My car-less wilderness starts twenty metres beyond my front entrance …
It festures long vistas of bounteous greenery, exotics mixed with native trees …
Impenetrable matted jungles of grasses flow over the contours of Bulimba Creek’s floodway …
The creek itself is almost hidden between the overgrown banks where ducks, dusky moorhens and waterdragons make themselves at home
I’m laying here impatiently waiting for the next thing.
These are the cross roads, you understand? The place where I’ll be ready for anything. A couple of cat-lengths southwards of my tail the old woman is having her breakfast.
Behind my back is the kitchen where food is stored. In front is the primary space for playing and hunting. Northward is my den, where I have my water well, my bed and my wood for scratching.
Sniff. Sniff. Oh, I’ll just take another turn through the woodland. I believe I may have missed a cache or two of kibbles. The old woman keeps finding new places.
Kibbles both inside and on the top? I made short work of them!
Then it’s time for her to clean the den.
I’m looking forward to an uninterrupted day. Both Friday and Saturday we had far too many visitors for my comfort. I spent most of Friday under the couch, and a good half of Saturday under the big bed.
My modem is ‘on the blink’, which is a colloquial way of saying it has started to fail. Sometimes its little lights work well and my computer has an internet connection.
Sometimes they’re blinking and I know then there’s a gappy reception and goodbye to getting anything done online except by mobile. That means one-fingered typing for me.
I’m sitting on instalment 16 of Cat Tales, with no way that I have found of getting the photos from the computer onto my phone.
People will tell me the cloud and/or dropbox. Seems like neither of them like going in reverse. Mind you that could be a personal bugbear.
Anyway, there it is. Another hold-up.
Now to access the other photo …
Despite the danger of the currawongs, I got used to doing my proper Hand-of-God work, and revelled in the thrill of seeing off intruders.
Small dogs, magpies and kookaburras all took flight when I ran at them. My large belly flubbered and wobbled as I ran, was one visitor’s unkind remark, after her little dog hid under her chair. My human glazed a stern glare over her face.
I am big, I accept it. Comes with being a daytime cat, apparently. My size helps me stay on top of the heap.
When even the pheasant-coucal stopped coming, probably because I chased him from the premises one too many times, I started to look for more excitement.
I had a go at climbing a tree. Got as far as the first branch, not more than a metre and a half from the ground.
The pernickety old woman, moving very fast for a human of her age, slapped an aluminium ladder against the trunk.
While she tied a denim apron round her waist I did not have the good sense to keep climbing. Always a sticky beak, I stopped to see what she was planning.
She climbed the ladder and lifted me from the tree. “Forget it,” she said. “You’re too heavy. Lucky for you I saw you before you got too high.”
“I’ll explain why one day,” she said through my complaints.
She continued wrapping me in the apron, tying the corners tightly round her waist. There’d be no getting free.
She climbed down and took me back to the deck. Where I lay about, sulking, and licking my wounded pride.
Patty, the mechanic, who came and went. Boss thought she might be able to fix the run-about. She thought it a pile of buffle* you-know-what. “Should start again,” she said. “There’s quite a good one going second-hand at Brick Resales, you know that place?”
Part Three of the saga is out–on the Brick Stories Page–up on the Menu. Telling you again because we have new readers.
*A ‘buffle’ is the type of buffalo that this story’s herders breed. The buffles are out there grazing the swamp grasses. Below, the buffle herd.
Learning about Blocks
Good grief! The number of ‘blocks types’ available already boggles my mind, and that’s before I’ve invented any because I don’t see any that I can relate to. No, wait! A masonry gallery? What can I do with a masonry gallery? I’ll have to see …
Herewith my so-called Masonry Gallery …
Animals I Have Known. Some were adopted into my family, some were animals I photographed while out walking, and some of the images represent animals I’ve known.
My idea was to have captions. I haven’t working out yet how to do that.
Clockwise from top left: Jesse, at attention; Tibby, saying: “Ha ha, I’m lying on the dog’s bed, get me off if you dare”; Snowy, here as Tintin’s sidekick, dressed in his spacesuit. When I knew him he was the dog of Mr and Mrs Ballantyne, the elderly couple living on my street in Sydney; Shirley Dog, from my home town; Mingey, a fast mover, a friend from walks at the Mullumbimby Cemetery.
trailer: https://iview.abc.net.au/video/MP2147H010C00GN1
The four part program is the kind of reality TV that starts with a litter of puppies. It’s informative as well as good fun. The human handlers have been picked for their variety of work situation for their dogs to grow up in, and their personality and probable bonding with the pups.
The ‘plot’ is that five puppies of great breeding stock are transformed into working dogs in one year! When normally the training is up to three years. The question is, can it be done?
Last night I watched Parts 1 and 2 and saw the puppies transformed into 6 months old triers. Five passed their assessments easily, one having a few troubles including another dog in its pack having to be taken to the vet for snake-bite.
With over three thousand working dogs in Australia, muster dogs helping to manage cattle, goats, alpacas, sheep and even poultry is a reality in this country. Several of the people taking part in this ABC (Australia) series once mustered with humans-on-horseback, humans-on-motorbikes, and helicopter. Now working with up to twenty dogs, they say they’ll never go back.
The animals being managed are quieter, calmer, and not nervous and skittish. Mustering with dogs is time-saving, can be done in one day and can be done without a lot of forward planning such as needed with more people or machinery. Dogs are cheaper to run than helicopters and machinery, and a lot more love-able. Dogs are more sustainable and environmentally friendly as they are not as hard on the land as both horses and machinery.
It’s a great show! Can be seen on ABC iView.
Have a look at the trailer: https://iview.abc.net.au/video/MP2147H010C00GN1
Rita de Heer 