Look what the cats dragged in!

A couple of weeks ago we had a nice little evening shower. The cats went out and immediately discovered , to their great delight, that when a small green frog that had been innocently migrating through the grass, was patted with a delicate paw, a high-pitched oboe noise was emitted! To save these poor frogs too much orchestral distress at the instigation of the feline music lovers, I rescued the frogs, some 5 in all and relocated them to the pond.



In the ensuing weeks, any wander past the pond has resulted in considerable splashes of surprise, leading me to believe that there were more than five frogs in that pond! So yesterday I took camera in hand and did my best commando crawl through the buttercup bespangled grass and managed to get close enough without startling my froggy inhabitants. And there they all were, sunning themselves.


These frogs are not ,as many people call them, the true Green and Gold frog but rather the Tasmanian species Littoria raniformis or Green Warty Marsh frog. (Isn't that a name the just trips off the tongue?) I settled down for my count, and as more and more kept popping up and sunning themselves on lily pads and rocks I was able to count them - 14 in all!



It's not that big a pond! Those that are bigger and seem to have been incumbents longer, have tanned to a darker bronze colour, but my little explorers are still a delicious green. They are all such a delight.

After taking my photos I crawled discreetly back the way I came .

Fire Photos

These are the photos I tried to attach to the Oops entry. I was doing it on my break at school but there was not photo attachment button on the entry page. I guess it was some part of the antiporn setup on Government computers and servers! Anyway, here they are.

Oops!

On our way back from shopping in Launceston one day last week, we stopped at Westbury for supplies. As I was entering the supermarket sirens started to wail. Two young chicks on bikes nearby said, "Oooh, an ambulance. Let's go and see."
My thought was , "Fire trucks have the sirens," and thought no more about it as the siren receded into the distance.

But ten minutes later, as we drove down Exton Road to home, there were flashing lights in our front farm paddock and there were three fire trucks hosing down the last of a big grass fire!

It had started where Drew had burnt some rubbish a week before when we'd had some showewry weather. He'd noticed it was still smouldering a few days later and had been down several times to make sure that it was out. But it had laid low and waited its chance. Our tenants had noticed it burning the grass and had gone down and put it out, but a little secondary finger of fire had been caught by the breeze and swept it into the blackberries. After that it was beyond them and they called the fire brigade. They arrived just as it had leapt the road and was moving towards the neighbour's poppy crop. Luckily they had it all under control in a matter of minutes.

It's such an embarassing and blatant landmark for now for Drew, but at least it has cleaned up a fire hazard!

30 today!

I realised that today marks 30 years as a Teacher Aide at Deloraine Primary School! I guess this is some sort of milestone, making me the longest serving staff member at this school.

There have been so many benefits. I started out in the library, covering, cataloguing and filing and from there moved on to general work, working for teachers and administration. I've gained so many skills in the process, starting with covering books in contact film through to gaining computer skills. This latter has been the real benefit for where else could someone in my position learn these things, especially since my children have left home? We started out with little black and white BBCs with dial up connections through to the Library of Tas, until we have reached the point where the Aides computor is the biggest in the school with the most programs loaded on - not that I have had to use them all! Oh well, if the needs arise.

Today the staff have been congratulating me and I discover that it has been written up on the Staff whiteboard. Then at recess there was cake with Congatulations Claire on it and these lovely flowers. I do feel so appreciated!

It was such a lovely wedding

The sun was shining (most of the time), the tide was out, but we had a lovely time. The bride was ravishing. She aparently ordered her dress from Hong Kong, just sending over the measurements, and it was done in 3 weeks at a fraction of the cost. Good plan!

So here we all are, the grooms family, and dressed to kill! It's funny to think that now were're the oldies - almost getting to be elderly! We tried not to be the conservatives in the background gossiping about everyone, but the young have so much energy!

Then there's the very young. This is Robert and Erin's little daughter, Isabel (I hope I've got the spelling correct.) She's such a little doll! She was so overwhelmed at first and didn't seem to think that her Mum was real in such a dress. But she hit her stride later and made her own little contributions during the speeches. I wish I could have got a photo then but that's the trouble with the old digital camera - there's that bit of a delay between pressing the shutter and the picture actually being captured. I had trouble later on when I was trying to get a closeup of sister Janet. I forgot that the didgital zoom doesn't register in the viewfinder but only on the screen. I have a lovely shot of Janet's chin and one of her cleaveage!

And finally, here's a shot of my family enjoying the day!