At Home in Spring

Spring should (officially) start on 1 September each year, But this year we have 'El Niño' and it is now late in October. Some 8 weeks without a good (25+ mm) Spring rain means that all our plants (fruit trees and vegetables) are hungry and tired. Wildlife including insects and pests are hungry and tired too. But somehow, we all have managed to survive. Last night we had some 50mm of rain. We can now hope for better days ahead.

This Spring we have adopted 3 goslings. The smallest one is called 'the little runt'.

A border-collie pup (who had been misplaced in a unit in a big city).

Because of the dry this Spring we have many more birds (galahs, lorikkets, finches, doves, honey eaters, leather heads, tree climbers, pacific wood ducks, little grebes, currawongs, ...) to feed (with food from supermarkets).

A pair of 'chough-like' birds (Choughs are about crow size, with red eyes, black feathers and a white ring under the wings.) Can anyone tell us what birds are they? We have not seen them before.

We are lucky to have water in our dam

and our long time sulphur crest cockatoo friend 'Yoyo'. He is 40+ this year. Cockatoos are known to live over 100.

And what our jacaranda tree looks like this Spring? (The same tree was shown in G2K a few years ago.)

So we are living through seasons in Dreamland -- another dhamma unfolding – naturally.