no plastic wrapped around my cucumber.

Still working

As a student engineer in 1980 I purchased a new calculator. From memory it cost about $150 an expensive purchase for me then.

It was designed to fit a shirt pocket - an engineers tool. It uses reverse polish logic to minimise keystrokes; it can do calculations with complex numbers and matrices and is programmable.

I used all through my student years and then my career. I really enjoy using it. It is technology that was built to last. Of course it is made from plastic. It will last as long as batteries are available for it.

A bit of grass

Planted a few Carex appressa down at the creek. I grew these from seed at my house. The seeds had no special treatment - they were just sprinkled on sand and the sand was kept wet. Carex is suited to the soils that remain damp below the surface even through the dry season.

Year Reset

I spent today potting Acacia fimbriata seedlings into tubestock.
I had gathered the seed a few months ago, cleaned it, soaked it in hot water for two days then put it into seed trays. A great success about a hundred seedlings germinated.

I had less success with Acacia complanata. I only planted 20 seeds because so many were malformed or damaged. I was not very attentive when the seeds sprouted; only one seeding survived to be potted.

I look forward to planting them out later in the year.