Water dragon with a dummy...

This was hilarious - Iona dropped a dummy over the side of the verandah and one of the many water dragons living in our garden picked it up and held it in his mouth for a good 15 minutes!! The Manly Daily published the photo when we sent it in that evening!

Here is Pumpkin in her element, hooning down the middle creek.

Chook pens and the team...

Iona always manages to step out in style when crossing the paddock to check on what Dad and her brothers are building. This day they converted the small feeding shed into a fairly snake-proof/fox proof night enclosure for the chooks. Arthur built a 2nd nesting box and the chooks took to laying eggs in it within 48 hours. A happy, tired team pictured with Dunc below.

Wildlife living in our garden...etc

Some of the critters that share our garden with us have been photographed this week and are shown below including skinks, geckos, turtles, water dragons, superb fairy wrens, kookaburras, ducks and ducklings (these have diminished from seven ducklings to one in just a few days due to crows plucking them out of the paddock sadly) and a tawny frog-mouthed owl! The most alarming one was the two metre long red bellied black snake which crossed the grass, slithered into the middle creek (which Pumpkin loves to run along!) and slid off down the tunnel and out of the property with ALL of us watching as it went! No photo of this but it is true!

Things being done to the house...

The outside of the studio has now been cleared, verandah made safe and painted, two bedrooms added inside (alas no bathroom yet and not for some time!) and is a lovely separate space from the cacophony of life in the main house.

Below you can see the new vertical railings on the verandah of the main house which have been painted this week.

Fencing of the dodgy bits of the creek began yesterday. Lots of it will remain open but the bits that turn to white water rapids (literally!!) after heavy rain/storm water will be contained soon.

Two cheeky girls up to no good under my bed!

A loving moment between them afterwards.

September 2010 antics...

Barney was awarded 'Best Back' in his Under 7s Forestville Ferrets Rugby League team this season. Even his coach admitted that Barney the clown's ability to always make him laugh had made a huge difference to the mood of the team.

Iona, soon to be two in October, is growing up so quickly.

This water dragon is one of our garden residents. His mate was sitting just close to the log when I took this photo from the verandah above.

A quick cuddle with Pumpkin always proves to be the best medicine for all of us.

Two August birthdays...

Fenna turned 19 on 9th August.

No prizes for how old Dunc was turning this year!

Finally moved into the new house!!

We moved on 20th August and it feels amazing to be here. The chooks are still in their temporary home (redundant double rabbit cage) until we build them a fox proof pen attached to the feeding sheds at the end of the back paddock. They will roam freely during the day and be tucked away each evening. The eggs that we get from four chooks is just enough for our weekly requirement but we will soon get more chooks and start selling eggs to friends/school parents.

Arthur tows logs from the back paddock to the house for our fire, here he is giving his siblings a quick ride.

I love this photo of Barn and Tenzin in their thermal jarmies with Pumpkin on day two in the new house. It is very cold at night as we are down in a valley so log fires most evenings are still being enjoyed although Spring is officially here.

The house with its new vertical verandah palings before they were painted.