Wild Mushroom

A submission for the 7 Day Challenge.

I was taking my regular morning exercise walk along the Nightcliff foreshore. I paused to use the exercise equipment and do some shoulder strengthening. I noticed these two mushrooms and had a closer look. They were quite large and in the morning light they looked interesting. I determined to come back with a camera.
During my absence I was worried that some vandal may give them a good kick. For some reason people like to do that to wild Mushrooms.
Anyway I got back and found them intact, so I spent several minutes lying on the ground adjusting distance, angles and playing with various f stops and shutter speeds.
I attracted some strange looks and comments from passers by. However it is amazing what latitude is given to someone with a camera in the hand. Want to lie on your back and look at a tree, building or sky, you will be considered weird, add a camera and you become a photographer.
This was the one that I liked most out of what I took.

For the Photographers.:

• Camera: Pentax K200 D
• Lens: Sigma DC, 18-50mm Zoom, 1:3.5-5.6
• Settings: 1/125 second, f/11, 50mm (equivalent to 75mm in 35mm format)

The Bludger is regretting not picking the Mushroom for breakfast.

Tunes

Excerpts from song lyrics, that contain the word "Tuesday". My rule is that I must have a copy in my music collection, not just random stuff of the web. Part of the 7 Day Challenge.

Friday on my Mind, Vanda & Young, 1966 
Monday morning feels so bad,
Ev'rybody seems to nag me
Coming tuesday I feel better,
Even my old man looks good,


Ruby Tuesday, 1966. Released by The Rolling Stones, some debate on Authors.
Goodbye, ruby tuesday
Who could hang a name on you?
When you change with every new day
Still Im gonna miss you...

Friday I'm in Love, the Cure, 1992
I don't care if Mondays black
Tuesday, Wednesday - heart attack
Thursday, never looking back
It's Friday, I'm in love


Love You Til Tuesday,  David Bowie, 1966
Oh, beautiful baby
My heart's a flame, I'll love you till Tuesday
My head's in a whirl and I'll love you till Tuesday

The obvious Album was Tuesday Night Music Club, by Sheryl Crow, but I could not find Tuesday in her lyrics. So not included.

The Bludger now has all these songs in his head and is toe tapping away.

Mysterious

Excerpt from "The Compleat Guide to Fishing" Volume 1.

I made my way to where I had discovered that Rabduval was hiding. The house was silent and the door locked. He did not answer my knocks. Compliance to the Code ensured that I must do this procedural task.
But in my heart I knew it was a waste of time, I knew him better than that. After knocking a second time I made my way around to the back of the house.

Quietly. Sneakily. Avoiding the cameras.

Crouching so that he could not see my form pass by the windows. I made it to the back door in time to see him attempt to sneak out.

He seemed surprised to see me and scared also. He looked around, prepared for flight, but thought better of it and merely waited for me.
"Hail good fellow" I said mildly.
"What do you want?" he asked.
"You know what I have come for" I countered.
He looked downwards, avoiding my gaze. He seemed to shrink a little, but looked up and said, "I have no idea what you want".
I merely stared at him. I held his gaze until he looked away again. I stepped forward and held him by his shoulder. He flinched away when I touched him. I stayed still and simply waited. He whimpered but would not look up. In every part of my being I knew that he had the answer or the clue that I needed.
Everything pointed to him holding the key to the the next step that I needed. I was on the point of a breakthrough but I did not know how to move forward. He was not going to tell me unless he thought that I already knew sufficient.
The Code prevented me from using force. I had the tools that I needed. I could crack him in 30 seconds. I could break him. I wanted to. It would leave him relatively unharmed but if the Council found out that I had broken their Code they would do worse to me.
So I considered. He whimpered.
If I could just find the right words, ask the right question, he would collapse. But what were the correct words? What was the key? A mistake now and I would have nothing, he would clam up. Was I ready to break with the code?
"I have been to old Persia" I said, "I know".
I could feel him tense. I was close. I waited.
I kept waiting. Hoping to break him down with silence. I could almost sense his thoughts.
But then he slowly relaxed, he straightened up slightly. "You know nothing then" he said. He straightened more, squared his shoulders, looked at me. I could see it in his eyes, the growing confidence. I had used the wrong words, he knew that I did not know.
I was lost. I would never know. Could I break the Code? Would I break the Code?
He looked in my eyes and he knew that I could not. He smiled. He straightened to full height and casually brushed my hand from his shoulder. "You little shit" he said, "go to hell."
I stood there. I felt light headed as the extent of the disaster engulfed me. This was it, the end. I had been tested and failed. Defeated. The future looked bleak. No, it was worse than that, there was no future for me.
I barely noticed the sound, a muted crack. Instinct kicked in however. Subliminally I registered a silenced gun. A gun? A weapon out of history, gunpowder had not been used in kinetic energy weapons for years. All such weapons had been banned and supposedly destroyed, except those held in museums. Never the less still a lethal weapon. My advanced combat training kicked in, the same training that helped me identify the weapon, and I dived for the dirt. Subconsciously I tracked back to the source. I knew that it was behind me, above, and over my right shoulder. Where did they get the bullets from? A gun could only come from a museum.
I looked up at Rabduval. He was still smiling. As I watched a red splotch formed on is chest, it spread. His knees began to buckle. He slowly sank to the ground. I could now see a fleck of red on his lips. Blood. Copious amounts.
Regardless of the risk I crawled to him.
He looked at me. He knew he was dying. "They have found" me he said, his voice low and already sounding weak.
"It's not too late", I implored, "tell me now".
He sighed and shuddered. I leant closer, conscious of the feel of a gun lined up against my back, somewhere. He said something and I rolled rapidly to my right, back under cover.
The bullet passed through where I had been only microseconds before. It hit Rabduval in the throat. He was gone.
Where I lay I was shielded from the shooter by a low wall. I started to crawl away.
Rabduval's last words had been "it's Monday".

End

The Bludger was not on drugs.

Seven day Blogging Challenge.

An initiative by Jenson Taylor is to post 1 blog a day for 7 days.
Very few rules, apart from every Post title has to start with the letter of the corresponding weekday.
M - Monday
T - Tuesday, etcetera.
Stand by for some strange posts as I let my creative juices flow.
Note: While the title of this post starts with S for Sunday, it is not part of the challenge.
The Bludger is Posting.

Territory Wildlife Park - revisited

As an amateur (very amateur) photographer I follow the Gizmodo Shooting Challenges and am a semi regular contributor. The shooting challenge is a weekly opportunity to submit a photo, generally on a theme and extend your photography skills. There are no prizes, just a small amount of satisfaction, maybe some kudos, for having you pictures up on the world stage. Gizmodo has an Australian Site and a US site where one can submit photos.
Anyway this weeks challenge on the Aussie site was Birds. So I decided to head out to the Territory Wildlife Park and shoot some birds.
It is wet season here in the territory and that means much of the interior is flooded and many parts inaccessible. Actually this has been a dry wet season, but there are still plenty of roads cut and it is only in the last few days that our rail link to the rest of the country has been restored after a bridge was washed away in December.
I spent some time at Goose Lagoon, which has a bird hide overlooking the lagoon. There is an elevated walkway to the hide. This was absolutely necessary as underneath was water, in places over waist deep.

View from the walkway

It was raining lightly. I was the only one there and the area had a mystical feel about it. I can well understand the aboriginals belief in spirits being present in these lands at such times.

View from the hide

The lagoon was devoid of bird life except for 3 small ducks in the middle - too distant to be photographic subjects. But I stayed there for over an hour. It was a lovely quiet meditative spot. My mind wandered as I listened to the rain fall and I just gazed over the waters seeing but not seeing, lost in a moment of calm and beauty.
That was actually at the end of my afternoon, a lovely way to end the day. I felt calm and relaxed and at peace.
Prior to that I had been to the Billabong home to Pelicans and allegedly a rather unfriendly Freshwater Crocodile. It rained all the time that I was there and the birds were taking shelter. I too managed to shelter with a view of the water and birds.

Fishing in the rain

Shaking off the water

I saw no crocodile and when the rain eased I moved on.
The next stop was a series of aviaries that form part of a forest walk. These are walk in, via a mesh door, and in some the birds are free to roam, in others a window separates you from the birds and prevents accidental escapes. Smaller aviaries hold a range of different birds and small lizards, snakes and turtles.

A Rosella

Another bird.

The mid point of this walk is a large aviary built around a section of woodland incorporating several trees inside. A walkway gives you a treetops walk and then descends to ground level. I walked in and was confronted by a Kookaburra which took off before I could photograph it. A variety of Woodland Pigeon was the most common bird in the treetop but they were shy and difficult to capture on film.

Hiding - but I got you.

The aviary experience came to an end at this point as the descent to ground level was blocked. Not sure why but I will put it down to wet season or maintenance.
However The Bludger was well satisfied. It had been, all in all, a successful day.

Storms - pictorial

But never have I been a blue calm sea
I have always been a storm

               Stevie Nicks

Darwin has recently been subject to a period of hot dry weather. We recorded 8 days without rain. This is a little unusual in the middle of a wet season, not out of the ordinary but it had the locals up in arms demanding rain and the cooler weather that it brings. Our local newspaper, The NT News, which on a good day has little to report and generally fills the paper with stories about crocodiles and people catching fish, made a meal of this with headlines such as "It Might Rain".
I made the most of the time, photographically, as we get some spectacular sunsets with the sun setting directly over the ocean and often with monsoonal cloud formations.

Sunset looking West from Fanny Bay

But eventually a "monsoonal system" moved in to the top end. Don't ask me what a monsoonal system is, the person on the weather report drops that phrase like he is dropping litter along the Arnhem Highway. (There is a lot of litter along that stretch of road).
The monsoonal system brought rain and strong winds. This brought a week of light rain culminating in a torrential downpour of 177mm on 25th January.
Along with the wind came some storm driven swells that turned our normally placid ocean into pounding surf.

Nightcliff Jetty - closed due to the conditions.

Storm Waves

Risking a dumping

Now I know that many readers, both of you, can probably show pictures of bigger waves, but it is all relative, normally this is as flat and calm as a mill pond. It is all relative.

As a final point, all outdoor celebrations for Australia Day (26 Jan) have been cancelled due to our inclement weather.
The Bludger is keeping dry inside.

Cooking with Rambutan

Rambutan are fairly cheap and plentiful at the moment and I have been eating a fair few. I have learnt however that they don't last long on the shelf. I have since learnt to keep the majority in the fridge and pull a few out each day.
However I wanted to discover if there was more that I could do with these fruits. So a bit of Googling later.
The seed is quite large and looks quite appealing, I wondered if it was edible. The answer is no the seeds are not edible as they contain a toxin. However the Thais prepare them in a sort of Chutney, they boil the seeds which must leech the toxin out. That did not seem appealing.
Oil can be extracted from the seed. This can be used to make Candles. I wonder what happens to the toxin in that extraction process?
I did come across a recipe called Savory (sic) Stuffed Rambutan  there were a couple of sites that had variations of the recipe, the above one was the most complete recipe.
However this lacks some detail. What gets stuffed? In fact as far as I could see nothing. How are the Rambutans prepared? Cut? Sliced? Whole? No idea and no details.
Despite the lack of detail I decided that I should try to make a variation of this. What sprung to my mind was cooking the above and presenting it in lettuce leaves. Very much like San Choy Bow. It would need a slight modification to the recipe. Here is what I came up with.

Recipe - Savoury Rambutan in Lettuce Cups.
This made 5 lettuce cups. Quantities are approximate, not strictly measured, vary to suit your own palate and number of serves.
1 Garlic Glove - finely chopped, not minced.
1 Carrot - finely diced.
1/2 small white onion - diced finely.
75g Mixed Pork(55%) & Veal(45%) Mince. You could use all Pork.
1/3 Cup Coriander Root finely chopped
1/3 Cup Coriander leaves coarse chopped
2 Tablespoons crushed roasted peanuts
2 teaspoons soy sauce
1 Tablespoon brown sugar, the original recipe called for Palm Sugar
1 small chilli (hot) chopped and deseeded
5 Rambutans, removed from shell, flesh taken off the seed and coarse chopped.
Small quantity vegetable oil
4 - 6 Lettuce Cups. I used a Cos as it was all that I had available. Iceberg gives round cups.

Ingredients ready to go.

 In a frying pan cook the coriander root and garlic until the flavours are released. About 60 seconds.
Turn up the heat and add the meat, cook until the pink dissapears, then add the Onion, Carrot, Peanuts, Soy Sauce, brown Sugar and Chilli. You are looking for a fairly dry consistency and a quick cook. Fry it don't let it stew in any juices released from the meat.
Add the Rambutan and Coriander Leaves. Stir for another 30 - 60 seconds.
Spoon the mixture onto Lettuce Cups and serve.

Served and ready to pop into the mouth

It tasted OK and would make a viable alternative to San Choy Bow as an entree or starter. There were a few crunchy bits when eaten, I don't think that they were intended. I could not work out whether this was bits of skin left on the Rambutan, the sugar (which was crystalline) or the Peanuts or I had not washed the lettuce thoroughly. I think it was the sugar with hindsight, I probably should have put that in with the meat before the other ingredients.
The Bludger did not go hungry that night.