Earthquakes

This morning we were woken at 5.30 am (way too early) by an earthquake in Arthur River, which is approximately 125 k's from where we live.   This is the second earthquake we've noticed (or more correctly R has noticed) although there have been more than 40.

R noticed an earth quake earlier in the month which I was oblivious too.  Now here's the thing, I got woken by the rattling of something or other on our house that was caused by the earthquake. R, on the other hand, woke up slightly before me because he heard the earthquake. That is he heard a very faint rumbling sort of sound. This is how he knew about the earlier earthquake. Others who live a long way from the epicentre (Busselton and Albany for example) have also reported hearing the earthquake. So, how is it that R can hear an earthquake 125 ks away but can't hear me when I'm sitting right next to him 😂. Just saying!!

According to the ABC News, there have been more than 40 earthquakes in Arthur River in the last three weeks.  According to those in the know, this is known as an earthquake swarm.  Personally, I think I'd rather deal with a swarm of bees.  

On the Subject of Critters

In the 18 months or so we've been living in our lovely new home in the South West we've had to chase out more critters from the house than we did in the 30 plus years we lived in Greenmount.  The creatures in Greenmount were apparently better versed at the difference between the indoors and outdoors, with the exception of one blue tongue which clearly got himself very lost.  Here, they struggle to distinguish between the two.   We've had an endless variety of frogs (and yes, one has been on the toilet seat and I'm not sure who got more of a fright, the frog or R),  an array of insects including beetles, millipedes, midgies, moths, butterflies and others we've not been able to identify (they have alarming orange bits on them and look slightly like something that came back with Dr Who) along with an endless amount of spiders, most of which are completely harmless. In fact, if you sit still for more than five minutes it's guaranteed you'll end up with at least one web stretching from your shoulder to the nearest sofa arm or window.  Oh and one (yes one) mosquito. I know there has only been one because the sodding thing bit me and I am a veritable mosquito magnet.  

R has become an adept hero-esque catcher  and re-locater of a variety of critters to the outdoors,  with the aid of his trusty Critter Catcher (known to us mere mortals as an ice-cream container).  I'm pretty handy with a cob-web broom, albeit the spiders seem largely unperturbed by my efforts.  

Probably the most unusual critters we've had to chase out of the house have been two micro bats.  I'm not sure what sort of micro bats they were, they wouldn't sit still long enough for us to ask.  There are several species that are native to this part of the world.  I googled to see what I could find out and there are lots of images if you want to see what a micro bat looks like (pretty much like most bats).  But here's an interesting fact, according to Zoologist Tony Hodge (and he should know, he is a Zoologist) bats' closest living relatives are horses and rhinoceros.  True! They're quite tricky to get out of the house as they flit all over the place. The second one took the combined effort of four of us (luckily our friends G and J were staying with us for the night). 

We've also had the pleasure of lots of critters in the garden, although sadly no Quendas. We really miss the antics of our Quenda families in the Perth Hills.  We've had lots of little lizards and one big one.  Thankfully he didn't come inside the house.  I'm pretty sure he would have been chasing us out.  I'm not a lizard expert but I think he is a monitor lizard.   He is a handsome fellow. 

The most annoying critters to date is the rabbits. They pulled up, ate and ring barked a very large percentage of new plants we put in our garden in a very short space of time.  Although, they didn't touch the lettuce. Not one teeny little nibble.  And it was lovely lettuce too. I'm slightly offended by  their refusal to partake.  Now everything we put in the ground has a tree guard put around it.  Which has worked...somewhat. 

We have also heard from our neighbours that there are deer in the forests, which sometimes come down on to the paddocks and wild pigs, which thankfully don't.  The deer, local legend has it, were released from a deer farm that went bust some years back and have continued to breed in the forest.  I do believe our lovely family in Williams had a deer trying to disguise itself as a cow in order to go unnoticed on their property (epic fail deer!). I wonder if they've spread from here or escaped from somewhere else.

We do get kangaroos feasting on our lawn on a regular basis, especially after this long week of hot days (boo hiss to those, the long days not the kangaroos).  But the most exciting thing we've seen is an emu and her chicks  (six or seven of them) which we spotted at the end of the gravel road on our way home from work one evening.  How excited were we! Very!! They move so quickly and we couldn't get a snap.  But we'll have the memory for a long time to come. 

On an unrelated topic, a few blogs back I was lamenting the loss of our roses with that first unseasonal burst of really hot days that hit us even before Sumer had arrived.  I tip pruned all of the roses and I'm pleased to say, they've all produce a new and very bountiful flush.  Yay!  

And just to end on a joke (which I stole from the internet).  Last night my mouse Elvis died.  He was caught in a trap. Ba boom!!

I'll write again soon. Until then, take care and stay safe. 

A Sighting?

Last night R went out, in the dark, to retrieve his torch which he left in the paddock. He heard something rustling in the grass and turned his torch to the sound.  And, based on the description he gave me, he saw one of these:

This is a Western Quoll or Chuditch.  We've been told by the previous owners that the Quolls are living in the forest across the road from us.  They liked to feast on their chickens until they electrified the fence for the coop.  

Sadly their numbers are declining as foxes and feral cats like to eat them. But there are a bunch of conservation programmes in place. Hopefully this will get them off the endangered list. 

Hopefully next time R sees one, he'll have his camera handy. Fingers crossed everyone. 

Our Veg Patch

Last year we created a bit of a veg patch up on the bank at the back of the house.  Mostly because there were already potatoes growing there and the reticulation was set up.  Actually, there was a ridiculous amount of potatoes.  And they're still popping up randomly.  I think we're going to have potatoes  for a many years to come yet.  Just as well we love potatoes. But I digress. This year we decided we'd get our act together and establish a veg patch inside the shade house.  We'd already got some seedlings growing in seed raising trays (kindly left behind by M&J) so we had to create somewhere for them to be planted.  

If you want to get fit and have some fun (???) at the same time, I recommend creating your own veg patch.  To create ours, I dug each row over to break up the clay a bit.  Then I dug it all over again, this time adding clay breaker.  Then I added soil, digging it all over again.  After that, because I was really into digging now (not!!) I dug in a mix of cow, sheep and chicken poo.  And then, a final flourish with a layer of our very own, homemade mulch.  This is our first ever successful mulch. We owe thanks to the mountains (okay, small mounds) of dried leaves from the English Plane trees which make a most excellent dry layer.  Back to the digging.  Being mindful of my back, I used my legs. Each row was about 15 squats and I did about 20 rows for the entire bed  That's a lot of squats. Any personal trainer would be impressed with the number, although perhaps not the quality or speed.   Way cheaper than gym fees too.  

Anyway, at the end of that we had some pretty decent soil, which will no doubt improve over the years t.  So the lovely R added some reticulation , utilising what was left in the hot house by M&J.  And the end result of all that hard work is a bona fide vegetable patch.  This is the patch.  You can see the veg are doing quite well in it.  We planted them about two to three weeks ago.   We've put in several varieties of tomatoes, lettuce and corn.  We tried some "year round" cauliflowers but they got eaten by something.  Oh and a couple of volunteer pumpkins have appeared.  We also created a strawberry patch in the raised metal ring. We've been enjoying the tastiest strawberries from that.  Not big in numbers or size but definitely big on taste.

We were so impressed with our first effort that we decided we would dig another veg bed.  The first bed I dug over in Spring. We had plenty of rain in Spring and, while it was hard slog, it was possible to get the spade into the clay.  No such luck this time.  I jumped up and down on that spade (and, those of you who know me know I'm no  light weight!).  I'd have been lucky to get half a centimetre into the  soil.  It wasn't even enough for the spade to stand up by itself.  R, seeing my struggle, got the old pick axe out.  We have a lot of experience digging in clay at our old home in Greenmount where the faithful pick axe always worked.  Not this time.  R wielded that pick axe with as much force as he could muster and got to about the depth of half a spade.  I confess, we gave up.  Luckily for us, we had 10 mms of summer rain a few days later.   We were out in the shade house the very first thing the following day, digging the bed over.  And in a few short (okay, long) hours, wullah, one new garden bed.  

This second patch has climbing beans, bush beans, snow peas, cucumbers and more corn in it.  We've re-purposed some of the poly pipe lying about the place (there is oodles of it) and blue bailing twine.  You know the blue twine right?. Every farmer in Australia seems to have acres of the stuff which gets used for a multitude of purposes, some of which it was not intended for.   We strung the string between the poly pipe for the beans to climb up.    It feels good to use what we have instead of rushing out and buying more stuff.  Yay us. 

We are not putting in any more beds until we've had the first of this years rain.  We're looking forward to enjoying the veg we have planted.  We're a little overwhelmed by the amount of lettuce though. There is only so much lettuce a human can eat.  I keep picking and picking and picking and thinking to myself, "It will be another week until we can pick some more".  Nope, the next day they look just as big and full of leaves as they did the day before.  They're frighteningly prolific lettuces.   I'm hoping to get enough tomatoes to make a batch of sauce again. But if the tomato plants are as productive as the lettuces, we could be in trouble.  You may visit to find us buried under a mound of squishy red stuff. Maybe there will be enough cucumbers to make some of Mum's bread and butter pickles too. Yum.   The weather is so hot this year it's hard to know if we'll get anything else from the patch at all. Except lettuce.  And more lettuce. And then, lettuce.   

Oh, very excitingly, we each had a nectarine off our tree today.  Our first fruit from the new orchard (not counting the berries).  They were small and a little misshapen but oh so tasty.  And a very different flavour than the ones we're used to getting from the shop.  More florally. I suspect they're a different variety all together.  Looking forward to sharing those with everyone next year when we will hopefully have a lot more to pick.

Now, what do we do with that seedling tray of chilli and capsicums with not a hint of rain in sight???