Weekly Chat, Sunday February 7, 2010

Evening all:   Lovely day here; rain due tomorrow.

Alan:  Thanks for heads up on the new blog - and the osprey chicks!  Good that Sassy is doing well.

Lindybird:   Happy dog indeed. Our neighbor has a wonderful spaniel - dark brown and white - called Molly who I met on my way out this morning. You don't see that many spaniels here, so it was a treat. Oh, right - working at home has its good and bad side:  When I was freelancing at home and had to do phone interviews with people around the country,  I had to work with other peoples' schedules and was up at 6 a.m. California time some mornings and still talking to folks at 6 p.m, depending on where they were.

Maureen: No whales today; just dolphins and one otter - oh and lots of Brown Pelicans, one of which cruised back and forth along the bluff no more than 20 feet from our set up.

OG: I was missing Wattle too; maybe she's just busy. OH insisted on coffee and lattes? What a nice treat!  Here, as Diane said, furnace heats the house; water heater heats the - um - water. Here in California, most of the house-heating - and water heating - is done by natural gas, which is cheaper than electric. Folks in some rural California areas often use propane for everything.

Diane: Do hope the furnace is keeping you toasty in all that cold.

Here are two photos taken today at Coal Oil Point, where we count whales. One is of some of our group and our set-up on the bluffs; the other is of the beach to our left

Annette – The floods are in Queensland. The Gold Coast, Brisbane & Sunshine Coast have had the highest daily rainfall for 100 years. It seems to be raining in the east and the west of the country, but alas not here in SA. We are having another hot spell <sigh>, 38 C so far today. Last night was very unpleasant sleepless night as it hovered around high 20’s all night, only dropping to a minimum of 26 C at 6 am.

Alan – We are having diabolical weather – rather too much of that round yellow thing.

Annette & Brenda – The only advantage I can see about the birthday person supplying the cake is that I get to choose what I like. My choice is from the Cheesecake Shop. Hm, cheesecake, or mud cake, and then, oh dear, which flavour?

OG – Your cold must be better if you are enjoying carrot cake. The skink was not positively identified as Lizarda. It could be her boyfriend. Not sure whether I want a backyard full of them. LOL

Continuing SA history . . .There were 5,000 emigrants in SA in 1838. Some were buying & selling land instead of working it to produce crops and animals. Only 86 acres were under cultivation – this included 20 acres of wheat. The colony was not progressing. Conditions were still very primitive with a collection of untidy mud huts and wooden cottages. The roads were dustbowls in summer and dangerous mudholes in winter. No public buildings. Food & stock was brought in from other colonies. Yet more emigrants arrived.

Governor Gawler acted quickly. He increased the survey work in the country sections. A new Govt House was built to replace the mud & thatch hut. Government money was soon spent on better roads, public buildings, a bridge over the Torrens.

SA was to be law-abiding respectable colony and the planners had not thought a police force was necessary. Undesirables deserting from ships and rumours of runaway convicts from other colonies caused a change of mind and the first force of 20 police (10 foot & 10 mounted) was established in 1838.Curiously most of their names are not known. Officialdom was more concerned with numbers, rather than names. (Hm, let’s see - 20 uniforms, 20 batons, 20 pairs of boots, 10 horses, 10 saddles, etc.)

Conditions must have been very hard for the women – Clothing of thick materials, corsets, many petticoats. (I cannot imagine how they coped in our summer heat.) Primitive huts. Open fires. Strange animals and vermin. Limited water. In winter mud and rain. (It may not be freezing but it can be cold and bleak.) Then in summer - heat, dust, flies, food spoiling quickly.

In 1839 a gathering of German settlers voluntarily took an oath of allegiance. Several attempts were made to prepare acts to naturalize non-British citizens. All decisions had to be approved by London. (A reply in those days of sailing ships could take a year.) It was 1846 before the first Naturalization Act was proclaimed. Even then the aliens were only naturalized in SA. Those who moved to try their luck in another colony, found they had to take the oath again . . . and pay again.

AQ: Thanks for more history - the hardships sounds similar to what our pioneers endured; don't know how women managed in those huge heavy skirts,though they actually came in handy at times. When women needed privacy for one thing or another, the other women would stand beside each other and hold their skirts up on each side to form a screen. Many children were born in the wagons on the trail west. Were there wagon trains in Australia? How did people get from A to B? 

When it comes to choosing my own birthday cake, I'd choose a light white layer cake filled and topped with real whipped cream and fresh strawberries and/or raspberries.  Yum!

Morning All.  Just 'popped in' to see what's happened overnight!

Dull day here, a bit cold.  Thanks, thanks, to Annette  for the great photos of your whale watch views. It's beautiful there by the sea. Love to see dolphins, we went on a sea trip once off Tenerife & they played around in the short distance from our boat: it was difficult to catch them on camera though.

Thanks to AQ for the latest history lesson: more please!  (Don't think I would have survived very well in those conditions- sounds grim). 

patriciat:   Yes, Dog enjoys his walk most when we find a couple of stout sticks to throw- we discovered early on that a ball was a waste of time, as he often loses them, but then expects me to magically discover it again without his help, as if I were a version of Paul Daniels or something (famous magician here, for those not in UK)   Best game of all is to throw a stick into a river or lake, he will go in for it again & again, until I think he's going to expire through exhaustion, but still asking for more.

Off now as busy day:  taking Aged Auntie to Clinic again, etc., work to do, friend coming for coffee, shopping to do, may later have time to visit Puppy again so will r eport on her growth!    'bye

Sunny Tuesday – no frost.  Birds all skipping about the deck – except for Robins who are too busy claiming the territory from each other!  Son just phoned from Grantown.  He’s spending some time with his future employer, after viewing an apartment which he’s going to sign for this afternoon – it’s so convenient to his work that he says it’s not worth looking at others.

No time for replies to overnight posts right now, so will pop back later.

Hi everyone.

It's nice and sunny here, with the starlings looking absolutely stunning in the bright sunlight.  Still feels a wee bit chilly with temperatures around 5°C.

Annette:  Nice pictures.  That looks like a great place to count whales.

AQ:  Thanks for more SA history.

A very happy Tuesday to everyone.



Paul.

Morning all from TI,

Annette : Thanks for the nice photos of the whale watch location. It looks idyllic there. It would be so nice to watch for whales instead of freezing here in UK. I have never seen a whale but did see dolphins once when I was on a ferry between Santorini and Paros in the Greek islands. My daughter who lives near Inverness regularly sees dolphins at Chanonry point.

AQ : Thanks for the history lesson - very interesting. The golden orb has appeared in the sky today so It is a bit brighter   but still with a chill wind. 38 degrees is too hot for me also. It would be nice to get up to the low 20s.

Today we went on a shopping mission to Sainsburys. We like to vary which supermarket we go to as it creates an element of surprise and stops them from being complacent. LOL

Weather

Partly cloudy,dry , Temp 4.6c , Wind NNE 7.1mph , Sunrise 07:28 , Sunset 17:01

Afternoon everyone - cold and breezy here but with sunshine between the sleet/snow showers. For the first time it almost felt springlike - must have been the birds singing and displaying!

Annette - how wonderful to be able to do the whale count - thanks for the photos. I've never seen whales, just dolphins on the coast of SW Ireland

Thanks to everyone for pics, links, chat and history.

Its great to see Sassy hummingbird progressing a bit better. I've been looking at the great horned owl webcam at Valmont which is now live. The last couple of days there has been an owl on camera during the evening (our evening!). Last night the nestbox was full of snow but the night before I took a screenshot.

Take care all