Update

 Something happened yesterday that is worthy of an update, but that I don't really want to dwell on too much. I and my dear Barry the Barina were involved in a minor car accident. I got out of this basically unscathed except for a bruise from the seatbelt, a jarred wrist, and the inevitable shock, but poor Barry fared a bit worse. I was headed to Latrobe to meet up with a couple of friends for some bushwalking in search of a platypus to photograph when a large tractor merged back onto the road from where it had obviously been driving along the edge of the road to let people past it, this caused a line of about 8 cars to all stop quite hurriedly. Unfortunately, my brakes locked up and I didn't stop in time. The car in front of me was towing a dog trailer and I hit the spare wheel mounted on the back of the trailer, doing no damage at all to his vehicle, trailer, or dogs. The driver of the vehicle was very understanding, having only just managed to stop in time to avoid the car in front of him, and was happy to declare that there was no damage to his vehicle and leave as soon as I said I would be ok. Being only a few minutes from Latrobe, I was able to call Rob to come and get me and was very well looked after by everyone. Unfortunately, Barry will need to be taken to the doctor for another round of plastic surgery to recover from the incident so I have very kindly been loaned one of Rob's cars for the next couple of days.

Now that is dealt with, on to pleasanter things.
I recently learned how to 'flood ice' biscuits with the help of a youtube tutorial and have now practiced the skill twice. I made a small batch of teapot biscuits for a friend's birthday (which I didn't photograph so you'll have to imagine) and then this batch of cutesy owls.

Its the first time I have used the owl biscuit cutter which I have actually had for quite a while, but now I think it will be one of my most used ones because the result is so darn cute.

Also in domestic diva news, I have been harvesting ridiculous quantities of lemons from Rob's lemon tree and turning them into lemon cordial. I have previously made 2 quite small batches, but on my last visit I picked a very large bag of lemons which after a considerable amount of effort yielded nearly 3 litres of juice. This in turn made 5 litres of cordial syrup and I have to say that it is very tasty and worth all the effort of juicing them. Rob's tree is still loaded with fruit and as soon as enough ripen, I'll do it all again.

In unrelated news, I have now joined the track pants and ugg boots brigade. Yes, that's right, I'm now on Centrelink. My Austudy claim has been approved which means I'll be able to keep paying rent and feeding myself while working on my diploma. I'm so glad that filling in all that paperwork didn't turn out to be fruitless.

And speaking of my diploma, I have made an attempt at starting it. The first thing I have had to do is convince my lecturer that the study site I have chosen will be suitable, by tromping around it and taking lots of photos to send her. That was actually quite fun. I always enjoy tromping through bushland and even found a couple of Tasmanian devil footprints which were quite fresh, indicating that a devil walked that track in the last couple of days.

The Break Ins

Over the last few weeks, I've had trouble with something breaking into my apartment by chewing holes in my flyscreens. The problem first started with something chewing through the flyscreen of my partially opened kitchen window overnight and evidently sticking its head through to eat the little coriander seedlings that I had been growing on the kitchen windowsill. There wasn't any clear evidence of exactly what kind of animal had broken in, but with all the problems I have had with possums coming into my garden and eating my seedlings, I was prepared to believe that it was one of the sneaky little blighters learning a new trick.

I patched the hole in the flyscreen, replanted the coriander and moved it to the other side of the windowsill away from the open area, and resolved to shut the window at bedtime every night to prevent further incursions. I also smeared some peanut butter on the window ledge outside and put my wildlife camera on it to see if I could find out what had been responsible for the break-in. After 3 nights, without any visitors to the windowsill, however, I decided that nothing was planning to visit the ledge again.

How wrong I was. One night, I got home late and surprised something making a large amount of noise in the vicinity of my bathroom windowsill. The problem was that by the time I had entered the bathroom, there was no sign of the intruder and I couldn't be sure exactly where it was. I have a custom installed (I have a very clever Dad) bathroom fan on my windowsill and my bathroom window is always open behind it, but it appeared that something small and agile had climbed up to the window ledge, chewed through the flyscreen and let itself into the space behind the fan surround. What I was unsure about was whether the invader had made it any further into the bathroom than that. There is only a very small gap around the fan surround, but there were two small scats on the bathroom floor that had either been flung there by the intruder thrashing around behind the fan, or the intruder had made it as far as the bathroom floor. The scats looked very much like rat poo, but several of the very small marsupials have similar looking scat so I still wasn't exactly sure what I was dealing with. If the intruder had made it into the bathroom, the only feasible place for it to be hiding was in the cupboard under the laundry sink where the door was sitting slightly open. So, being very tired and unwilling to search the cupboard that night, I shut the cupboard door and placed a chair against it incarcerate any visitors and shut the window in the hope that it had made it back outside. The next morning I searched the cupboard with my friend, Christie, as back-up (I really dislike rats in confined spaces), but there was no sign that there had ever been a rat or any other animal in there.

I patched the bathroom flyscreen and for the next week I dutifully shut all my windows at night. I also put a small live-capture trap in my garden to see if I could capture whatever the problem animal was. The only thing that the live capture trap managed to do was startle a very bewildered looking brushtail possum who was far too big to fit in the trap, but had evidently reached a paw inside to get at the peanut butter and chocolate. After a week of no sign of any would-be housebreaker, I decided I must have given the intruder enough of a fright that it had decided not to come back.

I went away for the weekend with my family, having left the window behind the bathroom fan open, and when I got home on the Sunday evening, Dad accompanied me up to my apartment. Once again, on coming home there was a noise in the vicinity of my bathroom windowsill, but this time Dad immediately went outside and was quick enough to see a rat escaping out of the hole it had chewed in the flyscreen and high-tail it across the garden.

So, I was back to making sure that all windows were shut at night. This annoyed me enough that I decided to fortify the window in the hope that it wouldn't be necessary. Now the window looks like this, with flyscreen to keep the insects out and wire mesh to (hopefully) keep the rats out.

I never thought that I would have rat problems in my apartment, as I didn't think there was any way for them to get inside what is really just a concrete box. Apparently, the temptation of tasty coriander seedlings and snowy weather was enough for them to prove me wrong. I really hate being outsmarted by rodents, so hopefully I have now managed to foil their dastardly invasion plans.

Back to School

The last few months I've been mostly just filling in time, trying to fill it in in the most productive and enjoyable ways I could think of, waiting for the next opportunity to come along. Well finally, after a couple of false starts, I think I have found the next step. I've decided to go back to school!

I have been considering doing a qualification in Conservation Land Management  for a while now, but the last time I was going to enroll in a course while I was still working with the Devil Program it didn't work out. I didn't think I would be able to enroll in a course at the moment because in order to do the course I had been looking into last time you have to be working in the industry, but I decided to look into it anyway. I was very happily surprised to find that it is possible to do the Diploma of Conservation Land Management through Tafe NSW by distance, without needing to work in the industry, and completely self-paced.

So, after much paperwork, I am now enrolled in the Diploma. I haven't actually started working on the Diploma yet, but technically I could be working on it right now if I wanted to. I have glanced over the course work, but I have the excuse of major computer problems so I haven't done any more than that. I'm actually  looking forward to doing the project work in the course, but I love the fact that because the course is self-paced I can take time to do other things and fit the studying around the rest of my life.

So, now that I am a student again, you can expect me to go back to my old nocturnal habits and I suggest that if you are planning on visiting me in the morning and want me to be able to communicate,  you bring me a coffee :)

Holidays

 As we usually do about this time of year, my family decided to escape the Tasmanian winter for a week and holiday somewhere a little bit warmer. This time we explored the area around Forster Tuncurry on the NSW coast, based in a tiny town (mostly just holiday houses) called Elizabeth Beach on the edge of the Booti Booti National Park. This area of NSW is quite picturesque, having the ocean, forests, and lakes right next door to each other. Most of the things to do in the area are walks, scenic drives, and cruises. Our bungalow for the week was very comfortable and the weather wasn't too bad so we had quite a nice week away.

One of the things I particularly wanted to do during our week in the area, was to go to Sugarloaf Point Lighthouse at Seal Rocks, partly because I like lighthouses, but mostly because it seemed like a great place to watch the ocean and spot whales.

 Sugarloaf Point Lighthouse

 Seal Rocks

 New Holland Honeyeater keeping us company at the Lighthouse

  Sugarloaf Point Lighthouse

Whale Tail! (and Marine Park Authority boat)

 Humpback whale breaching

It took a while of watching an empty ocean to finally see the whale (about when I was ready to give up), but finally (when I had entirely the wrong lens on my camera and had to do a quick switch) Mum spotted the whale blowing. It was quite a long way off the coast, but it obliged us with a very active display of tail slapping, head lunging, pec slapping, and breaching so I was quite content. That was probably my favourite part of the entire holiday.

Here are a few scenery shots from some of our other explorations:

 Santa Barbara Beach

  Santa Barbara Beach

  Santa Barbara Beach

Sunrise at the resort (which I was only accidentally awake for)

 Regular visitors to our balcony at the resort. They were accompanied by 2 magpies, 2 noisy miners, and a brush turkey.

One of the lakes (can't remember which one)

By general agreement, we decided to take a relaxed cruise from Forster up Wallis lake. This takes you past a lot of commercial oyster farms, but there is also a lot of natural scenery to keep you occupied and plenty of birdlife.

By far the most exciting bird watching was actually the pelicans, though. I've always liked pelicans, but there are hundreds of them in the area so you wouldn't expect me to get so excited about seeing some more on the lake. What I have never seen before, though, is a pelican breeding colony or a baby pelican. I've seen photos of baby pelicans before (which look a bit like a raw plucked chicken with a large beak), but I had never seen one in the flesh.The cruise took us past Pelican Island, a small sandbar island where the pelicans breed and we were lucky enough to spot a glimpse of a very young, very naked, ugly, baby pelican.
Unfortunately, for the 2 seconds the baby was visible before its parent hid it from view by settling over it to incubate it, I had entirely the wrong lens on my camera (always the way) so I only got this entirely underwhelming photo of it, but it is there.

Pelican Island (with baby chick)

And this is atrocious quality because I've zoomed in so far, but that little blob of pink I've circled is the second best highlight of my week (after the whale spotting).

To finish off our cruise, just before we got back to the dock, we were joined by a pod of young dolphins. A day with dolphins in it can never be a bad day if you ask me.

So, there you have it, my week in pictures. I had a very nice holiday, as did the rest of my family (I think) and now I'm back in the Tassie winter ready to try and sort out what I want to do about the unemployment situation.

Terrarium-ing

So, unfortunately I am still unemployed. One of the worst things when you are unemployed is that everytime you meet new people, they enquire what you do for a living. Everytime you get asked the question you have to admit to yourself that you do nothing, and then you have to deal with the half-hearted "oh, I hope you find something soon" comments from the person who asked. Well, yesterday I decided that I needed to find a new way of answering the question. I will now put on my most pretentious accent and declare "I've decided to focus on my art" whenever the question is asked. Unfortunately, though, if there are any follow-up questions I'm stuck again because I haven't so much as picked up a paintbrush in months. I told my friend, Cath (who is also currently unemployed, or practising for retirement as she puts it) about my new strategy yesterday and she said that she thinks my terrariums qualify as art. So this is how my next encounter with an innocent enquirer will go:

Innocent Enquirer: "And what do you do, Emma?"
Me (in a very pretentious accent): "Oh, I'm focusing on my art right now." (superior, smug look)
I.E: "What kind of art do you do?"
Me: "I construct terrariums as way to view the world as individual microcosms of reality..." Followed by more art-babble until the poor enquirer surrenders.

Anyways, on to terrariums. You may remember that I made my brother a terrarium of a hobbit hole a few years back for his birthday. I have since had the pleasure of re-making it because he killed all the moss and got quite used to having it sitting on my kitchen table while it was recovering. I've always been quite interested in mosses and the terrarium craze is one that I can fully get behind. As I see it, there are three main problems with building terrariums:
1- Finding the right container can be really hard and very expensive
2- Sourcing mosses and plants can be difficult (although, not if you do it the way I do and simply gather small samples of interesting mosses while on walks)
3- Finding unsuspecting victims to give them to can be hard and you might end up covering every flat surface in your home with cute terrariums.

The first of these problems has always been the hardest to surmount in my opinion. You can get all kinds of different containers. Apothecary jars are commonly used, and you can buy glass domes specifically designed for terrariums. Personally, I think that all of these containers have massive design flaws and are actually quite useless to build any sort of reasonable terrarium in because they usually have lots of vertical space, but not enough horizontal space. They are also hideously expensive. So, when I stumbled on cookie jars that would make perfect terrarium containers for $2.50 each I bought 3.


And here are my 3 terrariums

Firstly, there is one with 5 different types of moss and these cute little toadstools that I bought in a fabulous new shop called The Wooden Box. This one is for me and is sitting happily on my table.

Secondly, there is a very similar one, but with different mushrooms for my friend Cath. We discovered months ago on one of our walks through the rainforest that we are both similarly obsessed with mosses and fungi. I gave Cath her terrarium last night and she absolutely loved it. I was clever enough to wait until she commented on how much she liked mine before I said "Funny you should say that" and bought out hers

And Thirdly, there is quite a different one with only 2 types of moss and a quarry scene with CAT machinery for the Boyfriend. This one is more about the machinery than the moss, but I still like it anyway.

So, next time you see me going for a walk and coming back with surreptitiously gathered moss specimens, you'll know that I am just "focusing on my art" and everything is fine.

Bunny Tales

 A few weeks ago, I noticed that when I drove up my driveway at night there was often a little grey rabbit in the carpark area. It wasn't until I saw this same bunny in the daytime that I realised it wasn't just a normal feral rabbit or "bush bunny" as they are referred to, but was obviously an escaped or abandoned pet. Given that it had been hanging around our apartment block for weeks at this point and no one had come looking for it, I guessed it had probably been abandoned.

I started to make friends with Bunny, taking him vegetable offcuts, and gradually getting him more and more comfortable with me until he was happy to eat out of my hand as long as I didn't try to touch him. He really didn't like being touched, probably due to some serious trust and abandonment issues. I would visit him in his home under the lilac bushes every morning when I was home (which is most mornings at the moment) and bring him some treats. I introduced my friends Cath and Christine to him on their visits to me, but he was very stand-offish and skittish around them - I think he thought that by bringing a second person to visit him I was trying trap him.

Yesterday, when I went to visit Bunny I found that he was already nibbling on some brussel sprouts. Unbeknown to me, Bunny apparently had another friend and benefactor. I had no idea any of my neighbours had shown any interest in Bunny at all, but it seems that one of my neighbours has a taste for brussel sprouts and is as soppy about cute furry animals as I am.

This morning when I went to visit Bunny, I couldn't find him. This is not the first time I haven't been able to find him, but every other time he has made an appearance not much later so I assumed he would soon be back and ready to eat the bits of bok choy I had saved for him. Unfortunately, I have since found that is not the case. Bunny who was almost always around our apartment block had for some reason gone much further away than usual and had been run over not far from the bottom of our driveway. So my bunny tale has a very sad end.

I'm going to miss you, Bunny. Thanks for hopping into my life and brightening my boring mornings.

Caving Adventures

After months of working in the caves, I finally managed to go on a short adventure in a "wild" cave this week. There are over 300 caves in the area around Mole Creek, but I had only been in the 2 with the convenient pathways and lighting and handrails so it was definitely about time for a bit of exploration. 

My day started off at Marakoopa, watching some of my workmates start an adventure into the parts of the cave that don't have pathways. I elected not to go on this particular adventure because I'm not confident on the ropes and there were limited places on the permit, but I was still keen to watch their descent off the pathway into the river bed. This meant getting to work at 7am, but I decided to stay at the King Solomon house so I didn't have to get up too early.

Here is a video of my friend Cath going over the edge. Its sideways unfortunately, but for some reason Blogger's video player puts it sideways even though the video itself isn't. It must be an aspect ratio type thing. You'll just have to tilt your head (or your screen) to see it properly.

Then after a full day at work taking tours through Marakoopa,  I still hadn't had my fill of caving for the day so Cath, Teresa, and I went and explored my first "wild" cave. I had an amazing time. I had an even better time than I thought I was going to. The cave we explored was on the property that Cath is renting close to work and she had already explored it 3 times so she knew exactly what she was doing - she's also a very experienced caver- so Teresa and I just blindly trusted her that she knew what she was doing as she set up ropes and led us through the cave. Our trust was well placed, and Cath was an excellent trip leader.

Cath going down the almost vertical descent into Quarry Cave. 

Helictites on the cave ceiling.

Me in the crawl space. Technically we didn't have to go through this part, but it was heaps of fun and we found a pademelon skull down there.

Teresa climbing back up the incline out of the cave.

Sorry about the quality of photos on this post, but there was no way I was going to take my good camera crawling through a cave so these were all taken on my waterproof camera instead.