July 2022 catching up very slowly

 We're about to head off to the Arctic to explore Iceland and Greenland mainly and I'll be posting pix and stories on my latest blog hwheat2022.blogspot.com 

In the meantime please be patient as I rebuild blog posts from our travels in the Arctic and across USA and Canada in 2019 as well as our travels in East Gippsland in 2020 during Melbourne  'lock-out'. I have picked up the stories from our expedition to Antarctica in 2020 and am slowly rebuilding a new blog for that amazing journey hwheat2020.blogspot.com  Fortunately I have all the pix still for those trip but it's slow going.  Here's a little collage from those 3 journeys

 April 2022

I have started a new blog to record our adventures over the next 2 years. Click on this link hwheat2022.blogspot.com to follow us as we journey through Australia and overseas - we've got a lot of travel planned.   And you can catch up with what we did last year 2021 here hwheat2021.tumblr.com 

Bon voyage!

Image issues

NOT HAPPY JAN!!

Sorry people but Blogger has 'hidden' all the pix I've posted since July 2019.  It's not just a problem for my blogs but it seems for many in the Blogger community. 

For stories AND images of our travels to the Arctic, North America by train in 2019, the amazing journey to Antarctica 2020 and our subsequent 5 months traveling in Gippsland during COVID lock-down please go to my Facebook page at facebook.com/heather.wheat.925 

I have set up a new blog using Tumblr where I will post images and stories of our  travels - as well as on Facebook.  I'm still getting my head around this new platform but I think it will work OK - keep your fingers crossed. Go to hwheat2021.tumblr.com (if you want to make comments on the blog site, like Blogger you will need to have a Tumblr account but you can still view it all if you have problems email me at hwheat42@gmail.com

One last post before we hit the road.

"The world is a book, and those who do not travel, read only a page". So said C4th philosopher Augustine of Hippo (and suggested by a friend).

So travel, travel, travel and while you’re ‘traveling’ even if it is simply around your neighbourhood, keep your eyes and ears open for frogs. Australia has over 240 known species of frog, almost all of which are found nowhere else in the world. Some species are flourishing, like the Striped Marsh Frog, but others have declined dramatically since the 1980s, and four have become extinct. 

Frogs are essential to the environment. Rather like canaries in mines, they act as a natural bioindicator measuring the health of the environment. Throughout their lifecycles, frogs have an important place in the food chain as both predators and prey. As tadpoles, they eat algae, helping regulate blooms and reducing the chances of algal contamination. As frogs they are an important source of food for a variety of animals, including birds, fish and snakes. 

There’s an app which allows you to record the calls of the frogs you discover and upload them to Australia's first national frog count. But you can also do it from your desk comparing records etc etc – be a citizen scientist.  Check out Australian Museums FrogID project  https://www.frogid.net.au/ 

Ands while you’re at it keep your eyes open for fungi! At this time of year all manner of fungi are popping up their sometimes bizarre and colourful fruiting bodies.  Fungi in all their many and varied forms are essential to our environment yet we know so little about them. It is estimated to be around 250,000 fungal species in Australia and less than 10% have been described. What do we know about them and where are they? Check out https://fungimap.org.au/

Who could be bored!? Visit the Atlas of Living Australia and be blown away https://www.ala.org.au/

Next stop camels and the desert – wow!

Loving the local!

Leettle problem with uploading pix - groan. Bear with me. 

Our neighbourhood is really becoming a ‘neighbourhood’ rather than just a place with no heart - if you know what I mean. 

This little gem is in an old PMG building. 

After almost 20 years living here we now have so much that caters for the locals rather than to tourists and commuters - medical clinics, laundry/dry cleaners (things that suburbanites take for granted), a terrific new super supermarket, a few other supermarkets including a couple of fab Asian ones, library, community centre and garden, and joy oh joy some food outlets/restaurants that cater for locals including a fish snd chip shop to open soon!

Easy peasy food

And great access to the arts and entertainments to boot. 

A new pop up venture treating people to free concerts - footage of performances by students of the new Music Conservatorium and Arts schools 

Interesting architecture 

All within 100 or so metres, easy walking - starting to feel a wee bit like New York! Really loving living on the ‘block’!

Southbank Boulevard trying to become just that - check back in 12 months fir the finished product. It’s been a slooow process but the space has lots of promise.

Two more to add to the menagerie!

If you build it they will come” .... I know it’s a misquote and the context is wrong but it seemed appropriate. 

We have welcomed 2 new bird species to our garden in the last two days - a Little Raven and a pair of juvenile Magpie-larks AKA Peewee, peewit, mud lark, Murray magpies, and other names. We had heard them calling in the area and last night there they were come for a visit.  One of our juvenile currawongs popped in for a drink and forage too. All in all, we had 5 different species all ‘playing’ together nicely on our cosy terrace. Over the years we’ve had 14 species visiting us plus half dozen or so FIFOs. Not a bad count for inner city sky rise pad!

Plant the garden, bring the insects and the birds will follow - and leave some litter around for scavenging insects and for nest building material. What a joy it is in a sky-rise city garden tea la la ..... 🎶

Summertime in a city ‘sky rise’ and the living is easy .....

Let me tell you ‘bout the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees 🎶🎵 .... our terrace is a joyful place. We’ve slurped up the heavenly pulp of passionfruit from our vines and sucked the golden pink lusciousness from our figs - with more on the way. 

There are not enough figs ripening together to make jam but we’re really enjoying them daily.  The plum trees are going gangbusters but the tomatoes are being a bit slow ripening. 

Our second grevillea has now been planted (in the corner) and now we wait. Hopefully we’ll get other bird species visit us once they flower.

We spend many delightful hours - or so it seems, watching the birds and insects that visit our garden. And we are rewarded many times over. A couple of mornings ago, we were treated to a wonderful dawn chorus. A juvenile Pied Currawong came in for a look see, a bit of a forage, a drink and then started calling his ‘brother’ to join him. We watched for about half an hour as they talked to each other. Their song must be one of the most beautiful, a glorious melodic caroling. All the while the sparrows were quietly muttering in our tree and the doves fluttered about just making sure their territorial rights were protected. The currawongs are back daily to drink and bathe and forage. So beautiful and so far they haven’t scared off the other birds.