Random pix

[zeropluszero]

I work from home and my wife planted these banksia out front of my window and the local little wattlebird has finally found it and comes by daily for a lick or two. Still waiting for the Eastern spinebill to return

 

[HamishR]

That looks like a Sydney yard! Where are you? That's a cool yard.

Most afternoons we sit having coffee in our small backyard with grevilleas next to our deck. Grevilleas flower for most of the year and have sweet nectar with the wattle birds love so we see them daily. Sometimes they have territorial fights and attack the hell out of each other! They have no qualms about attacking the crows either. We had a pair of very fluffy baby wattle birds in our backyard last year too.

 

[cooder]

Building a red Strat and Princeton reverb with my seven year old grandson in Missouri.
Get them into it early so they don't have any money to get into other troubles later...

 

[jwin615]

Newborn fawn behind the house. As much as I despise the species, generally destructive and their only natural predator is stupidity, they are cute when they're young.
Mama is snorting back in the woods. Guessing she'll be back tonight. Also guessing she's responsible for clearing out my califlower and 5 tomato plants in my raised bed last night.

 

[zeropluszero]

That looks like a Sydney yard! Where are you? That's a cool yard.

Most afternoons we sit having coffee in our small backyard with grevilleas next to our deck. Grevilleas flower for most of the year and have sweet nectar with the wattle birds love so we see them daily. Sometimes they have territorial fights and attack the hell out of each other! They have no qualms about attacking the crows either. We had a pair of very fluffy baby wattle birds in our backyard last year too.

I'm eastern Melb,foothills of the Dandenongs so as you can see my block is basically vertical.
I've also seen wattlebirds attack birds twice their size. I suspect they keep out some non natives as well as unfortunately some actual natives.
I saw one last year try to hassle the local kookaburra couple, who usually they seem to ignore, the wattlebird had snapped at the tail feathers of the kookaburra and was hanging on for probably full minute, the kookaburra looked like they'd barely noticed.

We don't get deer to our place (yet) but they're probably only a km or two away in the forest, plenty of foxes and rabbits though.

 

[PapaBear]

Newborn fawn behind the house. As much as I despise the species, generally destructive and their only natural predator is stupidity, they are cute when they're young.
Mama is snorting back in the woods. Guessing she'll be back tonight. Also guessing she's responsible for clearing out my califlower and 5 tomato plants in my raised bed last night.
View attachment 118496

You want to keep deer out of your garden do this, The day you do yard work or cardio get up don't shower and wear an old tee shirt, do all your chores and hang the shirt on a tomato cage. Once the deer take your garden off their forging path they won't come back.

 

[HamishR]

I'm eastern Melb,foothills of the Dandenongs so as you can see my block is basically vertical.
I've also seen wattlebirds attack birds twice their size. I suspect they keep out some non natives as well as unfortunately some actual natives.
I saw one last year try to hassle the local kookaburra couple, who usually they seem to ignore, the wattlebird had snapped at the tail feathers of the kookaburra and was hanging on for probably full minute, the kookaburra looked like they'd barely noticed.

We don't get deer to our place (yet) but they're probably only a km or two away in the forest, plenty of foxes and rabbits though.

D'oh! Completely forgot where you live! Being near the Dandenongs explains the yard. That must be a lovely lace to live. My brother was in Rowville for a while. When my son was a lot younger we went to visit my brother and as he drove us out to Rowville we went past paddocks with sheep and cows and my son asked "Are we still in Melbourne?"

Kookaburras seem unbothered by attacks. I've seen a kookie in my backyard being hammered by a pair of wattlebirds and barely glance at them. And when I used to ride my pushy through Kings Park there were signs warning of a swooping falcon during nesting season. Amazing to think what such a large car is capable of.

 

[jwin615]

You want to keep deer out of your garden do this, The day you do yard work or cardio get up don't shower and wear an old tee shirt, do all your chores and hang the shirt on a tomato cage. Once the deer take your garden off their forging path they won't come back.

I can walk up to within 5 ft of most of the deer around here, yelling and waving my arms. They don't care. I've done human hair, dog poop, etc.
I've watched one walk up the steps of my front porch to eat a tomato plant. Just stupidly fearless.
My large garden's fence has kept them out thus far but my raised bed is a little easier to lean over into if they so care. It's 4 ft from the cars and 15ish ft from the front door. Plenty of scents to be scared of.
But thanks for the tip

 

[Nostradoomus]

You have to piss on that fawn to assert dominance. Or build a 10ft fence.

 

[DDad]

ZIF socket is the way to go. Found a use for a crappy board (doesn't have whole rows connected, plating only on one side).

 

[tegendemuur]

A little success at what I must call my garden. Stunted for years, never showing any growth. This little guy finally tells me he's feeling at home.



Might have to open a "green thumb" thread at some point, seeing what you guys manage to keep alive in and around your homes.

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

Nice!
Those cacti like very well-drained soil. Wet roots will rot. Mammillaria, the clump just right of center in the top photo, are particularly vulnerable.
If you haven't done already, a layer of pea gravel on the bottom and a lot of sand & perlite (or vermiculite) mixed into the soil will recreate the desert soil and keep them healthy.

 

[jessenator]

Caught a young mother and ducklings a couple of weeks ago.

 

[zeropluszero]

Love heart eyes emoji

 

[jwin615]

The tomato fortress grows stronger by the day
Time to start blasting it with calcium

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

From MOBA, the Museum of Bad Art.

 

[HamishR]

Before the second world war Hitler decided to have two art exhibitions. One for the kind of art he thought was superior - the stuff that was heroic, looked like stuff you would see in real life but better, like social realism. The other exhibition was for deviant art, held in a run-down gallery. Stuff like that awful impressionist rubbish, abstract expressionism and the art of the Bauhaus and Picasso. And in a twist unforeseen by the fascists the deviant art exhibition turned out to be a hit, while barely anyone visited the "good" art exhibition. Of course this was all a one-off, and nothing similar has been seen in the modern day.

In the mid '70s I was a little kid living in Canberra, the capital city of Australia. You may not have heard of it! But it's a very pretty place between Sydney and Melbourne And I loved the 18 months I lived there. I lived through one of the biggest political upheavals in Australian history while there - the controversial Whitlam Govt, which had brought Australia kicking and screaming into the 20th century was removed and replaced by the Conservative Fraser Govt. I say conservative but by today's standards they were more like a left-wing party. Things have changed.

One of the controversial things that Whitlam's Govt did was buy a large painting by Jackson Pollock for Aust$1.3m. The conservatives were outraged - it didn't look like a thing! It cost Aust$1.3m!! Well now it's worth about Aust$500m and is considered a landmark in 20th century art. I was in Canberra for the first time since I left about ten years ago and made a point of going to the National Gallery (free entry). I sat down in front of Blue Poles for about 20 minutes, absorbing the detail and colour. It's hard to describe how it made me feel, and difficult to remove it from the history. But I loved ever second of staring into it. It gave me goosebumps, just like seeing Starry Night at MOMA had years before. It moved me far more than most of the fantastic classical art I have seen ever did. I've been to the Sistine Chapel, seen La Joconde (Mona Lisa) at the Louvre and stood in front of Michelangelo's David in Florence which was pretty darn impressive! But seeing Blue Poles was better - maybe only beaten by Starry Night (which was totally unexpected - Van Gogh doesn't translate well to prints.) Here is a detail: