World, meet Darcy

This is my brand new, absolutely adorable mouse, Darcy. Darcy is approximately 3 weeks old and still has a bit of growing to do so he his mini even by mouse standards. I have had him for 2 days, and he is setteling in well. He is happy to be handled and even went to sleep in my pocket.

Darcy has an amazing three-storey house (bargain $15, marked down from $90), but for now, he is only in one floor until I decide that he can't squeeze through any gaps and then he will have multiple levels of fun. He also hasn't been introduced to his run around ball yet, but I'm sure he's going to love it when he is. At the moment his favourite thing in the world is running through toilet rolls.

He is absolutely tiny, and one of the cutest things I have ever seen,

Its about time I posted again, so here goes

Well, I'm exhausted. Today was the 9th day in a row that I've worked. Every one of those 9 days started early or finished late or both and involved a lot of very exhausting bits in the middle. And I have to do it all over again tomorrow. We have gotten 31 new devils and 3 new staff in the last week. Anyhow, I feel like the only thing I've been talking about for weeks is work, so I'm not going to re-cover ground that I've probably already told you about sometime in the last week anyway.

You probably also know that my work contract expires in 3 months and that I have no idea what I am going to do after it does. That isn't really worrying me much, though. I've got savings and plenty of options so I see it as an adventure rather than a cause for stress.

In other news, I've decided that I'm going to get a pet mouse. I would already have gotten it, but there are none to be had in any of the petshops in Launceston apparently. So I'm now not-very-patiently waiting until I can get one. I bought a beautiful 3-storey mouse house on special a couple of weeks back and now I just want a little furry friend to put in it. He is going to be called Darcy and he will wear top hats. I can't wait to meet Darcy and take lots of photos of him in a top hat and post them so you can all see him.

I'm housesitting yet again at the moment - this time I'm in Hagely looking after a herd of goats and a farm cat named Herman. So far, Herman doesn't like me, but I'm sure that I'll convince him eventually. I'm housesitting for 5 weeks so I have plenty of time to win him over. I'm only spending time at my country house every second day at the moment because I've been at work such long hours, but I'm looking forward to going for a visit tomorrow night and having a nice long soak in their giant bathtub. With the amount of aching muscles I've got at the moment, I think a nice long soak is exactly what I need.

And finally, I've enrolled myself in an online photography course which starts today. I don't know yet how much work will be involved in the assignments, but I decided that I need some form of deadlines and assessments for me to make any progress in my photography. The course I chose is a nature photography course so it should be something I'm interested in.

Now I'll leave you with a photo of a bunny wabbit that I got to snuggle yesterday at work. We evicted 3 baby bunnies from their house while we checked to make sure they weren't sharing it with a devil and I got to snuggle them.

My trapping Trip last week...

Last week, I was on a devil trapping expedition to the wilds of the "Eastern Tiers" (a location that I'm pretty sure we made up to describe the particular part of nowhere we were spending the week in from Lake Leak through to Royal George).

I had a fabulous week despite the rain, the cold, and the many, many leeches. I didn't actually get vampired by any leeches, but I flicked at least 15 - 20 of me, so I'm pretty proud of my leech ninja skills.

We caught quite a few devils, a couple of Spotted-Tail Quolls, and quite a few Eastern Quolls. Eastern Quolls are the coolest thing on the planet - they *boing* out of the sack when you release them. I've decided that I want to work with Eastern Quolls forever now.

Anyhows, if you feel like watching some little devilies, and quollies, check out my video - it only goes for about 3 minutes.

My week in photos

This is the view I had from my hammock last week. I spent as much of the week in my hammock as I could, but I also made time for other pursuits. The biggest pursuit of the week was relaxation, and it seems that I chose the perfect week for it - the weather was perfect, and if there was ever a week to avoid work, it was this week, but the confidentiality agreement prohibits me from telling you about that. Especially as I've been specifically told not to tell. Anyway, before I accidentally tell you anything I shouldn't, I'll move on. This is my week in photos. My Uncle Charlie took Dad and I tuna fishing off Fortescue bay, so many of the photos are from that expedition (the seals and dolphins mostly) - the rest are of the beach we were camping on.

Gonzo

So, finally I've gotten around to buying myself a new phone. I'd been saying for weeks that I was going to do it because I'd gotten sick of my phone constantly crashing when I was trying to text my peeps. This was spurred on yesterday by my phone crashing 3 times yesterday morning and my finally getting around to doing my tax and finding out that I'm expecting a rather nice little tax return so I didn't even feel guilty about spending an atrocious amount of money on a phone.

I did a little research on the net, spoke to my tech support, went to the telstra shop, and eventually decided on the Motorola Atrix.

So far, after playing with it yesterday evening, I've learnt to make and receive calls, write texts, check my email, browse the web, play music, set an alarm, change the wallpaper, change the ringtone, change the displays, take photos, and a few other things. Today, I'm planning to investigate apps and figure out what exactly, I'm supposed to do with the dock that came free with it. We are getting along splendidly so far, but I won't be able to give a proper review for a couple of weeks till we've settled in to life together.

Oh, and, by the way, his name is Gonzo. Don't bother asking why, because even I don't know why I've named him that. My old phone, Phoney Maloney, was a good phone. I liked it very much and if it hadn't been for its rather inconvenient habit of frequently crashing, I probably would have held off buying a smart phone for at least another year. But, alas, that was not to be, and now is not a bad time to be spending the money because I only have 6 months left on my work contract and who knows where I'll be after that.

Is it just me?

Is it just me or do these two soundtracks sound very similar? Every time I hear 'The Walking Dead' opening credits, I see Snape.

Reliving the past....

I've been thinking for quite a while that I really wanted to get out to the coast, visit some of my old haunts, and check on some of my Red-caps and Hoodies, but I couldn't find any times when I had a day off and someone was free to come with me. The other day, I decided that I wouldn't let that stop me anymore - I was going with or without any one to accompany me. After all, I spent an entire summer travelling up and down that coast by myself. So, I did what I always used to do, packed up Barry, started an audio book, and hit the road. And I had one of the best days I've had all summer. I've decided to make the trip at least annually from now on.

This was a bird watching trip, not a photographic trip, but I took my camera with me anyway and go a couple of decent shots. My time was definitely not focused on the photography, though.

Mr Hoodie

A whole family of Hoodies! Notice the teenage Hoodie (the pale one) next to Mrs Hoodie, and Mr Hoodie close by.

Mr Red-cap

Mr Tern

Mr Pacific Gull

Mr Pied Oystercatcher