Frog Motel

As a child in north Queensland I would find frogs hiding inside galvanised pipe fence posts. My recollection is that nearly all fence posts had a frog inside sometimes more than one.

A couple of years ago I mounted a couple of 90mm pipes vertically on a fence under a tree. They were to be frog refuges. I have never seen a frog near them.

Frogs do live at my address I hear them calling from the trees occasionally.

Listening to the radio recently I heard a representative of the local frog society recommending the vertical pipes as frog motels.

I have purchased some 40mm pipes (which is closer to the size of the galavanised pipes) to make more motels.

Colour confidence

The current fashion is definitely for all interior walls to be white. Its what you see on architecture shows on TV and in apartments on real estate websites. White on white on white - no offence and no personality.

I prefer colour on the walls.

I found a book in the library Colour Now by Kevin McCloud (2009, ISBN 978-1-84949-219-5). It has lots of complex colour combinations. To translate the colours into an obtainable paint colour I took the book to Bunnings and asked for the full Dulux Colour book I then compared the colours to select the Dulux equivalent. The paint desk at Bunnings had some natural light which helped getting the colours right.

The combinations in the the book gave me confidence to be bold.

Peak flow

The housing density in my suburb is increasing.
Formerly on a eight hundred square metre allotment there would be a single storey 3 bedroom house with a gravel driveway. Sixty percent of the area would be garden and trees. The downpipes from the roof would discharge onto garden or into a rainwater tank.

After development this same area will host two two-storey houses each with five bedrooms and a concrete driveway and a very small garden. The downpipes discharge onto the street.

The roofs and concrete driveways are impenetrable (I would hope) to rain so it must flow off. This makes the peak flow after a storm higher than before.

The solutions include rainwater tanks, soak pits and using gravel instead of concrete. Also leaving room for a garden would be nice.

Storm recovery

There have been a couple of intense storms lately. The creek is no longer a dry bed - it is flowing. The grasses, shrubs and trees around the creek are looking much better.
The intense water movement shifted a lot of debris. Many of the plants the environment revival group planted have become buried in flotsam. In other spots overland flows have scrubbed the soil away exposing plant roots.
So the group has spent a couple of hours digging around to ensure the plants survive the flood.

Garage Sale

On the weekend I was assisting at a garage sale.

It was noticeable that the majority of enduring items were ceramic, glass, metal and leather. The plastic stuff was usually brittle and or tatty.

People came and went and some found something desirable. A lady found a masonite suitcase it was over 60 years old - older than me - and she wanted it for her suitcase collection. Several people found something to turn into a xmas present. One man went away with a box of xmas decorations.

It did not raise a great deal of money but maybe the purpose of a garage sale is to create happiness.

Give a Crap

A friend made a mistake.

As an ethical consumer they ordered environmentally friendly toilet paper. But they ordered too much and generously gave away boxes of the stuff. I benefited to the tune of one bulk buy box (48 rolls). The paper was the premium product 3-ply bamboo toilet paper on double length rolls.
Its good stuff I will be re-ordering when I eventually run out.

The brand is Who gives a crap.

Merry Melodies

Tunes from my childhood make me happy.

Years ago when I was feeling depressed I watched old episodes of Doctor Who - Just the opening tune made me feel a bit better.

Recently I re-discovered another tune from my childhood The Robinson Crusoe background music:

I listened to this record with my siblings oh so many times. The background music is better known as Tchaikovskys 5th symphony.

I think that  Tchaikovskys 5th became unpopular in Australia because it was combined with Paul Hogan and used to advertise cigarettes.