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We had an awesome day yesterday. Shannon Plummer who is a wildlife photographer of some repute came to our place to shoot our reptiles. She was kind enough to let me mimic her setup and get plenty of good shots. I didn’t get a picture of the whole setup unfortunately so I have added a drawing below.

The background is a white sheet lit from below the table with my flash on full power. She used two more flashes on stands over the table to left and right through umbrellas. I used a single flash higher up and pointing down from slightly behind and to the right of the camera.

The table top itself was covered in a white cloth and then a white sheet of perspex (acrylic) with a glossy surface placed on top.

We have had a number of deaths in our house lately.

First the assisted death of our pet dog Raz Soondari. She was 10 years old, suffering complications from a dislocated hip and also a thyroid problem with an associated skin condition. Her hip had re dislocated and we were looking at expensive surgery and the need for her to be confined afterward. She went away with our vet friend Audrey last week and went to sleep peacefully.

The same day we had to euthanise one of the longest living pet mice – suspected tumours and growths were making her very fat and she wasn’t eating. Gold was Erin’s mouse.

Today one of Miranda’s snakes King died. We are not sure why, but he was a very fussy eater and that may have contributed to his demise.

And finally today also our last central netted dragon Sleepy died. He was a dragon that had some birth defects, and couldn’t keep sand out of his eyes properly. He actually lived a very long life for a CND, lasting around 4 years. they live for 2-3 in the wild.

The kids have been upset by the deaths as can be expected, but we also hope that this will assist them to learn and understand the cycle of life, the grieving process and how to deal with loss.

Today was a DIY day. I designed and built this enclosure for the blue tongue skinks this morning. Start to finish around 2.5 hours.

The base and sides are medium density fibreboard as are the end and centre pieces. the bottom is braced with 3x2 batons that also work as feet.

The centre top piece is a bit of MDF, and the end mesh pieces are bits of an old bird cage that was lying around in the rubbish heap to be taken to the tip. Now it forms the essential part of letting light in and keeping our snakes and stopping the skinks from escaping. One end is hinged ad allows easy access to the skinks while the other end is fixed but has two openings in it.

Job well done.

Oh and Heidi helped Tim the Toolman as well.

Mercedes is mad keen on bugs.

Pretty much any time of the day you can find her with a plastic cup or container with some sort of bug on it, or an insect. moth or spider of some kind crawling on her hand while she oohs and aahs over it.

Today she has a woodroach in a container with some dry dog food. It is her pet. She is going “Oh roach” and “come here roach” and having little conversations with it. I suggested she feed it to the dragons but she indignantly exclaimed - “No its my pet!”

Photo courtesy of InsectsAway

This morning started with the girls waking me to say my parrot had escaped while they were feeding it. After a look around the yard I went inside to print flyers while they went to the park to look. Jadeen came running back 2 minutes later to say they found him in a tree in the park. 15 Minutes of climbing a tree that had branches that couldn't support my weight and kept breaking I was at the top of the tree where the reluctant escapee was clinging on. I snapped the top of the tree and drew him down toward me. Getting him inside my shirt I then climbed / fell because branches broke back down to the bottom. I have cuts and scrapes all over me and bird is safely locked away once more.

Jude then said – clear this mess away. When the wife says that you need to listen. So I stared clearing away all the boxes I had stacked in the school room where I had temporarily camped while building hers and my new PCs. My new super duper computer is mostly running OK now, the odd lock up is an issue. While clearing away boxes I got distracted into sorting out motherboard driver and other cds I had on my desk return. Then I found an old CD with NASA space images on it, so I handed this to Miranda to copy to our wallpaper archive. While doing that I noticed the filing boxes that are stacked beside her desk hadn’t been pushed back from the other day when I was chasing a wild mouse and that there was a very large very dead blue crayfish down there. It had escaped from my large fish tank. Seeing as the camera batteries were charging we bagged it and put it in the freezer for some macro photography another day.

I have just been informed that I have baby fish. The convicts in the tank the crayfish escaped from have lots of fry.

Oh and last night we had baby dragons hatch out as well as more laid. You can order and buy dragons (if you are in Australia) from Jude’s website www.rasita.biz.

I might get some work done today.