A slithery visitor...

Hello!

You may have heard. Queensland has been subject to terrible storms bringing high winds and flooding rains. Today we had a sunny day and this fellow decided he needed a little drying out. He took a long nap in the foliage along our back retaining wall.

It's a Carpet Snake, also known as a Carpet Python. He's probably longer than 2 metres if he was stretched out. That would make it an adult. I don't think it is big enough to eat my dog, but I'm not that keen on finding out!  I love Carpet Snakes, they're really beautiful. They're also great for keeping the local rodent population under control. They do have a tendency to steal eggs from hen houses though, so I'm sure my neighbours are glad he is visiting us and not them!

Here is a closer look at his head. The colouring is so beautiful, all olive, bronze, and gold.

I don't think I shared my other snake photos from when the kids discovered the cubby house had a new resident back in October. Here is one.

Thanks for dropping by. I have a couple of weeks off work at the moment, so hopefully I'll be back with more photos sometime soon.

:-)
Michelle

Day 78 - 18 March 2012

Hello!

I can't decide on my photo of the day. My daughter made pancakes for breakfast today. When I started taking pancakes to eat, I found a beaver. Tell me, do you think it looks like a beaver?

Later in the day I was taking the rubbish out. I walked past another giant Golden Orb spider in its web. Lucky for me, the web is not in the pathway. I was struck by how you can actually see that the web is golden. So I took a photo.

It had just started raining, so there were raindrops on the web as well.

I have been fighting a migraine strength headache for four days. I might have to make a trip to the chiropractor or doctor tomorrow. The drugs only work so long - I have been taking rounds of paracetamol, ibuprofen, codeine, antihistamine...sigh! I hope to be back to normal sometime soon.

:-)
Michelle

Day 62 - 2 March 2012

Hello!

You know what? I'm amazed at how well I am going with this daily photo challenge. I had my doubts if I would even make it this far. Taking a photo everyday is quite a challenge! I am having so much fun with it. I have missed a couple of days here and there, but not many, and I'm okay with that.

Day 62 I came back into my garden. The daily photo is of a spider. I don't know for certain what type of spider it is, but I believe it is a Golden Orb. We have them everywhere around here. They are quite large. They don't worry me, other than their huge webs being all over the yard. I'm always walking into the webs, ugh! (I don't like that sticky web feeling all over my face and  head).

This spider was attached to this pretty plant.

Today's added bonus is some night time shots. These are the shots I wanted to take for Carly Robertson's Photo Friday challenge two weeks ago. Two weeks ago the sky was cloudy all week. Last night I was bringing the washing in when I noticed a clear sky. By the time I ran in to get my camera and tripod and got back out, the clouds had started coming over, but I still got a few photos.

Washing line on the left, house on the right, my frangipani and the neighbour's palms along the bottom of the shot. The Southern Cross is under that cloud in the middle of the frame.

Patience won out, and I caught the Southern Cross as the clouds moved around the sky:

:-)
Michelle

Day 61 - 1 March 2012 - a morning in the park

Hello!

I missed Day 60, the 29th of February. Unfortunately it was not a good day for me, and my heart wasn't in photography.  Day 61 was a much better day, and to make up for the missed day, I took LOTS of photos. :-)

I took my little girl and the dog for a walk to the park. They both had a ball.

I let Coco off the leash and she ran all over the park like a crazy-dog. By a miracle, she seems to be getting better at obeying commands, and she didn't chase anyone, didn't chase birds, didn't run across any roads, and she returned when called. Definitely an improvement.

What I didn't notice right away was that under the long grass at the side of the playground was a big pool of water. See the happy tail?

More exploring...

And more... Ooh, I think this is the deepest part of the puddle...

Aahhh, what a relief after that HOT run in the park...

And what she looked like as she happily trotted out of the water:

Yes, it was muddy water.
And as you can see by her face, she really immerses herself into water. I actually think I could train her to be a diving dog, she likes putting her face under water so much.

Definitely a cocker spaniel x poodle, a water dog through and through.

Meanwhile, the little girl had a blast playing on the swings, the slide, and the rocking animals.

I also took many photos of trees. I'll just share two of the close-ups (since this post is already photo heavy for a "photo" a day record, LOL).

I hope you enjoyed our trip to the park as much as we did.

:-)
Michelle

Day 55 - 24 February 2012

Hello!

More rain today. So much rain that the ground is saturated. If you step on the grass, you sink into the water. The worms have deserted the lawn in favour of the driveway. I hope they can go home soon.

Our driveway had about twenty worms on it, not sure that is the safest place to choose to be!

:-)
Michelle

Day 54 - 23 February 2012

Hello!

Today's photo is one of our many magpies that live in our front yard.

He's all puffed up, he must have been feeling slightly chilly. :-)  I just noticed he only had one leg down, too. Maybe he only has one leg?

One day, in the far away future, we will renovate our roof. I'll have to remember to send people back to look at this photo to remember how bad is really was, LOL! Our roof is actually "white", but the white has worn off most of it over the past 37 years of its existence. Just one of the many renovation projects we have on our list...

Two other photos, because I can't resist sharing our amazing clouds and sunsets lately. First the sunset photo. I got lots of these. Spectacular colours and clouds. No editing again on the sunset, I can't improve them.

 Doesn't this cloudy sky look fake? If you painted it, people would tell you it didn't look real.

I did edit the clouds - just changed the levels a bit, if I remember correctly.

:-)
Michelle

Day 36 - 5 February 2012 - Animals

Hello!

Day 36 is also my entry into Photo Friday Challenge for this week. The theme this week is animals. Today I had photographic frenzy trying to capture an animal. First I'll start with my actual final photo... then I'll show you the runners-up, LOL!

Here is my dog, Coco, my gorgeous spoodle (aka a cockapoo).

I'll show you a quick selection of the photos I took to try to capture her. This is only a few of the many:

Can you tell she doesn't sit still?

Here are my other animal subjects of today.
My daughter's fish, Bubbles:

Our budgie, Sunny:

And my friend's guinea pigs, and I forget their names for the moment, Sunshine and Princess?

The guinea pigs were funny. They were outside their cage and chewing the bars to try to get back inside.

It was a fun day, thanks for the theme this week, Carly, I really enjoyed it.

:-)
Michelle