The tree of Quilton

While my health was fine that of the small dog was only average.  The primary symptom was not eating: very unusual for her.  Frances then recalled that she had reacted like this the previous time we gave her Frontline so we expected her to pick up after a nights sleep.  Which she did.

I commented earlier about the dominant noise (when the Phantoms are not in the vicinity) being the birds.  This morning they were in particularly good voice.  The noisiest were, not surprisingly, the Noisy Friarbirds feeding in a group of flowering gums about 500m from the house.  Others joining in were Red Wattlebirds and Yellow-faced, White-cheeked and Scarlet Honeyeaters.  The last species provided the melody to the atonal squawks and screeches of the others. 

This ruckus caused me to examine the state of flowering at the top of the nearest trees.  It seemed that only a little of the blossom was out and given the supply of swollen buds there was going to be a mass of flowers in a few days.  I am not sure what species are involved in this.

We took the recovered one off for a walk around the area starting off Barbie Rd.  When we got there Frances remembered that last time we got here we started to drive off through part of the National Park to get to a State Forest but a tree had fallen across the road so we turned back.  So after a brief walk we drove onwards and found some nice forest to walk in. 

As we went along we both commented how a tree trunk beside the track looked like a backside.  I have decided this is a species new to science Eucalyptus gluteus and it will be turned into Quilton toilet tissue which has the slogan “Quilton loves your bum”.

Obviously a face plant has happened!

When we got to Ferny Creek Rd I recalled that there was a Forest Park of that name on the map so we headed off in that direction.  Unfortunately it turned back in to National Park and even though they didn’t have a no pooches sign on it (and as we were more than 5km from a cappuccino machine there was limited chance of meeting a Ranger) we decided to follow another road.  This was interesting to drive as several of the drainage humps were quite humpy.  We then ran into an area where forestry (ie chopping down trees) was happening so turned back and went home.  En route we had a look in a small quarry where the statement that ‘old Fords never die’ was disproved. 

Interestingly the sump was still full of oil – according to the dipstick.

Late in the day I took Frances and Tammie up to see the greenhoods.  For the sake of peace and quiet I carried Tammie through the thickest stuff as she would get her lead terribly tangled if on foot.  The greenhoods were flowering all over the place, as were some of the midge orchids.  At one spot we found them flowering together and by using the flash got a reasonably image of this.

This is a rather short post: I reckon I must be getting tired!