VISITORS

We have had quite a few visitors in the past week. I was cleaning out the toilet the other day and decided to check out the cistern because there were lots of bits of grit in the pan. Well imagine my surprise when I found two large and one small green tree frogs living in there!! The largest one of the lot was clinging on deftly to the cistern lid and wasn’t nearly as surprised to see me as I was to see him. After showing Andre, and then the kids when they got home from school, we decided to leave the lid off to see what they would do, which in fact was nothing. How did they get in there? What do they eat? Isn’t it a little cramped and unpredictable when your home surroundings suddenly empty and fill with water without warning? Well they obviously liked it very much as they were still there days later, so we put the lid back on again and have left them to it. Our next visitors were on Saturday. When Tal and I returned from a morning out, we were greeted by the others and two very friendly dogs – a little staffy and a kelpie cross. They were so comfortable that I knew they had been here before, but I was surprised when it started to turn dark and they were still here. They tried in vain to sneak into the cottage, but finally got the message and left late in the evening. We have since found out that they live about two kms down the road and must have decided to have a day out. We enjoyed their company while they were here. Our third lot of visitors are of the rodent variety! We always knew that there were mice around, but hadn’t had much evidence of them, then the other night when Andre was up watching the football (soccer for all you Aussies out there!) he caught not one, but two in the trap in the cupboard. Then yesterday we had no less than four sightings of mice and this morning there was evidence that something a bit bigger had been snacking on an apple in the kitchen. The mice are very small and cute, but I still don’t like them nibbling on everything and when one ran across Rennie’s bed last night it took quite a lot of cajoling to get her to sleep there! Our other animal encounter which I forgot to mention in my earlier entry, was finding a large ( about 2m long) python warming in the sun on the dirt road. At first Penny and I thought it was a stick because its head was raised and so still, but we reversed the car and went back to have a better look and take some photos for Tal. Yet again he missed out on seeing a snake! A and I are working on the theory that because Tal wants to see a live snake in the wild so bad, he will never see any. I have my fingers crossed for him though.