I wrote a poem for Breckon & Breckon real estate agency to commemorate the incredible level of consideration and compassion they have shown recently.
It’s called “The Cockroaches Will Inherit the Earth.”
I designed this tool to stop the camera recording trillions of photos of trees moving while looking for wild Sugar Gliders.
They take selfies & I use them to show how many individual gliders the site supports, based on these face patterns.
If the stashed Grebe was a test for Gimbir, he passed. Gimbir left the Grebe untouched and Diamond returned to retrieve it, do more prepping and more eating. #OrangeNSW#PeregrineFalcons
Consider this a small reminder that while the internet is busy shouting about everything, there's a black cockatoo sitting in a tree outside my house quietly getting on with the important business of destroying Marri nuts.
One of the things I love most about living on a farm is the regular stream of visitors.
This particular visitor is a black cockatoo, most likely a Baudin's, although I'm fully aware that the bird experts of the internet may arrive shortly to inform me that it's actually a Carnaby's. If so, I look forward to my education.
Baudin's have the longer beak and spend a lot of their time tearing apart Marri nuts, which is exactly what this one was doing outside the house. Carnaby's tend to favour the drier woodlands and wheatbelt country, while Baudin's are more commonly found through the forests of the south-west.
Either way, a whole flock of them regularly turns up and spends the day methodically dismantling Marri nuts. By nightfall, it often looks like a small explosion has occurred in the trees above the lawn. There are gumnut fragments everywhere.
Still, they provide endless opportunities for photography and video, so I reckon we're getting the better end of the deal.
Four of our recently ringed barn owl youngsters getting hunting and flying lessons from their mother, all in the safety of their barn.
[email protected]
* filmed under schedule 1 licence.
#Spencerestates@Payne1pro
Diamond sits on the nestbox ledge with what looks like a double-breasted crop (it's huge!) and Gimbir aborts his attempt to join her. #OrangeNSW#PeregrineFalcons
A woman sent me an email. This is what she said:
Hi Sherele,
I’m reaching out because I’m a mother currently living through what I can only describe as a broken domestic violence system, and I don’t know who else is listening.
For the past three years, I’ve had an ADVO in place against my ex-partner, who is also the father of my daughter. Despite that, the threats have continued. Like many women, I lost faith in the system a long time ago because every interaction seemed to lead nowhere.
Two weeks ago, I finally found enough trust to make a formal statement regarding breaches of the ADVO. After years of putting up with behaviour that should never be tolerated, I decided to go through the process and do everything I was supposed to do.
I have since learned that the breach still hasn’t even been sent interstate for service.
At the same time, I’ve been waiting over a month for a simple phone call from my local Domestic Violence Liaison Officer to explain the process and provide an update. That call has never come.
What makes this even harder to understand is that there is an outstanding NSW warrant that has existed for years. During that time, there have been occasions where he has been in NSW, yet nothing appears to have come from it. There have also been previous reports and conversations that, from my understanding, were not identified or progressed as domestic violence matters.
As a victim-survivor, I keep asking myself the same questions.
Why is domestic violence not taken seriously from the very beginning?
Why are victims expected to keep reporting, documenting, and reliving their trauma if those reports are not acted upon quickly?
Why do women have to spend years chasing updates and accountability while trying to keep themselves and their children safe?
Why does it feel like state borders create barriers when it comes to enforcing warrants and domestic violence matters?
Why isn’t there a stronger national approach to protecting victim-survivors and holding perpetrators accountable?
Most importantly, why does it often feel like action only comes after someone has been seriously harmed or killed?
I am exhausted.
Not because I haven’t spoken up.
Not because I haven’t reported.
Not because I haven’t followed the process.
I’m exhausted because I have followed the process and still feel like I am fighting alone.
This isn’t just about me. It’s about every woman who has lost faith after being ignored, every victim who has waited months for answers, every mother trying to protect her children while navigating a system that feels impossible to understand.
I know there are dedicated people working within the system, but from where I stand, the gaps are enormous, and those gaps are leaving women vulnerable.
I don’t want sympathy.
I want awareness.
I want accountability.
And I want people to start asking why so many women are still falling through the cracks despite doing everything they are told to do. Why are they not being protected by the ones (police) who are meant to be on call to protect us at any given time?
Thank you for everything you do to give woman a voice. I hope by sharing my experience, it helps shine a light on just how much still needs to change.
Any other contact to pass this email onto would be greatly appreciated. I feel like I want to start making a noise.
Kind regards,
M
****
Every time I get a message like this, I fear she may become another name on my femicide toll. Australian governments - national, state & territory - are not listening to us. They do not understand the depth of the systemic failures women face when trying to stay alive and safe.
This is just one of the many reasons we need a Royal Commission into the Killing of Women and Girls. You can sign the petition aat https://t.co/BsvFWmIzbL.
Why WOOL is a magic fibre every child should have.
Just now we've been sent films of our granddaughter in NZ at this very moment snuggling into it & lulling herself to sleep caressing these knitted textures.
She won't sleep without it.
I get a lot of comments on my photos of Ajax asking when I will ‘release him’ or if I will ‘ever let him go’ so I want to be clear that there is nothing to release him from.
He is not in a cage or captivity or restrained in any way. The photos I post of him inside the house are when he is choosing to be there and the door or window are open for him.
If he is inside the house that’s because he wants to be. I only close the door at night but that’s after he goes to sleep inside. He could choose to sleep outside.
This is not a bird that I stole from ‘the wild’ so that I can take selfies with it. This is a bird that would normally be semi-habituated and living in towns and gardens. The nest he fell out of was in my garden, and he’s still in the same place now.
I didn’t move him away from his natural habitat. He is in exactly the same area he would have been if he had stayed in his nest. I just made sure he was fed and protected so now he trusts me and likes to spend time with me.
Young magpies usually stay with their parents for several weeks after fledging. Ajax is in that period now. Eventually they leave their parent’s territory to establish their own. He will be fully free to do this if he decides to.
He already forages very well by himself and is an expert invertebrate hunter. He has become very good at digging for worms and even tackling the very big ones.
Unfortunately for me, he now loves fruit so picks and eats the garden strawberries often before I can get to them!🍓
Ajax is very chatty when he is in a good mood. Things that put him in a good mood include: Me finding an old stool and putting it on the table for him to investigate.