Curl up and die

The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly.

Richard Bach

It's not all fun and games on the land, even a small parcel like we inhabit.  Last weekend we heard Starling babies just under our roof line in the the ceiling cavity.  We really should have paid more attention to Marvin who was sitting up on the window sill tracking the movement of their parents with zombie-like zeal.

So, armed with plastic bags and breathing protection, up goes Anthony and squeezes into the narrowest of spaces, fully prone and using a usb-camera hooked up to Kym's laptop to guide the extraction.  With Kym counting babies, we pulled all four of them out (and three garbage bags of nesting crud as well).  Sorry babies, but that's not the place to nest.

Further distressing news was the arrival of "leaf curl" on our beautiful peach trees.  Too late for spraying (note to self for next year), but not too late for a brutal pruning and handfuls of quick release fertiliser to help the trees fight the fungus responsible.  Maybe not so many peaches this year!

Yikes - leaf curl!

Also our puppy Kelly has been born as part of a litter of eight in Adelaide, and we have already seen the loss of one (the runt as it happens).  Here are the seven remaining with mum Freya:

So watch out Oskar and Jess - and make sure that you are caught up on your sleep - things are about to get very interesting...