Skink in the tub

We have a skink who has moved into our tub. It just crawled up through the drain (which is open to the outside). I think it might be escaping the cold weather, although it probably doesn't hurt that we bring home some of Ben's flies to feed it. It mostly just likes to curl up in the drain.

A day in the life: Fly Boy

Things are going well with Ben’s research. The big huge experiment that we started in December is almost finished. There were 2 flies that outlived all the rest and acquired names: Ponce and Methuselah. My parents regularly inquire about them, right after asking about Ani. But now we're just down to 1: Ponce (who, by the way, is female).


Having proven that we can survive an experiment that size, he and his honours student (Sarsha) decided it would be a good idea to run an experiment 4 times bigger. They just finished setting that up. So all is well in Fly-land, but very busy. That's a lot of mouths to feed.

Pumpkin

Fall is here and it’s pumpkin season. FYI – squashes are called pumpkins, here (e.g., butternut pumpkin, kent pumpkin, grey pumpkin). And we don’t have the orange variety that you typically think of. But they’re still tasty – especially in fall.

So I got inspired, despite the lack of spare time on my hands. I found a recipe for stuffed pumpkin gnocchi, and figured while I was at it, I should make pumpkin scones, too. And somehow, I decided that I needed 2 whole pumpkins to get 500 g of pumpkin. With all the leftovers, it looks like now we’ll be making pumpkin soup, too. But everything turned out pretty well!

And not only did this culinary adventure produce some tasty food - it also provided Ben with some valuable insights about my kitchen skills: 1) I'm no good at estimating quantities, 2) the time estimates that they provide on recipes are a gross underestimate for me, and 3) apparently I cuss a lot when I cook (probably due to our extreme lack of counter-space).

When ya gotta go

Ben stumbled across this webpage the other day (he was doing race searching, if that explains anything) - the site just cracks me up:
The Australian National Public Toilet Map

You can browse them or search for a specific one. There's even a trip planner function - I guess for short you could call it the TP function! (hahaha...) The header reveals that it's a project of the National Continence Management Strategy - who knew such a thing existed! Mom and Dad - maybe you want to offer your modelling services over here. (I don't remember what your life-size poster/advert was for, but I remember jokes about incontinence...)

Anyway, for those of you contemplating a trip over here, don't forget about this incredibly valuable resource!! :)

New Zealand

It's a year late, but better late than never, right? Last February, we went on a whirl-wind road trip around New Zealand with my parents. The 4 of us have been reminiscing over the past few weeks: "Remember what we were doing a year ago today?" It's hard to capture the trip in words (and I'd never get anything posted if I attempted that), but here are some of our memories captured in pictures.

And our hearts go out to the people of Christchurch. We have such happy memories of strolling through the city on a gorgeous day - it's hard to image the destruction and hardship they're enduring now.


View New Zealand in a larger map

Baby Update

It’s been a busy few months in the zoo nurseries here in Oz, so it’s high time for an update. These aren’t all the zoo babies that have been born in the last few months – just the pregnancies that I’ve had a hand in monitoring.

Cheetah Cubs – 3 Oct 2009, 2 boys & 2 girls

After months of trying, one of our young cheetahs got pregnant just as I was leaving the zoo last July. She had 4 adorable cubs the week before I went back to Dubbo in October, and the big excitement was that 2 of them were king cheetahs. King cheetahs have a striped coat instead of a spotted coat, and while it’s a natural thing, it’s very rare. So all the cheetah keepers are busting their buttons! They’re all healthy, and growing fast.
king (sister) and regular (brother) coat patterns side-by-side


Mali (Asian elephant) – 16 Jan 2010, girl

If you remember the “elephant doula” story when I was working closely with Melbourne Zoo to monitor an elephant pregnancy – this is the outcome! An adorable (and very hairy!) little girl. She took her sweet time making her grand entrance. Everyone involved – whether they were monitoring her behaviour, or her hormones, or using ultrasound – expected her to give birth weeks before she did (which isn’t that long when you have a 2-year pregnancy). Anyway, when she finally did come out, it went very smoothly. And the vets at Melbourne Zoo (who are some of the best people) just sent me an adorable picture thanking me for my help. Yes – it’s proudly hanging on our wall. You can see more cute pics here.

Kufara (black rhino) – 17 Feb 2010, girl

When I started working at the zoo last year, Bakhita’s pregnancy was the first one that I diagnosed, so I have a special attachment to her. She just recently gave birth to the cutest little girl, and is being a very good mum. I was able to get a few glimpses of her when I was out in Dubbo recently. I’ve been told before that rhino babies are the cutest of all babies, and I kinda thought “whatever – most babies are cute.” But they really are SO adorable!!! And I’m not a big mushy cute-baby person.

Pathi Harn (Asian elephant) – 10 Mar 2010, boy

In contrast to Mali, who waited until the very end of the “parturition window,” Pathi Harn initiated his grand entrance to the world fairly early and caught everyone a little off guard. And then he decided to put everything on hold. PornTip (the mum) looked like her water broke, she was showing birthing behaviour, the German guy who travels the world assisting with elephant births had made it into town… and then everything stopped. They couldn’t detect fetal movement, and after the water breaks, the fetus can only survive a couple of days. So they decided it had died, and announced that to the media. And then FIVE days later, a zoo gardener was making his early morning rounds, and spied a small grey blob in the elephant enclosure. PornTip had a very short labour and gave birth at 3am to a little boy, who was weak, but alive. So now the zoo had to go back to the media and explain that by “dead,” they actually meant “alive” – you know, one of those common misunderstandings. So he was our “Miracle Baby,” also known as Mr. Shuffles. And despite a close call with the pool a few days later, he is doing just fine.

Pathi Harn with his cousin Luk Chai and rest of fam