Long absence from here

So long since my last post! I always feel I should be doing things instead of writing about them.

It's getting quite warm outside so my gardening activities have finished for the morning and I want to record my observations.  The jacaranda is in flower, the star jasmine and gardenias look beautiful and add perfume to the air, the agapanthas are in bud and even the melaleucas (bracteatas) are flowering brilliantly this year. So everything is green, purple and white/cream at the moment.

I have picked my first tomatoes for the season, we've had a few pickings of zucchinis and beans are compulsory each evening. (I can hear our daughters reminiscing about the bean gluts!)

Galahs and pale-headed rosellas used our nesting boxes again this year and the babies have already flown the coop.  My poor old magpie that I fed for over 21 years died earlier this year but his absence has contributed to a change in balance in the bird life we see regularly. We have a group of babblers http://birdsinbackyards.net/species/Pomatostomus-temporalis that have been hanging around for months and have built several nests on our block although don't appear to have raised any young. They are lovely happy chatty birds. Years ago when they nested here, the blue-faced honey-eaters moved in after them.

2011 has been a pretty good year and I will blog some more soon (while I can remember it.)