A week out

With ANZAC Day celebrations falling on a Thursday this year, it made sense to take Friday off and get a long weekend. Dad and I had decided to go to the ponds and finish up some jobs that needed doing. With dad regaining mobility after his knee replacement, he felt up to pottering around, and I needed to finish up trimming willows at one of the mai mais.

I grabbed dad's dog Zulu, and as I pushed the punt in, disturbed a heap of birds on our nearest pond. I filmed the journey out through the ponds.....

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Now that's what I call a shitwack of ducks. At the 2.30 mark there's a pure white bird amongst that duck tornado... a marked bird if ever I saw one.

The recent heavy downpour appears to have flooded the gutter, as the floor against the southern wall of the hut is soaked through. At first we had thought that the main water hose from our tank system had popped so dad removed a wall panel to check, no problems there (my gutter theory came to me during the wee smalls this morning). I dragged the what we call "buttercup*" from the Bollocks pond which took a while; then re-joined dad at the hut to repair some damage caused by rats. We laid bait and put down some traps, hopefully that'll nail them.

Roll on Opening Day.

*when I arrived home, my DOC hunting permit had arrived, accompanied by 2 flyers warning of noxious weeds. One of the pamphlets identified "buttercup" as Primrose willow. Best as I can remember we've had it in the ponds for 25 years or more -  its horrible stuff, luckily not as fast growing and invasive as Alligator Weed...