Something I never do

I was feeling a little weird yesterday. Nothing was doing it for me. I sat down and tried to write with no luck, I tried to watch some TV with no interest, and took to the garden with no energy. I figured it must have been the three week blues hitting right on time after the death of my mother. The same thing happened when my father died. Three weeks on the dot and then three months on the dot after the tragedy I fell in a deep hole.

To pull myself out of this funk I did something I never do – I went for a walk to the creek without the dogs.

I guess you’re wondering why this is something I never do, so I’ll try to give a brief explanation. The dogs scare away nasties like snakes, razorback pigs and large goannas. Most of these creatures won’t hurt you if they hear you coming because they run off into the bush. And, believe me, my dogs (at around 60 kilos) are noisy as they thud around – you can hear them coming for miles.

So I walked off by myself down to the creek, wondering if I was going to creep up on some creature that would be scared by my sudden appearance and jump out to attack.

It was so different without the dogs. Normally they gallop across the ground, over the fields and then dive into the water without a care in the world. But without their riotous behaviour I saw things I’ve never seen before.

Fish!

Okay – so you probably can’t see the fish, but they were occasionally coming to the surface to catch bugs so the ripples on the water are signs of where they’ve been.

Note before I continue: I upgraded my phone a few months back from Samsung to iPhone and I have to say, the iPhone takes absolutely crappy pictures compared to the Samsung (i.e. I hate it). In future I’ll be taking my old Samsung with me to take pics on my walk.

And then something I’ve never seen before – Blue-tailed Damselflies!

If you can’t see them, they are in the top right hand corner and not very clear (did I tell you I hated this iPhone?) There were about 20 of them flitting across the water, but I just couldn’t get the iPhone to focus clearly on them (and I took about 30 shots).

I climbed down into the waterfall and sat there for a while – something I never do with the dogs because they think it’s cuddle time and try to drown me.

I came home from my walk feeling renewed and ready to take on the world again!

I was planning on taking photos of the new nest of red finches when they fledged, but the little blighters flew the coop before I could capture a few good shots. So instead, I’ll put a pic here of a guy that followed me around when I was down south with my mother.

This guy kept me company when I was away from the farm…

…and every time I saw him he would say “HELLO!” which was a little freaky 😀

***Have a great week***