Is it in the genes?

Do they have their grandfather's eyes?

Cheetah's green friend

WARNING

If you have a frog phobia, you might not want to view these pics:)

These days, I don't see as much of the Chimera grandchildren as I do of the McTavish grandchildren. The result is that my blog doesn't feature Cheetah and Little Bear as much as the other ankle-biters.  So today, for no particular reason, I decided to find a favourite pic of Cheetah to feature in a post.

I have many favourite pics of Cheetah because he is so photogenic with his pixie face and big blue eyes.  Can't you imagine him as an elf-lordling? 

I can remember when this little frog landed on him nearly 18 months ago whilst he was playing in the McTavish cubby house.  We all love frogs - although Mr Sunshine has a frog phobia, he still thinks they are cute to look at.  As long as they keep their distance and don't give him THE LOOK - you know. . . that LOOK that means, "I'm about to jump and I'm looking for a suitable landing site."  Fortunately none of the grand-kiddies have inherited his phobia. [They have all inherited my spider phobia :( ] 

Cheetah was obviously delighted that the little green guy was being so chummy and was disappointed when he jumped away.  They say that frogs are a sign of a healthy environment.  The McTavish back yard must be very healthy indeed.  They have heaps of them - in the pot plants, under leaves, in the crevices and even in the barbecue.  You have to do an inspection before turning on the gas.  At times the outdoor area has a distinctive amphibian fragrance from the number of frogs.  If you have frogs you will know this fragrance.

Kermit posed for one last close up before hopping on his way.

Dad

This is one for the family.  Dad passed away in February 2005.  I didn't realise how many photos I had of him until I was playing around with Picasa3's facial recognition feature.  Then with the click of a button and about 2 minutes of rearranging and I made this collage.
I haven't scanned all of my old film photographs yet either.
These pics span about 50 years of Dad's life.

Minding Grandchildren 101 - The Park

Why the park? 

A. They aren't messing up the house while they are in the park. 

B. They use up some of that bountiful energy supply and (hopefully) sleep more soundly at night.

C. Fresh air is good for them and us. 

D. Exercise is good for them and us. 

E. They just love to go to the park and think we are the best grandparents in the world for taking them.

F. Add more of your own reasons by leaving a comment.

The red brick house that you can't see behind the trees is the Dragon Lady Grotto.  This is only a fraction of our park.  It's big enough for 2 Rugby League fields and we figure that it's about 1 kilometer in circumference.  So, aren't we lucky to have so much playground for the grandchildren?  The down side is that until this time of year it's too hot to make use of it until late in the day.

On Saturday we looked after the McTavish grandchildren again.  For more than an hour we were in the park and even Monkey had a great time.  He forgot all about his obsession with food for the whole time.

There is a cycle path around the park and various (adult size) gym equipment also dotted around the park close to the path.  Lion can just reach the handle bars on this one.  I'm pretty pleased that I managed to catch the action with my camera.

Another action shot I'm fairly happy with is this one of Dragon playing hopscotch, but I think it would have been better if I'd got down really low - like on my belly - to get the feel of the distance between his feet and the ground.

Of course it can't be all sunshine and Lion had a momentary funk when Dragon's weight stabilised the roundabout thingo and stopped it from turning for him.  I told him to keep frowning because I wanted a good 'grumpy' photo.  So, naturally, he started laughing and giggling, but not before I "shot" this one.

Usually they want to stay in the park forever and we have tears when it is time to leave. The really amazing thing was that this time they were happy to leave and come home with us.  Maybe they were getting hungry after all.

Weird Australian History About Bunnies.

This photo was taken in about 1956 in a VERY small town called Ringarooma in North East Tasmania. That is me on the end behind my cousin and my (late) Nanna is watching us. Nanna owned a dairy farm on the outskirts of the town.  All of my family know where Ringarooma is of course. The geographic information is for readers who have never heard of it.

In Australia, towns are measured by how many pubs they have. Ringarooma is a one pub town.  It's a small town by anyone's standards.

The next photo is the Ringarooma pub, circa 1956.  These days it looks a little less fresh than it did back then.

My 'weird Australian history' is about the general area in the 1920's.  The photos are just to give you a general idea of the area and to help cast your mind back.

We all know that there were no rabbits in Australia before European colonisation.  But in the early days, some bright spark thought it would be a good idea to bring bunnies from Europe out to this country.  Before you could say "here comes Peter Cotton-tail" Australia was overrun with rabbits and they were a plague and a menace.  In the 1920's the folk in the Ringarooma area were fed up and started a baiting campaign.  I don't know what their poison was, but it effectively killed truckloads of rabbits.  Unfortunately it effectively killed truckloads of magpie birds also because they ate the dead rabbits and possibly the baits as well. Unlike the rabbits, the magpies were virtually eradicated from the area.

Back then, folk did not always think through the consequences and environmental impact of their actions.  There was an impact because the magpies ate moths and butterflies and caterpillars and now there were very few predators for the moths, butterflies and caterpillars.  Caterpillar populations exploded all over the countryside.  In 1926 they denuded the land of every scrap of vegetation.

Now for the weird history so pay attention. . .  The caterpillars were so thick on the ground that they even covered the railway tracks.  They made the railway tracks so gross that trains couldn't run until the tracks were clear.

That's right - Caterpillars stopped the trains.
I think that's weird.

Footnote: Obviously I was not the photographer.  My mother took the photographs with her little Kodak Brownie camera.

Sunday drivers

 

Actually it wasn't a Sunday.  By the way- what is the origin of the 'Sunday driver' equals 'an accident looking for a place to happen driver'?  Is it something to do with Sunday drivers being sightseers and therefore not focused on the road and traffic?  But back to my story-

Actually the pictures are the story.  Mummy McT took the photos and I made them into a collage (with a little help from Picasa3).  Get a load of that lawn.  That's how everything looked after weeks of good (a bit too good at times) rain.  Well maybe not EVERY thing, but everything green and growing took on an almost surreal brilliance. I have never seen so much of the countryside looking quite that fluorescent shade of green before.  We get so used to grass looking a sort of washed out light tan colour and eucalyptus and wattle trees tend to cope with the severe sun by having grayish foliage, that the greenness of the grass looks positively unnatural.  But back to my story-

Mummy McT and Chimera took all of the children to the park directly over the road for them to have a play with their trikes and scooters and for Cheetah to practise on his new (at Christmas) RipStik.  Poor Cheetah. It was much harder than he was expecting and it seemed that he really did have two left feet.  I'm sure practise will get him there in the end.

As for his younger cousins, Dragon and Lion, they have about 12 and 14 years to go before they can get their driver's licences.  Let's hope their concentration and coordination improves by then.

In case you are wondering, there were plenty of wheels to go around and Little Bear and baby Monkey were there too.

Monkey's wheels were on his stroller of course.

Minding grandchildren 101

I have been a very bad blogger. Long ago I decided that I would use pictures to tell the story, with minimal waffle from me. What should I do when I haven't had time to get out and about with my camera? [Although my camera is quite often out and about without me. Stay posted to Samster.com to see what my camera has been up to lately.]
Finally I decided to browse my photo folders for inspiration.

Lesson 1: Look silly for them.

Little Bear is usually very easily entertained. Like most little girls, she is happy as long as she has someone to push around play with. I am convinced that as long as children can find an adult who is willing to embarrass or make a fool of themselves for them they will be content. Just watch the faces people pull when talking to babies, to say nothing of the gobbledygook they speak. You get the picture?

Sorry Mr Sunshine.