Follow the link for a cheerful post about what I'm doing with myself.

 https://leecetheartist.dreamwidth.org/477760.html#cutid1

A potpourri

 A quick potpourri...

If you're in Perth and wondering what the heck these Blackhawks are doing flying around like maniacs, it's this https://www.army.gov.au/our-news/army-exercises-alerts/australian-defence-force-counter-terrorism-training-western-australia-mid-late-november-2020 .

I've tried 3 terrific board games in real life cardboard recently - Fossilis, Transatlantic and the new Cleopatra and the Society of Architects. All very fine plays. Transatlantic is available for everyone to play for free on yucata.de .

Fossilis and CSSA were kickstarters and particularly beautiful in their production. The rules adjustments on CSSA make for a sleeker play, and Fossilis, pushing rock, clay and sand around and rummaging in pits with tweezers to obtain enough of the right sorts of bones to reconstruct the prehistoric creatures is just plain fun, with some nasty push people off the dig twists which can be left out or put in depending on audience.

We had a very nice gluten free high tea down at the newly renamed Zoie Cafe (was Cocolat) on Sunday morning in Scarborough. We've been doing plenty of merswimming down at the Scarborough pool - much better now they've gone to summer hours, closing at 9:00pm so we don't have to compete with the squads for space.

Nyoongar language class has broken up for the year so we'll be doing some revision at home. South Australia, I hope things get nailed down quick for you. We're all wishing you the very best in speedily dealing with this particular fast and spreadable mutation!

The coronagarden has done its dash with the amazing kept-on-giving broccoli and cauliflower and now they've been cleared away for some heirloom cherry tomatoes and herbs, particularly basil.

Paris the Hamburg bantam is still with us and is her usual self. I'm still enjoying contributing to iNaturalist Australia, and will get back to my backlog of all the digital photos of lifeforms I have. We've had the pruners in and  the garden is looking pretty ready for late Kambarang and Birak bonar.

I have some birthday celebrations coming up, the first of which is The Princess Bride rooftop cinema coming up, which will be very cool. Hopefully this SA coronavirus won't get to us here but just in case I'm going to make the most of every swim, of every outing, because we never know when we too, might be plunged into sudden lock down.

Sanitise often, stay 1.5 metres away and wear a mask if you can't maintain that distance. And stay strong South Australia, if a late to the party Victoria can do it, you can too!

Cool!

 Check this out! It’s a neat interactive map that lets you hear first language words from all over Australia! https://50words.online/

Constant vigilance is the price of not running out of ventilators.

 As I get on the train people are sitting close to one another. As I enter a shopping mall, I'm the only one that's using hand sanitiser.  

 

I go into Coles or Woollies or IGA. I'm still the only one using hand sanitiser.  There are no trolley wipes, so I suppose that's good in a way, it shows it's being used, but no one's on watch for it. People crowd close to me in the checkout queue. 

 

We never really needed to get into the mask thing here.

 

And I understand why people have slumped back to normal with some relief here. It was scary and inconvenient.

 

Trouble is, I know, and you know that it only takes one mistake for this thing to get out into the community. And here in  "Bubble-you-eh" this complacency might come back to bite us, especially with an increase of people coming in from overseas, and soon from interstate. I don't want to keep the people out, but I wish the public's response to them coming was a return to the sensible habits of when we had community spread in W.A.

 

It just takes one mistake. Normally, this might be buffered by people who might be exposed maintaining distance, hand sanitising and taking precautions. 

 

But our fear has gone  because we've been protected.  So, my fellow Sandgropers, if you're reading this blog you'r probably already a well informed person.  All we can do is practise these habits ourselves, and hope to influence those around us. Otherwise, what else can we do? I'm really worried about the complacency I see around me, I scoffed at the silliness of the people in this article hugging and kissing in Victoria back then https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-26/coronavirus-melbourne-testing-blitz-underway-in-hotspot-suburbs/12393984 , but now I think we've got the potential to have it spread here like lightning because we've become too slack. 

 

What else can we do? 

Genghiscon 2021 is open for business

Not that they seem to have told anyone, maybe they made an announcement on FB or something?

https://sites.grenadine.co/sites/genghiscon/en/genghiscon2021/register

edit: At this time, though, the Paypal link to booking the accommodation at the college doesn’t work, click on the Submit Booking Request button instead of Make Payment and the college will email you a form to send back. Use the email address ON the form, not the one that sends it to you.

 My wasp trap has trapped it's first catch! It's a blowie. 

Western Australians! Is your suburb affected?

 Western Australians! Is your suburb affected?

https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/european-wasp/2019-20-nest-numbers-and-locations
Be on the look out for the black and yellow peril!

Adopt-a-Trap https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/european-wasp/european-wasp-adopt-trap-initiative – free (except for the bait – raw white fish) easy to install, I’ve just done mine.

The people at the Department of Primary Industries seem almost pathetically grateful to
anyone taking an interest.

And seeing as W.A is the only place in the world that’s fought them off for so long,
we should take a stand.

No one wants to drink one of these things from their drink can, or get swarmed
going past a concealed nest of them. Or see them displace perfectly reasonable
endemic species.

 I have been asked to help with the beginners classes for the new Nyoongar language class term, which as a wedjela or if you like, nydiyang person who really hasn’t been learning for very long, and I feel very privileged and honoured to have this knowledge to share.

When our teacher asked if anyone spoke a second language, out of the class of 25 plus, no one put up their hand. Perhaps these people are learning the language of the boodjar they are standing on, with apparently no other language interests, because they feel a sense of responsibility, or to get closer to culture and country or out of interest. It just gave me a nice feeling to think that so many people were taking an Aboriginal language as their first second language.

It’s definitely a Djilba feeling sort of day. Such a short season, today could be more of a Kambarang.

You know it’s Djilba when these words become especially important

koolbardi – Australia magpie (deathchicken, murderbird…)

djankang – Red Wattlebird

balay – look out!

bakanabiny – being dangerous

noorook – egg

manga – nest

djet – flower

#5words #aboriginal #australia #indigenous #noongar #nungah #nyoongar

Blue Spotted Hawker? Who knew?

  I found out how to get a log in to iNaturalistAU as when I was originally setting up the iNaturalist I'd done it from the main site, through Google. All the iNaturalist sites talk to each other, but not all of them let you log in with Google, and AU is one of those. 

Okay...I asked on the forum and was given some lovely clear instructions that worked, basically put in a password on my iNaturalist settings. This translates across to the AU site so now I can do this https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/observations?user_id=aliciasmith for you. I'm doggedly putting in all my photos of plants and critters I've taken since Google photos was a thing. Before that, well, we'll see. 

When I come to the Finland visit I'll enter it from the iNaturalist site I guess?

Because the iNaturalistAU site is part of The Atlas of Living Australia https://www.ala.org.au/ data that the collector has marked as having permissions (there are various copyrights you can mark stuff with without giving away the farm) is transferred to the Atlas of Living Australia.
You are the eyes on your bit of country and you're directly contributing to environmental science.

I just think it's fantastic! And people come along and tell you what those species are that you've always wondered about around the place. I'm not strong on plant and insect i.d but wow, now I'm getting pointers. Blue spotted hawker just sounds *cool*!

And if you're on Blogger you can set up a widget! https://leeceandherhappenings.blogspot.com/?zx=ff159969ab302c7a - of course if you're reading this on  Blogger you'll have already seen it. :-)

Can you run that by me again?

 Being able to go to the drive-in is really good ( and never more so than now in these pandem-eek! aware  times) and when it's a good movie it's a bonus! 

Tenet is a cool movie and extraordinary in its craftsmanship. I liked the characters and the plot was interestingly braided. There's very little greenscreening or cgi, and, no they're not running the film backwards, the actors are driving and walking backwards. Two takes, one backwards, one forwards. Worth reading the imdb and wiki entries for AFTER you've seen the film. Or is it before?

4 out of 5 neat and being taught to juggle by M C Escher on the Sid and Nancy Scale.

The most important distancing method.

Just spotted this from our nation's capital, graciously shared by the ABC News Coronavirus live blog. We don't have koalas in Western Australia, but we do have Drop Bears,  Carnifex elegans rather than C. robusta, but the same applies. Stay safe people!