More about the turkey in the garden!

Today DH helped me finish enclosing 2 of my 3 veggie patches (the third is fallow at the moment). This morning I had caught Mr Turkey scratching around in the second one as it wasn't enclosed completely. I discovered that he was eating a potato that he had dug up out of the garden bed. I planted those last week but might have to just plant some more in case there aren't any under the ground any more :-).

One dug up seed potato with a big chunk bitten out of it, lol

By this afternoon, more plastic mesh had been purchased and the bed of potential potatoes was fully enclosed...we've run the mesh around the potted tomatoes and parsley. Three of the nasturtium seedlings that I planted last week have survived being dug up. To me, nasturtiums are a part of spring!

Yesterday, we were 80cm short of mesh for the other veggie bed, so that was finished off today too.

 Mr Turkey dug up one lot of potatoes that had just started to have green leaves shoot up through the soil but there was only a little bit of damage to the first planting of potatoes in this same bed. The lettuces and tomatoes seem to have been spared...

Elsewhere in the garden all is fine...albeit some pruning and weeding needed in a few parts. The turkey doesn't see to go down the side of the house or walk around the front garden looking for things to destroy.
Many of the plants have been flowering for weeks...they thought it was Spring at the beginning of August not September! lol

My potted succulent here is flowering...

The old fashioned geranium (pelargonium) has been covered in blossoms too

 My Marmalade plant ( Streptosolen jamesonii) has the most flowers that I've ever seen on it!

And my NZ Christmas bush has been flowering for quite a few weeks...

When DH mentioned to his friend Tim, that I had a turkey problem in my veggie patch. he sent us this photo. Apparently he makes these and he says they work...they fool turkeys into going elsewhere as they are very territorial. If the turkey keeps coming back and there is still 'another turkey' in that area, Tim says that they just won't come back. We are going to give it a try...

This is Tim's explanation...
' Here it is. It works, believe it or not. Male turkeys are territorial and if one with a large wattle doesn’t move on, then the newcomer does. I’ve done a few out of corflute and a friend’s friend’s neighbour in West End who is a landscape gardener was very sceptical until he saw the results himself. I should go into business. This friend of a friend said they would sell like hotcakes at the West End Green Markets.'

So, as they say, stay tuned!
 

It's still all happening around here!

In my last post I forgot to mention that DH and I are heading off to our annual parish Trivia Night tomorrow; last year our team came second, losing by 1 point. Whether we win or not is immaterial...it's always lots of fun and it raises funds for the parish.
I also forgot to mention that yesterday I signed up to go to the 'Let's Get Stitched' weekend in March 2014. Read about this wonderful event here. I'm already excited about this!

Now finally, it is that time of year again, albeit a bit early, when the male bush turkey is looking for somewhere to build a mound ready for his mate to lay eggs in. Last year I wrote about 'my battle' with one particular bush turkey. This year there are 2 of them. Over the last few weeks, veggie seedlings have been disappearing overnight...my worst fears were realised this morning when I saw the 2 turkeys digging up my garden beds...so out came the star pickets, the plastic trellis mesh and the big hammer. yep! Once more my veggie gardens are encircled to protect my plants.
Here's what happened last year in November...

Let's talk turkey...a bit of a drama in the vegie patch...

Bush or scrub turkey to be exact... Recently I wrote about having to put some trellis plastic around a garden bed to stop the bush turkey digging out the plants. Well, at that stage he was leaving the raised beds alone, but all of that changed in the last week or so. Each morning I would find at least one plant uprooted in the larger raised bed, and soil heaped up in mounds.

Then. on Tuesday morning of this week, this is the scene that greeted me when I went to water the vegetables. What a mess! This had been a garden bed with zucchini plants, thriving silverbeet plants and tomato plants. The turkey had 'raked' up leaf litter that was under the trees and shrubs on our back boundary and heaped it up in the raised bed. I tend to leave the litter under those trees as it forms a mulch for the trees but also provides cover for the lizards that live in our yard. 

The leaves were also mounded up at the end of the bed...in the photo below you can see the tradescantia plants that have been uprooted. These also grow under the trees at the back. DH and I picked up all the leaves mounded up outside the bed but it was a losing battle...when we weren't in the yard the turkey resumed mounding up leaves. He even started raking up leaves from my neighbour's macadamia tree  as well as scratching out any fallen leaves in amongst my bromeliad  bed under the jacaranda tree. DH and I decided that next morning we would buy some chicken wire to protect the garden bed.

pots, plants, twigs, fallen branches...all got raked towards the vegie garden bed

In the morning though, DH announced that he was going to contact 'Peter the Possum Man' a company that has permits to trap turkeys and relocate them to bushland. It was expensive but DH had decided that it was the way to go... So a young man came with a cage...which he placed on the 'mound' built by the turkey

He showed us how to 'set' it and explained how the trap was to be used. It had to be monitored at all times...if we went out we had to shut it. Now I wondered HOW the turkey could be enticed into the cage...what 'bait' for example??? But it was simple and ingenious how it all worked. The young man showed us how to slide a mirror in the back end of the cage...

Lol! Look there's another Maria !

The turkey sees another turkey and goes to investigate...and as he steps towards the mirror, the door slams behind him. We were shown how to take the mirror out when the turkey is trapped and turn it to the blank side and slide it back in. Then to help the bird calm down the young man left a knotted sheet to cover the cage. The young man then headed off to his next job and we went inside so the turkey would come back to his frantic raking. Within 10-12 minutes he was caught. Unbelievable!

We rang to say that the turkey was in the cage and eventually he was collected. His new home is bushland out Ipswich way...he should find plenty of leaves to scratch up there. I've lived with bush turkeys all my life but one had never chosen my yard for his mound before. It's said that that once they do that, you can never get rid of them or their mound. (The males build the mounds for the lady turkey to lay her eggs in. The heat of the mound incubates the eggs for eventual hatching, so we could have ended up with dozens of them next year !!!) 

Sigh...so it's all happening again!

It's all happening around here!

The building work continues next door with a team of carpenters working long days...

the new view from our front veranda...

 After being engrossed in the stitching project that I was doing for the Mrs Martin's Celebrations swap for spring, I'm back to my 'old job' of making blankets out of donated squares. I had had them all tacked ready to crochet up but put them on hold over the last few weeks...
This is just one of 9 blankets that have been made from one person's crocheted squares. K4BN member, Christine, has made well over 200 squares for the group...absolutely phenomenal effort!

On Tuesday, in what is becoming the norm, I loaded up my car with donations from friends and family, and took them to the Zillmere Knit and Natter.

The trolley soon filled up with items from ladies at Sisters of Stitch

I gathered everything together in one spot, ready to take down to the car...

There were crocheted rugs, baby quilts, beanies, scarves, children's jumpers, toiletries and balls of yarn that I had been given...

That day, a total of 156 items were handed in by the K4BN members who came along. This is such a great effort and very timely as there are 2 events coming up in the Ipswich area where items will be handed out to those in need. Mind you, it's not just Zillmere where items are being handed over; all the other Knit and Natter centres are the same with so many people giving generously of their time as well as items.

Each month, Elaine and Jenny sort all the donations that have been handed in at Zillmere...

The sorting is a big job...

Elaine and Jenny, after sorting,collating and recording all  the donations, then pack up all the items ...
While these 2 ladies are doing all that, the rest of us sit around an natter...oh, and knit/crochet too of course!

The number of ladies on Tuesday was quite small...sometimes we have twice as many crammed in the tiny room at the Community Centre.

Just as I took the photo of the  little kitchen, Helen bent down to pick something up...

 Here's Joy (below) working on her chevron/ripple crocheted blanket...with all those donations in the background.

 And the action continues...
On Saturday DH and I are heading up to Nambour for the Sunshine Linus Open Day and Quilt Show. This has been organised to showcase what the group does, and as well, to raise much needed funds so this group can continue the marvellous work they do for the community and especially seriously ill children. To this end, I've convinced DH that we must spend up on Saturday to help such a worthy cause! lol

On Sunday, we have a Fathers' Day brunch with some of the family at the Lido Cafe Restaurant at Ascot; this has been arranged by DsD2 and it sounds rather wonderful.
And then later in the afternoon, DH will leave for the airport to catch his flight to Rockhampton. He will be working there for at least 4 weeks, helping with the federal election. When he got the phone call about this work yesterday, my first thought was, 'For a month I don't have to stop sewing/knitting each night at 5.30 to start getting dinner ready...I can stop when I want to!' lol  Is that so  terrible of me???   :-) And the TV won't be tuned into In the Hotseat, Eggheads or Deal or No Deal...woot woot! lol

The Museum of Brisbane...

Recently DH and I spent an hour or so having a browse through the exhibitions in the Museum of Brisbane which is housed in the City Hall.
One exhibition focussed on the Brisbane River and it's part in the development of Brisbane as a capital city. There were paintings of the river in the early days of white settlement and lots of photos taken through the years. In early photos, wharves lined the various reaches of the river near the city and sailing vessels and steamships plied the river. Interestingly, there was a large map of the river showing the names of the 'reaches' in the river...I only knew the name of a few, but there are lots!
DH took this photo (of a photo) of an early vehicular ferry...this was the Eagle St ferry which crossed the river to Kangaroo Point; it's a bit different these days! lol

There have been a number of bridges built over the river and it was interesting to see photos of these bridges at various times in their history. There was even a model of the quite iconic Story Bridge.

The main exhibition that we went to see was the one which featured Expo 88...mainly the night time parades...but also a few other bits and pieces, such as uniforms and mascots...

Crazy costumes featured a lot in the parades at Expo

Costumes and lots of colour and movement...

As I said...crazy and zany things...

During the night time parades there were a lot of these wheeled vehicles, which were very flamboyant; in this exhibition we saw blueprints by the designers. maybe the actual vehicles haven't survived.

Sketches of some of the costumes...

The mascot for Expo 88; a large furry platypus with a slouch hat!

 There were lots of bands at Expo...this is the uniform of one such band...

Now because I've been sorting out the hundreds of photos that belong to our family, I was able to 'put my hands on' the photos that were taken on family outings to Expo 88. So this is my 'blast from the past, 1988'...

There's that band uniform from the previous photo, again...

Ha ha! I remembered how my children loved this instrument!

And here's another band that we saw...

As well as bands, there were lots of buskers at Expo...

And dancers from other countries...

There were amazing acrobats and trapeze artists too...

I didn't seem to have any photos of the Night Parade but here is a photo of entertainment on the River stage...

And the Laser Light Show and fireworks display each night were very popular...

The next photo is rather blurry but it shows the monorail that went around the site...

The architecture was rather adventurous...and I don't seem to have any photos of the pavilions which is a shame as they were fascinating in the main.

Lots of sculpture pieces were dotted throughout the site...

This photo shows me with my 2 daughters (7 and 4 at that time) having a rest after a long day walking around Expo. (the lady in the white shirt wasn't with us) 

 We had season tickets so we went many times during the 6 months. The photo below shows my 2 girls on a visit in Spring as they are wearing cotton dresses.

These sculptures were named 'Human Factor' and they were dotted throughout the site. A number were purchased by the City Council and are consequently still on display in the city.

It's hard to believe that it is 25 years since Brisbane hosted the World Fair also known as Expo 88.