Sea Turtle Hospital

This is one very sick green sea turtle. It has had surgery and hopefully will make a full recovery.





This one is now healthy and being fattened up for release.

Sea Turtle Hospital - Green Sea Turtles

How gorgeous are these little hospital patients.
Recently had a tour of a rescue organisation and hospital dedicated to seabirds and turtles. How amazing their work is. Apparently it is difficult to release these babies once they are well because they are so small and seem so helpless. Statistically only 1 in 1000 hatchlings make it to adulthood. Then it takes 30 years of growing before the female is old enough to lay her eggs. The odds are not good.

A lot of the rescued patients are there because of human interference. Pelicans and seagulls are often hooked and tangled with fishing line/hooks. The sea turtles may be damaged by propellers or mistake a floating plastic bag for jellyfish, their favourite food. Many die because of the plastic bags. Unless the bags are caught in the throat or at the other end the ability to save them is minimal.

THROW YOUR RUBBISH IN THE BIN, PLEASE.

Fat Clothes

Check this out! Our clothes from camping on an old Hills hoist and torrential rain = one very sad clothes line.

Weeding with Geese

When I work out in the garden I am never alone. I have a pair of geese who follow me and chomp on the uprooted weeds I throw their way. Even though it is the weeds they seek, I feel as if they are there for me. I am such an innocent.

Bruce has started challenging the members of the human family so I am assuming that Fanny is thinking of laying again, if she isn't already. I haven't found any nests but she is good at hiding them.

Gum Tree Blossoms

Neanderthal Dog

Our Roger the Dodger has a problem. He drags his front paws, effectively leaving his knuckles raw if he walks on hard surfaces such as cement or gravel. Poor knuckle dragging boofhead. In the grassy paddocks or on the sand at the beach he has no problem.

I have found the solution...hopefully. A local saddler makes leather shoes for dogs. Who would have thunk eh? Apparently sheep dogs that work in country with a lot of burrs wear them and the guide dogs who have to walk on the hot cement/roads during their working hours need them.

We have been for one walk in them and I must have re-booted him five times. After that I gave up. He eventually kept his right foot booted but the left one kept coming off. I don't know if it is the way he walks or it is the shoe. We have some experimenting to do yet.

He took some pretty high, dressage type steps when he first had them on but once he knew he was going for a walk he didn't give a toss.

Beach Photography II

Beach Photography

Soul Sister and I spent a morning practicing our photography. It was great fun and really interesting. When I downloaded them onto my computer though I found that the ones I thought were great were quite often rubbish. It is all a learning experience.

Sunrise on the East Coast of Australia

Flowers of the Australian Coast

The One-Legged Seagull

The camping ground we stayed at this last week was situated between natural coastal bushland and the sea. We had three kinds of wildlife to protect our food from. The worst by far was the ever present brush turkey, attracted by plastic of any kind in the hope it contained something edible. There was also the goanna that slowly cruised the camping grounds for anything edible that had been left lying around. Then there were the seagulls. This one-legged villain actually removed the top layer of the Lovely Husband's focaccia while it was happily toasting on the BBQ plate.

Australian Coastline

"My Holiday" by Swellbelle

We have just returned from a week of camping at the beach. Four families, nine teenagers and the best coastline in the world. The views of the ocean from our camp ground was unbeatable.

The Lovely Husband and I had our campsite among the other families and our teens shared their own campsite with a number of their friends. The girls catered for themselves and the boys catered for themselves. The Lovely Husband and I enjoyed suiting ourselves with our menu and observed from a distance the interesting way in which the teens dealt with independence. The girls were organised and in control. They did come to us for the occasional piece of equipment or food item and in the end, money. The boys were more independent and only communicated when forced to by friendly adults. Their diet seemed to consist mainly of meat, meat, potato, meat, noodles, meat and pizza.

The caravan park has a curfew and the girls broke that on one occasion with lots of squeals, laughter and you know, that terrible thing, fun! But we adults stamped down on that kind of nonsense. The boys kept their campsite much the same way as my son keeps his room, like it was ravaged by a wounded bull. Unfortunately it attracted the brush turkeys and caused havoc so they too were set upon by the surrounding adults to clean up their act.

We adults had cocktail hour(s) with way too much snack food, we talked incessantly and drank plenty. On the other hand the nearest shop was a good 20-30 minute walk along the beach so unless we wanted to fire up a car we walked a lot. pSychotic sister was there as was Soul Sister and my real sister too.

The water temperature was fantastic and the surf was not too rough. The days were warm and the nights cool. Perfect camping weather.

The only problem with camping is that you come home with a sandy tent and equipment, 47kg of washing (you know I don't exaggerate) and for those of us with curly hair, near dreadlocks. But it is worth it. It is nice to get back into your own bed, and for those trips to the loo, it is just down the hall not the hill.

Beasties in the Bush

Leeches, aren't they great....perhaps not. Went camera crazy in the bush (discovered much later my lens was smeared so unfortunately a lot of the photos are rubbish) and when I felt that sensation of being kissed on the ankle I found this little chappie. Wow, gotta' get a photo says I. Your mad Mum, get it off. Adjusted settings on said camera and was bending down to get my David Attenborough moment when Oh, it's biting me! Teens (3 of them) think me crazier than a bull ant but I get my photo. Not quite David Attenborough and you can see my legs need trimming with a brush cutter but I got the little sucker off before he broke through the skin. Unlike the school friend who discovered two on her ankle as we were driving back to town. She bravely suffered them till we arrived at the supermarket car park and then the Lovely Husband and I left them to deal with it while we went and purchased supplies. Those leeches got a feed.

Mountain Beauty

Went bush on the weekend, well stayed in comfortable accommodation in town and travelled by car out to the bush. I love the mountains, I especially love the bush and the ruddy great rocks they have up there. My teens think me crazy, I hug trees and I caress interesting rocks. Big granite buggers, huge, hippopotamic and I have to touch them all. Didn't see any interesting mammals or birds because the two girls, my Dynamic Daughter and her school friend were talking and laughing the whole time. We didn't lose them, no chance. But the air was crisp and the clean and we had fun.

Bromeliads

These grow wild on our frangipani tree and, with all the rain we have had, are just beautiful. They are the kind of plant I like, no maintenance. Apparently the frogs like to live in the well of water in the centre of them.

The frangipani tree has not flowered that well this year, I think there has been too much rain. The leaf production has been healthy though.