Flowers and bees and a mantis

I cut through the south end of the Botanic Gardens on my way to catch a tram on St Kilda Road this morning. As soon as I set foot inside the gate near Guilfoyle's Volcano I was greeted with a riot of beautiful cactus flowers.  

  

A bee photobombed some of my flower pics, which always pleases me. I asked a bee-keeping friend about the blobs of pollen on the bee's leg and she told me bees collect pollen in "pollen baskets", which delights me. Baskets! They are also called "corbicula", which also delights me because I love words that end in "icula(r)", like funicular...and other words I can't think of right now. 

I visited the gardens three times today. I cut through again on my way home just after lunch and then I had a more leisurely wander around on my way back from the city. 

This fuzzy ferny bud was conveniently located in a shaft of sunlight in an otherwise shady spot. I didn't notice the little insect on it until I uploaded it to Instagram. 

I visited the Ian Potter Children's Garden on my longer wander because I haven't been in there in years.  There's some ace stuff in there, including fruit trees, herbs, vegetables and flowering gums that are just starting to burst into bloom. I think I was the only person in there without a child in tow, but my inner child enjoyed it.

This bee was so intent on filling its pollen baskets that it was oblivious to my camera hovering right over it. 

 Pretty flower

Anyone know what flower this is? 

I unintentionally made a praying mantis very cross. I was taking photos of some shrivelled berries and I was so focused on them that I didn't realise I'd invaded the personal space of Mr(s) Mantis. It gave me a little scare until I realised what it was (or what it was not).

Do you mind? I'm trying to pray here. 

Just before I left the gardens a Nankeen Night Heron landed nearby and sat there...and sat there...and sat there...I was hoping to see it catching its dinner, but maybe it couldn't see anything because of the weed cover, so it just sat there like a little birdy hunchback. I was still happy to see it. 

Round and round the garden

I wandered across the road to the Botanic Gardens this afternoon for vitamin D and photo taking. It's my first visit in months, partly because of our non-existent spring, but the sunshine today was splendid (my attention to re-applying sunscreen isn't so splendid...)

I saw a paddling* of teeny tiny ducklings, plenty of busy bees, a couple of caterpillars and some butterflies and moths. Also lots and lots of flowers. 

Strange bud 

One of only two poppies left in the herb garden 

Bananas in the glasshouse 

Tiny pond in the centre of a bromeliad

Purple

Munch, munch, munch  

The living and the dead

Succulent

Coming in to land

Bzzzzzz....

....bzzzzzz

Spent

*That's one of the collective nouns for ducks on water.

Let's bee friends

There were lots of bees buzzing about in the warm autumn sun at the Botanic Gardens today.

This one wanted to be in the shot too.

Aw, they're pals.

 How cute is this bee?  I want to pat his fuzzy little head. 

I visited the herb garden while I was in the Botanic Gardens this afternoon. There was pineapple-scented sage growing there. You'll never guess what - it smells exactly like pineapple. 

All you needs is love...and bees and music and robots

Say "Honey!"

I stopped to take this photo near my building  - spring blossoms! blue sky! - and when I zoomed right in, I saw bees harvesting pollen.  Bees!  This one says hello.

I have some new music to share with you. I saw the video for this on Rage last night. Raphael Saadiq. Love it.

And this afternoon, while streaming Adelaide's Three D Radio online*, I heard a new track by the Dex Romweber Duo (among many other awesome tunes) and discovered they have a new album out. Hurrah.

* My very first blog comment, back in the olden days of Myspace, was from Jade, who hosts a couple of shows on Three D, including (The Whole) Kit and Caboodle. Thanks to the wonders of the interwebs, I can listen online. If you like your music with lashings of rockabilly, country, blues, gospel, funk, swing and "dreamy creamy mashed potato pop", I urge you - nay, I beseech you - to check out Three D. Now, I sez!

I have some other fabulous stuff to share with you too. If you're into love (who isn't, really?) and letter writing and especially the two of them combined, take a look at The World Needs More Love Letters. This lovely project grew out of one girl's attempts to ease her loneliness while travelling. She started handwriting love letters and leaving them in places for people  - complete strangers - to find. She left them in library books and cafe menus and on trains. She wrote 400 letters and then launched the website to help other people spread the love - you can write love letters and request a love letter for yourself or someone in need of a bit of love. I er...love this.  

If that's not enough love for ya, check out J's Love Project on her site, Zebra Sounds (which is where I read about Love Letters).  She writes about her year of "consciously, unabashedly, fearlessly spreading the love".  

"In January, I made a public declaration that 2011 would be my year of loving fearlessly. It's a project. A mission. My personal rebellion because here’s the thing: snark is funny, cynicism is cool, but I think the real badasses in this world LOVE... "

I couldn't agree more. There's also links to many awesome things on her site, especially if you like reading and writing and well, awesome things.

I'm still addicted to etsy. I love this clock and this badge and these bookends.

New music, buds, bees and a big root!

My Peter, Paul and Mary In Concert CD arrived last week (I forgot to mention it until now). I liked it even more than I expected and I would like it a lot even if it weren't for the nostalgia factor (which is the main reason I bought it).  Listening to it didn't make me teary as I expected either, although Puff the Magic Dragon made me go "aaaaw' every time.

Shiny new toy

I bought myself a new iPod today because the old one no longer had a large enough capacity - even after I culled a bunch of songs I never listen to anymore. I've been buying a LOT of new music lately and to celebrate, I bought some more - Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs (You Can't Buy a Gun When You're Crying) and Mr Airplane Man's C'mon DJ. Yay! New musics!

On a related note, I really like the noise the iPod click wheel makes. A Twitter friend agreed, describing it as "soft but definite. Like a good kiss." Indeed it is. 

Detour

It was such a beautiful sunny afternoon today I detoured through the Botanic Gardens on my way home from the city. Guess what? Spring is sneaking up, ready to take over from winter. Yay! There were little furry buds everywhere.

There was also a beehive. (Don't think that has anything to do with spring...) I was pleased to see garden staff had put up a sign warning people bees are active in the area rather than knocking the hive down. 

And I saw a huge tree root! I've never seen this before - as I often say, there's always something new to see in the gardens. Check this out!

The start of it....

... and it just goes on and on.  You can't even see the end of it in this photo

Garden detour

It was a beautiful evening to wander through the Botanic Gardens on my way home tonight. There was a lovely cool breeze blowing after a warm day.  I could smell pine trees. I saw tiny cygnets.

Looks like a thistle....but isn't

Anyone know what this is?

Buzz. Think this might be the same kind of flower.

 

The finial of the Rose Pavilion

A crush, Wagons again and new places

(Sans specs, but with smile)

Think I have a little crush on Justin Townes Earle after his solo show at Thornbury Theatre last night. Talent, a gorgeous smile and I can't say I've ever found a Southern drawl quite so alluring before...

You know how in those American teen comedy movies like She's All That they cast a pretty girl to play the school nerd and they nerdify her by giving her a daggy hairdo and slapping a pair of dark-rimmed glasses on her face? Well, Justin was kinda like that - a cute guy with a short, back and sides and a pair of dark-rimmed specs. Mmm....I do like a cute nerdy guy (if you know any who are single, please feel free to pass on their number to me).

You could tell he loves getting up in front of a crowd and playing his songs - he played for about an hour and a half without a break, just him and his guitar on the stage. His guitar playing is quite mesmerising - to the ear and the the eye.

And Wagons was great too, although it was a fairly short set. We had an ace spot right in the front row. The friend who came with me hadn't seen them before and he enjoyed it more than he expected, which was pleasing. They've got two more shows coming up on the Melbourne Cup long weekend too. Yays! I had been thinking about going away as I have a five-day long weekend, but now I'm glad I'm not. (I'm in the middle of planning a bunch of other things to do with my Melbourne mini-break too.)

The other star of the night was the venue. I'd never been to the Thornbury Theatre before and I fell in love with it as soon as I walked in and looked up at the beautiful pale blue and gold foyer (above). I'm going there again in a few weeks to see Aussie songstress Clare Bowditch and her band.

Speaking of places I haven't been to before, the Royal Botanic Gardens had its Spring Open Day today and I visited Gardens House, which is normally off limits. It's an old two-story house which used to be home to the director of the gardens but it's now a private function venue. I don't think I even knew it was there before. I've seen the locked gate, but never knew what was up the path beyond it. Told you there's always something new to discover in the Botanic Gardens!

After I had a look theough Gardens House, I spent the afternoon in the sun reading the paper. And I took a few photos. Of course. A nice way to spend a Sunday.