Punch Art Fun 1 - Look in the Book - page 17

Well, hello to you on this Tuesday of Tuesdays.

How's the weather in your neck of the woods?

We have a woods in our backyard actually. It's a woods of weeds. All that rain and the weeds are having a party.

They won't be having a party when the mower comes out, I can tell you.

So, Look in the Book, page 17 today.

(Disclaimer here: Please excuse the cheese in the top left hand corner of that page. That writing...ughh. All true, but cheesy. So sorry)

If you haven't guessed already it's an Australiana page in the book. Koalas, kangaroos, possums and wombats are running around all over the place, which they do in real life actually. Well, except for the koalas. Not a lot of running for them.

Above I used punches for the animals, but in the book there's also animals made from hearts and circles etc. The kangaroo, for example, is hearts, leaves and circles. The eucalyptus leaves are from a penguin punch. It shows you how to trim the punch in the book. I've used the eucalyptus leaves at Christmas time instead of holly. Very Australian.

And at the bottom of page 17 are a couple of Andrew's favourite things in the book. He loves those layered Banksia and Bottlebrush flowers. Not sure why, probably because they're different from anything else in the book.

And hands up if you've got a Bottlebrush in your yard?

Oh, a few of you. Not bad.

And to finish today's post, here's a little story/anecdote about a few Aussie animals, just for kicks.

Koala - I don't think I've ever held a koala. Might've when I was little, but I don't think so. Been to Lone Pine a few times - it's a koala sanctuary here in our city. Hey, the baby koalas are the cutest! And I love the ones that spread out flat on the branches to sleep.

They have sharp claws.

Kangaroo - I've eaten roo, it tastes gamey. Very strong taste. Not to my liking. You can buy it as mince in the supermarket. It's very lean and cheaper (I think) than beef. Ever tried it?

They have sharp claws.

Possum - Cody chases them up and down the fence when they run down at night. One scared me the other night when I was on a toad run in the yard. Big old sucker was sitting on the fence right near my head and took off when he didn't like me being so close - gave me such a fright!

Apparently they're immune to ticks.

Their growl sounds like a prize wheel. If any of you lovely overseas ladies come to Australia to visit and you get scared out of your wits in the middle of the night by a very weird sound that really does sound like a prize wheel (you know, spin the wheel to see what you win) - it'll be a possum around the place somewhere. Don't worry, just picture a prize wheel and hope you win a car.

They have sharp claws.

Wombat - We were camping right down the bottom of Australia a couple of years ago and were woken up in the middle of the night by the backpackers next to us yelping and carrying on. I got up to see what was happening and a wombat was trying to get into our tent! Got a huge fright!

They have sharp claws.

We have all manner of other poisonous animals - spiders and snakes and whatnot too. Just a part of the territory over here, but honestly, it's not that bad.

We have massive Huntsman spiders that we find in the house, but they're harmless.

We also have massive snakes that we find in our yard too, but they're harmless.

Recently I got rid of a carpet snake on our verandah. I heard some birds going crazy, but I was on the phone and couldn't really check. Well, when I checked my mouth dropped open and of course I rang Andrew. I told him I'd film the snake removal, so he could see the events unfold.

I pause for a bit in the middle - I opened the door to house in case I needed it.

I talk to Andrew during the filming too!

Click here to see me wrangle a snake. Andrew told me to do this...I'm not so sure. There's squealing involved and it ain't pretty.

Want to come to Australia?

It's a great place to holiday!