Duck Wars

At this time of my life, when so much is going on, I would expect that I should have been writing here more frequently when, in fact, the reverse (obviously) is true.

There is so much to say about our family and the trauma and angst that we are suffering in the teen years; about the business and where it is going; about the house and the windfall and the decisions we are trying to make....but all I can tell you about are the ducks in our pool.

Anyone who follows us on facebook will have seen evidence of the proximity of local wildlife to our backyard. In the past we have had to deal with snakes (plural), koalas and the ubiquitous ducks. The ducks are particularly irritating because they are hard to deter. I mean, squirt a koala and it will eventually get the message, block up all the snake entries and there will eventually be a thick line of ants marching into the subterranean coffin and back out the other side. Ducks are different. For a start, they use the water as a means of defence and when I say 'the water' I actually mean, 'our reluctance to get into the water'! Three of us can stand on three sides of the pool, shouting, hollering and hitting the water with sticks and the confounded ducks will position themselves in the centre of the pool, equidistant from all their antagonists. Unreachable unless you fancy a dip! Himself has taken to heaving chunks of wood, from the woodpile, at the offending critters.

Which brings us to recent events. Usually, through the winter, the ducks do a bunk and we are poop free on the sides and bottom of the pool. Come Spring, the bas***** return and Himself oils up his pitching arm ready to discourage them from making our pool 'home'. The other night, seeing an offending duck in the pool again, Himself went hooting and hollering up the back steps, reaching for his trusty block of wood. Just as his hand drew back behind his head to pitch the log at the offending mallard, she made a dash for the middle of the pool; her sides seemed to explode and a flock of tiny ducks streamed behind in her wake! There were 12 of them!!

The duck hating centre of my granite exteriored husband melted.

The following night, after a flurry of 'how do I get rid of them' posts on facebook, the BA and I went up to the pool to view the bebes. (Duck poop aside, they really are pretty cute). But the BA being 17 and slightly hormonally brain dead decided that she wanted to pick one up. Despite all our protests that the mother duck wouldn't let and and never mind that but you shouldn't handle wild babies or the mother will abandon them etc etc etc, she decided that the best way to collect a duckling for petting was to scoop one up with the pool scoop/net thing.

Well, you can imagine how that went.

It was pretty spectacular I have to admit. The mother duck rose up to her full height, flapping her wings aggressively and practically jumping into the net; the babies shot off in 400 different directions like a starburst of slippery black beaked tadpoles. Within 4 seconds they had regrouped under mother's wings, untouched but possibly extremely traumatised. OK then, definitely extremely traumatised.

Himself was horrified. The man who had routinely been throwing large hunks of wood at ducks for the past 2 months pointed the accusing finger at the BA and I.
"Don't you realise that if you had caught one, the mother wouldn't have anything more to do with it?" he enquired furiously.
I thought of the effing and blinding which normally accompanies the arrival of ducks in our pool, the curses associated with scrubbing off duck poop and my husband's general lack of love for ducks and I said....
"So?"

The next day we saw no ducks.

"That's it!" Himself grumbled accusingly, "you've scared them off...."
(??????????????????????????)

The following day mother duck was back but......gasp.......there were only three ducklings left. Himself followed her as she took them for a walk, out onto the street (whizzz...beeeeeeeeeep) and over to the other side where she proceeded to walk up an extremely steep set of stairs. One little fellow made it up behind her but the other two were left, leaping and peeping at the bottom of the edifice.
"Well," he said,"if that is the way she's going to care for them, no wonder she only has three left!"

But he still wouldn't let us throw anything at them.

We may be scrubbing duck poop off the pool for a very long time.........

The Eighth Plague

Do I start with the plague or with the ruthless killer?
Himself always says that if you take a ruthless killing machine and put a bell on it, all you get is a ruthless killing machine, wearing a bell.
Exhibit A.Although she is the smallest of three felines, she is definitely the hunter. Caution is advised when stepping out of the bedroom in the mornings as there is often a 'gift' deposited somewhere in the hall. Geckos are a frequent choice, but over the summer there was a steady stream of mice and bogong moths culminating in what appeared to be a rat a week or so ago...*shudder*; normally the bastion of good sense and pragmatism, I had to get No2 Son to remove that one.

We have had birds, but mostly live. I'm not sure if this is better. One morning I stepped into the study to find a large New England Honeyeater, 'toes-up' on the floor, with Morticia sitting expectantly nearby. I guess her continued presence should have been a clue. Returning with a brush and dustpan I did a double take at the now empty floor and then, following the excited mews of Countess Bathory, looked up to see the 'victim' perched on top of the bookshelf. A wild pursuit followed, finished by the reliable 'tea towel over the bird' trick, after which the unfortunate creature was tossed off the balcony and alighted in the nearest tree to consider its good fortune.

Anyway, I digress; The Plague. the wet spring and mild summer resulted in a boom in the number of locusts mating and breeding in the south east of Australia.

Measures were put in place to spray the larvae before they got to a point where they could fly, and thus 80% of the plague was prevented before it could reach the fertile farming communities, the land groaning under the weight of the best potential harvest in years after the break in the drought. This didn't stop a significant number making it to the city. Back in March I sat in a conference room and watched the little devils drop out of the air conditioning ducts onto the tables in front of us. Not nice.

The locusts I'd seen in plague proportions at the pub one night, were brown and unremarkable. Imagine my surprise to find this fellowin my kitchen the other morning. He is, as my father would say, 'magnificent' is he not? He seemed to have escaped the clutches of the 'Black Widow' although he was pretty subdued and eventually disappeared on top of the kitchen cupboards, never to be seen again. He looks huge here but was actually only about 7cm long.

Unlike this monster.


Here is a scale photo taken by the BA (love those sandals!)

Disturbingly, when we got back from church he was gone. Now I don't know whether that was under his own steam, given his fairly sorry looking state when we found him, or whether he was devoured. I try not to think of it. Either way, that little black cat has a pretty dark side to her!







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La Jeune Fille: Kangaroo Island Gets Real

Well, I told you I had some pictures for you.

Kangaroo Island is renowned for its wildlife. Unfortunately, quite a lot of it is on the side of the road in the form of roadkill. Here in Aus we are pretty used to that sort of thing and any drive in the country around sunset is fraught with the stress of keeping your eyes peeled for wandering kangaroos and wombats darting across the road out of nowhere. La JF was slightly more disturbed by the routine sight of bodies by the roadside so we thought we had better let her see some animals that were living and breathing.



We headed out to a well known tourist spot called 'Paul's Place'. I had heard about it through a UK friend who had visited back in 2004 but had never been there myself. By all accounts it was a pretty 'up close and personal' experience with native wildlife and when we mentioned it to the locals they raised their eyebrows and pursed their lips. 'Not for everybody' was the general consensus.

La Jeune Fille was either going to love it or hate it!

As we walked in through the first gate, we were met by these little guys.

La JF was captivated.


The proprietor, Paul, was however pretty 'in your face'. The first thing he did was suss out his audience, pick a likely 'victim' and place a wallaby in her arms!


This was followed fairly quickly by dropping the same wallaby onto the laps of our three.


Now had she been asked, I am pretty sure La Jeune Fille would have politely declined the invitation to have a wallaby on her lap! But as it was, she seemed to quite enjoy the experience.


She was less impressed with the alpaca, sheep and goats however who, once we were given buckets of food to distribute, got pretty pushy indeed.


The next enclosure followed this pattern. I've got to admit, I don't like emus (pronounced eem-yous) close up. They are nasty, stupid birds who think nothing of running into the side of your car for no apparent reason; and being surrounded by a bunch of them looking for food was slightly intimidating. The BA and the Small Boy didn't seem to mind being surrounded by birds.


Although La JF's body language left us in no doubt as to her feelings.


I think visitors like this just stick out like sore thumbs to Paul though. He picked on her again.


The emu egg was a little more acceptable but imagine my surprise when she took this next encounter with such good humour!

That's a fresh water crayfish known as a marron. Not to be outdone I had a hold.

And then the Small Boy got in on the act. Check out the BA in the background though!

Funnily enough, this was the one thing she would NOT do.
"I don't do crustaceans," was her comment.

She does do baby possums though!

And snakes.
In fact we all did snakes and La JF was ok with it, which shouldn't have surprised me given her fondness for horror movies.


The koalas were a little more intimidating; after all, they have claws!
This one made the mistake of grabbing La JF's hair but after a little adjustment she coped with him quite well too.


The BA is an old koala holder from way back.


But the thing the BA did, which really impressed me, was this!


Did I mention I hate emus?

We're all ok with birds though.


Except La JF of course. This one really freaked her out!


Nothing that a baby kangaroo (joey) couldn't cure however!


And I've got to finish off with the bearded dragon and the hopping mouse.


So all in all a pretty successful visit! But the day wasn't over yet!!!!!

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Back To Back, Goodbye, and A Journey

2010 Summer Premiers!
The Baby Angel and her team pulled it off! back to back Premierships, Winter and Summer!!!!!
It was a very nervous Grandma and Mum that accompanied the 'pumped' Baby Angel....
(Grandma: How are you feeling sweetheart?
BA: Pumped Grandma! Really pumped!!!
Grandma: ??????)

......to Central Courts for last night's Grand Final.We were not sure they would 'get up'. The last time they met this team they had one bad quarter which dropped them down 10 goals and they never made it up. Tonight was a different story however. Both teams came out 'fighting', and a solid, evenly matched contest was had by all. In the end our BA's team won 37-34 although, to be honest, on a number of occasions it could have gone either way!The BA played a stellar game in her favoured position as Goal Defence and made many brilliant intercepts as well as keeping the opposition Goal Attack under a great deal of pressure. She copped a lot of flack from the umpire (who is another story altogether); but at one point she was called for 'obstruction' when she was behind her opponent!!! There is nothing more frustrating for a player I suspect (having never been one) than being the target of an umpire's watchful eye, and I have to say that the way the BA dealt with it made me proud. She rose to the challenge and, at the end of the day, I think the main difference between the teams was the defense.
Of course, you are wondering why I haven't posted a picture of the radiantly glowing winning team? Ahem. Yes, well, sorry about that. It's been a tough week and I left the camera in the car. :-( I do have promises of emailed photos from other mothers however!&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
This has been the week from heaven and hell all in one. Of course my lovely Sis arrived last Sunday which was stellar, except that I had reports due on Wednesday. Reports this term had been brought forward because many people were persistently late and as a result everyone was running around like chooks with their heads cut off trying to collect up work and mark it so that we had enough to 'report' on! As if that wasn't enough, I got a call from the business manger on Monday to tell me that the auditors would be here on, you guessed it.... Wednesday! I don't think I could have picked a worse week for my Sis to visit.
Nevertheless, we had a great time together. There were lots of photo opportunities.Oh. Had I not mentioned my hair cut? Ugh. Well, the less said about that the better.
WHAT was I thinking?After dinner the other night, my sister decided it wasn't a visit to Australia unless she had been to the beach....But yesterday we had to say goodbye and on top of everything else we had to say goodbye to these guys....who have gone off to good homes (I will believe that) even though we miss them almost as much as we miss Middle Sis.

And now for the journey. We're off to Port Vincent for some sailing mayhem even though I could actually do with a weekend cleaning my house.

Feral Peril

So here they are down between the fence and the neighbours' shed.....



This is my favourite. We haven't caught him/her yet.



And this is Boo, the first boy.



And this is Jem. He was going to be Mayella until we realised he was a boy.


The fluffy grey one is Scout and the other grey and white one is Atticus. Yes, the BA has been reading 'To Kill A Mockingbird'.

And no, we're not keeping them all. We just felt like giving them names.....