News & Updates from Vicki Avcin ~ AusCrafts · Page 76

All the rain we have had this year has been great for the garden but it has also meant that the kangaroos have had a great breeding season.

Last few years weve only had one mumma who come to visit us and show off her joey.

This year due to the abundance of food, we welcomed another mumma and her joey as well. Kangaroos tend to not breed if there is a drought with little food. When food is plentiful especially after a wet season they will breed well. They stay in the pouch for around 190 days when they will then leave the pouch and learn to live in the outside world.

Once they get to the stage about being 4 to 6 weeks before leaving the pouch it is quite comical to see the joey in the pouch still drinking from its mothers teat but because of the size it is there are legs and a tail hanging out of the pouch as there isnt enough room.

They will stick their heads out of the pouch and graze on the grass while the mum is eating. You can see by the photo one has its head out and the other has his or her legs hanging out upside down suckling.

We welcome these 2 little ones into the mob and look forward to watching them growing up and who knows, maybe one is a female and will one day have her own little joey and come visit.

Well it is supposed to be Autumn now in Australia but still Mother Nature isnt behaving. Weve had a month of good rain especially with Tropical Cyclone Iris wandering around up and down the Queensland coast.

The grass is thick and plentiful and very green (in fact you can mow it today and in 5 days time have to mow again if you can as the ground is still waterlogged) and the plants are flowering in abundance, which is supposed to be a Spring thing!!

Even my roses are blooming well. Weve had some very welcome visitors too that weve not seen in a long time……some beautiful green frogs.

We have 2 that have been visiting every night and just sit waiting for bugs, although they do have to vie with the geckos for the bugs.

One likes to sit on a window or wall, the other likes to sit under my chair out the front.

It must feel secure because it doesnt bother to move when we go out and sit down.

The nights are starting to cool now and autumn looks like its finally turning up with the cool nights but the days are still on or above average for this time of year at last.

And finally we have had a few consecutive days of sunshine.The photo is of some of the flowers in our front yard this week which include Gerbras, Hibiscus, Crocus, Sunjewels, Duanta Erectus, and Lady of the Night.

Well all those reading this in a Commonwealth country would be aware the Commonwealth Games 2018 is happening now at our beautiful Gold Coast in Australia.

Prior to the games the Queens Baton relay happens for the year prior, leaving Buckingham Palace with a message from the Queen in it and the relay goes to every Commonwealth country on its journey to the opening of the Games.

This message is read at the opening ceremony, in the Queens absence it will be read by Prince Charles. One of the baton bearers on its journey, was one of my fellow firefighters, First Officer and Auxiliary Captain where I first began my firefighting career.

Bernie carried the baton as it went through Beenleigh, a city about halfway between Brisbane and the Gold Coast. I am so proud of him as he well deserved the honour of being one of the baton bearers.

He is due to retire at the end of June and after 25 years in the service this is a wonderful way to recognise his contribution to the community as a firefighter.

At the end his leg of the relay he handed the baton to Jessica Schipper OAM who is a champion in her own right in the field of swimming.

She won gold in Olympic, Commonwealth Games and World Championships. The Games mascot is a blue koala called Borobi.

Borobi is a male koala with blue fur and unusual markings on his paws. The name Borobi is derived from a dialect used by the Yugambeh people, an indigenous Australian group from the Gold Coast region.

Well 26th March saw our little Grand daughter Bella turn two. Cant believe how time flies so quickly. She has just started kindy this year butfor now only goes one day a week to give Mum a break.

With baby Clay who is just on 3 months old, it gives Mum a chance to have a bit of a breather to get more thingsdone than when this little livewire Bella is at home.

Bellas Mum made her birthday cake again this year with it being all about the sea. She made all the little animal decorations on it too! (everything is edible). So where else would they hold Bellas party but down at the beach. Dont you love her curls?

Reminds me of a little Shirley Temple.

My Country is a poem by Dorothea Mackellar about Australia.It says it all about this wide brown land that is my home.

And Australia is sure living up to her words.

Last week I wroteabout the rain that was TC Linda which is still having its effects onQueensland with all the water still flowing through inland Queenslanddown to eventually the Murray Darling Basin all the way down in Victoria(light blue lines in the picture) Today as I write this, TC Marcus still is a Cat 5 cyclone after being born upnear Darwin in the Northern Territory earlier in the week.

It has gone out to the west off the West Australian coastline but track maps for the system have it coming back east down towards the lower end of WA. (purple showing where it started, where it is now, and the pink line where they forecast it to go)This morning TC Nora was born up in the Gulf of Carpentaria and it will cause severe weather in both the NT and Queensland. (purple/pink) but they are not quite sure yet where she will track.

Earlier this week there were multiple bushfires in the state of Victoria and a catastrophic fire on the south east coast of New South Wales with 70 homes burnt to the ground.

Fortunately there was no loss of life.

While that was happening, rain and floods in the central mid coast of NSW are causing havoc. Along our eastern coastline in Queensland we have winds, rain/showers and the possibility of another cyclone forming off the coast in the Coral Sea out round Samoa.

So while other parts of the world continue with winter hanging round and bringing snow, we are having the full gauntlet of Mother Nature throwing heat, winds, rain/floods, cyclones and devastating fires at us with the prospect when all this dies down (our summer/autumn) of what they are predicting a very long cold winter with snow happening in places it hasnt snowed for many many years!!

I hate the winter so not sure which season I prefer at the moment! Picture shows whats been going on and a couple of verses from the poem My Country.