Wednesday, September 23, 2009

The day of the Dust Storm!

Dust Storm - Sydney


On Tuesday night my beauty sleep was rudely interrupted by horrendous winds slamming into the house - pretty scary stuff as doors were banging shut and things outside were sent racing across the ground and poor Mr Rooster on the weather station was sent flying over to the other side of the garden! I just couldn't sleep because of not only the noise but the worry of trees coming down and other things getting broken and flying away.
Anyway, come early morning as I opened one eye I thought why is it so yellow in the room - pulled back the curtains and opened the blinds to see a fog of red dust and the wind still raging. Turned on the TV to see the news and it seems we had been hit with a dust storm which was wide spread but was really bad in Sydney. Samantha (daughter) sent me this picture that she (she lives in Sydney) took early in the morning on her way to work and Simon (son) who lives near to Sydney phoned to say that when he got up in the early hours of the morning he thought he was on Mars!
I had to go and do the shoplifting that morning and it was really uncomfortable with the smell of dust in the nose all the time and my poor car looked like it had been on a rally in the desert! Things are much improved today but there is a lot of cleaning up to do as the dust has got every where inside and outside of the house, yuck!

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Spring has sprung!



The first week of Spring has passed and most days have been warm and sunny though temps are a little high for this time of the year. They have been doing a lot of back burning in the forest which surrounds me so very smoky and smelly but better than having to fight a bush fire me thinks!
The birds are singing their little hearts out if you can call it that especially when it comes to the parrots! There are so many Rainbow Lorikeets around at the moment the noise is quite deafening and they fly every where at full speed still talking and arguing as they go. There is one part of my garden which is like an express way at rush hour and you have to watch out for low flying birds coming at full speed - many a time I've had to duck! They hold big group meetings or as I like to call it a mother's meeting out in the open on the grass where they chatter, argue, hop about with a few playful punch ups where they roll around together on the ground - suppose there is usually about 50 at a time in the group - love watching them.
I love sitting and watching the birds and seeing what they get up to - got a group of King Parrots hanging around and one of them is quite friendly. He came and checked me out yesterday by sitting on the gutter above and then followed me over to where hubby was working and he got him to eat from his hand - where is that camera when need it!
All this bird watching doesn't get bears made and I've got one poor guy just waiting for me to bring him or her to life:o))