Forced to slow down!

A block of time and unable to go many places - what perfect time to get travel-ready for future adventures! 

Not a particularly interesting shot but I've been walking up and down and around and around our carpark - that's 5 levels! On the way I lost 5 kg but sadly found one of them. Not to be daunted, I'm still working on it for a whole lot of reasons. The outlook sort of gauranteed that I didn’t encounter too many people on these walks! 

Apart from gardening, cooking etc, we pack tons of food and essentials at Foodbank each week for people doing it tough. We feel privileged to be of use and rather humble - and the bonus is it helps build up our strength. Great exercise!

And don’t forget KOGO. While most of the city was, and remains in lock down, there will continue to be people in need of warm clothes. Our car did a few runs stuffed to the roof with wonderful warm things made by the thousands of marvelous people out there knitting and crocheting. 

Why the exercise you wonder? Primarily because I have to for my health but importantly, I need to be fit enough to do some serious walking next year. Yes, give the girl some dream time and it's dangerous! Exciting, fanciful travel plans start materialising. Where to this time?  

Well this year we're off in the caravan for an extended expedition through remote parts of Oz that will firstly take us digging for opalised fossils in Lightning Ridge, NSW (once we can get out, if we ever get out ofVictoria).

Lightning Ridge is a special place for opals and fossils. This is the location of the Australian Opal Centre, a two-storey underground place of research, display, of education and simple wonder. The AOC organises fossil digs each year. We feeling fortunate to be included - if we can get over the border!! 

Then hopefully we’ll travel to WA to do bird and marine mammal surveys - perhaps even swim with humpback whales and snorkel on World Heritage Ningaloo Reef, Australia's largest fringe reef and only one close to our land mass! And we will be travelling the roads less traveled and hopefully that will eventually include the Great Central road which runs through the ?? why the centre of course; it's also known as Australia's longest shortcut. 
But looming as an almighty challenge is April next year when we're booked to undertake a six-day central desert scientific and ecological survey trekking (AKA walking!) through the Western Simpson Desert with camels as part of the 'Knowledge Mapping the Desert Expeditions' organised by Australian Desert Expeditions. Did I mention needing to get fit - this might just be the straw that broke the camels back, no pun intended!

In the meantime ..... keep exercising Heather!

We'll be in the western Simpson Desert. This is a shot from another expedition somewhere in the Gibson (my maiden name) Desert. In this desert is my highway - the Heather Hwy - gotta go there. Hopefully this year!

What a gorgeous serene pair of faces.  Hopefully I can post something akin to this next year. Watch this space.  I’ll be back in touch anon .......

Local history - a snap shot!

Wandering around our immediate neighbourhood is like tripping through history - old and new. Stroll along leafy walks by the river then cross Princes bridge into the CBD, down Flinders Street and back across Queens Bridge and home. A great circuit. 

What you see is always a matter of perspective!

With its iconic ornate lights atop the City of Melbourne’s coat of arms emblazoned with Vires Acquirit Eundo - ‘We gather strength as we go' (Virgil), Princes Bridge was completed in 1888. It was built on the site of one of the oldest river crossings in the city. 

The window work is quite lovely and the clocks icon.

City Hatters began trading as a hat shop, beneath the clocks at Flinders Street Station in 1910.  Originally it was the Station Master’s office when Flinders Street Station was built (finished in 1909).

A fascinating place to rummage. Hearns Hobbies - another Melbourne landmark.  Shortly after WWII, it was opened by the Hearns brothers—three pilots. They starting out with a small collection of model kits and a dream to share their passion with others. 

Remember these? I think they are all cemented over now. Sad! Could have made interesting, quirky alternative art spaces.

This old building at the bottom of what was once the old, granite-paved milk ramp leading to the station, was the Mid City news agency; it dabbled in all sorts of things. At one time it labelled itself ‘Liberated bookstore’ (self explanatory!) but more recently it offered watch and shoe repairs. Now rather sadly it’s boarded up.

‘Banana Alley vaults’ - the name stems from bananas being stored and ripened here before being sold. First occupied in 1893, the vaults were originally used by produce agents and fruiterers to store their goods before market, off loaded presumable at what was then Queens Wharf. That wharf became inaccessible when Spencer Street Bridge was built in 1930. Now they house an assortment of clients - Martial arts, coffee shop, hairdresser, gym, the infamous Subway ‘sauna’.

We live in an ever changing city, once the richest city in the world thanks to the Victorian gold rush, now burgeoning with growth - and sadly with COVID-19. 

And always the flowers draw my eye

That delightful morning in Westgate Park offered the added delight of raindrops balanced or suspended, adorning leaf, petal and the like with glittering rhinestones. Zoom in for nature’s fascinating artwork. Reality it seems is water soluble - everything was deliciously damp!

Not a happy leaf. Some kind of disease has affected its stoma - breathing pores. I think but ......

What an invitation to investigate

A myriad of patterns - both simple and intricate

I tried to peer into this hole with no joy but it’s occupant has a leg resting on a piece of web - ready to pounce. You need to zoom in a little to see it.

Embryonic amber! Looks good enough to eat.

Strolling around the neighbourhood - a time of discovery

We did venture away from the mothership a few times to roam. From cityscapes to the ‘bush’ of Westgate Park (even if the park is mostly man-made ). It has an interesting history, but to flowers and fungi and raindrops. 

We went walking in the Park a month or more ago and had a wonderful time discovering so many fascinating things; it was my first proper venture outside since iso. I’ve broken the pix into 2 groups because there were too many and I loved them all. I hope to add some names shortly in the meantime I'll leave you to browse and hopefully enjoy these special gems of nature. 

Red cage fungus - gorgeous. The insects love them too. 

Even more amazing up close

One of the earth star species - very compact and rather dainty

This is a different species, a beaked earth star

One of the shelf fungi. Delicate and pretty up close with its crystal necklace

Shelf fungus - it was like a splash of fire in the damp undergrowth.



You can almost make me out in the shiny surface of the younger ones!

A special green coral rare to the Park. Corals are rather a favourite of mine.

Those dark spots are insects stuck to the surface. Clever fungus. I wonder if they ingest the insects or whether it is simply a quirk of nature. Hmmmm 

And the delicate underside - quite stunning. 

This is a young version of the fungus above. They are sticky even at this size - see the insects already stuck on. 

Adorable wee thing

A time to slow down ....

While we have been languishing in isolation, like the kids, I have also been doing a bit of home schooling.  Apart from fungi and microbes, this particular afternoon it was more biology 101.  
I saw a ‘bee’ hovering over our flowers and thought that it might have been a native bee because it didn’t look like a honey bee - I have been trying to attract the native bees with safe places to nest etc. However as it turns out this little creature was a Hoverfly. It was hovering! Don't be fooled bees hover too but there are differences between bees and flies that help you identify them - if you can get close enough!  I put a pic of both a honey bee and a hoverfly below to show you.

This is a Hoverfly. They have huge round eyes whereas the bees’ are more slit-like. And Hoverflies have short antennae but their 2 wings are longer than their bodies. 

You can’t see the bee’s eyes because he has his head buried in the flower so you’ll just have to trust me. But you can see that his wings (they have 4) are shorter than his body. Bees have very furry bodies but the Hoverflies are smoother except for a cute little ruff of hairs around their necks. 

Unlike bees, hoverflies don’t collect pollen to feed their young but they can be useful flower pollinators and help control things like aphids in the garden. Please come visit my garden - all of you!

Here you might be able to make out that we’ve taken over the table with irrigated pots of herbs and flowering plants - to attract the insects. Insects and fungi, and of course birds, they’re all essential in creating a healthy balance. I'm still working on it!

And well we might potter in our garden, the UN General Assembly declared 2020 as the International Year of Plant Health (IYPH). The dedicated year is a good opportunity to raise global awareness on how protecting plant health can help end hunger, reduce poverty, protect the environment, and boost economic development etc. Would that I had the skills - and we were home long enough in a stretch - to start a wee urban farm with a bee hive. One can dream!

In the meantime, I am happy to settle for our little plot where we can play and where birds come to feed and bathe. We have had an enormous number of species visit our sky-rise garden ranging from song thrush and small honeyeaters to pied currawongs, ravens, wattle birds and butcher birds. Our resident doves are the head honchoes and calmly keep all in order at the feed bowl and bath. It’s entertaining to watch.  They even tolerate sharing the bath with Indian mynas - I mean in the bath together!

This is a grey butcher bird who dropped in for a short visit. He may have been lost who knows but he had a wee rest at our place.

ANow this gave us a huge smile. Indian mynas tend to be a bit aggressive but they have been trained by our doves to behave if they want to visit and be accepted at our, their! place. Most mornings we put out a little seed on the side terrace, our ‘orchard’, and then sit up in bed and watch as the birds come to feed. The sparrows who perch like Christmas baubles in our plum trees, wait until the doves start feeding, then fly on down. Lately a myna has been accepted at the seed bowl - once the others have started to feed. It's all about pecking order. Quite fascinating! I know that many people are quite contemptuous of introduced species, forgetting all the while that most of us are not native to this land. A bit of tolerance eh!? (Poor pic sorry but I didn't want to disturb them by getting closer or dashing off to get a different camera)

A few days ago a pied currawong, one of my favs so huge, the gorgeous. came to visit to feast on some muesli bar crumbs I'd scattered on the terrace. In fact what he was picking up were hard bits the sparrows had dunked in the bee water dish in an attempt to soften them, clever things. I like to give the birds a bit of a challenge encouraging them to hunt for tidbits. They can make a mess but we don't care they give us pleasure and we are not in the running for 'Homes & Garden'. Anything we don't want disturbed, we protect.  The birds get it. 

Everything in the (aerial) garden is rosy - except we don’t have any roses! 

Fungi and other wonders of nature

The gentle, and not so gentle, autumn rain brought the fungi to fruit - and that sent me to find one of my favourite biology books - Helen Curtis 'Biology', a weighty tome. I have been relearning about prokaryotes and eukaryotes, bacteria and viruses. I know - weird, but it's been rivetting. Right now I'm reading about the emergence of plants.  But to fungi ...
We've participated in a couple of online workshops to learn a bit more about this vast and diverse Kingdom. I find it totally fascinating albeit rather bewildering. I've been poking about in our wee garden and I found a few species of fungi growing - who would have thought! The explosion of growth also sent me out creeping through the damp undergrowth in Westgate Park.  And there I saw two fungi I had never seen before; they're quite stunning - the Red Cage and delightful Earth Star. I'll post some pix for you to browse shortly. 

Now I should be able to tell you what these are growing in the pot that ONCE held my parsley, but my books are in the car so .....

One needs to see underneath to establish if they are gilled or not. I have fungi-back from crouching with mirror and camera in hand and trying to focus - life presents lots of interesting little challenges!

While we are focussed on the micro world, do you know about our microbiome? No, don’t go away, this is interesting really and its actually positive which is a refreshing change. Here’s another rivetting episode in my 'did you know' series! 

So .... the human body is made up of an estimated 37 trillion cells – skin, liver, brain, gut etc etc. But the microbes – micro-organism such as bacteria, viruses, protozoa and fungi – living in and on our bodies are thought to outnumber that at ~100 trillion! But relax they are in the main beneficial (NOT corona virii - that we know about so far), many are essential to our survival doing things are bodies can’t.  Our micro-biome - all those little guys - is an enormous invisible ecosystem that acts like a giant ‘shadow’ organ (not meaning to be derogatory) helping us to digest plant matter, make vitamins, regulate our immune system, form new blood cells, modulate brain signals and so on and on. Hmmm and you thought you did all that yourself!  Some leading scientists argue that animals (us) and plants are not autonomous entries but holobionts. Dynamic biomolecular networks of many different species working in a symbiotic relationship for mutual benefit - a discrete ecological unit.  There are endless examples but for instance, some corals in the Great Barrier Reef are totally dependent on fungi for their survival and certain species of orchids cannot reproduce without fungi and our forest need them to break down litter to release nutrients back in to the soil. That puts a new complexion on evolution - today’s good news story.  

Carefully turn over bark and leaf litter and you find all manner of interesting things - a whole are industrious world. Fungi are stationary but this is mycelium which grow outwards to look for water and nutrients to transport to the fruiting body so it can continue to grow. Beautiful pattern. This was under a stand of eucalypts.

Le Cage aux Folles no no! This is Le Cage de les Legumes ....

A garden with a view! We can wheel these garden boxes around the front terrace chasing the sun. We fitted them with some birding-proofing net to protect our baby veggies - onions, beetroot, turnip, swede, both red and white radish, cos lettuce, parsley and violas plus broad beans and lemon grass in the ‘orchard’ (the side terrace). Parsnip, carrots and more lettuce and silverbeet went into the main front garden bed. (We've since irrigated these beds for while we're away)

We cut back one of our corner trees in the hopes of letting more sun in for our winter veggies; surprising how much we pruned.  The tree will eventually be replaced with an flowering native to attract the honeyeaters. We were a bit pooped  - pruning on a balcony garden is not easy when one has to hang out over the street 5 floors below .... eek! We really had quite a working bee - and with a real working bee!
As we worked a bee kept foraging in and out of the nasturtium flowers completely unconcerned by our presence. So of course I raced inside grabbed my phone and took some action shots

This flower looks spent but there must have been something worth foraging for. Perhaps nature saves the best bits to last!

This flower has a rather stunning design with lots of features to attract insects and facilitate pollination and the bee just happens to have a furry body which captures pollen.  So clever! 

Doesn’t happen everyday but the next day we lunched with a butterfly! While we dined on leek and spinach dumplings, this little butterfly sipped on our marigolds not 2m away. I love butterflies but they rarely stop long enough for you to take a closer look. But my new little camera got up close and had a peek. Have you ever seen a butterfly’s mouth or huge compound eyes?

Fascinating to watch! Zoom in and watch as the butterfly pokes its proboscis in and out of tiny pots of nectar. Gorgeous (but mute the sound it adds nothing). The wingspan of our pretty little thing was probably about 4cm - weeny compared to the huge Cairns Birdwing butterfly, the largest of all Australian butterflies with a wingspan up to 18cm.  When David Attenborough saw them on a visit to the area, he said he would select these to go in his ‘Ark’. But our busy little jewel was just as lovely to watch.