Showing Tag: "animals" (Show all posts)

Hello possum (11 June)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Thursday, June 11, 2015,

Ringtail possums. So cute. We often see them on our phone and power lines at night.

Luckily we don't have any possums inside the house or roof any more. We used to have a couple of resident brushtail possums living in the wall cavities (they even chewed holes right through the weatherboard for ventilation). Paul the Possum Catcher took care of that years ago with his humane one-way exit system, and we haven't had a problem since. They still visit and eat the fruit in our garden. But we don't m...
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Humidity

Posted by Sally Cummings on Sunday, February 3, 2013, In : Travel

Tim recently complained about me steaming up the bathroom with my hot shower. Fair enough too - the last thing you want in this humidity is to have more steaminess added on top of it. Except I hadn't had a hot shower. I'd had a cold shower. Just like I have every day for the last 2 or 3 months (though the cold water is never really cold at this time of year). Darwin is a very hot and humid place right now.

This wet season has been disappointing - not very wet at all. We've had one really lovel...
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A friendly hermit crab (30 June)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Saturday, June 30, 2012, In : Travel

On a recent visit to East Point Reserve, I picked up a pretty shell and got quite a shock when this little fellow crawled out to say hello!

Tim is much braver than I am around creepy crawlies, so the photo is of his hand of course. It was quite fascinating to watch the hermit crab pop in and out of its shell, and explore Tim's hand freely. I filmed a short video of it, which I've uploaded so that you can watch it too :)

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A real treat!

Posted by Sally Cummings on Sunday, October 16, 2011, In : Travel

The ALIA Top End Symposium was on last weekend, and the following day I headed off to Alice Springs where I spent a week working at the campus library there. So I have heaps that I want to blog about, but I'm going to start with an unsual experience I had in Alice this week.

My colleague Leonie took me on a tour of the uni campus - she was a great guide and introduced me to lecturers and staff all over campus. One of the highlights of my campus tour, though, was meeting a staff member called S...
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So this is the wet season!

Posted by Sally Cummings on Tuesday, February 15, 2011, In : Travel

7.00pm

This blog post has been updated a few times since I started writing it this morning. It's changed from a "boy it's wet" post to a "OMG cyclone!" post *lol* - you can see my earlier scribblings below :)

The wind is really picking up now and the lights are flickering, so I'm going to turn the computer off when I've uploaded this blog post (although I'll try to keep up with the news via my laptop and wireless connection). I'm sure we'll be absolutely fine - our house is built to code, and t...
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Fun with frogs

Posted by Sally Cummings on Monday, November 29, 2010, In : Travel

The frogs in our garden are going crazy. They're barking, belching, quacking, grunting and honking. Loudly.

Apparently some people enjoy this noise. Nuh. I don't get it.

The last time the frogs were this loud, this is what we found in the morning:

These frisky frogs were in our pool. We chased them out - and snapped a couple of photos ;) - but soon discovered that they had left something behind in the water. Hundreds and hundreds of little frog eggs. You can see some of them in this photo (upper...
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#Octshowntell Week 1

Posted by Sally Cummings on Monday, October 18, 2010, In : Technology

First there was #blogeverydayofjune. Then there was #1pic1thoughtinAug. Now it's time for #Octshowntell :)

#Octshowntell is a challenge to explore a variety of digital storytelling tools - one each week in October - and share the results on Twitter, using the #Octshowntell hashtag. As well as being great fun, it's a terrific idea to get to know these tools, and to consider how they can be used in both personal and professional contexts.

My first effort was using Animoto, which creates beautiful...
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Roxy (27 June)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Sunday, June 27, 2010,

We have a cat. Her name is Roxy. I love her.

Except when she throws up on the carpet, scratches the furniture, sheds hair all over my clothes, sprays on the laundry hamper (only once, when she was stressed), won't swallow the darn tablet, causes an allergic reaction when she scratches me, hogs the doona, and rips up the carpet at the front door so that we can't get into the house.

But then she snuggles up to us in bed each night, follows us around the house because she likes to be in the same r...
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Simon's Cat (16 June)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Wednesday, June 16, 2010,

I'm tired and this is a lazy post.

But if you haven't met Simon's Cat yet, then you're in for a treat :)

You can see more videos at the Simon's Cat YouTube channel and at the official Simon's Cat website. Oh, and there's an app for that.

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Advent Calendar - Day 25 (Christmas Day)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Thursday, December 24, 2009,

Merry Christmas!!!

Advent Calendar - Day 13 (Roxy's 15 Minutes of Fame)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Sunday, December 13, 2009,

I can't think of anything to blog about today.

So I'll link to someone else's blog entry instead ;)

First Blog on the Moon - Reader's Pets (10 July 2009)

Earlier this year, Crikey's lovable cartoonist First Dog on the Moon put out a call for photos of reader's pets. I responded, and - voila! - our cat Roxy was featured on his blog! I was far more excited than she was, of course :)

P.S. If you do go and have a look at First Dog's blog, make sure to pass your mouse over the pics for more funnies ;)

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Advent Calendar - Day 5 (lolcats)

Posted by Sally Cummings on Saturday, December 5, 2009,

I have a real soft spot for funny or cute animal pictures and videos. And yes, I love lolcats - those silly photos of cats with captions attached :). I visit I Can Has Cheezburger? every day for a dose of lolcat fun. Here's one of my favourites (so hard to choose!) ...

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

YouTube is a great source of funny animal videos, and Roxy's reaction to cat noises that she can't locate the source of can also be pretty hilarious :). I'll leave you now, with what is possibl...
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Magpies!

Posted by Sally Cummings on Friday, June 26, 2009,

The magpies are gathering in our street, and swooping season approaches. Help!

I used to look forward to spring. Who wouldn't? It's a beautiful time of year. But for the last 10 years or so, I have somehow ended up on the magpie hit list. Now every year I dread the coming of spring and the accompanying magpie nesting season.

Just in case I have some international readers, I should note that I am talking about the Australian Magpie. This is a particularly fearsome bird, quite large and with ...

Animal Kingdom is now open for visitors!

Posted by Sally Cummings on Tuesday, May 5, 2009,

If you look over to your left, you will see a new menu item called Animal Kingdom.The focus of this page is on animals, with particular emphasis on our cat, Roxy, and animal welfare issues.

At least, I think that's what it's going to be about. I hope that the 'static web pages' on this site will never actually be 'static', as I'll be updating them and adding new content regularly (I'll probably mention any major updates in my blog entries). So the focus of some of the pages may change over ti...