Sensible Skippy.

I spotted this pair today pondering whether to cross the road. I was glad they changed their mind and hopped back again, that road is too dangerous a place for skippy.

Maraka parade 2014.

Olivia and I went out to see the Maraka festival parade on Saturday, Maraka was created a long time ago to celebrate the end of the sugar season but now there's always much cane still to cut but at least it adds a bit of spectacle to Ingham.
This drum and pipe band led the parade and thankfully they were pretty good, in tune with crisp drums.

The theme of the parade this year was the centenary of the local steam cane hauling loco "Homebush" which appeared in the 2008 film "Australia", it's only used for special occasions now. The business floats have pretty well become merely history now with it becoming the preserve of local schools or taxpayer funded organisations, but the Homebush theme was applied nicely by all, this copy was very good.

I think the red car is a Fiat 124 Sport Spyder, with what appears to be excessive steering toe-out, or worn joints. Italian vehicles are special in Ingham so it wasn't grouped with the others.

Still on cars the second one here appears to be a Ford Popular 103E roadster ute, with such luxury features as a single windscreen wiper, yet despite that luxury it was claimed to be the cheapest car available back in those days before my time. It's followed mainly by Aussie grey porridge usually powered by heavy and inefficient V8 engines, though the extra weight of the engines did seem to be compensated by removal of any sort of silencer.
I had some battery drama with my camera which really curtailed my fun. Either a charger problem or an extra camera problem after that tumble that broke the screen, it has rattled me a bit as I even took two spares but had to ration severely my shot taking.

What cracks?

I have a fair bit of mortar mix left over so this post copped a makeover before the bag became a big rock.

A coat of paint may even have it look like a proper post again.

More effort required.

Predictably the job I did yesterday was somewhat a failure, the cement was nice to stand on but quite a failure to seal. Today I've used some sealant to try and make it watertight, at least it'll take another day before I have to scratch the noggin working out another cheap fix.
I used the pegs as wedges to enable me to get the sealant under the joint.
Fingers crossed again.

Capsicum coming.

Lousy photo but I was way out of my comfort zone at the time.
Olivia planted some capsicums the other week, one sadly died but the others seem to be thriving, this one has a flower and checking the photo it appears the green ants will spread some pollen about. We're both looking forward to seeing results.

More work.

While I was at it I fitted a waterfall shower fixture I'd been planning to do for ages.
Happily the law was changed a few years ago to allow mere mortals to fit their own shower heads, this was due to pork barreling a few years ago when green initiative taxpayer money was used to hand out water saving heads to homeowners, who if they followed the law then would have had to call in a plumber and very possibly need a 2nd mortgage to pay for having it fitted, so the law was relaxed and we can now fit shower heads as well as tap washers, but not the whole tap, that would require a plumber.
Australians imagine we live in a free country but we must be about 200th on the list of freedoms.
Pity I can't test it yet due to wet cement.

A good day to do a chore.

Today marks two years since I lost Grace, a truly terrible day so perhaps it's fitting that I should do an unpleasant chore and have a go at patching the floor of our shower, something that has been in poor condition for a number of years.
I glued a blue bit of matting years ago to cover the very poor crack repair I had done.

The mat cracked when removing so it'll find somewhere else it can be of use.

The bad bit is cut out here, the floor is fairly decent underneath with nice tiles.

I just filled the hole with mortar, I'm hoping it won't leak but what I really want is something solid to stand upon.

Nice.

Olivia loves her flowers.

Two years coming up.

Next Thursday marks the second anniversary of Grace's death, I've found Saturday to be the best day for visiting the cemetery so this is close enough.
I gave her some fresh flowers and left one from our yard, just as I did at the funeral.

Tragic.

One of the capsicum plants Olivia has doted over has wilted away. The others still appear OK, hopefully.

Paxton.

Olivia got a new friend on Friday, I found a name from an actor who shared his birthday.

Hello Kitty.

Daisy's mirrors got decorated today, so much cuter than the skulls and things many are attracted to.

Always something to fix.

The battery door on Olivia's camera had a bit of bad luck so I had a go at repairing it. Since plastics and glue seldom work for me I melted a bit of wire into where it had snapped with a soldering iron to hold it together, afterwards I put a spot of pvc cement on it, which I regret doing.
The hardest part of the job was putting the door with its spring back on her camera, I even managed to electrocute myself four times by touching the flash capacitor, but for now things are serviceable again.

International food night.

It's Maraka festival time here, an event that was created to celebrate the finish of the sugar cane crushing season, but now seems to happen in the middle of the crush, anyway it was a good excuse for us to go out, this Philippine food stall had Olivia's interest.

Myself I found this working condition FJ Holden leading a pack of display cars that seemed to be all fairly recent V8s so thus didn't interest me, but this FJ that would be older than me did, not original but no major changes to ruin it, nice.

What was surprising to me was a good choice of lively tunes that added to my already good mood. All of songs were from an age before the surf music hiatus so they were familiar to me, adding to it was the tattooed redhead had a voice, or at least one suitable for her material. It was also good to see a proper double bass, but with that bulk I can understand why those guitar looking basses are used so much now, usually by elderly men wearing long hair wigs I suppose these days.

A good crowd made even better by me not seeing a single smoker while we were there.
The Philippines food booth had a good queue all the time we were there, I'm sure it would have sold out of food, some things were gone already when Olivia grabbed a nibble.

Lunar eclipse.

It certainly isn't the right camera for the job but I've become quite fond of my Olympus SZ-16, and much to my surprise we had a clear sky tonight for this rare event, so I had to try a few shots. I suppose I would have done much better with a camera that has manual settings and a tripod but plenty of other people would have taken the effort.
This was absolutely the best lunar eclipse I've ever seen, in the past every weather god known to the universe has interfered with my view.

Going going gone.

I'll have to reassess my hair loss, I think it's thinning again so now it must be genetic.
I'm overdue for another trim which happily is a fairly easy job these days but keeping it short hides the state of my hair loss.

Ficus variegata, quite possibly at least.

Olivia was very curious about what type of tree this is, I naturally didn't have a clue but of course assumed like most things here that it would be poisonous. I took a few photos and at home noted the fruit had a fig shape, that made searching fairly easy.

It seems some birds do eat them, I might take that in mind next time I see one, I'd love to get a photo of a cassowary sometime.

A little day out.

Olivia and I took a little drive down to Jourama Falls, or at least the parkland near it. The falls involve a very rugged walk that resembles the pathway to Mt Everest and lacks a decent result when you breathlessly achieve it, so we weren't going to put in that sort of effort.
A simple stroll to the swimming hole where turtles lounge about waiting for food from punters like us would satisfy our desire for getting away for a bit, sadly for them I'd read the sign asking us not to feed them, and obeyed. Here Olivia shows me getting ready to shoot a turtle.

And here's what I shot.

Then a short drive further up the road to the gruelling walking track which has been sealed since I was last there in 2007. We would adventure about 200 metres along its flat section before deciding we'd done enough wandering for a day.

 This board was mounted about 4 metres up a tree, quite a mystery to us.

A storybook family, Dad, Mum, boy and girl child plus dog (possibly oblivious to rules forbidding pets from national parks as posted on signs here) strolled past us. It was time for us to wander back, dogs scare me.