2011 Continues to be Interesting

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CLAY!   

Pedro?

G'day everyone.  My apologies, but after the Queensland floods, I experienced a horrible writing drought.  These things come in twos.

Let's play a game.  I will show some photos and you have to guess the correct caption...

CAPTION OPTIONS ARE:

1. I'm gonna kick your ass.

2. Not bad for my first time.

3. I want a rematch.

4. Ouch.

5. If...I...could just....reach....

PHOTO A

PHOTO B

PHOTO C

PHOTO D

PHOTO E

Those were hard, I know.  But, give it a shot and I'll give you the answers under this somewhat funny graphic that tells the forecast for Australia last month...

CORRECT ANSWERS:

Photo A: Ouch.  I stacked --crashed-- on my bike and fared really well.  Just some abrasions and cuts and a broken toe.  I'm all better now.

Photo B: I'm gonna kick your ass.  (our sweet sheep was just kidding with the salad)

Photo C: I want a rematch.  Here, I am having an imaginary conversation with the road as I sport my new bike gloves that I bought yesterday to keep my hands safe from future falls.  I took a few photos of the gloves, but posted this one because it was the scariest.

Photo D: Not bad for my first time.  Using a pattern, I made this skirt from an old tablecloth and sheet that I bought at a thrift store.  It was the first time I sewed a garment.  

Photo E: If...I...could just....reach....  This is the day after HUGO's bike wreck (again, things come in twos).  As he iced his hands, he had trouble reaching the blueberries and grapes.  

Last week, I went to the beautiful Girraween National Park, located in the Granite Belt of Queensland. After bushwalking for a few hours, I accompanied my boss, Paul, on a rare flora survey.  We were looking around the creek for the ephemeral plants (those with a short life-cycle) that would have come up after the floods.  Imagine tiny, dormant seeds in the soil seed bank that were waiting to spring to life only after specific conditions were met regarding the amount of water, temperature, the community of plants around it, etc.  Nature never ceases to amaze if you just pause to think about some of this stuff. 

Paul ended up selecting eight specimens to press and bring back to the Queensland Herbarium.  It was thrilling to find rare flowers that haven't been seen in that area for years!  Along the route I managed to dodge vast ant hills without being bit, find two cicada exoskeletons, see wallaby tracks and walk into a big spider with a large, red body.  I haven't been able to ID the spider yet and Paul and I joke about having seen a (perhaps) very rare spider on our rare flora hunt!  Oh yeah...then, I found a bone that looked like it could have been a human tibia.  After much fascination and a little inspection, I decided that it wasn't and put it down.