For the past couple of years we’ve had a family of magpies living in our eucalypt. They built their nest there in the spring and have been living happily ever since. The pair have had two sets of chicks since that year and this year have added a couple of colourful additions to their nest including a shiny bottle cap and red ribbon. My partner and I love hearing their birdcall in the morning. IT’s a very soothing way to start the day!
Sadly, we recently had to call a Melbourne tree removal company. The eucalyptus tree was getting way too big for the backyard, getting the way of powerlines and upsetting the earth under the foundation of the house. We didn’t know what we were going to do about the poor family of magpied. Obviously we didn’t want to just lop down their home in the tree felling process. I thought of those poor little birds flying back to their nest in the evening to find their bed completely vanished. Then I started to worry that they’d even lid some eggs already as it was coming into spring and I didn’t want to destroy the poor hatchlings.
What we did was we pulled out the old ladder and climbed up to the nest. Thankfully, there were no egg inside. We thought we’d take the nest out and put it in another tree .Perhaps the birds would never go back to it and have to build a new one but at least we did what we could. I was just thankful that we weren’t hurting the baby birds at all. After putting the nest in a nearby tree, we left the rest to the Melbourne arborist. They did a nice clean job of felling the tree, but hopefully we won’t have to go through this again. I’d hate to destroy another bird’s home.
House hunting is simultaneously soul-crushing and exciting. After all, this is a
Going through menopause was one of the most stressful experience of my life. It was a transformation that I wasn’t ready for, an initiation into true maturity. Aside from the strain it took on my body, menopause also took a toll on my emotional well being. By the time it was over, I was utterly exhausted. During the period after my menopause I took my beautiful daughter’s advice and decided to take extra special care of myself.
Back when I was at uni I really got into the whole female empowerment thing. I read Simone de Beauvoir and Germaine Greer, went to marches and hung out with a lot of women. Being a strong woman has its perks. You get to tell chauvinistic people off and stuff like that. But at the end of the day I found it easier to be relax a little. Instead of struggling against the all-consuming patriarchy I decided to embrace my power and go with the flow. So that’s when I made my conversion. Now, my aim in life is to please myself and gain my own confidence through self improvement.
My story is a bit of a strange one. I went from being terrified of technology to addicted to it in a matter of months. Usually people are one way or the other, but somehow my personality totally flipped one-eighty degrees. It all started when a mate of mine was looking into
I have no idea why but I’ve been to an inordinate number of funerals. Nobody in my immediate family has died, thankfully, but still a lot of people close to me: all of my grandparents, some aunts and uncles and even a couple of friends. I’ve seen a lot of death and grief and been to a few
Okay so I’ve become a bit of an enviro nerd over the past couple of years. Issues like climate change and pollution have been affecting me. Basically, I don’t want our world to melt before my kids grow up and get the chance to experience all of the beautiful things that I’ve seen and done. And this has meant taking sustainability into my own hands as much as possible.
I had never set foot overseas until the ripe old age of twenty nine. I’d just liberated myself from one of those emotionally draining and long-expired relationships when my thoughts turned to travel for the very first time. I met an Italian backpacker at the bar one night while drowning my sorrows, and I know backpackers can have a bad rep but this woman was amazing. She’d had so many crazy experiences which she relayed to me over her gin and tonic, and had even learnt to have basic conversations in five languages. I sat there thinking that I had to get out there and see the world for myself.
Alright, I give up. I’m completely lost, and if I’m honest, I’ve been completely lost for days. The last few days have been an epic journey where I have discovered the immensity of my own shortcomings. I’ve been wading through mountains of paperwork for days and it’s time for me to finally admit that I have no freaking idea what I’m doing.