Come Sunday with Jeanie

 Two disclaimers today - the usual #notaphotographer and Blogger photograph insertion order malarkey. 

Image: very well stacked station wagon.

There WAS science on the final load from the storage unit back to home.

We will be moving in 1-3 months (still a movable feast in the hands of lawyers and the domino setting) and I want some fit, healthy young people to do the pick it all up and take it all there transaction in one fell swoop.

Image: the wall of bamboo 

V planted for privacy for both the neighbours and ourselves, now a whole ecosystem offering home to many birds.

Image:palm trees along the Esplanade

Image: what I am looking at, cat, is the back yard. 

Yes we will miss the height but not the fourteen steps to attain it.

Image: from the washing up sink

This is the picture that was meant to start my narrative. It was going to be reflective yet anticipatory, then something about the cat before I did any out of the housing.

Image: see this is so terribly out of order - blogger, this is like someone tripped over on their way to a slideshow presentation in the 1980s and they fell over and the whole tray went upside down and they have just been shoved back in hoping nobody would notice. We noticed!

Image: see what I mean. This basket of blue towels has become bereft of meaning in this part of the narrative!

Image: boxes stacked and two tapestries done by Grandma J. 

Images: right to left - abstract by KOH; portrait of mother by 'Salina; monacled whale by Jeanie, paired abstract by KOH...

Images: untitled collaboration between Paris and 'Salina; part of amazing sunflower print found at an op shop and poster of "les enfants du Paris" that I have had for at least the last 30 years

Images: Bush Babe of Oz photograph of Riders and various artworks by 'Salina inspired by or for Paris.

Image: crackers pre-oven - I may have had a dummy spit  on the first photo for the cooking theme today.

Image: post oven.

Image: our own little Dragon 

Image: the view from the passenger seat with Paris driving!

Image: Palms. Rain.

Image: in the distance, a house with a sold sticker 

Five Photos on a Friday

 This post carries my usual #notaphotographer disclaimer.

I have actually managed to work River's Words for Wednesday in to the below.

Image: Attention! Eight Upright Cranes Against the Brisbane Skyline 

Isn't it funny what you find when you randomly hit upon photographic memories of the past? This is from a few years ago now. I remember being bemused by Brisbane's constant reimagining of herself and fluffing up her property like peacock plumes.

Image: A Very Well-Watered Gauge

My whole family have always measured the rain - actually no, I lie. There was a time when living interstate or in Brisbane that I didn't, however I now have a good few years of data here and I could never envisage not doing so. 

My Grandma M used to measure with a jam tin and ruler, which helped me to understand and really visualise why rain is measured in millimetres (or inches) rather than millilitres (or pints). 

It doesn't matter whether you use barrels, barrows or buckets, it's the depth of water collected that is measured.

Image: Buy Yourself A Yankee Dude'l Life

This was a genuine van saleyard in a genuine US city under a genuine United States of America flag and I knew that I was not in Queensland any more. Far more likely to spot a coyote than a dingo in downtown Diego.

Image: Holding Still For the Photographer (2x Great Grandmother Jane Gibson Burnham 1880's ish?)

I can't believe that I haven't written the tale of this woman here before. 

I had always imagined Jane to be a lone figure with scant information in family folklore, this mother of stoic but silent sons. Honestly, I knew nothing of this woman until by chance I discovered descendants of her sisters.

An orphaned spinster of 26 who brought the balance of her teenage siblings to Australia from the terrible times for all, including the Anglo Irish in the North of Ireland in the mid 19th century.  She could read and write and had special skills as a laundress.

The family whose history had been lost in migration to the emerald isle a century or two before reinvented themselves anew down under.

Doesn't she look formidable?

Image: Roo Butt on High Beam

It's currently raining here. They are predicting possible bucket loads across the weekend. Definitely enough to deter any thoughts of mowing. Luckily there are a few of these about to keep the front looking neat.

Such weather will also bring out the instant idiots, no doubt. Those lights may have belonged to one of such a tribe, checking the water levels and gauging the lie of the land.

Instant idiots because you only need to "just add water" and its like magic.

Put a vehicle between a mud and this particular chemical reaction and watch with your heart in your mouth as thought and reason sit on the sidelines and dispair.

Red Moon at Night

 There was a Red Moon tonight over Paradise.

Of course I didn't take a picture. 

A. I have always had dodgy eyesight, so it was enough to attempt to see something, let alone capture it in a meaningful way to make it recognisable in the future. My clay is words. My sense is ears.

B. I have been surrounded by visual people who delight in the art of photography. There is no need for me to swell their ranks.

You will just have to imagine the tiny porch on the top of the stairs, wind howling, Paris beside you and a starry sky to the South Eastish direction.

It is hard to tell if the misty blur across the bottom third of the moon were cloud, eclipse or the natural sheen of distance.

The sky behind is reflecting the lights around - tiny bulbs spray the wall of a neighbour and the street lights near the intersection.

Night birds know there is something up and are voicing the rejoicing of the dark red hue anticipated.

Image - not a picture of the scene described above, rather a very uncurated look for the sunroom - its natural state for the majority of the nearly two decades we have lived here

Edit - oh, and Eddie. RIP beautiful boy

Oh, and if you zoom in to the second window, there are two beautiful creatures and their humans 

The Sun Room

 

Image: Sunset in Paradise 

As GZ often laments, Blogger has a habit of reversing your pictures (probably inherited from Word - an obscure admin geek joke - never mind) - I'll just have to work with what I've got.

Image: Rain Scene in Paradise 

For nearly 20 years I have paced this Sun Room, posing theories, created poetry and watched the world.

Image: Kangaroos Grazing in Paradise 

I have seen through it in love, in baby haze, in disasters, in the pandemic.

Image: Just One of Those Days in Paradise

In an earlier lifetime, it was the windswept open deck of what my father called The Retreat.

Image: Void Kitten in Paradise 

We have watched little ones grow out to almost full-size

Image: Red Sky in Paradise 

There have been times that I have been lost for words,

Image: Sunset Streaking Across the Sky in Paradise 

sometimes too many words that couldn't quite grasp,

Image: Kangaroos Enjoying the Afternoon in Paradise

And sometimes just too lifed out to pay enough attention.

Image: One Bombproof (but unfortunately not ant-proof) Mailbox in Paradise 

But this lofty view on life has a timeframe.

Image: Clouds Over Ocean in Paradise 

All sorts of dates happen in the next 10 days and the next few weeks and months.

Image: Dusk in Paradise 

Sunday selections

River is my main connection to Sunday selections - as usual very ordinary pics with a waffle of words on offer here.

Picture of a piece of timber at my parents place with many extended family brands - Dad is third generation Australian and basically over 90% of his heritage is agriculture and livestock.

I did a search but apparently I have only done one real branding post (way back in May 2007) - and earlier in the week Ms Moon confounded me by having to Google what Marks and Brands were.

Isn't it weird, what one person grows up knowing innately and other never encounter?

We were in the saddle before we could ride bikes, learned how to drive before we hit high school and got paid in child labour by getting a calf branded for us each season.

I always chose the prettiest one for mine. We were only ever allowed to choose steers and only from commercial paddocks but that was preferred anyway as they were often the prettiest in my eyes - brindle or spotted with a twinkle of non-conformity in their eyes.

Image of a magnificent silver-leafed Ironbark (I think) on a Queensland country road

I have just come back from a trip out to visit Mum and Dad - 'Salina was with me. We always drive past this tree and made the decision to stop on our way home today. This isn't even her best angle but it was raining and the side of the road not conducive to more than a cursory click. That and the rather ordinary photographer on this side of the phone.

Image of proteas from a friend's garden delivered for Mum while I was there 

Yes- even though I am not the level of nearly blind that I was using as an excuse prior to cataract surgery, my skills as a photographer didn't get any better!