This will hurt me...

Ezra and Henry take their own turn at fire watching.

Kuu. As seen from Geilston Bay, Tasmania. March 2013. I love the moon. It's great. I'm off to donate blood. The Moon , Gunnar Ekelof The moon passes her hand softly over my eyes, Wakes me long into the night. Lonesome among the sleepers, I lay wood on the fire, fuss about with smoking sticks, Move quietly among the shadows, shadows flapping high Above the brown logs, richly Decorated with glistening fish-lures... Why did I wake? Lonesome among the sleepers, Backs turned to the fire, I open the door quietly, Walk around the corner in the snow, tramp on the clumps, see Moonlight coldly calling me over the snow... Why did I wake? Lonesome among the sleepers, Backs turned to the fire, I open the door quietly, Walk around the corner in the snow, tramp on the clumps, see Moonlight coldly calling me over the snow...

Despite his tendencies to wild and passionate mood swings.

Etiamsi omnes, ego non!

[Insert twenty-six year old Malcolm Fraser joke here.]

Grass. Geilston Bay. July 2012. This Sunday, my top five is one of a more personal nature. Yes, My Top Five Pertinent Numbers That Occur In My RSS Feeds! From my 219 Google Reader RSS subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 3,238 items and clicked 716 items. Since November 2008 I have read a total of 84,289 items. And, would you believe it, not ONE LOL cat amongst them!

Who's that knocking at my succulent? The bakyard, Geilston Bay. August 2012. Could this possibly be the return of the ...[shudder]... TERRORGNOME ? The Young Housewife , William Carlos Williams At ten AM the young housewife moves about in negligee behind the wooden walls of her husband's house. I pass solitary in my car. Then again she comes to the curb to call the ice-man, fish-man, and stands shy, uncorseted, tucking in stray ends of hair, and I compare her to a fallen leaf. The noiseless wheels of my car rush with a crackling sound over dried leaves as I bow and pass smiling.

Tap in the morning light. The backyard, Geilston Bay. July 2012. Do you ever have those days where you just cannot be bothered? I’ve got that right now… Anyway. As you know, the Internet is a wonderful place filled with the rich and varied treasures of the world holds (as well as a lot of very lonely people.) The following are some things that I've had a look at in the last week. I call this: a Compendium of Click-throughs for Monday Morning.. The animating spirit of Smith's The Wealth of Nations is 'interest' or 'self-love'. Conversely, that of The Theory of Moral Sentiments is one of 'sympathy' or 'fellow-feeling'. How might we approach this apparent contradiction in Adam Smith's writing? "Universities are no longer educational in any sense of the word that Rousseau would have recognised. They have become instruments of capital. Confronted with this squalid betrayal, he would have felt sick and oppressed." How depressin...

He's not dead, he's only sleeping. We have prepared a grave just in case.

The subject was falling. The photographer was falling. The golf ball was falling. Everybody falling all the time.

Henry has chosen to explore creatively the notion of man's inhumanity to man, woman and the environment through the wonders of modern interpretive dance. I was there with a camera to witness it.

The complexity and range of Henry and Ezra's science experiments are increasing ten-fold. Here, you can see Henry taking a container of water highly enriched in the hydrogen isotope deuterium over to Ezra (out of shot), who has somehow managed to get his hands on some unenriched uranium (don't ask) and has a little scheme to reduce our electricity bills...

Ezra, as envisaged in a late-1950s BBQ in Kansas...

Spring-loaded box traps. A fool-proof way of dealing with troublesome children! Everything that I learned about parenting I learned from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Ez takes his man marking very seriously, and moments after this photograph was taken Henry collapsed in a crumpled heap with bruises up and down his legs...

Back when we had more sand in the sand pit. Backyard, Geilston Bay. December 2010. We have a full agenda on our hands for the big Melbourne trip: the Zoo, the Aquarium, the Museum, ScienceWorks, the shops the shops THE SHOPS . I’m not sure that we’ll even have time to squeeze in a spot of sand pitting… [I married] by Lorine Niedecker I married in the world’s black night for warmth if not repose. At the close— someone. I hid with him from the long range guns. We lay leg in the cupboard, head in closet. A slit of light at no bird dawn— Untaught I thought he drank too much. I say I married and lived unburied. I thought—

Trench in the backyard. Waiting for the Hun. April 2011. I think that everybody should have a trench in the backyard. You never know when somebody might invade. September, 1918 , Amy Lowell This afternoon was the colour of water falling through sunlight; The trees glittered with the tumbling of leaves; The sidewalks shone like alleys of dropped maple leaves, And the houses ran along them laughing out of square, open windows. Under a tree in the park, Two little boys, lying flat on their faces, Were carefully gathering red berries To put in a pasteboard box. Some day there will be no war, Then I shall take out this afternoon And turn it in my fingers, And remark the sweet taste of it upon my palate, And note the crisp variety of its flights of leaves. To-day I can only gather it And put it into my lunch-box, For I have time for nothing But the endeavour to balance myself Upon a broken world.

No Mr Bond… I expect you to DIE !

QUICKLY ! Get that pot of gold boys… Geilston Bay, January 2011. Rainbows: optical and meteorological phenomenon that causes a spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the Sun shines on to droplets of moisture in the Earth's atmosphere; or something infinitely more sinister? In Greek mythology, the rainbow was considered to be a path made by a messenger (Iris) between Earth and Heaven. In Chinese mythology, the rainbow was a slit in the sky sealed by goddess Nüwa using stones of five different colours. In the Epic of Gilgamesh: the rainbow is the "jewelled necklace of the Great Mother Ishtar" that she lifts into the sky as a promise that she "will never forget these days of the great flood" that destroyed her children. In Norse Mythology, a rainbow called the Bifröst Bridge connects the realms of Ásgard and Midgard, the homes of the gods and humans. In Hindu mythology, the rainbow is called Indradhanush, meaning "the bow of Indra, the god of lightning, t...

Christmas? I'm thinking of cancelling Christmas.