News & Updates from Vicki Avcin ~ AusCrafts · Page 10

The Christmas beetles come out. These are found predominately along the east coat of Australia but can be found over most of the continent. They are a scarab beetle and are common especially near Christmas, hence the name Christmas beetle.

In early summer, adult beetles emerge and seek out mates, eating eucalyptus leaves. Females lay their eggs in the soil, which hatch into white or cream-colored larvae called curl grubs. The grubs live in the soil for 1–2 years, then form a pupa and transform into adults. They can be brown, grey but the most exciting to find is the gold iridescent beetle.

Sadly, Christmas beetle sightings appear to be in decline. There is currently no formal monitoring program, it is unknown how bad the decline really is, or if it is affecting all of the 35 Christmas beetle species.

It is thought that because they live in the soil, when people are digging gardens or lawns find the grubs and think they are bad for the soil and they get thrown to the chooks or the birds get them.

So the other night when we found this one it was exciting. We have had the brown ones here before but to see this little beauty with its gorgeous iridescent gold colouring was wonderful.

Christmas must be just around the corner!

I would like to wish you all a safe and very Merry Christmas.

The local smoke shop had a promotion on for cigarette lighters and had a big cardboard display outside the shop featuring Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart.

Hubby asked the owner if he could get hold of another one as wed love to take one home.

As it happens we had a week of rain and the display that had been out front of the store for about a month was brought inside the shop.

Last Monday hubby noticed it was no longer outside and asked where it went. Owners wife asked if we wanted it…..yes…..and she said her hubby had put it out back and to ask my hubby if he still wanted it.

YES.

Brought it home and hubby took selfies with it and sent to the grandkids (they are into that type of music).

We now have the grandkids all trying to bribe us into giving it to one of them. They are going to miss out (for now) as it will go into the rumpus room when we are finished with the renos.

Hubby said it will become a collectors item in a couple of years. I didnt believe him. But on FB Market place they are already being sold around the $100AU to $200AU mark! So Snoop and Martha are getting into the Christmas cheer and residing beside the Christmas Tree this year.

Twelve months ago we had this banana like plant start growing in the side garden. No idea where it came from as it wasnt there when we brought the place 3 years ago.

Havent bothered much about it other than to cut a couple of leaves off that hit us in the face when we are mowing.

Last Monday hubby told me to go look at it. I got a shock…its a beautiful white strelitzia! Has been a couple of flowers by the looks of it with a couple on it now. It is a Strelitzia Nicolai or a Giant White Bird of Paradise.

They are a tropical plant and they grow to around 6 to 10 metres. The normal Bird of Paradise are the vibrant goldy orange colour which we also have in the garden but they grow a lot smaller than the white.

They are quite expensive if sold tree size.

There are some shoots growing and I plan on digging them out and putting in a pot. They are very hardy plants but very invasive apparently, so by potting them and putting on concrete it will stop the roots doing any damage.

They will grow to about 6 feet in a pot.

Our grand daughter that lives with us sent a message yesterday asking if we liked banana mangoes. Our response to that was what is a banana mango, thinking it was some sort of exotic banana or mango that somehow someone had managed to cross.

Was it a banana that tasted like a mango or a mango that tasted like a banana. I love bananas and I love mangoes so was interested to see what on earth it was. Anyway she brought four of these banana mangoes home. Well they looked like a mango on the skin but were more the shape of a banana than a mango.

I cut it open and it looked like a mango. Intrigued to see what it tasted like so I tried it and it tasted just like a mango!! A very nice mango too. Not stringy and quite sweet. Until now my favourite mango is the Calypso mango. It too is very sweet, not stringy and usually huge.

They are always on my shopping list while mango season is in full swing. I was curious to know more about these banana mangoes though. It seems that it originated in Thailand and are fairly new to Australia. It appears there are several growers in Australia now. They also are called dwarf mangoes.

I love the Calypso for eating but I think the banana mango would be great for smoothies as the Calypso has a lot more flesh to eat.

Last week I wrote about the storms that have been lashing the SE of Queensland. Well yesterday was day 5 of afternoon storms with more forecast for today. Yesterday we had a rather spectacular sky with mammatus clouds overhead.

Mammatus often form in association with Cumulonimbus clouds, which in turn bring thunderstorms due to their huge mass of unstable air.

All these storms bring back memories of my younger years when summer would see hot days (weve been having daily temps of 35 to 38 deg C) with the good old summer storm in the afternoons almost daily.

There is a song with the words we watch the lightning crack over cane fields and that is what my childhood was due to living for the majority of the year in Mackay.

Mackay has a lot of canefields surrounding it and that is exactly what would happen …..we would watch the lightning cracking over the canefields.

But even if we were living back in Brisbane, we would still get those daily storms.

Fortunately we have been spared any damage but in some places this week the winds up to 146kph have done damage.

That strength wind is equivalent to what one would get in a Cat 2 cyclone. No cyclones just yet as cyclone season starts in a few weeks but the ferocity of these storms in places have ripped up trees and blown roofs off homes further to the west of us.

So we brace again for more storms this afternoon and see what it brings. Weve had no hail but streets about half a kilometre away have. Forecasts each day are for strong winds, hail, heavy rain and so far weve been lucky.