It is that time of year in Brisbane when the streets are filled with squawks and squeaks of baby Noisy Miners. One crazy couple decided that one of the palm trees on our driveway was the perfect place to put their nest, they “wove” together three fronds, two to form the base and one to cover the nest. It was just their luck that we didn’t have any big winds as the nest would have hit the ground pretty quickly.
We watched the birds, three or four of them fly into to feed the babies and if you stood in the right place in our garden you could sometimes see the little heads poke up out of the nest for a feed. We could hear them all the time though. Each baby had its own squawk and for the week or two when they were there we loved it. Every day as I walked up the street home from work, I would pause in the garden and go “hello birdies”.
Friday last week though, I came up the street and I could hear the squawks and the squeaks but now they were coming from a different place, no longer up in the palm tree. Where had the babies gone? Had they fallen out of the nest? Pabbi and Mum did not know where they had gone. 
I went out to look at my herbs on the front verandah (something I do quite often and marvel at the size of the leaves on the lettuce leaf basil) and to listen to the squarks to see if I could find the baby birds. I sat on the steps and listened and listened. Then I saw one, a little downy fuzz ball on the ground beneath the mock orange. I rushed inside to tell Mum and Pabbi. Then sitting in the kitchen we saw the other one in a branch in the middle of the mock orange.
Oh it was quite an evening watching in particular the little fuzz ball as it tried to fly, he would get up somewhere to perch, then he would fall back down. The funniest thing then happened when Ma, Pa and big sibling bird all flew at the fuzz ball and he flew a good 8m to the tree where they were perched.
The next morning, the largest baby was perched high in a tree in our front garden but little fuzz ball was on the fence between our house and our next door neighbours on the topside. There it was perched on the cyclone wire fence. Oh the ache it caused though because they have a dog. In saying that though the kept the dog inside that Saturday whilst the little fuzz ball explored the area, demanded feeding and practised flying. The entire time there was an older Noisy Miner perched a little way away keeping guard, sometimes flying down with food or standing guard whilst the parents flew down with food.
Getting Fed
Perched on the fence
The Guard
Little Fuzz Ball on the tree outside my window.
Come Sunday morning, they were gone :( :(. We still hear the squawks and squeaks of baby nosiy miners in round the street but they are not the little babies who kept us delighted.
It is the time of year when we tend to get a lot of nice sunsets and they just make me smile 
The other weekend when we were coming back from Gumbarra, I got lucky
We had driven to Cunningham’s Gap to pick Mum and two other walkers who had walked from Sylvester’s lookout to the gap along the top of the Main Range Escarpment. Mum had gone to the toilet to freshen up and on her way back had gotten talking to a Land Crusier full of Italian men who had taken a one day holiday to pick the olives for the year. Whilst talking Mum had mentioned to the blokes that her daughter would love to pick some olives and could they tell me where they picked up, the answer was a hearty no but we will give her some olives. I came down with Mum’s hat and I skipped back to the car with a hat full of olives and a smile that didn’t leave my face for a good 48hrs. I also came back with tips on how to best cure them. You need to rinse them in water for a week said one. The others said no, just straight into salt water in which an egg will float with a little bit of garlic and a chopped up lemon. They all nodded and said yes. Then another adds, you must put in a little bit of wine vinegar and change it every so often.
I know have a container in the cupboard with olives curing in and you have no how idea how big a smile that puts on my face.
Now I just have to play the waiting game.
I have been talking about making a trip out to QLD olive country since probably September last year, as we are smack bang in the season at the moment my talk ramped up a couple of weeks ago. I only wanted a small amount to play with. Mum sort of talked me out of it - You want to drive 3 plus hours to pick perhaps 2kg of olives and how much do you even like olives Helen? Next year after this batch have worked out I’ll be there. I am also very interested in having a going at pressing my own oil, I understand the science of the matter and have found a few little notes on extracting olive oil yourself which I will keep in mind next year.
Next year, there is always next year.
I went bush the other weekend to the Goomburra Section of Main Range National Park. We were sitting round the kitchen table on Thursday night after dinner and Mum was planning what she needed for her weekend away. I suddenly realised there was nothing stopping me from going, and I really needed to get out Brisbane. 5 seconds later I was going and we were planning the new logistics. We nipped over to the shops to get some extra groceries and I packed my bag ready to depart shortly after I arrived home from work on Friday. It was also the first time my car got to go a little big trip, all up doing about 400km and going up and down some steep hills
I can’t describe how absolutely happy I felt on Sunday morning as I was walking up to the toilet block, the sun was shining on the eucalyptus, the air was filled with the scent of those gums. Then there was this wanderer butterfly that always seemed to appear as I walked up to the toilet block. Yep I’m the sort of girl who decides that one of her highlights for the weekend is a wanderer butterfly that always appears when I go to the toilet block but never when I was exploring with my camera.
I got to give my ankle quite a work out too and bar a bit of minor “yes I do remember hurting this ankle on Saturday evening” I was brace free and happy scrambling up/down/over/under all weekend, well for the most part. I couldn’t physically bring myself to rock hop up the creek though so I took off my shoes and waded.
I spent the weekend, reading, a bit of walking and generally just lazing around. Quite nice Ohh and one of the highlights was hearing Lyrebirds x 100 times, ok maybe more like 40 but it was soo cool, I just wish I had seen one!
Some photos
and more photos here
The weekend was topped off with a present that a carload of Italian papas gave me on the way home, which will be featured in a blog post shortly
Last week I was listening to the Zed son the bus to work, and the lovely announcer said she had a double pass to Custom Kings the following Thursday for sale. Yours truly was the first to ring up. I mentioned it at the kitchen table a few nights later and Matthew mentioned that one of the girls at Uni wanted to go. Come Thursday night there was five of us, two with free pass and three people faced with a sign on the door of the Troubie that said sold out. Due to seeing the right person at the right time, we managed to get three tickets off a girl who had bought the tickets for her entire group only to have some people pike at the last minute. We were happy
When we eventually went up the steps, the support act were playing their last song and it would only be a matter of time before Custom Kings took over the stage and had the floor of the Troubie bouncing like I have never seen it bounce before. It was a great night with good tunes and a happy crowd.
Custom Kings, The Troubadour, 10/04/08 Gig Gallery
I still am not a big fan of the new album but I have waited gee almost half my life or perhaps even more than half my life to see them play live and the time is near
JULY Wed 30 Perth, Australia The Capitol
JULY Thu 21 Adelaide, Australia Fowlers Live
AUG Sat 2 Sydney, Australia Metro Theatre
AUG Mon 4 Brisbane, Australia The Zoo
AUG Tue 5 Melbourne, Australia Billboard
Is Helen happy? This is just the icing on the cake! I had a great weekend a post is coming on that.
Oh so happy!
I have long been intrigued by these jewelled fruits. I have pomegranate molasses which I often use in cooking (makes a mean roast chicken). The price of fresh ones though and that they always seemed to be USA imports had put me off actually buying one. Last Saturday though whilst at the fruitshop I noticed they were selling Australian pomegranates and at $2.49 each they were not too bad in price. I racked my brain trying to remember what I had read on the net about picking one. Not been able to to remember much I went for the normally fail safe of picking fruit that is heavier than it looks.
It sat in the fridge for a week before I was game enough to decide break it open. I was in the middle of baking a yoghurt cake to take to meet a prospective flatmate and thought mmm I could add some Pomegranate to this. I cracked it open and carefully picked out one little jewel to taste. That first little jewel knocked me over and I instantly declared my love. Instant Love.p
I think I might be buying more of these in the future. I tried talking Mum into planting a tree in the back yard. She said no before I even finished the sentence. One day I will have a garden with a pomegranate tree. One day.
And in other news (said in my best news reader voice).
Since coming home from work on Friday I have not worn my ankle brace at all. Which is good. I know my ankle is healing as I find my self doing things that I wasn’t able to do before. Like sitting on my ankle when I tuck one leg up or walking down steps almost normally. All about going forward.
