Harley is Pleased

Harley came to live with us having had a rough time. He'd been chained up in a bus station and could have been a very troubled dog.
Instead he is so very grateful for everything we do.



Oh food... Thank you.
Oh water...Thank you.
Oh treats... Thank you.
Oh outside...Thank you.
Oh bath... erm err thank you anyway.
Oh vet.. yes I will even lick you.

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He even loves that cats though they are not impressed by his affection.

Nephila Maculata

The Giant Wood Spider certainly is.
I'm not overly upset by many creatures, but this one give me the willies.
The thing gets massive.

In the spring it appears as a small spider, but by the autumn it is HUGE.
This one made itself a web on the front of the house on Halloween. A very nice decoration, but ewwww.

The pic at the bottom of the page shows the size compared to the thumb. Over 3 inches in the body, add the legs and it is dinner plate size.
In Japan they're called "O-jyorou gumo", "gumo" meaning spider, "O" meaning big and "jyorou" meaning "femme fatale".
The ladies get this big. The boys are only 5mm long.

They get big but their webs are even bigger - stretched to a diameter of one metre between the trees. Far too easy to accidentally walk straight into one as they sit in the middle of their web.
It belongs to the golden orb weaver family, which is why its silk is yellow, and this silk is the strongest of any spider. The one at the end of our garden caught a bat. A BAT!!

Sheung Yiu Village Museum

Sheung Yiu Village is a Hakka village which was built by a Hakka family surnamed Wong approximately 150 years ago. The village became prosperous due to its lime kiln whose produce was much sought-after for use in mortar and fertilizer, as well as lime bricks and tiles for building houses.

Sheung Yiu means "above the kiln" in Chinese.

The kiln has been restored.

It began to decline in prosperity when modern bricks and cement came into use. In the 1950s, the villagers moved away to the urban areas or went overseas to earn their living. The whole village was abandoned by the 1960s.

After the full restoration of the village in 1983, the village was opened as Sheung Yiu Folk Museum in 1984.

The restored building contains a number of typical Hakka utensils and farming tools, and also some displays on the history of the inhabitants.

Surely some mistake...

The pot on the right is for water, the smaller numbered pot on the left is for wine.

Last weekend we went for a walk

We live in a country park, so it seems a shame that we had not explored much so far.
Ian had found a pathway that said it was an easy walk for a family, taking about an hour. There was also a Folk Museum on the way.

We were going to take the bus down the hill to the pathway (about 4km away) but a neighbour picked us up instead.
Here we are ready for our walkies...

There are many hillside shrines like this one.
Not sure what this one is for - it might be the hill god (God of Mountain) or it might be an ancestors shrine.
It is in regular use, incense sticks abound.

There was a God of Mountain shrine here up to 30 yrs ago.















Ooooh this is pretty.
We are close to the sea. Mountain streams abound and run off into the sea all over the park.
All the way along this walk are signs telling us about interesting things.
One here explained the mudflats and alluvial deposits.
You can see the path was concreted all the way - you could have pushed a buggy along it!.
As we stride along the paths more signs tell us about the plant life. We found the sandpaper vine, which has very rough leaves and has been used for scouring. There is a plant whose flower makes tea for gastric troubles - we are going back for that one!

Made it! We survived our first walk and are still in good humour. Hurrah.

Read on to find out about the museum.

Badger and Harley aged 3 months

It has been a couple of weeks since I have updated my blog.
So the messages now may be a bit out of order and piecemeal.



This message is about our puppies. Badger and Harley are about 3 months old now.
They went to the vet yesterday and were very good in the car, sitting nicely. Both are in good health and about Xmas time we can take them for long walkies.