The building inspector calls...

There are some birds that just ooze character and mischievousness and these two were a case in point.
A lot of the palms in Alan and our gardens are fruiting at the moment so the air is alive with the various squawks and squeaks or a variety of fruiteaters - mainly Rainbow Lorikeets and Helmeted Friarbirds.
The Lorikeets are sometimes quite approachable and I have a few decent piccies of them

The Friarbirds are much harder and I still have not got anything even half decent of them, this crop of one eating a stick insect is the best so far

Today though they were both completely out classed by these jokers who were clearly very interested in Alans roff and guttering

The workmanship clearly passed as they didn't take exception to anything and remove it for Alan, well other than some fruit from his garden

I am not completely sure what this was but it obviously was not ripe as it was discarded within a few seconds....vandals!
They are great birds, completely aware not only of you watching them but of themselves - more than a little bit vain if you ask me

They are certainly one of my favourite birds.

Spot the difference...

Today was gardening day two, another exceedingly knackering day as well may I say.
The day started early with all the cars being moved off drives etc so that the big pieces of kit could be bought in. The crew arrived by 0830 and got straight on with our garden....
Before

After

The trees were turned into about five tonnes of this stuff

by the end of the day the pile was probably five times this large, although I have made a sizable dent in it already..
They did have to bring in a cherry picker for some of Alans trees although the children were more impressed by the main "cutter" whi climbed up some very unstable looking palms

Not all the occupants of the garden were as impressed as we were

without doubt the largest White-Liped Treefrog I have ever seen!

Its not only the garden that has had a makeover today
Before

After

My baby is growing up - quite brings the tears to a fathers eye...
Although not all the monkeys are showing quite the same level of maturity...

That said there are the occasional opportunity to take sensible shots

Tomorrow another five ish tonnes of mulch to move, am not sure I will be able to type this time Thursday....

Gardening

Today was our preparation day for the tree surgeons who are coming to take down a leaning African Tulip tree and half the Lychee tree from our garden and four big trees from Alans - they are coming on Wednesday.
In traditional style have to do a couple of before piccies

The full impact will only be obvious once the trees are down.
The day started though with cleaning the roof. The view from our roof is not quite as good as from Alans but still not too bad

Unsurprisingly there were a few leaves that had to be removed

The leaf blower and rake were the order of the day. For the eagle eyed amongst you the clearest indication yet that our three have "gone native" as only one person was wearing shoes....
Cameron in between supervising us all was his normal calm self...

Once the roof was complete the photographer quickly got bored and went inside with her brothers and watched TV

But I did grab the camera at the end of the day for a post trimming but pre mulching shot

To say I ache would be an understatement!
As they say in all good dramas
To Be Continued.......


PS: Weather update. Getting properly cold at night now, two of our fish have succumbed to the temperature, Psycho (Alan and Jen Siamese Fighting Fish) is very lethargic and sticking to the bottom of his tank, ALL the fans off and blankets are on the beds...

PPS: 12 degree's I mean come on its the Tropics for petes sake!!!!