Each month, Jude hosts a colour challenge, Life in Colour. The colour for November is black and/or grey.
This may be my last contribution to this month’s colour challenge. Or possibly not if the sky keeps crying. Today, I have four photos to share. Three were taken by my True Love. I managed only one which is a damn sight more than was achieved at Cop26.
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Welcome to my regular Friday song/tune day, ladies and gentlemen, where I pick a piece of music that reflects my mood or the times, to share with you.
Today I met up with friends for coffee. It was the first time we had coffeed for about six months due to Covid restrictions. It took me a while to engage my mouth again. It worked. 95.8% of Canberrans over 12 years of age are now double-vaxed so more and more restrictions are being removed. To our north, Sydneysiders are also achieving high vaccination levels. Hence, double-vaxed Sydneysiders can now travel to Canberra (Australia).
Anyway, my friends and I did some e-bike baby-sitting for a lady who had come down from Sydney. Unfortunately, I didn’t ask her name but I do know the name of her dog. It’s Evie and Evie is a miniature Schnauzer. The two of them decided to hire an e-bike and go for a ride. Evie rode pillion in her mum’s backpack. It was Evie’s first time riding pillion. She was a little champion. Naturally, I had to take a couple of photos.
Read moreLast week we rescued a magpie chick that had become caught in the dog fence while most likely fleeing from our dog. We were so happy and relieved when we saw the the magpie family of five down the street at the park. The injured chick had recovered sufficiently to be released and was successfully reunited with its family. Unfortunately, this afternoon my True Love picked up a dead magpie chick on the side of the road near our house. It had been struck by a car. Many young birds die this way each year. Hopefully it died quickly.
Each month, Jude hosts a colour challenge. The colour for November is black. Or grey. What about black and grey? Or black and/or grey. Oh dear. Life is complicated. I’m in a muddle. The crested pigeon is nominally grey but is black and grey up close. See.
My head hurts.
Kind Regards.
Tracy.
Welcome to my regular Friday song/tune day, ladies and gentlemen, where I pick a piece of music that reflects my mood or the times, to share with you.
There was a huge commotion in the backyard late this afternoon. Birds were screeching. Ama launched herself at high speed hoping to join the fray. My True Love beat her to it. One of the three magpie chicks had caught its wing in the dog fence, possibly trying to escape our big dog, Makea. Maybe the chick was already trapped before Makea arrived on the scene to complicate matters. The other magpies were screeching overhead and swooping to fend off the attackers. My True Love untangled its wing and popped it over the dog fence but it was injured and unable to fly.
In Canberra, we have this marvelous system where all vets provide a community service by treating injured wildlife. I was in two minds about whether to separate the maggie chick from its family and take it to the vet. It was pouring rain, the little bird was sodden and hurt, and of course, there was Clyde, our neighbour’s evil, cat to worry about. So My True Love and I reluctantly boxed it up and took it in. All going well, the chick should go to the wildlife carer tomorrow before being released back in the vicinity when it fully recovers. We hope its parents accept it back into the family again.
We are all in shock. We wonder whether we are now off the magpie family’s Christmas card list and will become swooping targets in future. Maybe the chick will become a swooper due to the trauma. Maybe I shouldn’t worry so much about evil Clyde and worry more about my own evil hounds. It is notable that Fynnie, our male dog, remained inside during all the commotion. As far as he is concerned, traipsing around in the rain is strictly for the birds.
How shattered ma and pa magpie must be right now! It breaks my heart. What song could possibly convey that? I dunno, but I am going with Lullaby of Birdland, performed by Andrea Motis, Joan Chamorro, Scott Hamilton and Ignasi Terraza (the latter playing a very special introduction).
Take care, everyone. Try not to worry.
Kind Regards.
Tracy.
Canberra (Australia) – Mid spring and all systems go.
We had the luck of the Ken Behrens this month. Canberra avoided the damaging storms and tornadoes that have hit other parts of eastern Australia. Daily infections of Covid in the city dropped to single digits on the back of the highest vaccination rate in Australia. Non-essential retail businesses have begun to open for in-store shopping bringing joy to Canberra shopaholics. Students began returning to schools and next month, more people will be back in the office. Excitedly, Canberra is ready to welcome back travellers from other parts of Australia and from overseas. It was a good month for plants and animals too, and, of course, I was delighted about the return of daylight savings and warmer temperatures (albeit some days have been freezing). It was all systems go on my mosaic project too.
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Such is the duality of ethical debates.
Both sides can use the same arguments
to justify their position.
Welcome to my regular Friday song/tune day, ladies and gentlemen, where I pick a piece of music that reflects my mood or the times, to share with you.
To travel to my home town, the place of my birth, would take a number of days by car. For a family with small children that journey would likely stretch to over a week. When I was a child, the cost of plane fares was also exorbitant, hence our family rarely visited our relatives in Far North Queensland. I remember a special occasion when our family did make the trip by plane. Perhaps it was my first plane trip. It was very exciting.
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This week’s theme for the Lens Artists Photo Challenge is Weird And Wonderful. I don’t often participate in the Lens Artists challenge these days as I am too busy working on a major project, however this theme is right up my alley.
Speaking of alley, here is an alley cat. I’m not a fan of cats. These next two photos aren’t my best photos because it was quite dark and my camera doesn’t like to focus on a moving subject in low light. She was a weird one. She gnashed her terrible teeth and dreamt of small birds.
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Welcome to my regular Friday song/tune day, ladies and gentlemen, where I pick a piece of music that reflects my mood or the times, to share with you.
Canberra’s coronavirus restrictions were eased slightly at the end of last week and will be further eased at the end of this week. Some restrictions will remain but we can now connect again with friends and family, albeit in small numbers. Stay-at-home provisions have applied since Delta arrived here nine weeks ago. During that time, I have taken great comfort from the competent, calm, compassionate and informative approach of public health officials in our local government. The health team and the government could not have been any clearer about what they needed us to do, and because no sector of the community were given preferential treatment over another, Ken Behrens* largely did what was asked of us. I think it is fair to say that at times our Chief Health Officer, Dr Kerryn Coleman, outshone others in the spotlight. I’m such a fan.
One of the many strategies to help us open safely has been to get as many Canberrans vaccinated as quickly as possible. Just prior to lockdown, approximately 48 percent of the Canberra population over 12 years of age had had one dose of one of the Covid vaccines, while just shy of 25 percent of us were fully vaccinated. Now 98 percent of us have had one dose and 83 percent of eligible Canberrans are already fully vaccinated. Howzat! Thankfully the rest of Australia is not far behind us. Unfortunately, a small number of Canberrans have died over this period and our hearts go out to their families. The vaccines are very effective but as we have learned there still can be breakthrough infections. There is also likely a growing group of Canberrans whose vaccine protection is waning and who, therefore, will need to get a top up quite soon. It does sound like there will be no rest yet for the public health team and frontline health workers who have been working so tirelessly to keep us safe.
Today, my shout-out is to Canberra’s health workers, and Dr Coleman in particular. Thanks for caring. As Dr Coleman is originally a sand-groper (that is, someone from Western Australia), I thought I would choose my Friday song from a singer/songwriter from that state. Today, I have chosen Andrew Winton, performing his song Number’s Down. How apt, don’t you think? The chorus is very easy, so sing it with me.
Take care, everyone.
Kind Regards.
Tracy.
* Each day over the last nine weeks, members of the ACT government have held a press conference to keep Canberrans informed of how the Delta outbreak was unfolding and the necessary steps to keep us safe. During one of these press conferences, there was a sub-titling error that referred to Canberrans as Ken Behrens and henceforth the name has been adopted wholeheartedly by the Canberra community.
Reflections of An Untidy Mind 