nature

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Farewell Sprout

After five years of us living in our house, the Cabbage Tree in the front garden grew a new sprout. Both Mr Pigalina and I were quite excited by this development.
Today we arrived home to find the sprout lying on the grass. It was too high for a person to reach and snap off and there was a longish white hair stuck to it. This has led me to the conclusion that the culprit is next door’s cat. Not satisfied with costing us money and sleep thanks to the beatings he dishes out to our cat in the middle of the night; he has now taken up tree vandalism!
I will attempt to plant the sprout in a pot tomorrow.

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Silverstream

In our effort to get out and see new places in our own backyard, the Pigalinas headed to Silverstream for a walk.
We selected a walk – we were to follow the little red symbols on the signposts and set off. The sign warned that the walk was “hard”. We went up hills, down hills – once with the aid of a rope and across two streams (carrying the dog thanks to the presence of toxic algae) and at one point Mr Pigalina feared we would be camping for the night under a blanket of leaves due to the lack of little red symbols and signposts.
We saw the most fantails we have ever seen in one place. I just about lost it at their cuteness and was over the moon to spot an all black one.
There are a number of other trails we intend to explore, but next time we will take a photo of the map!

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Magnificent Tree

I have finally relented. Mr Pigalina was going to dig out the tree in the front garden about six months ago. I pleaded the puny tree’s case – it had been aggressively pruned, we hadn’t had the greatest weather, give it until next summer.
Sorry tree but there has been not a hint of life these past six months, Mr Pigalina us looking forward to getting to work with the shovel tomorrow.

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Make Sure You Stay Outside Shelob

This guy was lurking by the bins.
I hope it stays outside because there will be a lot of shrieking if it makes it inside and one of us will have to wrangle it out again on a piece of paper.
Spiders are friends. Friends that are only welcome inside if they are little.

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Dog Vomit Central

Every Winter our front lawn gets covered in patches of Fuligo septica – aka dog vomit slime mold. It looks like a party happened in the night and everyone vomited all over the lawn. It is bizarre stuff and can move around (though not visibly, very slowly). We have it in two shades – white and yellow. It took me quite a while to find out what it was from googling a description. I have never seen it on anyone else’s lawn in the neighbourhood which just makes it worse. I feel like people who walk past are judging my filthy lawn.

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I Ate A Yellow Eyed Penguin

The Pigalinas had a Dunedin Date today – a grand day out in our home town. We started at Sandfly Bay where we saw eight seals. And it was as steep on the way back up the sand hill as I had remembered. We then had coffee at Portobello’s Penguin Cafe where I ate a deliciously crunchy Yellow Eyed Penguin (gingerbread). There was a brief visit to St Clair before lunch in the Octagon and a look at an exhibition in the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. It is fun being a tourist in your own town. You must keep telling yourself this when you are dressed like a dork in your walking clothes in the middle of town – your touristy walking pants riding up to show your “dogs of the world” socks and your running shoes while you try to look like a cool person who lunches at bars.