Sarah
India day 4
A real cultural experience today. Lynne and I roamed the narrow back streets of Bangalore to find the huge commodities market. We were kind of unique in the crowd and treated with wonderment and kindness in equal measure. Until FB embraces “scratch and sniff” technology I’m afraid the photos don’t really do it justice.
India Day 1
It’s been a hot day to start the adventure. A walkabout day in the center of Bangalore
A new week in India
Here are a few of the pictures from Miss Lynne’s first week in Bengaluru, India.
Georgia Renaissance Festival 2019
More ATV fun
We tried to go for an ATV adventure on Friday but we were turned back by heavy rain. Sunday was fine so off we went. Out through the woods and down the big hill to the creek.
Alana was keen to go rock hoping and to see how far we could get down stream without getting wet. Her mantra – “never give up”. We managed to stay dry and that’s a plus. There were challenges of course: stone skimming and biggest splash and this …….
Having come down the big hill meant that we had to climb it on the way back. It’s a lot of fun with the ATV at odd angles over rocks and grooves cut out by heavy rainfall. Nothing fazes the action girl and she really enjoyed to ride back up.
Once we had reached the flat stuff I jumped on the back and let Alana take the controls. She’s managing just fine and has good throttle and steering control. As she remarked “we didn’t go into a bush this time”.
Don’t look Ethel, don’t look !
As Miss Lynne was going to be busy in the home office all day, it was important that an adventure was found for Miss Alana. Another bike ride. This time around the lake at Callaway Gardens. It’s a nice safe site with plenty of bike trails and lots to see.
Starting out at the discovery center to find out the time for the bird of prey show, it was then a short ride through the woods to the butterfly house. Miss Alana enjoyed the life cycle of the butterfly.
There were other creatures to spot on the way around too. Turtles, chipmunks, ducks and Alana even spotted a heron.
Next stop, the birds of prey. The mid-day sun was brutal so the normal show was cut short with an improvised lecture in a shady grove. It’s good to see big birds in action.
The bird theme continued over a quick cafe lunch. A couple of small brave birds would swoop in to collect any crumbs dropped. It was very amusing as Alana nearly lost her nuggets while she was away from the table 🙂
Back on the bikes, we stumbled upon what became the main event. A tree top adventure including lake crossing zip line! At the sign-up station, Alana did her best stretch to reach the minimum height requirement and showed no qualms about being high in the air. After a short conference, the staff gave the thumbs up and she was in. The next start time meant a speedy ride around the lake but someone had quite an incentive.
Starting with a pretty rigorous safety talk and demonstration, the 15 or so adventurers started climbing and crossing and zipping. Miss Alana was a natural. No fear, no hesitation. She was soon leading at the front with everyone racing to keep up.
Clipped into a safety wire at all times, there was a variety of challenges to overcome. The zip line crossings looked a lot of fun from the ground.
The final challenge took her to a platform 70ft up a pine tree.
From there is was a series of three zip lines that crossed the lake, high in the air.
So the day ended with an unexpected, exhilarating high wire adventure ……. oh …. and soda, ice cream and finally winning the bet with Mr Rob about staying awake all the way home.
Nanny had a hard day working and tending to the animals.
Alana’s Holiday Day 2
First jobs on the farm are feeding two young boy alpacas then the fourteen girls. Lastly we fed the six older boys.
In the other side of the barn the chickens were waiting to be let out. I let them into the paddock and threw some grain on the ground for them to peck at and the ducks waddled in with a loud quack!
When the alpacas finished eating it was time to clean up. Picking up paca poop keeps them clean and healthy.
Did you know – Picking up paca poop stops the spread of parasites.
We do this again every afternoon.
Swarm
Panic! Miss Lynne came rushing up to the barn this morning to say that the bees were so active that she could hear them from inside the house. As I walked down to the paddock to check the hives I could hear the buzzing getting louder. As I looked up to the top of a River Birch, I could see where the noise was coming from. It was a swarm. It’s the nearest tree to the hives and I was expecting the worst when I opened up the hives to check. I don’t think they are our bees 60ft up that tree. There seems to be as many as ever in our two hives. Now ….. what to do with these guys.
Such a hoot
It’s been a wet month. We’ve had 3 times as much rain this September, compared to the average. Thankfully it did stay dry long enough for me to do most of the lawn seeding that I had planned. It’s doing nicely despite my worries that the earth works might get washed out.
Lynne has used the poor weather as an opportunity to put in some serious quilting and general sewing. She has been working away to finish off a lovely full sized quilt on her long-arm machine. The photo shows her proudly displaying the completed work at the Quilter Guild meeting. As if she needs any more strings to her bow, she has successfully taken on some training duties at her favourite quilt shop. There are more details of this on her crafty blog.
I was lucky to have my camera to hand early the other morning. As I sat eating my breakfast cereal and watching the morning news, I noticed that we had a very rare visitor. Not that they are rare to our garden but that they are rarely seen during daylight. They often wake us up at night! It was a very overcast early morning so it was staying up late hoping to catch a snack. This fine Barred Owl is about 20” tip to tail and stayed around just long enough for me to snap a few shots.
We still have some colour in the garden and the bees are working hard to collect the last of nature’s goodness.
Somebody turned the summer switch to the off position this month. It is decidedly autumnal. But if we should be in any doubt, the trees are telling us that we are on the downhill slope to winter.