New chooks and a python

Despite all our running around at the weekend, and George’s near naked efforts in the steamy days we have been sweltering through, the chook run wasn’t ready by the time the girls came on Monday.  We had to convert one of the old tin toilet blocks into the temporary hen house and although it isn’t the salubrious 5 star accommodation I had planned for them, they seemed more nervous and unsettled than any hens I had ever had before.  They hid in the scrub on the first day while George and I stretched the wire around and then as the rain fell consistently all week, they seemed to feel safest in their budget backpacker accommodation.  They seemed reluctant to explore or wander which I found very strange.  On Sunday we worked out why!  Ged tracked me down inside having a brief respite from the heat ‘do  you want to see a python?’, so we grabbed the camera and he led the way into the chicken run where Fred was fully extended (1.5 metres) and on track for feathered friend for tea.  Ged trapped him by the head so he could pick him up (CRIKEY!!) and we agreed to put him in the big shed to eat all the ratties and mice.
As soon as we moved the snake, the chooks relaxed.  he had obviously been up in a tree watching their every move and that’s why they were so nervous and shy.  They love to go under the house and so we hear them clucking under there during the day.
We had a busy weekend – Ged replaced the Flying Fox platform with left over tallowood so it feels rock solid and looks lovely and I was weeding, planting and digging again.  I’ve also scrubbed down the outside boards of three sides of the house ready for painting.  The weather has been either blazing sun or steamy, sultry and jungly and the rain is never far away.  The river is up and down like a yo yo so we are still flying across most of the time and even I can pull myself all the way across both ways now.
Fred obviously didn’t like living  in the garage.  When we got up on Monday morning his tail was poking out of one of the powerpoint holes in the kitchen.  His head soon followed.  Ged tried to force him out by dragging but I screamed at him to stop because he was damaging the fragile scales on Fred’s back.  So we left him to fend for himself, took Phee flying over the river with us and up to the office.  When we got home I was gingerly opening doors and cupboards, on the lookout for Fred . . . when Ged came in from locking up the chooks I indicated a strange looking stain  on the floor and he investigated . . . and found Fred snoozing happily in his sock basket!  A bit too close to my bed for comfort so Ged grabbed him again and Fred wrapped his whole length around his wrist and hand and we raced to the car and then I floored it down to Angle Creek while Ged had his circulation crushed.  Ged peeled him off and released him in the grass, but Fred had obviously taken a fancy to us and headed straight back to us so we leapt in the car before he slithered into its workings and came home again!  What would I have done without Ged???  Ugh . . . it doesn’t bear thinking about . . . Fred in my bed with me and Phee . . . !!

Ged and Fred

saga pin up boy!

Sugarglider

Phee found me a lovely treat on Monday.  We were on our run and when we got to the new Acer at The Triangle on The Other Side (I need to send maps, don’t I?) he hunkered down, intrigued by something.  I called him off, thinking it was a lizard or frog or something, but it was the most beautiful little furry angel.  Huge eyes, big, boney paws, tiny ears and sort of wings.  I thought it was a baby possum.  I was going to walk back home over the ridge with him (Mum was nowhere to be seen or smelt) when he found his own safe harbor.  He crawled up the sleeve of my long-sleeved tee and made a nest in the crook of my arm.  And there he stayed for the duration of our run!
When we got home I showed him to George who was entranced, but no closer than me to identifying him.  I put him in a box with grass and water while I performed my ablutions and then popped him back up my shirt for the winding trip up to the office.  By this time he had a name – ‘Chi Chi’ and he did quite a lot of wriggling on the jpourney, trying to find the best spot.  At one point I thought I’d lost him forever and had to stop and hunt – he was resting in the padded hammock of bra between my breasts!!  When we got to work, Ged identified him as a SUGARGLIDER and we Googled the sugarglider diet so we could take care of him, and introduced him to members of the local Comboyne community when he came to the shop with me.  As sugargliders sleep during the day, he was exhausted and preferred sleeping skin to skin with me.  When we finally went home it was dark so Chi Chi was wide awake and slipped out of my shirt and into the car.  Phee didn’t seem to care.  And when we got home I went hunting through the Pajero til his rustling in the back gave him away.  Man, they are fast!  So I decided to leave him out  of his box and in the spare room during the night so he could run and climb and fly while we slept.  Big mistake.  When we woke in the morning he was gone, I know not where.  But I have my suspicions about Phee who wouldn’t meet my eye when I was grilling him.  I had blocked up the gap under the door but maybe not well enough, or perhaps Phee spent the night creating a gap.  I guess he found him . . . but we are very sad.  He was just GORGEOUS.  Bye Bye Chi Chi.
The horses are returning to normal but we have taken hair from both of mine and Gypsy for testing by my Horse Herbalist to try and get to the bottom of the antipathy between them and we have found egg fragments in the Plover nest but so far no sign of the babies.  Mum & Dad are pretty busy defending something, though!  Every time the horses are on the river flat (normally at night) the plovers are screeching their warnings and by day they dive bomb any of us brave enough to go looking for the young.
I have been amazed by the prehistoric cicada shells decorating the trees and fence posts (and pretty much anything else that stays stationary for more than five minutes).  The shells split down the back to release the fully grown cicada and the shell remains gripping the upright – bizarre.  And if you have never been deafened by cicadas before, you are missing one of life’s most extraordinary experiences.  The high pitched buzzing screaming of a million cicadas ‘singing’ their strange and primal songs drills into your brain and swells inside your skull until madness feels moments away.  The relief when you move out of earshot is exquisite!
I have been cutting and pasting photos and being a one man band production line to get all the invites out this week so I can cross that off my pre-wedding list and get on with the next thing.  We went and interviewed two celebrants and now I can’t decide between the two . . . too many decisions to make!
Mummy very kindly paid for a Fowl House for us for Christmas.  I had spent hours on the internet trying to track down a good wooden house for my new girls and thought I’d found one and paid $250 for a removalist to bring it down from Brisbane.  It turned out to be cheap, shoddy and made of softwood which would last approximately three and a half minutes with the white ants at Avalon.  So I am embroiled in a battle to get a full refund.  Poor fools, they don’t realise that I always win in the end!