Well we’ve moved. In one of my previous blogs, I mentioned a house in the forest (bush) well, we are now in it. This house is super, here is a picture of the front patio.
All pictures are reduced in size, you can still click on an image for a larger version, but if you want a full size image just give me an email.
And one of the back garden.
A picture of our common visitors in the back garden
And a couple of the less popular animals we share our garden with.
We have no neighbours within audible distance, which is great for Ben as he loves playing his drums really loud, however the disadvantage for us is that Ben likes playing his drums really really loud.
To get to it, you come out of Perth and travel up a 5km hill, our ears usually pop by the time we get to the top, and then pass the golden pipelines (they are actually water pipelines that take water to the goldfieds. The pipelines actually have their own website.
Turn left up Warm Fuzzy Hill, past camp Woody (Calm down Beardy), right when you come to the Monkey bum tree and we are up on the left. Actually we’ve nicknamed the tree Lionel Chin Tree. Lionel is not his real name but he is a memorable chap he can light up any room he enters by flicking a switch. At a party you can always recognise him, if you see 2 people talking and one of them looks really bored, the other one is Lionel.
Off Roading
No, I don’t mean driving on the kerb. I mean driving on the beach, in the desert, through mud patches or up very steep muddy hills. Well since we bought our Super car we decided to join the Toyota Land Cruiser Club and we went into the bush with a group of like minded people. That was fun. Actually we only went on a rough track, because one of the members had borrowed a brand new $60,000 Land Cruiser from Toyota, but it was fun. No pictures of that as it wasn’t really that interesting photography wise, if you so wish I will send you those individually, just ask.
This tale I’m going to tell you in 2 parts from 2 points of view.
Parents View.
Well, obviously we have issues with the power outlets in the new house, (Who ever has the plug sockets in the right place in a new house) so we’ve been using extensions, in different places. One day while we were out shopping our number one son decided it would be a great idea to re-arrange the music room. It’s actually a study, but he’s a teenager and he knows everything. So on the way to the shop we get a phone call, or should I say Michelle does, because I’m driving. It’s Ben and as you might guess from my lead up to this juncture he wants a mains extension. Of course knowing even more than a teenager, I say, “No son I have plenty of cables, we can sort one out when we get back.”
Half way round the supermarket we get another phone call, you can guess what it was can’t you. It was our number one son trying another tactic to get an extension. I won’t go into detail, because if you have kids, you know the sort of pleading that they do, if you are a kid, you know the sort of pleading that you do. The eventual outcome was the same, Us saying no Ben, wait and Ben saying life is so unfair.
The third phone call came as we were driving up our drive, too late to buy an extension and too late for the pleading to begin, so Michelle said watch this: and blew the largest and loudest raspberry she could down the phone and hung up knowing that she would speak to Ben in a few seconds anyway.
Ben’s Point of view
Well that story starts the same, His parents have gone out and he thought he’d move things around in the music room. Just one thing missing though he needs a mains extension. No problem though, he has some loving parents they’ll buy him one. So he makes a phone call to them only to be told that there more important things to worry about and that his super dad will sort one out when he gets home. Ben knows best of course, so he goes to look in the cupboard where all the cables are. After several fruitless searches in boxes, he realises there are none and decides to plead his case again from a different point of view. Still no reaction so he decides that he can’t do anything further without an extension and decides to go for a walk around the fire track. It’s quite a long fire track so he is ambling around minding his own business, kicking gumnuts, snapping branches kicking up dust, all the usual things a sulky teenager does. When all of a sudden he hears a tutting noise and looks up and is face to face with a 5 foot kangaroo over the other side of the neighbours fence. Now Ben has seen plenty of wildlife programs and obviously considers himself a Kangaroo version of Steve Irwin. He takes out his camera phone and takes a few snap shots, then he hears his parents car coming up the drive and remembers my camera is in the car and wouldn’t it be fantastic to take a shot of the roo with a good camera. So he decides to give us a call. Very precariously he dials our number and holds it to his ear ready to ask us to bring the camera. Instead of the usual greeting he gets an atomic raspberry in the ear loud enough to frighten off any wildlife in the local vicinity, which is precisely the opposite effect of what he wanted.
Parents point of view revisited
All we saw, after the raspberry, was a kid coming storming down the path from the fire track, we hadn’t a clue why.
Until he showed us this.
Fire in them thar hills.
Don’t know if you saw in the news in the UK, but here in Western Australia we’ve had a few bush fires, the first one we encountered was on our way to the stock car racing on boxing day. The police had closed the road off and diverted the traffic around the fire. I think I can honestly say it is the first time I’ve ever been to the stock car races and I’ve been warm. There were three helitacs (water bombing helicopters) and some fixed wing water spraying planes. These were awesome machines which have saved the lives of many firies (firefighters to you and me (Firemen to the non-politically correct folks)).
The area we now live in is called Perth hills, in a particular area called Mundaring. One day whilst we were quietly minding our own business, and Michelle was minding mine as well, we heard a few planes fly overhead. This is not unusual as we live near a city with a major airport. This day however we heard several helicopters as well. And we kept hearing them, and hearing them and hearing them. We thought we’d better look and see if they are chasing hoons (Well look it up then). We were surprised to be confronted with this when we went outside to look.
Now I must explain that the photo that you see is not 100% genuine. I had a graduated filter on to make accentuate the colour of the sky, it does make the smoke look more menacing than it was.
When we heard on the national news that residents were being advised to leave, we thought it time to pack our bags and leave. You might notice that I’m not using any humour in this section, there’s a simple reason for this. IT’S NOT FUNNY. Fire Kills if you don’t take it serious, This fire destroyed 2 homes, a holiday villa and killed over 100 livestock and several pets.
We’ve just spent a good couple of hours pruning the trees around the firetrack as per the advice of the local fire guys. The firetrack is a break in the low ground fuel supply and the upper tree leaves. This means that the fire will not jump from property to property when it touches the boundary. A few hours well spent we think
Oh and the title of this blog? Well it’s me, I always try and work out a ratio between how much sun cream I put on and how long I stay in the sun, however this day I got the ratio wrong, it was about three hours in the sun and 0 ml of sun cream. Take my advice please don’t go out in the sun without sun cream, it bloody hurts.
If you keep an eye on the blog I am going to sort out a picture gallery on a different website, link is here.
