Eastern water dragon

Anne was helping at the Rose Society show at the Botanical Gardens yesterday.  When I picked her up  this lizard was sunning itself near the car -  it is an Eastern Water Dragon  and it was about 80cm long. It was so tame you could almost reach out and touch it.  Whilst we do not have this variety, we often see Bearded Dragons on our property, but I do not have a picture of one of these at this stage.  Another reptile we often find  is  the Blue Tongued Lizard. Also yesterday  a neighbour came over and asked me to catch a Carpet python  or Reticulated python that had been hanging around their house. It was sunning itself on a tiled roof.  Using a ladder I climbed up and grabbed it just behind the head and it was eventually put into a bag for relocation into some nearby bushland. The size was a good 3m or about 10 foot!

Eastern Water Dragon

Here is  the turmeric harvested from 1 plant that was in the vegetable garden. Two of the rhizomes will be replanted

The Plunkett Mallee ( Eucalyptus curtisii) is flowering at present and is a favourite with the Lorikeets and bees. It is not that successful here-  we have already had one tree die but the other two seem ok so far.  It likes drier conditions - our soil when it has rained a lot does  become quite sodden.

E Curtissi in flower

These trees were planted when we became Australian citizens  about 20 years ago.