Weekly Chat, Sunday August 29, 2010

AQ:  Hahaha!  I'm afraid the galahs are very careful not to eradicate their future supplies of nutgrass! Tthey always leave plenty.  Now, as for oxalis (soursop) - I reckon if you can't beat it, cultivate it!!!!  My gardens are covered in a deep green carpet with yellow buds just waiting for the kiss of the sun to bring them out in the most glorious display!  I've only got shrubs in the gardens, and the oxalis smothers out other weeds without worrying the deeper rooted shrubs.  When it dies down for the summer, it forms a pretty good mulch to conserve moisure.  A situation I'm more than happy to live with, particularly since I can't kneel, and my back makes me very careful how I bend!  ;-)  Now, cape weed - that's a different story!!!!!!!  GRRRRRRRR!

Hi, all. Just a few replies before I turn in for the night.

dibnlib: So glad to see you posting again. I do hope that your shoulder continues to improve!
Wattle: Very lovely galah!
Sue C: What a detective you are! I do like the names Aspen and Willow and hope they do use them.
Margobird: I hope you have a wonderful trip. I would love to see Cornwall. I'd especially like to see the Furry Dance in the spring.
ValC and JenW: Nice to see you!
Heather: I am so happy that your daughter was given the medical all-clear! So wonderful and such a relief for you. That's the kind of event that puts everything else in perspective.
Joan: Looks like the barn owls may have moved on. I wish them well on their journeys, and I know you do, too.
Paul: You're welcome for the wildlife sites. Thanks to you for all of your wonderfully funny posts on the Daily Update over the season! If you do figure out how to fly, please share the secret here. I've always wanted to be able to fly. :-)
ChloeB: I like the cicadas, too. One has been clinging to my kitchen window screen when I wash dishes in the evening. He watches me with his bulgey eyes. I always ask him whether he's found a mate yet. I reminded him last night that he's running out of time. LOL
AQ: Glad that the City of Adelaide is coming home. Thanks again for posting the pic of Lazarda da Vinci and be sure to keep us updated on her status. :-) She's wonderful! And OG, thanks for the other skink photo! Love that blue tongue. Awesome! Those skinks look like a 1960s poster. LOL

Unknown said:

I won’t bore you with all the different breeds of sheep, but here are a few to show you that we did visit the pens...

* I talk to most of the animals, and had a wonderful conversation with a Bantam Cockerel in what used to be called “the Fur and Feather marquee” – and wonderful memories of accompanying Dad and Uncle when they were showing Rabbits and later Uncle’s Budgies (and my own pet Budgie).  I don’t know what the cockerel or I was saying, but he seemed to know – OH was just embarrassed that I was talking Chicken!

OG: You could never bore me with the sheep/rams/goats photos. I just loved the ones you posted today. The horns on the males were just gorgeous, and the female with the white face was so sweet!!! I also loved the bird pics, especially Bungle with his butterfly-shaped face. My Dad liked the photos, too, and he asked me tonight whether "that professional photographer woman" had posted any more pictures. :-) By the way, I always talk to animals. I think they get the gist of what we're saying.:-)

Lindybird said:

Morning, Everyone:   As you can see, I have gone back to my original avatar as although I was given advice to crop my picture of a single poppy to make it come out right, I have no idea how to do this!

Morning, Lindy. If you post the photo you want to use here on the chat thread, I'll be very happy to crop and resize it for you. If you like the results, you can use it for your avatar again.

TerryM: Thanks for posting the additional cam links! I'd forgotten about the crane migration cam. Everyone enjoyed that one last year. I miss those Spectacled Andean bears. Loved those fellas.

Good on you for rescuing hens and for treating yours with so much respect, letting them retire and live in peace. That's wonderful! By the way, someone sent me this link today, and I thought of you.  http://www.videobash.com/video_show/2-chickens-break-up-rabbit-fight-337   Not only is the video hilarious, but I found the roosters' behavior interesting. What would make those two roosters feel the need to mediate a rabbit dispute? Do they step in when hens have a tiff?

Evening all:  New "fall" season on PBS is starting with an Inspector Lewis series. Hurray!

Diane: Good old David A - having heard the cicadas on that clip, I'm more convinced than ever that's what we heard in Prescott.

JenW: Welcome!. We blather on about everything non-osprey here (but it's okay to talk about ospreys too!). Like BrendaH, I only look at the main page when there's a new post from the LG staff.

AQ: Is the City of Adelaide rotting in Glasgow Scotland (or Glasgow, Oz - you never know!)?  We bought the Queen Mary - at great expense - and brought it to Long Beach where it cost millions more to refurbish than originally anticipated and then Arizona bought parts of London Bridge and moved it to Lake Havasu, The guy who bought it denied rumors that he thought he was buying Tower Bridge.

OG: I think Pedro looks very sensitive and thoughtful. What gorgeous sheep!  We all talk to birds here so can't think what could be wrong with chatting to a chicken.

TerryM.  Never go on a trip like that without taking the car in to have the hoses, tires, coolant, etc., checked beforehand.  We have AAA (American Automobile Assoc) "Plus" service which gives you 100 miles of  free towing on each family member's card, but frankly 100 miles doesn't get you far in that country!  Don't know how far IR's emergency services extend.  :-)   Do those youngsters play at the flute event to win scholarships, etc?

SueC: Interesting about possible proposed names - I thought they preferred Scottish place names.

Margobird: Oh no - I remember everyone out defrosting the birdbaths last winter.  Brrrrr!   Good grief - the UK bill for teeth cleaning/checkup is only just a little less than what OH and I pay (we get X-rays with that too). 

dibnlib:  Take care of that shoulder!  Always good to hear when family members reconcile.  Is there another ISP other than Orange? Heather's been having horrible problems with them.

Sat in the garden this weekend and started reading the last of Stieg Larsson's (sp?) Lisbeth Salander books. Very intense reading - it's hard not to hyperventilate as I race through each page!

Here's a typical shot of the scenery beyond Palm Springs, 1-1/2  hours East of L.A. Drive this hour after hour and it gets hard to stay alert.  The second shot was taken at a Rest Stop by the Colorado River, which forms the border between California and Arizona. Termperature this day was about 105 F.

 Take care all; more pix tomorrow or Tuesday!

Annette: Thank you for everything you've done to make this osprey season enjoyable for everyone (working on the concept of the Daily Update, starting threads, monitoring the nest, writing witty commentary...)!!!

Monday all! After a very hot summer here the autumn has come rather rapidly. Temps have dropped to just a bit over 10Cs. No leaf blowers seen or heard though LOL. Yesterday went to see/listen a concert version of Tosca. It was rather good although only the leading parts were preformed by professional opera singers. It was a small voluntary project in the town where my mum and sister lives. My BiL sung a small part also and I think he was good considering he is no professional singer, (he worked as a constable (detective) before retiring few years ago) but has had music as a hobby from childhood

Margobird, in case I don't pop in here before your trip to Cornwall - have a nice holiday!

Oh Paul, I just love the new expressions you keep teaching me - hind quarters - you certainly do wonders to my vocabulary LOL thank you, I love your humor!!!

TerryM, I have also made a decision to do some winter cleaning to my favourites

Diane, just watched that YouTube clip about cicadas, quite fascinating although I tend to get shivers when see big amounts of Small Crawling Things

Annette and OG thank you for great pics

Have a nice day each and everyone

Wattle - As the lawn man didn’t come last week, our front lawn is a beautiful sea of yellow (soursobs). (He must have decided it was too wet to mow.) Too bad the galahs are such good conservationists LOL

Annette - The "City of Adelaide" is near Glasgow Scotland. As far as I know there isn’t a Glasgow in Aussieland. I Googled just in case and found a lot of sites proclaiming cheap flights A to G !!!! There was (is?) a 3-way struggle between Scotland (where ship is), Sunderland (where ‘twas built) and Adelaide (where she sailed to), as to who would find enough cash to save/restore her. They say it will cost $5 million just to bring her to SA on board another ship. For some strange reason the URL I posted earlier (which I cut & pasted from their page, mind you) doesn’t work directly but you can get there with a second click as advised when the error page comes up <sigh> . . .

Auntie - Oh woe!!! I have been trying to pick up a Steig Larsson book for weeks. One library has copies but all out on loan, except for 2 in the LOTE section (Languages Other Than English). I don’t think my German could manage a thriller! So I tried another nearby library. Must be popular? There are 68 people in the queue for book 1. Himself suggested I go into Borders (bookshop) and read a few pages there. HaHaHa