There’s a hole in it

New South Wales does this thing with its trees and its power lines. The US may very well do this too, but I’d never noticed it, so I’m taking a moment to describe it.

Back when we were searching for a place to live, we visited a flat in a place galled Greystanes. The flat was nice looking, but it was one room with double glass doors facing the main socializing area of the family with young children that lived in the main house. Who smoked.

The real estate agent was very kind though we didn’t want the place, and gave us a ride back to the train station. She told us stories about landowners she had worked for.

One owner drove by a house he owned, and called the agent, furious. The top had been cut off of the palm tree in front of the property, and he blamed the tenants. Literally, the top had been cut off the top of the palm tree. There’s not much to a palm tree other than the top, you know. It turns out the local council maintenance folks had cut the tree in half because it was getting too close to the power lines.

Now, I don’t know how you would trim a palm tree if it really needed to be trimmed that didn’t involve cutting the top off, but it does make for a hilarious story.

(I still don’t understand why he would assume his tenants had cut his tree down, but whatever)

Anyway, the local councils are dedicated to keeping the power lines free of entanglement dangers.

And that leads to things such as this:

Circle tree 1

It’s just so perfectly round!

 

Tiny dramas

I was late to work this morning because a tiny drama was playing out in my window:

A moth had been flying around our bedroom for a couple of nights. This morning I found it on the edge of death on the bathroom counter. I decided to see just how ballsy our little pet black house spider is.

It’s a Badumna insignis, black house spider. Or, Badumna insignis, “said to be a favourite food of the white-tailed spider.” I’m glad it hasn’t gotten eaten by that white-tail I accidentally let loose in the house…

As for toughness? It turns out, very.

I placed the moth in the web an inch or two above the entrance to Mr Spider’s hidey hole. He became alert immediately. Once he gathered the gumption to strike, he darted out and grabbed hold of the tip of one of the moth’s wings. And pulled.
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This standoff lasted about 10 minutes. With a brief struggle, the moth gave way and was dragged partly into the entrance of the spider’s house.
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Another ten minutes passed and I decided I ought to get to work. I set the gopro up wedged into the curtain rod above the window and hoped that more action would take place before the battery ran down. I doubt that it did, but Ben provided me with updates throughout the morning as it unfolded.

Ben: spider is eating/preserving the moth
me: yes!!!
Ben: nom nom
and the spider is back in its home
I wonder what will happen now
oh!
spider back on the moth now

I’ll see what’s left of the moth when I get home.

This whole drama played out in the lower left corner of the upper panel of our kitchen window.

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