And Now - Perth

Our wedding anniversary is in September, and this year we decided to celebrate by taking a short trip to Perth, in Western Australia.  Western Australia is known for it's wildflowers, and in the spring the countryside is amazing - or so I'd been told. So off we went.

Well.. early September is too early for the flowers as far south as Perth. Once we arrived we were told we were about 4-5 weeks too soon! The flowers in the north end of the state would be blooming now, but not so much happening in Perth.

No matter. We thoroughly enjoyed our trip, anyway - and on our first day there we went to Kings Park - an immense inner-city botanical garden.

Here's a little of what we saw there:

The flowers are called "Everlastings" - and their soft pink and white blooms make a lovely display in-mass (as below):

Kings Park has a lovely cafe and gift shop along the eastern edge of the hill where the park sits (there's a steep cliff along the eastern edge, which I had my back to as I took the photo below). The white umbrellas in this shot are those of the cafe.

The design of the gardens is fabulous - and the rich mix of colours was simply breathtaking.

In the upper left corner of the photo above is a very interesting orange-flowering plant. Here's a closeup:

And a few more of the yellow flowers with pink everlastings mixed in.

Glorious Wattle Trees

At the end of winter, there's a change in the forest. The gorgeous wattle trees come into bloom. They've been brightening the forest now for a few weeks and are still going strong. There's nothing quite like a wattle tree. Here's a closeup of a flowering twig that the wild parrots chewed off of our tree (I found it next to the garage)

Delicate, bright and buttery in colour. Here's a closeup of the buds:

I've tried and tried to get a decent photo of an entire tree - and am just not managing to get it into focus - but here's a snap of 3 wattles on the hill taken from a distance.

Honestly, the photo doesn't do justice.

So what happened?

Wednesday came and went, didn't it?  And no post?

You're right.

I'll fess up: bad week here. News from Ohio is, well, not good - as my mother has apparently declined rapidly health-wise. So I was distracted. Really distracted.

And it's a shame because we're just back from a week in Perth and I so wanted to share some photos of the place with you and a story or two.

OK.  I'll make good this coming Wednesday.

Thank you for your patience.

Some Lessons Are Too Hard To Learn

A while back (not all that long ago, really...) I related an incident where Laka chewed through her t-stand (when she was standing on it... IDIOT!) and the crash landing that resulted. Well... obviously we haven't learnt anything. Here's what's left of the t-stand:

Yes, she was sitting on that white cup, leaned down and gnawed away the wood she was standing on. I didn't see it but heard the CRASH... Stephen was there and saw it wall.

She went down hard, really hard, and banged her left wing pretty well - breaking a blood-feather in the bargain. She's fine - only her dignity wounded in the end  -other than the blood, which was... E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E (picture really big bird with really big wings, flapping blood in every direction...)