Still here

Given my post of a couple of weeks ago I thought I should find the energy to explain my sudden silence.

In fact my mental health continues to improve, but since mid last week both Deb and I have been struck down by a nasty virus.

I hope to be back on deck over the next few days.

Before I go I have to say something about Lilli.

Lilli the Labrador

A usual family joke has been that she is called Lilli because she is lilly-livered.
Well she seems to have discovered that we have a dingo around (weeks after we first spotted it).
Somehow Lilli has decided she is in fact a guard dog and has taken to patrolling the garden fence and barking at said wild animal.
Something that has been totally out of character before. In the past she has been only too happy to flee dangerous animals - like kittens.

Patrolling the perimeter

Jaws? Jaws schmaws!

For those of you who dropped in looking for Wild Flower Watch I must apologise.
Yesterday was rainy and wet and today family business took us up the Yarra Valley.

After our business was concluded we went for a picnic by the Upper Yarra River. The area we were in was not in the National Park so Lilli came with us.
As you know Lilli is a ball retrieving maniac.  Well one of the things she likes more than retrieving a ball is retrieving a ball and getting wet doing it!

So this little photo essay is about Lilli and her imitation of a fearsome aquatic beast.

Lilli standing at the edge of the river beseeching Lu (my youngest) to throw the ball.


Lilly leaping energetically into the current after said ball.


Closing in for a kill! Jaws has nothing on Lilli!


Doing what most Labradors do best: retrieving!


Landing with  her prey.


And finally, sharing the fun!


Now for those of you who didn’t get a wild flower fix

This lovely callistemon was growing on the Yarra river bank.


There are dozens of species of callistemons in all sorts of colours, from this lemon, to purples, pinks and reds. A number of species have the common name of “bottle-brush” and you can see why!

A Tail of Lilli and a Trip across a range.

First up (and because I promised) a quick story about Lilli the Labrador.

As I said the other day Lilli is now becoming really quite well trained.She is a funny thing really eager to please but quite anxious about things she doesn’t know. I think I told the story about her being frightened by the kitten over the back fence (which reminds me of other Lilli tails).  

Any way back to the story.

She is still young and bouncy (which is very nice) but having 29 kg (64lb) of Lab bouncing around can be quite disconcerting not to say dangerous. So one of the things we do with her is get her to sit before we feed her or put her lead or do any of a lot of things.

“Sit” was the first command she learnt so she is really good at obeying it. The rules are that if one of us says “sit” or gives a hand signal Lilli has to sit and stay until we say “free”.

E our eldest discovered how good Lilli is the other week. E had been planning to take Lilli for a walk so she gave the "sit" command so she could put Lilli on her lead. As E got the lead the phone rang so naturally she answered the call. It was one of her friends from University, so without thinking E went into her bedroom to talk.

E chatted for about half an hour. Then she checked what was on TV. About an hour after she answered the phone she heard Lilli whine from the back room. Thinking that wasn’t like Lilli E went to check what was wrong. Only to find Lilli still loyally sitting in exactly the same spot she had been left!
E decided the whine was an “excuse me, I think you have forgotten something”.

Lilli at the park

Like a small miracle it actually dried up enough this morning so I could mow the lawn.
So Deb and I set off late again today. We headed up to the Yarra Valley and paused in Warburton at a favourite café for a coffee.
 
I sat and played with my camera (nothing new there) and took this piccie through the front window.

It is a cottage on the main street of Warby (as locals call it)

As we left I paused to take a piccie of the main street to catch a bit of the fast disappearing blue sky.

As I have posted recently we have been having a wet miserable and cold winter.

From Warby we followed a road we haven’t used before.
It climbs the flank of Mount Donna Buang before swinging up through the Acheron Gap into the central Highlands of Victoria.

I say road, but muddy track is more like it.

We paused as we climbed into the Mountain Ash forest that is a feature of so much of the Yarra Ranges.


Just over the Acheron Gap is a pocket of rainforest.

I had to pause to catch this mini waterfall that tumbles from a spring just above the road.


The water up there is crystal clear and probably as clean as you will find anywhere.

As you can see this spring literally tumbles into the table drain alongside the track.


As we came down the other side I paused one last time to get some shots of the Acheron River which is made up of the water collected from hundreds of springs like the one I snapped.
The Acheron is also clear and clean and is a popular trout stream in season.

By the way the blue vehicle is our “other car” a Renault SUV. I have resisted owning a gas guzzler for ever but eventually early in the year I admitted that we were abusing our poor FIAT too much on mountain and outback roads. So we got this second hand Renault all-wheel drive, It goes anywhere we want to take it and it is diesel so it is still pretty light on fuel (about 38 mpg) which is the same as our little FIAT.

Lilli turns One!

Lilli our lovely Labrador has had her first birthday.
This piccie was taken this past weekend at the oval where we take her to chase balls and run.

The harness is what she wears in the car to keep her safe if we have an accident.

She is an absolute delight to have around clever, loving, companionable.
Also idiosyncratic, very idiosyncratic!

Like most labs she loves water, loves digging, loves retrieving.
Unlike most labs (or most dogs for that matter), she is fairly indifferent about food. She often leaves her meals half eaten. Yet as you can see from her build she isn’t in any way over fed.

She loves people and dogs she knows, but is nervous, really nervous about strangers.

As for cats, they are quite simply terrifying!
Lilli almost never barks, so the other day when I heard her barking nervously I knew something had frightened her. She had come in out of the back yard and was cowering in the corner of the lounge room, as far from the open door as she could get.

I went to investigate, assuming a stranger had come into our back yard. Lilli kind of followed me standing carefully behind me and barking (still nervously) at the would be intruder.
The terror that had caused her flight?
Our back neighbour’s kitten had climbed up on to their roof!

Now some more piccies,
As I said Lilli loves fetching the ball!

But because of her thick black coat she quickly overheats, so when we go to the oval we take a water bowl with us.

Now one last piccie I just had to share because it is just so funny!

Catching a ball in mid-air is hard work, “Dang missed again!”