Orchids and Wildflowers of Eneabba

This month the orchids and wildflowers around Eneabba have been putting on a full show for us.  These are some of them spotted the past week!

We’ve spent a bit of time looking for Orchids in the area and found a few already we’ve never seen before which is so cool.  Wesley is my enthusiastic hiking partner and will follow me into even the thickest of bushes!  I’m loving that he’s agreeable (for now) to come out and see the flowers with me.

The past week we went out to a friends house for wine and woodfired pizza, which was such a nice evening.  Wesley played with the kids and we hung out chatting into the darker hours.

Here are a few items pictured here in no particular order:

• Daddy Long Legs Spider Orchid
• Hybrid
• Crimson Spider Orchid (quite small compared to the others)
• Bee Orchid
• Blue Leschenaultia
• Pea Flowers
• Drosera flowers
• Banksias
• Bearded Dragon
• Some kind of pink smoke bush – which is soooo pretty!
• One monkey jumping on the bed
• The Coorow Greenhead Road which takes us to the ocean
• The front porch of the house which is going to be getting a lil makeover soon

We also bogged our ute while we were out looking at some of these flowers.  Oops!

Bull ants and the rain.

It was looking pretty dire here until last weeks massive rain storm rolled through.  A week on and the ground is starting to look almost 50% green.  It’s incredible how quickly the germination has rooted and begun to bring more sustenance to these hard working mums!

This is the shell of a woman who’s not slept deeply in two years… worth it though! Wesley is the happiest little person I’ve ever known and I’m feeling so grateful to be his mum.These are some pea flowers that were open a couple of weeks ago.  The road is starting to awaken and it’s looking like the rains are going to keep coming… hurray!!Found these two lovers this afternoon – they are bull ants and god I’m horrified by the fact that they can also fly.  The male is clinging to the females back here.Here is evidence of some of the rain we’ve had recently.This is on the road just south of Amboseli.  It was here that frogs could be heard calling to one another – a sign that winter has finally arrived!

Thorny Devil, Western Australia

Here is a thorny devil that was found about 15km away from the farm.

Not too sure what the issue is, but I’m having issues posting a 7 second short clip of the this thorny devil walking.  I’ll keep at it (few days now!) and hopefully will have a little video to share with you soon.

This post also features a Lesser Wanderer Butterfly, a jumping spider that mimic ants and some of the dry landscape.

At the moment we’re hosting Mike’s cousin Tom who’s going to be headed inland shortly to work for our old boss seeding in Coorow.  And while we have had him here we took him to the few coastal communities here and found a sea lion looking rather tuckered out.  The local fisheries and ocean officer told us she’d come out and make sure it was ok.

The sea lions generally aren’t found on mainland unless they are tired or injured.  It’s the first time we have seen one here.

Around the yard.

It has been a week of nature discovery here around the farm house.  Wesley and I found a baby snake at the back step of the house, which is currently unidentified.  If you know anything about Australian snakes please feel free to leave a comment with your guess/species name.

The little jumping spider was also found at the back step this morning.  I was walking outside to hang up laundry when I spotted a little speck.  Moving slowly I peered closely and discovered it was a beautiful basking jumping spider.  Pretty cool colours on it!

The lizard is actually a very small baby dragon lizard.  It was in the grass at the back of the lawn that is growing up the fence.  Thankfully I saw it or I might have accidentally killed it with the scissors I was using to trim the grass by hand.

Butterflies have been flitting around the yard drinking the water that remains on the grass from it’s sprinkler system.

Wesley and I were also exploring the yard and Japanese pepper trees today as they were just alive with the sound of bees darting too and from.

I feel really bad about this hair cut and I’m hoping it grows quick.  Sorry my sweet little boy – if you see this image one day I never intended for it to be this shoddy!

You never know what’s going to pop up around the house – a lot of these things are a first for me.  Wesley is so lucky to get to see all of this right here!

Home sweet home.

We’ve been away from the farm for two weeks in New Zealand.  I’ll post more about that shortly, but for now I’d like to highlight some of the cool moments from the past few days back on the farm.

First Wesley has jumped into his groove and is a happy little chap running around playing with his bike, the chickens and swimming at the pool.

Last night we witnessed an incredibly beautiful lightning storm come through the region.  We woke this morning relieved to see that there were no lingering fires on the horizon.

I also managed to spot this rather impressive jumping spider, a female Sandalodes Superbus (Superb Jumping Spider) on the back gate of the house.

The chickens were very well taken care of during our trip, but sadly we’ve had to kill 5 roosters (saved the meat for the freezer) as they had completely destroyed several of the females.  We’ve got the numbers down so that the girls can recover and the balance of male to female will be appropriate.

We’re stoked to be home to enjoy the quiet space and the ease of life here in the country.  It’s clear to see that Wesley while he enjoyed New Zealand – loves his time here on the farm too.

On our second day home he pulled me close to him and said to me “I luh you” which oh my god I’ll never forget.  It was just so sweet and so beautiful.