Fallow Aplenty...

We have seen numerous deer over the time we have been here, this morning however, I was treated to a rare sight.

Whilst taking the girls to school I saw a large white Fallow stag eating some Lantana just off the creek on Pullenvale Rd. He is the same stag we saw on Anzac day I am sure. As I passed the bridge I looked back over my shoulder and saw another stag, only with much larger antlers in the scrub on the edge of the creek. I was excited, so where the girls! We turned around and had another look, they were a 100m or so away and not spooked by us and the car in the slightest. I got a grainy and poor quality shot with my iPhone...

White Fallow front and centre

After dropping the girls at school, came passed again and saw they were both still there! Time for some more photos - I hoped!

I went home and quickly grabbed the camera, then realised I needed the bigger lens, now where was it? Not where it should have been... Then I remembered it was in the car, so off I went again.

I pulled up on the RHS of the road and proceeded to take a couple of shots of the white stag, something spooked them, then I saw a bloke walking towards me apologising that he had spooked them and asking if I got any shots, I showed him what I had and he was happy for me as he only had the crappy phone shots as well...

I managed to get these before me old mate scared them off...

If you enlarge this shot (by clicking on the photo) you can see the second stag just above and slightly to the left of centre of the fence post. the two stags seem to be looking at one another.

In this shot you can see the ears and antlers of the second stag a little more clearly, at this stage they know something is up and start to slowly head for cover.

I have to say I was pretty happy with the shots and I spoke the the other guy for a few minutes then said I would have a crack at seeing them from the other side of the creek, this would require a little stalking - not an easy task in my bright yellow hiviz Aus post uniform. I was glowing like a beacon. Still I would give it a crack!

Uh oh, he has seen me...

Obviously he was not your average Fallow stag and he was quick to realise a hunter would not be wearing Aus post hivis, so nothing to worry about, business as usual! He turned and went nonchalantly  back to his pal. Then had a casual look over his shoulder to see if I was still there, ooh the yellow it burns...

OK they now knew I was stalking them and the thought they had better make for thicker cover, damn that postie this tucker is too good! 

At this stage my old mate joined me again, and for someone who says he is a bow hunting deer stalker - he made a lot of bloody noise. This was my last semi focused shot before the got the flock out of there!

Wow, that was excellent, my heart was pumping, adrenalin running. Great stuff!

I did learn a quick lesson, whilst photographing wildlife in scrub and motley light you need to switch off auto focus, I lost a couple of excellent shots because the camera did not focus on what I wanted it too. Now I need to find the camera manual to see how that is done...

I reckon I need to get a bow and permission from the land owner to see if I can bags me a trophy, whilst stalking with a camera is good, the thought of a trophy stag on the wall and a few feeds of venison is also quite appealing!

Now google bow hunting supplies Brisbane...

Relaxing in the Garden

We had a busy weekend - relaxing in the garden!

There is a mountain of work to be done landscaping the front and back yards of our place. We focussed this weekend on the area surrounding LHS of the pool. We had to turn what was once grass beside the pool into a garden area to try and tie it into the existing garden area that surrounds the large retaining walls that seperate the levels of the back yard.

We sourced a wide variety of plants from our local nurseries including Purple Fountain Grass, some varieties of Strelitzia, Variegated Feather Reed, Phantom Mondo Grass, a number of different Macropidia (Kangaroo Paw) and some varieties of Cordylines including Pink Joy, there were other plants but their name and identity tags escape me. To help with the planting we also took cuttings from other plants in our garden these included Dracaena Massangeana, Dracaena Surprise, Reflexed Dracaena and Agave Attenuata.

The pool area was also turfed with a variety of Zoysia called Nara Native. Of course it is heralded by the growers as the best thing since sliced bread, we will see! For me the main advantage was its ability to tolerate salt.

The completed garden area was mulched with Hoop Pine bark, it is a curly bark mulch that is used widely in the area, the hooping or curly bark helps to keep the mulch in place on sloping surfaces, it works very effectively.

Our progress so far takes us from this...

To this...

Then this...

To make sure that all the new garden areas were well watered after I had to alter all the existing lawn and garden irrigation systems, it was no small task and is still not completed. The pool is in the middle of a lawned and garden area so the existing sprinklers and pipes were spraying directly over the pool, or cut by the excavators during pool construction. As you can imagine I had lots of holes to dig, pipes to lay or repair and sprinklers to change.

The garden edging was simple by comparison, given it was only a few metres to join the pool edge to the existing edge it didn't take too long. The next phase of the garden work is not so simple, there will be 40 or 50 metres of garden edging required, that is not something to look forward to and bagged concrete will no longer suffice to bed the edging pavers. Another trip or two to the garden supplies for cement, sand and aggregate is on the cards.

When living in Ballarat you take for granted the proximity of things and the ease of access to all manner of shops and retail outlets. To get the garden supplies, mulch, soil and rocks it is a 40km round trip to the nearest supplier. The nearest Coates Hire centre is 50km round trip and the nearest Bunnings is just around the corner from Coates. To use these trips to the best of your advantage you need to plan your weekend work to the finest detail, unfortunately I have not yet perfected this level of detail. Needless to say forgetting the smallest thing can be a little frustrating and waste a large chunk of your weekend.

Another busy weekend next week too, hope I can remember to put on sunscreen, I am not used to 24 degree days in the middle of July. In the past a weekend in the garden in July would mean fighting off frost bite not sunburn...

I really need to get cracking if I am any hope of finishing the gardens before the start of cricket season!

Loving Winter in Brisbane!

After spending 43 winters in Ballarat, I reckon I have had my fair share! It should come as no surprise to hear that we are finding our first winter in Brisbane, which as we keep hearing, is cold by their standards, to be quite pleasant. So mild in fact we have only used heating once for about three hours. After being berated by Karren when she got home, for being soft, I turned it off! I can honestly say I am not missing the icy mornings, lazy winds and miserable grey days at all.

We have had a little more work done on the pool, it is still not completed, read into that what you will!

Here is a little video of the pool lights in action...

Pool in blue light

Speaking of lights, I stumbled across this the other day and thought it worthy of sharing...

Brisbane City Lights

There seems to be an abundance of aerial photographers doing 360 degree images. I found a couple of the floods in 2011.

Colleges Crossing in Flood

Colleges Crossing Post Flood

Moggill Ferry in Flood

Moggill Ferry post Flood

The following panorama is smack bang in the middle of the area I deliver mail to.

Kingfisher Park

It is a really nice area, with plenty of interesting people in the neighborhood a knight, plenty of doctors, and some lawyery types.

Karren and I have been very busy in the garden I have been concentrating on lawn irrigation - it is nearly complete. This weekend we plan to do more landscaping work, we need to hoe a garden area that was once grass and replant, then cut and lift some grass from the front garden and replant at the back, we'll see how successful that one will be! We will be hiring a rotary hoe and turf cutter to help with that task. Once that work is complete we will need to get a heap of mulch and spread it over the garden areas.

More posts to follow when the work is done!