Miss Mandie

Christmas on the farm, 2008

Given that Christmas was now a couple of months ago, I figured it was time for me to get organised enough to share the photos from that time. It was a great Christmas with most of the family congregating at “the farm” in NSW. It was particularly great that Jeff came along too – having one of my CouchSurfing family members there with me just made things feel complete.

For those in the northern hemisphere, it could be hard to recall what summer feels like…but for those of us in Oz, its a different story at the moment. The southern parts of the country are experiencing a heat wave at the moment – there is chaos being reported of power failing and train tracks buckling, but its not just people that are suffering!

I was forwarded these pics that a family took in Melbourne, when they noticed a baby koala on their back porch taking relief from the heat in the shade. The mother filled up a bucket of water for it and this was the result…

I am not one to usually forward many things around, but this I just had to share – it gave me such a great laugh!

It’s one of those rare moments in television when someone from the public is the one providing the laughs to the show’s host and audience, without even trying. I am sure the phrase “I love Jesus but I drink a little” is going to catch on – good old Gladys from Texas is a real character. I just love how diverse people are on this planet!

Hope you get some giggles from this clip:

I just found this unpublished post from my visit to Washington, DC back in September last year – here ya go!

Anybody that knows me, knows I love flowers. I will spend time making daisy chains to wear in my hair, I hang pictures of them on my walls, I put freshly picked ones in my room, they are even woven into the paisley tops I wear…I just cant get enough of them it seems!

So you can imagine how much fun I had snapping them at the Botanical Gardens, Washington DC. I understand that not everyone will be interested, but for those of you that might share a similar love for nature’s way of exploding colour into our lives, I hope you enjoy the album!

It was surprisingly the first time I had used my camera to take up close and personal photos of anything using the digital macro function on my Canon Powershot SD750 (or Ixus 75 as its sold in some parts of the world). I think they turned out well for an automatic digital camera! Sure I had some troubles with getting it to focus on some flowers, but overall I was impressed with how they turned out. This camera costs less than $300 (I think in both Aussie and US dollars) and I always see a multitude of people with them when out – we are onto something good so if you are in the market for a reliable camera, consider this Canon.