After a few weeks of travel I am back on the farm. It’s really nice. Very nice. Tres nice. Muy nice.
Its winter here, the dry season. And things are dry. But here in Morosa Valley we have water running through the property. Though the water table is down its still good here. I don’t think water is a problem on this property. Time will tell.
The lush resources of this valley offers good habitat to a multitude of birds, a family of grey kangaroos and a number of deer. I have not seen the deer but their evidence is easy to find. As things get dryer I see the greys more. Hanging around the water courses where the vegetation is still fresh and young and green. I have not seen any snakes but they ahve to be here. Its Aussie bush, there must be snakes. The birds are all over the place…
A big bird of prey, yet to be identified, has a nest in the big bunya pine. I have seen one frog mouth up close and another from a distance. Cranes and herons and ibis are common in the marshland. Ducks of varying colour are also common. The resident pair of plovers are fun to interact with. As are the shrikes and fan tails and, my personal favourite, the big Kookaburras.
Kookaburras will let you get quite close. Regal yet friendly. Very cool to interact with.
One of the things I very much enjoy is talking to the fauna I encounter during my daily walks. Of course, the cattle and I have long conversations. The small ones smile and communicate openly. the matronly cows are friendly but terribly distrustful. Barney the bull is in his own testosterone fueled world. Leave him a lone and he’ll leave you alone.
My favourite conversationalists in the wild are undoubtedly the birds. If you know the language of birds most of the mysteries of the outdoors are exposed. I recall a luvely bit of prose my buddy WE wrote on this topic… I’m sure he wont mind if I dig up the link… https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/10/bird-language/
This afternoon I was out chatting with nature… I walk about a kilometer back into the property to visit Barney and the ladies…
They are in the back 40 where there is more water and greener, sweeter grass.
It’s a very nice walk over uneven ground and past a couple spring-fed ponds, along a luvely flowing creek, through open, well used land.
I encounter numerous birds. Startle and flush the ducks when I noisily stumble up to one of the springs. The air is dusty and dry. My lips are cracked, my face feels freeze-dried.
The cattle take little notice of me. I do a head count and wander back toward the house.
In the back yard a big kookaburra obviously is looking for attention. He moves twice to stay in front of me. I whistle and chat attempting to glean his motives, understand his message… 
He does not look big here but they are impressively large birds.
He was, i think, showing off. I didn’t get any special message with deep meaning.
And that’s OK, life is still grand.
The other day, Monday, I went to the stock sale in Woodford. I wanted to see what the market for livestock was doing. I noticed this very cool rig: 
look closely: Two cages with dogs under the truck, two horses saddled and ready to go, two large rather feral looking cows… This guy is a mobile drover. Call him up and he’ll come out to your ranch and use his dogs and horses to muster and load your wild livestock, and deliver them to the sale yard. I thought this was way cool.
I was/am quite amazed that in this dry weather a perfect bird-of-paradise flower would bloom in the yard… 
What else… been so long and so much has happened…
The GumBall rally was a gas. Not that I’m going to look forward to and anticipate my next GBR, no but then it is a drivers wet dream well worth the while. I enjoyed the hell of it… And to my surprise, Grace had a ball as well. She enjoyed the driving and the people and the stress… it was a gas…
Gracie at our favourite pub in London. Great fish n chips so lunch there several days… note the white bracelet… identifies Gracie as a “Driver” in the rally…
Not that its meaningful but the idea that this gal from remote North Choiseul teamed up with an Iowa courty boy and can now claim being a Gumballer… well thats just plain sexy… 
Day one, on the way to the start line…
Day 1… RS6 V8 biturbo… nice car but a rental and not very “tight”…
Chantilly, France…
Milano…
Morning #3, Milano…
Noting the rich and famous… Eve with hubby – senior GBaller- Max Cooper…
There was a lot cool about the European side of things. Europe is cool, but it’s also easy. Even if english is not the first language a bit of “je ne parle pas” gets you a long way. Most days we were too tired to do much other than close the day, eat some room service and catch a few short hours of sleep. The days were long. The map here shows straight lines but the rally took you through country side and to very cool way-points…
This route claims 991 miles… the rally would have been close to twice the distance. And considering that we (most the rally-ers) spent long periods of time lost, off the track, confused, frustrated, etc… the distance was long and hard to negotiate.
In Japan the level of difficulty rose – in fact it went through the roof. Our first day was in fact an easy drive from Osaka to Kyoto. Not much more than 100 miles.
We got terribly confused, hopelessly lost, in a land where we could not ask for directions, and were lucky to limp back “home” at all. This shows us about 100 miles north and west of where we needed to be, and literally driving in circles… 
The day took 8 hours of hard-driving through totally indecipherable terrain. I eventually dead reckoned and got to Kyoto using old style map reading techniques. It was tough.
But the stops were great and the social side of things very cool…
Of course Grace made friends where ever she went…
Next to the shitty orange jag we hired in Japan… Dog of a car…
Very hard to navigate by road signs…
about 10% of the signs were in english… some undecipherable, some not…
We spent at least an hour lost in Tokyo. Drove past but could not find the off-ramp to the hotel no less than 3 times.
But all is well that ends well… a bowl of green tea when we get to our hotel in Nanao…
And we dress traditionally for a japanese banquet…
Check out the menu for that eve… All very, very good…
These two guys were life savers. Our onboard GPS simply did not work. Kumar and Captain let us follow them the last 2 days of driving. And were great company. My big thanks for their positive energy.
We like Japan a lot…
And cool people to meet… Adien Brody, “The Pianist”.
Warning… for a supercharged V8, it’s not an impressive ride. Good lines but rather gutless and not terribly responsive. 
Smiles
The Native Iowan 
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