Last night we had 21mm of today’s forecast 5mm of rain. At one point it was so loud on our tin roof that Sasha came on the bed for a cuddle. Oshi must have slept through it. Sasha does not like loud noises.
Some of the neighbour’s earthworks appear a little precarious.
I’m a huge fan of dark skies, and am lucky enough to be able to clearly see the Milky Way (and the Clouds of Magellan) from our house. So this 12 minute video is one I think everyone would benefit from: Why We Are Losing the Night Sky.
100 metres from our boundary our neighbour-but-one has subdivided 3 sections. Diggers are moving 8,000 m3 of soil (it’s all sand really). Work near us started today. Soon we’ll have even more neighbours! Grrr.
It’s a great day to stay in by the fire. 🌧
It was dog grooming day today. We have a before and an after. 🐶
Listening to the end of the cricket. First time in my life to pay attention. My partner Deb filled me in on the excitement as she left for work. 🏏
I’ve had a bit of the blahs this week, for no particular reason. Then my partner Deb reminded me I’m always a bit gloomy in winter. I respond superbly to sunshine and warm weather. I could never survive far northern parts with little winter daylight.
Damp and warm, there are plenty of these wonderful basket fungus around at the moment.
I ended up almost binge watching the TV show Rita on Netflix, it was so good! One amazing thing is that the ending was superb. So often endings can be a let-down, but this one definitely wasn’t. One important character was Hjørdis, who now has her own spin-off, so that’s next.
The river mouth shone in the morning sun. Meanwhile the sea, rarely mill-pond calm, showed its usual energy.
This week’s SciShow Talk Show Over-Apologizing Less with Vanessa Hill is one for our guinea pig lovers. The interview with Nessy Hill is definitely interesting (she does 1 of my fave shows, Braincraft), but start 14 minutes in for a Patagonian Cavy & piggy. @macgenie 🐹
Good grief, Frogfish are astonishing creatures. This 8 minute video reveals all: Frogfish Have The Fastest Bite In the World
Frogfish ambush and swallow their prey in whole.
But that’s far from all… That hairy looking thing is a female Frogfish, with a male just behind.
It’s been a while since I biked the dogs to the beach. On this mid-winter day that feels more like summer, it was a good opportunity to combine a dog walk and a bike ride. 🐶
I visited our neighbours to the west again and took a photo of our house — the whitish rectangle in the middle of the photo (not the foreground container), with farmland behind and the Tararuas in the distance. Also, bonus photo of Glee the quail, all grown up now.
My online pal Virginia talked up Rita so now I’m watching it. She’s right: it’s a great TV show.
Rita’s a rebel, an anarchist, and a wonderful teacher. She’s a pretty good parent… She’s a train-wreck in the personal realtionships department.
Oh, and she smokes SO much! Photo
Halide is a superb iOS app for taking photos. Except for random times when I’m ‘clicking' away and it fails to save my photos. Like today, after a visit to the neighbour to see the enormous earthworks another neighbour is doing. Suggestions for an alternative? I’m beyond fed up.
In the 70s and 80s I spent a decade teaching teenagers at Ashburton College. It was an S68 plan school. With an opening roll of ~1600 each year it was one of NZ’s 5 biggest schools at the time. 1 photo shows A block where I spent most of my time. #2: aerial view, May 1981.
There’s a colony of pied shags by the river. Photo from last year. Today I recorded them screeching. In the video see the tiny white dots in the trees in the middle — that’s them. It was a shame the sun was right behind them.
I spotted this Southern Bell frog on a tire in the garden this morning. Always happy to find frogs in the garden.
