Jillieofthevalley’s Neighborhood

Note on photo: Scientific name - Athyma nefte subrata.  Males have white bands instead.  Photo taken of it here.  Males were around but not cooperative today.. .hanging around on high branches chasing each other.

I was out for only a few hours before I found myself running like a overloaded freight train down some narrow paths to get myself some shelter from the rain.

Activity was... GOOD!  Many of the trees were flowering right at the top of the hill and there were a lot of Painted Jezebels flitting around out of reach.  Banded swallowtails and Autumn leaf butterflies were a few and the trails were re-populated by the great eggflies (Hypolimnas bolina bolina and Hypolimmas bolina jacintha) further down the hill.

I surprised a dating couple and also found a couple of straight(?) Judys (Abisara species) dog-fighting way out of their usual dog-fighting hours.

Note on photo above: Went back to the cinnamomum iners to find more Katies... but it was uneaten and populated by a colourful bug.

I saw the Xylocopa caerulea for the second time this year (only!) and still failed to get a record shot (it landed for 1 second on a small stem of a plant and then hovered away down the hill).  I'd only ever seen it on this hill.    

It has a furry unmistakably blue thorax.  Read John's write up on it here.

It happened.

We had tickets to go home to PA for our annual Christmas party. The week before we left, my Aunt Joyce got an obstructed bowel and had to have emergency surgery. That surgery was do or die, no choice in the matter but what happened after wasn't good either.

When she woke up she started pulling the tubes out and they had to sedate her so she wouldn't do that. They kept her in a medical coma for a few days and then let her wake up. There seemed to be a glimmer of hope for a little while, but it wasn't to be.

Michael and I arrived in PA on Wednesday night around 9pm until we arrived at my mothers house. We were going to head for the hospital in the morning. At 9am Thursday we got the call from my uncle Richard. She was gone.

The last day or two she was in hospice care. Hospice seems to help the family, the living, just as much as the dying.

Friday night it started snowing and didn't stop until Saturday night. Thank goodness it didn't blow. No one would have gone anywhere. Leola got a good 10 inches I think. I didn't measure ;)

rest in peace Aunt Joyce, I am going to miss you

Well, it's Christmas at last, and from the sound of you all on Twitter your cards are sent, and your presents wrapped. It's been great hearing all your cries of delight recently, as your poor postmen and women have struggled with packages through the snowy weather! Hope those of you who have time off over the festive season get everything you wish for, and those who are working have more fun than you might be expecting. We've published the dates we're working over the holidays, so if you find yourself in the office, you might well have company here in the UK, or over with the MOO Crew in the US. We've had a great few weeks spotting unique gifts and ideas created with MOO, here's a few of our favourites: A tetrabox advent calendar, by Bcome Also by Bcome, this lovely looking memory game, complete with a great pattern on the back: This super-cute Mosaic Frame, created by thisiswoly. Filled with 20 Minicards, it features the beautiful baby Sarah. These wonderful looking alphabet game cards, by taraghb, which look like they were as fun to make as they will be to use! And last but not least, look at this! another entry into our MiniCard Gift Box competition! Created by emusing-emma, it's really bought an extra flutter of Christmas cheer into MOO Towers. We love his little sledge! Fancy joining in the fun? Closing date for entries to our competition is midnight PST 28th December 2009. Why not grab some festive paper, and see what you can do! More competition details can be found right here. And now all that remains for me to say is a Very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from everyone at MOO!

 

Love this. This is a member of the rescue network and her trying to take a picture of her 20 dogs together! It's about 8 minutes long but worth every second!

 

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Merry Christmas; Happy Holidays; Best Wishes for whatever you celebrate at this time of year.

I will see you on the other side of the 25th ......

We will have Christmas day with my three children and my new daughter-in-law.....   firing up the barbie and tossing some prawns and seafood on it.

On Boxing Day (26th)  we start the flights back to DC  -  arriving in Los Angeles before we leave Sydney - LOL -  I love that International Date line!

 

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We spent yesterday with my parents who live about 3 hours drive north of Sydney -  in Tea Gardens/Hawks Nest. This will be my last visit with them this trip. It is always really, really tough saying goodbye to them as the thought is always in the back of my mind that this might be the last time I see them.

  Their little town is  sandwiched between the Pacific Ocean 

and the Myall River, Great Lakes system:.  We were only on the beach for a short time before I could feel my too fair skin starting to burn. The water was clear and so inviting, and there was no seaweed here; just tiny shells washing ashore:

The river is also lovely and clear....

 

The pelican was hoping we had some fish for him - he was disappointed.

 

it was full of seaweed: 

Only just yesterday, this lil caterpillar was moving like a freight train through my little tank... one day later... it was covered in little furry eggs and didn't seem to be moving.

Note on photo above: Butt view

She wasn't eating yesterday so I went down into the forest in my corporatey too-tight-for-hills-skirt after work thinking that maybe she needed young saplings of the host plant.

Note on photo above: The lifeless or paralysed head... hanging out sadly... instead of covered with its fleshy mantle.

I hesitated initially about going into the forest in my slippers... but... the thought of her starving was unbearable.  

Note on photo above: When Katie was alive... and parasited... (maybe it's those weird tear shaped white markings on its sides)...:(

After running around in the forest till almost dark, I found all the saplings I needed.  And was treated to a rare display (to me, anyway) of huge Saturns chasing each other in the darkness above my head.  I'd never seen them like that before in the daytime.  All out and about in the open.

It was an amazing sight...HOWEVER... I don't think I'd do that again anytime soon.

The forest at night is a really spooky place.  Its a complete opposite of the beauty it breathes in the daylight.

Sadly, Katie was dead and all my effort was wasted.

I'd been so horribly busy lately.  What with all the running around in the forests at night and attending way too many weddings and Christmas parties (before Christmas even!). 

But baking gingerbread for people I love is really fun!  Only downside is that I don't want to touch a gingerbread man after having been wafted with that overly sweet smell of brown sugar, golden syrup and ginger powder from preparation to decoration.

In my opinion, baking and decorating them is way more fun than eating them! (I tried bringing them on the field while shooting butterflies in case I got hungry... but I kept getting attacked by ardent ants!)

 

I've had a lot of Christmas trees in my 54 years. I remember the one in this photograph, taken when I was six, but I remember the piano more. That had to be the best Christmas present ever. It certainly fostered my growing love affair with music. I never had the patience to learn to read music; I picked things out by ear instead, and that's probably the reason I was never very successful at playing music. I remember some of the first songs I taught myself on this little piano: My Favorite Things, Summer in the City, and an extended version (I guess it would be considered a remix now) of the staple, Chopsticks.

 As I became an adult with children, we had everything from the Christmas tree inside a playpen, so the toddlers and family dog wouldn't knock it over, to 8-foot real traditional firs, adorned with silk bows, satin ornaments.....and flocking. 

"Your mother, she's going through some flocking stage." 

 

At least I think that's what the kids' dad called it. I was drinking a lot of nog.  Pinecones, wreathes, nothing was safe. For several years in a row, I flocked everything in sight. 

 

*Ahem* Moving on.

 

After the kids grew up I didn't give much thought to a Christmas tree. I believe there was even a year or two that I didn't even put one up. When I made the solitary move into this house 4 years ago this month, I was so broke -- I barely had furniture. It was bad, y'all; I was eating bread that I had to tear away the part a mouse had gotten into. I'd put every available resource into getting the house. But, I had candles, I had some booze, I had a little plug-in CD player/clock thingy, and my computer, so I had music...and I was out of the weather. No food, but had the booze and tunes covered, lol. Good times. The only thing missing was a Christmas tree. 

 

I had even less reason than before to fool with one, but I really wanted one...my first Christmas in the first house I had ever bought on my own warranted a Christmas tree. I went to Big Lots and splurged...$19.99 for a 4-foot, pre-decorated tree. I grabbed a few little extra ornaments and I was set. It wasn't an 8-foot traditional live fir, but it was sparkly enough, and it was mine. And the boys came to my place for a simple holiday gathering.

 

Sometimes biggest-most expensive isn't the best. Sometimes timing is everything.

 

 

 

And the year after, the same tree sitting in a different spot  (I still didn't have dining room furniture or curtains yet!)

 

And then again in the corner of the dining room for the last two years. (Gotta have my snowman and my doll.)

 

Since that first year in this old city house, my life has gone forward in that I can probably afford to replace that little "do-for-now" tree, but my spirit isn't quite willing to do so. Of all the trees I've had through the years, there's something glorious about this little one, and it means the most to me. It was the first invited guest in this home, it cheered me up during a bad time, and I consider this little tree a friend. It has a home here for life. Each year I add a little something to it -- a bird, or a special ornament, and although it's artificial, it grows one foot per year in my affection for it. So here's my little Christmas tree in 2009:

 

 

It jumped to this side of the dining room corner and this year it gets a star. Pay no attention that the star looks too big. The tree will grow into it. :)

 

Merry Christmas to all my fellow Voxers; may you have near to you, everything that's dear to you! 

 

 

 

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I'm not sure I want my food to announce it's going to make my jiggly bits dance but this was a wonderful dinner on a hot evening:;

And how could I resist wine with a label like this?   It was actually pretty good and I've bought another bottle...  :