The view of the lake, opposite yesterday’s holiday cottage. The sand is clean and white and cold; the sun warm: and the paperbark trees are always inviting. Their bark is soft to touch and easy to peel off like great slabs of freshly pressed paper.
And there’s another boat. Its something that surprised me when I first moved here, but people leave their boats unteathered along the shoreline without fear of theft.
I’m not familiar with this plant. But a few months ago The Bulldozer bought home a pot of them for me from the local plant nursery, as well as a gorgeous pink flowering rose that I keep nearly losing to a rusty rosy leaf problem. The Justica plant however, is very robust and doesn’t need any special attention. It is from South America, I think, and after it flowers, there remains a soft green cone of small flat leaves that is flower-like all on its own. All in all, its a festive and pretty addition to my garden.
Now that the nights are growing colder, we don’t see the frogs as often as in the summer time. I’m not sure if some of them have gone. Perhaps they follow the insects; I wonder about this because the moths aren’t around as much any more either. Still, all the frogs can’t have gone because the ‘massive green frog’ popped up the other night, so I whipped out the camera to take a photo of him. He doesn’t like the camera and never does too much, but I think he’s cute. I especially like the way he folds his delicate looking feet so contempatively underneath himself on the edge of the flower basket.
But don’t you think he has freaky rainbow coloured eyes in the closeup photo below? Freaky, freaky rainbow eyes. They remind me of a moonstone ring I had when I was little.
While I was outside photographing the ‘massive green frog’, I heard a familiar swooshing sound. The bat was back, and it had come to investigate me again. We think it likes company, otherwise we don’t why it comes fluttering in to see us when we’re on the veranda putting Taj to bed, or feeding the frogs. Last time I feed the reddish frog on my own, I wrote about trying to line up the moth I’d caught to feed the frog, the camera, and the frog so I could take a photo. I was almost ready, when the bat had swooped in and flapped above my head, lunging in to take a swipe at the moth I was holding. It had all been too much at the time – too many animals to deal with on my own.
But this time I wanted a photo of the bat, as its an elusive creature and it usually flies by so fast and quietly that you don’t know its there until its gone by and then you hear the swoshing sound in it’s wake (like a tiny jet breaking the sound barrier).
So I hid in the corner of the veranda and waited. The bat flies in long loops of the veranda. I managed to capture this image on the third lap. I wish I’d been quick enough to capture the bat as it hovered in front of me, investigating the flash and camera. But, I wasn’t quick enough and managed the best I could with getting this photo of the bat swooping back out into the night. The Bulldozer reckons the bat could possibly adapt to grabbing the moths from our fingers like the reddish frog does, except we don’t want that as we’ve eyed the bat’s claws and any scratch from it could give us nasty germs. I have felt the web-like skin on its wings though. Once when it flapped around my head, I instinctively put my hands up. It felt very soft, warm and springy.
The small village where I live huddles against the shore of the lake. And when you go to the lake to stroll along it’s edge you have two main options, to the right is a camping grounds with a beach that is open to the public. I’m always drawn to this end because the sky is so big and open, you can see the mountains in the distance, and the soft clean sand beckons to me. I’ll post photos from this end first, and then show you the more green bushy and boating end of the village.
I live very close to this serene lake, and am surrounded by national park.
Like many good things, is too easy to get out of the habit of appreciating them once they’ve become familiar. So, I’ve been making more of an effort to nip over to the lake and enjoy the peaceful late afternoons there (well, I made it over there twice in the last little while). More photos to come.
