A Parlour for a Plague

Thanks! I can weather the pay cut OK, but it's going to be tough on a lot
of folks who are already living close to the edge.

YeeWan, Rhys and I took a walk around Horn Pond in Woburn this afternoon.
It's a pleasant walk, two miles to go around. It's always been a popular
walk, bu now more than ever. Today is cold and windy so not as many
people out.

Most people were keeping social distance, but not everyone. We saw one
chatty gaggle of ladies walking four abreast, each with a capped mug of
coffee in hand.

And yes I snickered when I wrote "four abreast".

Thanks for the reminders, guys . . . I've got some vitamin D tablets . . . somewhere . . . maybe they're upstairs.

I live about a five or ten minute drive from Montgomery County. My wife just informed me she read that Mongomery County has called off the fight against the virus. No social distancing, masks - No nothing. I have to go look for details to find out how much of this is true.

So much for sensationalist headlines. The body of the article notes that the county still must follow the governor and the president's orders.

On Tuesday I did a big shop at the Asda just outside the city.

One thing I could not get were eggs.

I live in a multicultural part of town with lots of different ethnic minority shops. There’s no problems getting eggs there.

Our eggs are not so abundant, but I have been able to find enough. Good thing. I eat lots of them.

These shops are a goldmine, I have no problems getting eggs, unlike the bloody racists.

Racists miss out on so much in life.

Hmmm . . . we need eggs.

I read that Texas is planning to "open up" soon.

They are edging closer.

Re changes after covid....I am extremely disturbed to see this already becoming “militarised” as a nation state/ideological war.

Like the virus gives a ****.

After an appallingly lazy day yesterday, I have managed to achieve some things today.

Managed to move two extremely heavy cement paving stones from my back door step where they were exuding clumps of heavy clay soil to a temporary home in the back garden bed, by flipping them over until they got there. Swept back door area.

Managed to wrestle large terracotta pot from car to position in front yard.

Then felt awful because the enormous ant colony who live under the old and disintegrating pot that was (almost) holding my lemon tree and who, like we humans, felt their fragile and contingent life there was safe and permanent, had carefully moved all their unhatched young up to the surface where it was warm.

I had to drag the old pot away and drag the new one into position, destroying much that they held dear in the process.

I have to say some of the wildlife this manoeuvre revealed were both unknown and disturbing. GIANT larvae...of what I know not!

Anyway, lemon is repotted, front garden watered, including climbers in pots destined for the back enclosure, once it is paved and ladder moved to back to begin oiling the wooden structure.

Cat door goes into back door on Monday and paving starts on Friday

On a sad note, I didn’t go out the front door until after 1.00 pm, only to find that the order of vegetables that I had expected next Saturday, leading me to go and stock up on veg yesterday, were delivered sometime this morning

I fear my salad greens are cooked. Schniff. Plus I have a surfeit of greens that barely fit in the fridge. My wilted basil is hovering between life and death in a glass. I see basil in my near future!

e would hear all these wildlife stories about Australia that were probably created to keep settlers away. All I know is what Bill Bryson said about wildlife in cities.
So I think I asked you before, you do NOT have great invasions of funnel webs , taipans or flesh eating marsupials in your garden. I did some assignments looking for dry lake REE and

Lithium deposits in S Cenral Australia years ago and we saw all kinds of killer wildlife.

Our wild life is relatively tame...no Sydney funnelwebs. Only our red back could kill and they are peaceful, unless you’re prey.

Our snakes can certainly kill, but generally don’t.

The larvae may have been cicadas...not sure but left them alone. All I ask is that they don’t eat the house. Good to see lots of black ants everywhere because they tend to kill white ants.

Our marsupials are harmless unless greatly annoyed.

I was helping water the new plants in the chook Orchard on Thursday and the number of ant nests amazed me. What on earth they are living on in such numbers beggars belief. Also noticed a lot of trap door spider holes. You certainly don’t want to annoy our big ants then fail to move away rapidly. They come boiling up out of the ground in hordes and their bites are extremely painful.

There were lots of non marsupial mice in the chook orchard, noticed only by me, because I am very fond of mice.

I’m pleased that the chook paddock is being quite densely planted with a mixture of natives and tough fruit trees, like figs. Great carbon sink, great for the water catchment, great for native wildlife and providing places for the chooks to avoid the birds of prey

Our bird life is lovely. Except for the pigeons and the huge flock of corellas that targets us for a few months in its diurnal rounds. The corellas are actually wonderful birds, but their numbers are such that they slowly destroy the very trees they feed from and the noise is ear shattering.

We have lots of frogs and native and European bees. We have a village fox, visiting feral cats and hordes of rabbits that sadly have to be destroyed as much as possible. Our farm area has fencing to keep rabbits and foxes out and has an electric wire to discourage feral cats and humans.

What killer wild life did you see in central Australia? I can only think of snakes and crocs in the tropics. The biggest predator is the dingo and they generally leave people alone, unless overly habituated.

I’ve spent ages up there and only felt the need to look out for snakes.

We were in South Australia. It was, to me, South Central but you guys call it South.

Snakes , we had em all. We spent much of our time with sampling trailers and caravans in which to live. Every morning wed have some knowledgeable guy sweep around the trailer doors because little browns and other things would hang up in the wrought iron to warm up I guess.

When we went afield it was always booted up with chaps cause some of the old lake beds had dry grasses and we see guanas and a longer green snake (I forget what they called it)
I only ever saw one salty down there and that was in a zoo when we left Perth

We wre postd nar Mt Woodroffe?? (sp?) It was kinda dry where we were

Chaps! I wouldn’t walk in open toe shoes, but chaps is ridiculous

Wouldn’t leave shoes outside, either.

Goannas won’t hurt you, unless you seriously annoy them.

That’s in the South Australian bit of the APY lands. It’s aboriginal land stretching through three states.

I’ve spent months up there and never seen a snake.

The baby ones can be a pain because they haven’t learned when humans are about and how to avoid us, but I’m thinking you maybe got teased a bit about the dangers!

in any snake country here your loaded with gar and gizmos, chps are a major boone. Ours are made of tyveck and thin layers of Corfam (An old Dupont product that made shod that nver broke in or briefcases that never showed marks. We have it as strips along the hels of our timberlines