Have finished a coloured pencil drawing inspired by looking up through the poinciana tree at a hazy sun filtered through green leaves and grey branches. I was lying on the chaise lounge beside the greenies aviary, looked up and was bewitched. Of course I didn't/couldn't capture what I saw. I didn't try and draw the leaves. My hazy sun and blue sky were poor representations yet despite my inability to record what was there, the drawing does have a certain something and it pleases me to look at it. I am a weekend artist, a tyro, an amateur, a doodler and have no illusions (although grandiose yet silly dreams) about my talent - yet I bet I feel the same frustration (and the same satisfaction) that an O'Keefe or Vermeer or Blake felt when they viewed their efforts. It is a funny mixture. Complete duds I throw away or paint over. It hurts to look at them, light years from what I was trying to say. But others, like the one previously described, have something in them despite their obvious faults.

We had an artist's day 10 days ago. I had nothing to work on as the tree/sky drawing was finished (it was the project for the previous week). I doodled a fat face and a fat body and now I've got a fat Buddha type figure with his fat harem trousered legs and fat sandled feet sitting on air with an equally fat cat sitting beside him. But he has lovely long fingered hands draped over his fat knees. Have no idea what he should sit on. Have less idea of what to do with the background. I look at the drawing, which I like so far, and it seems as though it would fit as an illustration in a children's book. So not art but an illustration? Maxfield Parrish was an illustrator as was Norman Rockwell. I'd say their art far surpasses much of what is labeled art today. But that's an old argument that I won't go into again. I suppose it's because this fellow looks like a character in some story. Perhaps I need to make up a story about him so that I'll know what to put in the background. I haven't touched it in a couple of days because I'm stuck.

Hot today. Supposed to be 36C. Saps the energy. I've got a fan sitting on a chair otherwise I couldn't be in here. The room is small and the computer generates heat (which makes this room nice in winter). I feel sorry for the horses. Balthazar sweats more than any horse I've ever met. In the afternoon his red coat is streaked with white salt crystals down the back, rump and along the neck. Despite this and being sun bleached, his coat is irridescent in places so I know the Natural Horse diet agrees with him. Pagan rarely sweats. He's also on the diet (Natural Horse Care by Pat Coleby) and it agrees with him. He's dappled everywhere and has stopped rubbing his tail. But he is lame. Seedy toe. Again. Dakota was very lame but he's on the mend. Treating both of them with salt water and hydrogen peroxide syringed into the holes in their hooves. Both lame on the offside front.

The Great Romance between Felicity and Suki is over. If I believed in any great love affair, it was theirs. I never saw so devoted a couple. Alas, Suki started flirting with a shy and slim little girl, even bringing her to meet Felicity. Felicity wasn't impressed. One day I watched as the new couple flew off leaving Felicity behind. She waited a few minutes then took off after them. She hadn't a hope of catching them if they didn't want to be caught. She's not that strong a flier. He stayed away for a few days then came back by himself. He was hungry and knew that food would be out in the afternoon. She didn't attack him or try and drive him away but she wasn't happy to see him either. Or maybe she was and was just too heartbroken to show it. She's eating well but I think it would be naive to assume her feelings aren't hurt. Scaly breasted lorikeets are flock birds. They are social and very tactile in their relationships. They play hard and love hard. I used to watch, smiling, as Suki and Felicity pressed into one another like they were trying to become one large green bird. Impatient and doting in turns. Both heads in the coop cup slurping up mix and one would feel the other was taking too much space so would give a nip. The next moment one would be regurgitating food for the other - the highest token of love and affection. In the bird world. I wouldn't like it if Richard regurgitated for me no matter how much he said it proved his undying love!

Since the breakup Felicity is not tolerated on the greenie aviary. Byron and Augusta attack her feet through the mesh. I feed her on Marvin's aviary now. Big change there too. Terry, a juvenile galah, is in care for coccidiosis and anorexia. Noticed him hanging around by himself, saw his poopy bottom and managed to herd him into the galah aviary where we caught him. Had him in a cocky cage but he wasn't happy. Eating well, yes, but making such a mess and turning himself inside out climbing up and around everything. He even got his wing caught through the bars with his contortions. This morning I moved him into Marvin's aviary and put Marvin in the cocky cage. Marvin isn't impressed but he'll cope. It's only temporary. I've tried to make it worth his while by getting him out more often. Even brought him inside for awhile which he enjoyed.

Walking the whippets yesterday and saw the death scene of the tadpoles in the ditch down the road. The ditch suckers the local frogs into laying their eggs. It looks like it would be permanent. The water is somewhat deep, it covers 20 feet or so, it's protected from direct sunlight. Why wouldn't it make a good nursery for little frogs? But it's an illusion. Unless it keeps raining the water dries up. The water lasts long enough for tadpoles to grow but not to turn into froglets. We crested the hill and saw half a dozen magpies and crows standing at the ditch. They flew off as we approached but by the muddy water and the remaining tadpoles crowded into small pockets of water it was obvious they were being picked off by the birds. A kindness really. They would die quickly rather than slowly and painfully. I rescued all those tadpoles from the swale in the peach paddock and took them to the dam. Whether they survived or became food for predators I don't know. Nature is a tough mother.

Moment of Vanity

Have just written in Balthazar's blog about his first friendly overture. After we'd finished our clicker training session, when I was hanging out with him, he in the paddock, me on the other side of the gate. It was about intention. When we 'train' I am in training or teacher mode. When we hang out we're...hanging out, no pressure on him to perform, even if the performance earns him multiple carrot treats. The friendliness was a revelation. And a *treat* for me. Marked by his head hanging over my back and his neck pressed into my body. Yes, I want more of that. Yes, I want to be friends. Yes, I have to change my intention. Yes, I have to change my attitude. It all comes back to what we put out we get back. If I want a friendly horse who seeks out my company than I must be a friendly person who seeks out his. I am friendly to him. I like being with him but it's similar in a way to meditation. There is a filter or a gauze curtain of my own making between the object (meditating or Balthazar) and me, one of my own construction. I'm not sure how to explain it. When I'm meditating or attempting to and I approach that state where I am nearly there (my *there* being only focussed and present and deeply silent) I often get in my own way. It's the monkey mind chatter, yes, but it's also something more, a reticence and holding back despite my desire to be in that place. My will is to be in that meditative space yet something in me also constructs this cheesecloth barrier that I maintain beautifully and effortlessly *in spite of myself*. So it is with Balthazar although I think that barrier might be easier to dissipate as I only have to really *see* him as Balthazar, the lovely chestnut thoroughbred person, to feel that friendly affection that I have for him in all interactions that don't involve clicker training.

Vanity, thy name is mine. Went to a friend's house yesterday for an art day. Two friends, two bird lovers and bird carers who love art and creating as much as I do. It was a great day. We all worked on projects and chatted. Had to use the loo and saw a set of bathroom scales. Got on and squinted. 53kg. 116 pounds. I haven't been below 120 since weighing 47kg while depressed after a bad breakup (actually the worst breakup, the one and only time I'd been beaten by a man but that's another story and one I don't want to revisit). That was in 1987. Once I recovered I quickly regained weight. This time I am not depressed. Quite the opposite. It is solely due to yoga and being practically vegan, specifically giving up dairy (except that found in Fair Trade chocolate and the two tablespoons of milk powder I put into the homemade bread). I eat like a horse. I eat huge portions of salad or rice or whatever's going. Yet, without effort I continue to lose weight. I'm 56 and gravity has taken its toll yet I weigh 116 pounds! I know, I know. Vain and silly and so against the precepts of Buddhism or any -ism yet I am so proud. I feel good. I feel strong! I have muscles where I've never had muscles even when I was lifting weights and working out at the gym. I have to bite my tongue to stop myself from proslytizing about the benefits of yoga. If I'd only known 30 years ago! But I know now and timing is everything. Perhaps I wouldn't have appreciated it 30 years ago. I didn't appreciate it 10 or 15 years ago when I attended a class in town with a couple of friends. I am so grateful to Gabi and Pete for inviting me to a class. And that teacher, who has since moved, for being a good teacher. I have a different teacher now but she's brilliant and although I do over an hour of yoga 5 or 6 days a week I still come home sore and wrung out after her class.

I've been thinking about blogging for a few days now. Things I wanted to write about - not grandiose things but things like how I like Natalia, our little bladder kitten who is a kitten no longer, a little chubby. Obesity in pets is verboten. I know that from all the surgeries I've witnessed on overweight animals. Yet, because she is short and stocky with stumpy legs and a cobby build, she looks so endearing and somehow *right* being a little overweight. I call her The Scamp. She has the personality of a scamp. She is at once endearing and maddening. She'll pick on the furniture while watching me in full knowledge that she'll get a sharp NO and a stamp of the foot. She does it for attention as much as to sharpen her claws. When I take the food in the afternoon to the verandah birds, she races from the chair across the mantel, jumps to the top of the TV cabinet to leer, pupils dilated, at Tony who jumps onto the top seed dish.

But that's enough for today. The big thing was Balthazar and my Moment of Vanity.