Category Archives: Animals

Week in Pictures

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January 28-February 3

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Teddy.  I picked up this bear from a second hand shop and added some anatomy (stomach, brain and Kidneys in the back).  He had a tag on this leg that had his name in pen.  I think he was a much loved teddy.

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Six Legs.  Spider friend on the back veranda.  I didn’t see her boyfriend until I uploaded the photograph. She’s been protecting our veranda for a few months.

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Hookworms!  Love these little guys. They’re looking for their forever home, will it be your intestine?

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Collection of Gall Bladders, Jar and two options for the brooch.  These guys are so popular at the moment.  Love making them! 

My desk

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I’d be moaning to Andrew, my partner, about wanting a proper upstairs computer for a while.  I had a laptop but when I used it for work it always crashed (every 5 minutes, no kidding) and it was a laptop.  Andrew found me a Brix on Gumtree and we got that going. Cue setting up a monitor, keyboard, and mouse at the dining table.

I knew I wanted a desk that could slide under the couch so I could go full-on couch potato when working in Inkscape and Fusion360. I find working in these programs a little stressful so I wanted to be able to lean back and relax whilst working.

I showed Andrew a few examples of what I was thinking.  We decided on the shape below. To the left is the unpainted desk, to the right the painted finished version.

The top of the desk is varnished Plywood.  The legs that slide under the couch have “castor cups” underneath to slide around the floor on. The body of the desk is 50mm by 25mm RHS (Rectangular Hollow Section Steel) painted with some shitty no undercoat paint, not the best choice as it isn’t great quality but it’s good enough for now.

I’ve already got heaps of couch time use out of the desk as well as been watching iView and weaving tutorials.

And the boy loves it too.

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Bees!

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We’ve had our vege garden for about a year now.  In that time we’ve had a bumper crop of Cucumbers (there are probably still 12+ jars of pickles in the fridge!), Corn, Radishes, Kohl Rabi, Potatoes, Wasabi Lettuce, Bok Choi, assorted herbs and Rocket.  I’m sure we’ve grown other things but I can’t remember them all!  (Oh, Tomatoes, I forgot Tomatoes.  We had so many tomatoes!)

I’ve loved having Rocket in the garden as I could go out and pick leaves whenever I wanted and Rocket is so yummy in salads and on sandwiches.  About 6 weeks ago it started to grow long stalks and get flower buds.  They are now about 60 cms tall covered in flowers and we’ve also got seed pods forming (yay!)  I’m still picking Rocket to eat but I think this crop is almost done with.

Something I didn’t expect was how much the native bees would love the Rocket flowers! They are swarming over them.  I stood out there yesterday to snap some pictures so my partner could see how many bees there were.  As the sun soon disappeared and so did the bees so I was out at the right time.

We’d love to get a bee hive eventually.  I’ve always loved bugs and would love to have a hive and learn more and see more of them.  If you’re after a hive here’s a great resource, Aussie Bee.

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Resin Cicada

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Whenever I work with resin I always end up with a little bit spare so I decided to coat this cicada shell. I slathered it in resin all over and then rolled it over every 15 mins for about 1.5 hours.  After that I hung the guy up on a toothpick and as the resin slowly dripped off I picked it up and kept dripping it on.  After about 2-3 hours the resin was getting very thick so I left the cicada to cure.

I am impressed with how the cicada has turned out as I really had no clue what I was doing.  It is very hard and sturdy.  I think I could do a second coat of resin to get this even sturdier and wear as a necklace, or add a brooch pin.

The resin I used was Castin’ Craft from Over the Rainbow.

Spider Lady

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This St Andrews Cross Spider was in a web in our yard for all of Summer and she has thousands of babies!  It seemed like she had a new green egg sack every week.

In late May I found her all dried out and dead in her web.  I left her there for a couple of days and then thought I’d like to pop her into a jar to wear as a necklace.  I’ve collected a Chrysalis top from a plant in our yard (I followed a creature from Caterpillar to Butterfly, though did not see if emerge) and wear that so thought it would be nice to have another creature who was a fixture in the yard for a time to wear.

She was quite a bit too large to squeeze into the jar opening so I kept setting her aside and thinking about it.  Unfortunately last night some creature got to her and ate the body, leaving me a pile of legs and a small part of head.  oh no!  Though she is now safely sealed in a jar for me to wear.

Poor Possum

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This morning while out for my morning walk I found an injured brush tail possum.  The possum was huddled near the edge of the park so I went over to see what was wrong, hoping to scare it into a tree.  Instead the possum barely paid any attention to me.  After touching it a few times I decided I could probably get her home in my jumper, so I threw the jumper over her and picked her up.  It was testament to how injured she was that she did not try to attack me, possums are quite feisty.

At home I popped her into a cat cage and rang the local vet and walked her down and left her with them.

It looks like this possum was attacked by a dog or cat, so please lock your cats and dogs inside during the night to prevent this.  This little lady was in a very bad way and it was very sad to see her so terribly injured.

She might look incredibly adorable, below, but she was in a very bad way.

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Treasures-Biological Drawings

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I’ve been wanting to start a blog series about my most treasured possessions, so here it is, post one in the series.

My treasures fill my space.  Some are books, some things, some significant because of where they came from and what they mean.

I’ve had this book-Biological Drawings- for about 20 years.  The copy I have was published in 1957.  It is in fairly good condition considering it is a soft cardboard cover and has been kept in my room that tends to be filled with bugs who eat books, in fact it looks rather untouched by bugs. Perhaps it was covered in some sort of bug repellent many years ago.

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Biological Drawings is one of my most favourite things.  Not only is it an old book but it is about anatomy of both plants and animals and was written by a woman.  I loved looking at the dissected rabbit when I was younger.  Recently I’ve most enjoyed the insects and the plants.

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I love the little rabbit hands up near its head, all trapped by the removing of the skin.

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Below, some of the plant drawings.

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I was reading these bird beak descriptions to my cockatiel last night.

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The only typewritten text is that on the cover, the inside cover and the index.  The rest is handwritten.  Another reason why I love it.

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I cannot leave out this Rabbit brain!

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Duck, Duck, Goose

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This morning my partner and I popped down to his local duck pond to throw some left over seed at the geese and ducks.  We take chicken seed down to the ducks.  Never bread, bread can cause a lot of problems in ducks and should not be fed to them.

On arrival we found this new goose.  We assume like most of the pet ducks and geese this guy was dumped at the pond by people who no longer wanted it. Image

We then came across an old friend of a goose who disappeared from the pond for a while, but was returned and has been shunned by the two geese who stayed there they whole time.  This goose was looking terrible and gobbled up most of our seed.Image

While feed the new goose and the old disowned goose we witnessed a LOT of drama from the Wood ducks.  Wood Ducks are lovely looking but quite rambunctious little buggers.  Image

We decided to give all of the left over seed to the old disowned goose and the new goose joined us.  We can only hope these two form a friendship.Image

A Week of Critters

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Over the last week I have spied loads of interesting Animals, both around my suburb and while out.

This morning my partner and I were running early so stopped in to a park and saw some baby Willy Wagtails.  They were just like little mini cute adults.  We also saw a Blue Fairy Wren and some Finches.

Yesterday we went for a snorkel and spotted a few fish.

Earlier in the week I saw a Centipede and gangs of Galahs and Cockatoos and a pair of Pale Headed Rosella.

Unfortunately none of those guys caught on camera but I did get this lovely baby Bearded Dragon, a garden spider and a case moth.

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