Friday, February 14, 2014

a long walk in a dry park covered in flies

Well, it is mid-February, so it's hardly surprising that everything in Jacana is dry and yellow. A bit of rain (promised for tomorrow)* may make all the difference. 



 The current state of the wetlands...











Ferdie here is sniffing at a piece of embedded plastic that was moving in the wind like a creature talking. I can't explain it better than that. My brain was inspired to believe it looked like a moving mouth on a snouted creature. Anyway I thought 'I could film that and put some recorded dialogue to it and it would just look like something coming out of the ground, talking'. Then it stopped.

As mentioned above, there were flies everywhere, though they seemed to be on me mainly and not on the dogs. But Barry & Ferdie went into the water with particular relish. 



Alright, you can tell me that it only looks like Barry's smiling. But I can't believe he doesn't know that this is how he can fake smiling if he wants to trick humans into thinking he's happy. 


Ferdie often gets a little frisky after a dip.


He also somehow managed to get the Ace Frehley look while he was in the water. As a small boy said to his father in Readings Glenferrie Road in 1980 or so, 'the black eyed Kiss has got a long tongue!' This proved to be true.

It was too warm, but there was a slight breeze coming from the south (this is the Moonee Ponds Creek from the south), which blew the cobwebs away. That was a shame as the cobwebs were the only thing protecting me/us from the flies.


*Update 16 Feb: it rained a bit the following day, and heavily the day after. Already the park is looking greener. I would have taken pictures to bore you with but my phone was charging. Also, it probably wouldn't have come out all that well in photos anyway. 

what a week

  It really was a huge week, with not exactly three new lectures to deliver but let's say the equivalent of two (split one in half to ma...