I have seen numerous extend-a-pole fruit grabbers for sale but is there one that can do both lemons and olives? Do they even work with prices from $10 to $500? I spent another 45minutes in the tree but the payload is reducing. Our weather has settled some what over the last few weeks. I went back to see what was on the video and most of it was passing ships and one guy who flew passed.
It's hard to get fruit picking help I am told so I have got the four year olds involved. Asher picked some low level olives then got on the small ladder to finish filling her bucket. After lunch we went on the walk to the Dell with Kaia in tow. We took the rubbish bag and filled it with all the usual items, the biggest of which was a mangled fishing rod with plenty of grass attached. The Dell bridge was clear enough to see the spring water bubbling up but also quite a few stranded jellies as well. The afternoon was chilling out with colouring, cutting and glueing activities. Kaia slept, fed, slept, fed, slept, fed then slept.
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| She's getting bigger |
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| the pro tong grabber |
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Got another 3 kgs of olives this morning. The neighbours are always interested in what is happening up that tree and how olives work. The tally is up to 19kgs but storing them in a cool fridge is getting harder. Anna is a major customer and I have at least 10kgs for her so I packaged up a box full for the Port Arlington help yourself food stall. I have delivered here for the last few years and it would be good to know if someone is cooking these up. I noticed a box of almost rotten apples which will have to be thrown out soon. I placed the olives front and centre in the best basket there was. So they have a good presentation and an even better price tag. There is also a book cabinet so I grabbed a John Grisham novel as a trade.
We went back to look for the elusive 12 armed star fish but could not find any. They seemed to like sunning themselves but if you disturb them they retreat quick smart into their burrows. The conditions were different but all we could see were holes. These are most likely wormy types. I did find the video that we took, so this behaviour can be replayed. The taxonomy toolkit has many starfish listed, mostly as seastars, feather stars or brittle stars. I could find none with 12 arms. Maybe I am swimming in the wrong hole with this, as this one seemed to be rooted on the spot rather than using those arms to crawl around the place like a starfish.
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| pylons with grass |
Three days of consistent calm and warm weather, who would have thought and I don't think it has happened all Summer. It gives me a chance to practice with these new camera buttons, although we had these small hard to describe starfish but with a circle for a body then the arms protruded from there. They disappear into a small hole but the new camera was not filming. I will see if there are any today. Did some tree climbing this morning which means the olive count continues to grow and we are upto 16kgs. I also tried the swim again this morning there was just enough water to clear the grass and latched onto a passing ray whom I followed all the way back again.
An ideal day to try out the Kogan camera. The water temperature is OK still, but there are not many people in the water these days. I have to get used to these camera controls. It is awkward underwater, especially if it is not deep enough as you can get tangled in the growth. Also the hinksia had floated free fowling my facemask and glooping in my hair and ears. But it is not all bad. I did get some fish and ray recordings. I have not been over to the old pier pole line for two months. The grass there is rife. Four years ago this was all sand. You could walk between the poles for 40 metres but now you would get caught up in grass.
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| Lone Paddler |
There has been a big refresh of the garden area out front. The old benach near the letterbox has now been relocated to the back courtyard. We needed a seat here and it fits in well and is also more sturdy being supported by the retaining wall. The original idea was to discourage people coming to the front glass doors by having an obstacle like a chair in the way. This did not work so they walked thru the garden areas to get around it. Yesterday, an elderly couple groped there way up the steps, across the rocky stream channel, around the bushes and thru to the patio area and banged on the doors. They were looking for the original owner and had last been here 10 yar back. I sent them next door for contact info however they had to retrace the path back and down the stairs was worse. He had one arm trailing a bit from a stroke I assume. A very tricky business. In the afternoon I got some more olive produce off the tree so we are now totalling 5kgs.
