fernication at Beechwood

 

It's amazing what a difference a load of topsoil can make!
Thanks to Di Cameron for the treeferns and birdsnest, Mary Anderson for the maidenhair and the Garden Club for two crinkly birdsnest ferns called "Lasagne" there was something to be planted in the new cat enclosure:



Mallory thinks: "they've turned desert into a jungle"

catification of Beechwood continues

The main ingredient has arrived - a cat!

We collected Mallory, a brown Burmese kitten, from Adelaide last week and she is proving to be an immaculately-mannered little darling. She's a stomach-on-legs at this tender age of 11 weeks, eating prodigiously without the competition of 4 brothers, using the litter tray, playing fiercely and sleeping just as intensely.

The cat gym was a doddle - ignoring the dinky ladder and straight to the top by the end of day 3:

 

tentative day 2

top of the tower day 3

 

triumphant day 8

 

 

Meanwhile, builders Geoff and Nathan were hard at work creating the outdoor cat enclosure. Plans were fluid, plenty of room for their input, which we welcomed - it's now more of a cat Taj Mahal than we envisaged and it's great!

 

They hauled old planks encrusted with ants and huntsman spiders out of the timber shed and converted them into a stunningly funky mismatched wall of palings which Alison ensures me is "right on trend" , in our case a matter of using what is already on the property. There look to be enough cat walks around the top and steps up to them, makes you want to be a cat and try it out yourself.

 

 

funky wall with cat steps
there will a fernery here when we get some decent soil

 

cat cathedral?

ferns waiting for their new home



crayfish at last

January yielded only one crayfish in David's pots so this month he and Rory have been diving off the back of Rory's boat using a hooka.

With some success:



 

Then today there was one in the craypot - so perhaps his luck has changed.

 

 

catification of Beechwood begins

Willow has not returned so we are adopting two Burmese kittens.
They are both females from the same breeder but different litters born a month apart and we can't collect the first for another 5 weeks.
We're going to make sure they don't roam freely: they'll have interesting things to do inside and a large enclosed run outside, centring on the shelter shed with trees to climb and cosy spots for a nap.

Alison came for a sleepover and erected stage 1 of making a cat-friendly house - the cat gym - which will connect to a runway over the windows leading to the top of a high cupboard.

 

It's all done with an allan key

 

no more Willow

We had a miserable Christmas: Willow our cat went outside at midday on  Christmas Eve and didn't come back. It was dusk before we realised that this was far too late. We were awake all night and can state that Father Christmas didn't come, only mosquitoes in the open door.

Next morning Angela and Josef, Judy and Jon - our neighbours - and son Jon combed the scrub to no avail and checked surrounding sheds. But the place is full of holiday-makers who would have seen her. No body so the options are: snake-bite and overnight fox or cat-napping. The internet informs me cat-napping is common, especially for pretty cats like Willow and the prime time for it is just before Christmas. OUCH! Wish I'd known that before, I'd have locked her up.

I've advertised at all the vets, the animal shelter and in the local paper and she is micro-chipped so there is a slim chance that somewhere down the line we may get her back.

As Di McEwen said: "She had a wonderful life."

 

 

forgiveness?

 

 

My walk yesterday was accompanied by seagulls overhead.

Does this mean they've forgiven us for Willow's misdemeanours?
More likely they remember I threw them some pork fat this morning...



not not-gardening

With the arrival of a trailer-load of sheep manure I have to admit we are gardening. Thanks Max for donating it AND helping to scrape it out from under the shearing shed.

With this good stuff the asparagus will be fatter next year

 

Wildlife continues to wander by: there was a blue-tongue lizard in the shed this morning and last night a wallaby came in search of water from Willow's bowl on the beach deck.