9 Moons Ago

  

And Happy Birthday, Aunt Beth! And to Chhavy, for the 9th!

Can’t believe how long it’s been since I last wrote an entry! We’ve just been having too much fun (and drama) this year, so I’ve got lots of pictures for entries that never got around to being written! They may still appear on the scene sometime in the future though.

This past weekend, we visited good friends at Worco, celebrated the birthday of Cameron’s niece, Melissa, and then we took Ebony on a 2 hours trip up to the Aussie bushland to visit Alastair and his wife at their cottage at “Bonnie Doon”. We hadn’t expected the invitation and didn’t have the camera with us that day, so no pictures – and it’s a shame because it was a stunning site! A whole new landscape of Australia that I’d never seen. (I will write more about it another time.)

For those of you whom I’ve already notified about my new flickr account, forget, for a moment, that rubbish I was saying about less photos on this site.
Here’s are some pictures of the Bonnie Doon area that I just snagged from the internet:

However, I took pictures for today’s entry personally, a couple of days ago!
After two years, I finally got some better shots of a local kangaroo. He’s part of the mob that has recently been grazing in our front yard!:

And, here are a few fun shots of me and my hound-y crew, taken by the lovely Cameron McCamster:

Well, it’s late and I’m tired, so I’ll save the rest for another time.
Have a wonderful weekend!

  

Wrote this entry a couple of days ago, but have been too busy to post it.
Hope everyone is well. We are on the mend. I still have a bit of a sore throat tonight, but have more energy and am thankful for the gorgeous weather we’ve been having. More walks in the fields with the dogs. Cam has been feeling much better. Visits with friends and family, and plans for more this week. I can feel Spring in the air too. Thank goodness!

I’ll be in touch. This site seems to be behaving itself once again, (knock on wood!)

Here’s what I wrote on Thursday:

A few days ago I started feeling good enough to walk the dogs in the paddocks (fields) adjoining our yard. Saw droppings that I didn’t recognize -being the talented bush tracker that I am now (Well, I DO know what wombat scat looks like)- and told Cam about them. He said it sounded like Kangaroo, which is what I’d suspected. Yesterday, while taking laundry down from the line in the early evening, I happened to look up past the pond when Goldie started barking. Lo and behold, a kangaroo was sitting right past the pond (known here as a dam), staring over at us. WOW! So I scurried the dogs inside, and told Cam to come out with the camera. We didn’t get any new pictures, because the ‘Roos were quite fast as they bounded to the larger pond/dam down the hill. But what a sight to see them along the horizon! I’m glad we watched it rather than waste time trying to get a good shot!

Here is where I first saw them:

The weather has been warming up enough to make things more bearable. I’m still on antibiotics, still have a sore throat, still lethargic, but feeling wonderful in spirit, nonetheless. Although last night I went to bed very early, and very grumpy because I’m tired of being sick!!!

Today, this poem resonated deeply with me:

Starfish

This is what life does. It lets you walk up to
the store to buy breakfast and the paper, on a
stiff knee. It lets you choose the way you have
your eggs, your coffee. Then it sits a fisherman
down beside you at the counter who says, Last night,
the channel was full of starfish. And you wonder,
is this a message, finally, or just another day?

Life lets you take the dog for a walk down to the
pond, where whole generations of biological
processes are boiling beneath the mud. Reeds
speak to you of the natural world: they whisper,
they sing. And herons pass by. Are you old
enough to appreciate the moment? Too old?
There is movement beneath the water, but it
may be nothing. There may be nothing going on.

And then life suggests that you remember the
years you ran around, the years you developed
a shocking lifestyle, advocated careless abandon,
owned a chilly heart. Upon reflection, you are
genuinely surprised to find how quiet you have
become. And then life lets you go home to think
about all this. Which you do, for quite a long time.
Later, you wake up beside your old love, the one
who never had any conditions, the one who waited
you out. This is life’s way of letting you know that
you are lucky. (It won’t give you smart or brave,
so you’ll have to settle for lucky.) Because you
were born at a good time. Because you were able
to listen when people spoke to you. Because you
stopped when you should have and started again.
So life lets you have a sandwich, and pie for your
late night dessert. (Pie for the dog, as well.) And
then life sends you back to bed, to dreamland,
while outside, the starfish drift through the channel,
with smiles on their starry faces as they head
out to deep water, to the far and boundless sea.

- Eleanor Lerman

Some more recent pictures. I’ve been snap-happy again:

Our “front yard” :

Our “back yard”:

The large pond/dam at the bottom of the hill. (Just past the property we’re on):

Goldie wandering by the banks of the large pond:

My self portrait, taken in reflection of outside of the studio window. (A bit hard to tell, but the smaller pond is in the background. Because of the drought, water levels are quite low. Last summer there was no water in it at all, but it’s recovered a little this winter.):

Gorgeous irises from Cameron on my bedside windowsill:

Iris detail:

The wonderful moon through the tall eucalyptus trees at dusk:

Here I am painting, in the cheery yellow knit hat that Christine gave to me the other week:

And, I’ve saved the best for last!
The whole family had to try on this fuzzy “dandelion” hat! Tee Hee!:

  

If you don’t like listening to your grandmother tell you about all her aches and pains and brushes with death, please skip over this first section right now. It’ll save you the boredom. I’ll put several asterisks where you’ll want to actually start reading:

Well, things have settled down a bit now, just in time for the weekend. I don’t know where I left off in the saga, but in recent days Cam had his surgery bumped up, after a rush into the emergency room when he developed severe pains. They gave him prescriptions for any future pain and/or nausea. We’ll just skim over the part where the peppermint tea that I gave him for the nausea made him break out in huge hives.

Then my Father-in-Law and I developed the tonsillitis that Ebony had the week before. We were particularly worried about Dad since he hadn’t eaten for four days, and already deals with emphysema. We bought him medical-type electrolyte drinks to help him replace his potassium, salt, glucose, etc. Heard yesterday that he’s feeling much better and ate three regular meals. Huge relief.

I fell sick on Wednesday, and planned to go to the doctor if I didn’t feel better by Monday. By Sunday night I was out of cold & flu meds, and so I took a couple of Panadeine Forte (aka Tylenol w/ codeine) to help me sleep. Or so I thought. Ha ha ha. I’d had it before, with no ill effects, and much sweet sleepiness. But twenty minutes after taking it, I told Cam that there was a slight heaviness in my chest.. not sharp..but a definite heart area pain. I propped myself up on pillows and felt better, then was able to sleep. A couple of hours later I got up, feeling quite hungry since I hadn’t eaten much the last few days. Standing in front of the open fridge, trying to figure out a quick snack, I started to get cramps, then chest pains which sent me running back into the bedroom. Cam was sleeping, but in a few minutes I was in so much pain that I was moaning out loud and rolling around in the bed. Then it got worse. REALLY REALLY REALLY worse.

I can honestly say that it was the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my entire life. I was literally screaming and rolling off the bed to lay on the brick floor to cool off. (The floor, when in the winter -which it is here- is the same temperature as a bag of frozen peas.) I yelled for Cam to call the ambulance and he stood in a stupor trying to figure out what was going on, but he sensed that it was a definite emergency. I was trying my hardest not to panic and to take deep breaths, but when you feel like you might literally die at any moment, well, that’s not the easiest thing in the world.

To cut to the chase, after the paramedics came and checked me out, and my pain had gone, it was very anticlimactic. They couldn’t find anything wrong, and they figured it was most likely the codeine on an empty stomach which did it. It was so weird.
They were very helpful, but I felt like “Hey! I didn’t imagine how bad that was! WORST. PAIN. EVER.”

Good thing: No pain or symptoms since, saw the doc on Monday, and no more sore throat either since I’ve been on antibiotics for several days now.

*****READ********READ******READ*******READ*****

After all that, Wendy took me out for karaoke on Thursday, and I totally KILLED “Man on the Moon”. Not in the good way. It was incredibly evil.
I told her it’s a date for next week too, and I’ll pick a more forgiving song! Any suggestions?

Now…

On the road in front of our house we actually have a sign that looks like this:

I know. It rocks.

On walks with Gus, I’ve sometimes spotted kangaroos. And it is pretty amazing. The kind we see around here is called “Eastern Grey” and they are smaller than the Red ones with which most people are more familiar. Because of new development in the area, we see them less frequently now, but there is still a lot of undeveloped land here, with this property totaling 38 acres, and even more acreage of natural bush at Sue and Murray’s orchard across the road. (We’re situated on the edge of National park land, five minutes from the Yarra River.)

On my first visit here in 2001, Cameron and I, and some other family members accidentally came across a kangaroo in a grove of trees, at a park. We were two feet away from her, wondering why she was huddled close to the ground without moving, when we saw that she had a joey in her pouch. It was so funny because he was upside down at first, with his feet sticking out, and had to turn himself around before she bounded away. Quite thrilling!
This isn’t them, but it’s the same “Eastern Grey” species:

I was organizing photos today, when I saw something which totally surprised me. A couple of years ago, I was amazed to look up from my desk in the early morning to see a mob of kangaroos grazing just behind the wire fence in our backyard. I grabbed the camera and got a couple of hasty shots before they saw me. All this time, I thought both pictures were too grainy and blurry to make out much of anything.
Turns out that my efforts were better than I thought!

I bring you our friendly neighborhood ‘Roos!:

Now, Kathy, Dan, anyone who knows Kristan, print these pictures out and give them to her! I promised her pictures of a kangaroo about 5 years ago, just never knew I’d take them from MY OWN HOUSE!

  

Gus has been feeling better and wanted to thank everyone for the well-wishes and love. Here he is bird-watching and enjoying the fresh air in Mum and Dad’s backyard this past weekend:

I tried to get a picture of the rainbow-lorikeet parrots in the apple tree, but they were being camera-shy.

Yesterday I had a doctor appointment near the city and afterwards Cam surprised me by taking a detour on the way home…to the beach! YAY. It was a beautiful day..sunny, but with a nice cool breeze. We went to Elwood Beach which is a large bay area, where you can see the city skyline on one side and gorgeous large houses on the other side. The water was deep blue and sparkly, contrasting greatly with the white caps of the waves.

There were a few people there, but it was nice and quiet. There was a couple walking with their baby daughter who was wearing a bright green sweatshirt and a diaper. She loved splashing her feet in the water and kept wobbling and falling in the sand with a big smile on her face.

After I waded for a bit and picked up some shells and sea glass, Cam and I went to a cafe for lunch where we had a seat overlooking the beach and water. It was so beautiful. And the lunch was delicious. I had beer battered fish and chips, and a cranberry juice. We watched a group of children on the beach who had just walked over from a school or daycare.

Though we didn’t have the camera with us, I found some pictures on a tourist site of an area very close to where we were. I am still amazed by the palm trees here, after all these years!:

For some more gorgeous shots of the area, go here: Elwood Beach.

I’ll take these shells back next time we visit and exchange them for a new handful:

It was great to see the ocean again! I’m sure we’ll get there again before the cold weather hits.

Otherwise, things are busy as usual, but good. If I don’t appear with a new post before next week, have a happy Easter!