The Pied Piper... of Chooks.

If they are out, this is what they do if they see me outside too.  Poor old Nanny Ogg isn't the brightest hen in the world, so she tends to be at the back wondering why the others are following me.   "Burk?  Burk?  Where are we going?"

You can hear a 28 parrot calling in the background.  Not quite the full "Twenty-eight!" call, but pretty.  Then at the very end a Red Wattle bird crarks very unprettily, but that's what they do.

As you can see, I'm busily in training to be the mad old chook/dog/cat lady I was always meant to be!

 

It was a mixed weekend for activities around here.  We did a tip run with branches on Friday. See all that from one load?  Slid out all in one go too!  Love our old single float!    

It amazes me how much green waste our local people produce. See that vasty pile behind me?  Well that's only half of it!  We spend all that time planting  and caring for plants, then we spend a lot more time managing the bloody things once they grow.  :)   This all gets made into mulch eventually.

Andrew spent Saturday morning at a Rural Urban Interface (RUI) training event with all the local brigades.  (RUI is basically how to look after houses next to bush when a fire is coming.)

The rose amongst the thorns there is Fire & Rescue Service Cadet, Niamh.  What a very amazing young lady she is!  She has some very exciting plans for her future and I'm sure it will be bright indeed.  

I thought the training might go a bit long for me so I stayed home and just went up and swept the bays while the vehicles were out, then had a friendly cuppa with the others who didn't go. What an adventurer I am!  Ah well, someone has to wield the brooms of this life!

This is the team all loaded up to head out.  Bye Andrew!  Have a good day!  

At home, the early fruit is kicking in.  Loquats are a real favorite with birds, humans and dogs.  We've netted a couple of branches so we get to keep some from the birds.

Yummy!  They really only taste good eaten right off the tree.

The early mulberries have been ripe for a while but will not be at their sweetest and most flavorful till they get a bit more sun.  They were pretty good yesterday though!

I don't know why when there are plenty on the ground, but the dogs love me to pick them mulberries and feed them to them.

Rosie loves them this way:

 

And so does Tuppy:

I don't suppose I'll ever grow out of enjoying getting red fingers while picking and eating delicious mulberries!

One of our Callistemon Phoeniceus's is flowering really well this year.  They aren't usually much good here for some reason, but this one is very happy.  The red of it is amazing!

Just for a change of colour, here is our native bluebell creeper at the front gate. Such a soft, pretty blue.

Writing is going well on Heroic Plans. I marked off 61 683 words at the end of writing this morning, and left my heroes clambering around in midnight bushland trying to hide a horse.  I bet they'll be glad when I get them out of there tomorrow!