Cate Ellink's Blog, page 38

Wildlife Wednesday - koala

I thought I'd stick with my zoo theme for today. My local zoo is the Shoalhaven Zoo and you can find out more about it here. I love it because it's small but has been growing and improving over the last 7 years that I've been visiting (plus it has this awesome slippery dip!). The animals are close to you, most are friendly, and the staff are incredible. They say all the money you spend goes back into improvements, and that's what I've seen - an ever improving and increasing zoo.

So, I took some new-to-Australia visitors to the zoo and the koalas were a favourite (with them, and me!). It helps that at this zoo, you get to sniff and pat a koala, and I've never sniffed one before I went here.

What does a koala smell like? I think it's one of the most beautiful scents I've ever smelled. There's some eucalyptus smell but it's not overpowering or sharp, there's something like lanolin but not as dirty or strong as you find in sheep, there's earthy or tree tones but not enough to pick. The zoo keeper said it was like passionfruit, but it's not quite. I think you need to sniff a koala - it's the best smell out!

Add to the petting and sniffing, one of the koalas had a joey that was newly emerging from the pouch to explore the world. The baby was about 7 months old, and they spend about 5 months hidden in the pouch, and only emerge for short stints until they're about a year old. So this bub was special to see...so of course I took a lot of photos! Here is the koala bub (in many poses) for your enjoyment :)

Poking over Mum's back
Setting off on his own
Stretching the legs
Hiding in the leaves beneath Mum Looking very cute checking out the world

Phallic Friday - Sexual Innuendo

(Sorry I'm late)

I'm usually pretty quick on picking up smutty jokes, sexual innuendo and the like...but when I'm with kids, my mind seems to become clean and these things pass me by (that's my excuse anyway!)

So, following on from the snake and the zoo visit, we're in a mixed animal talk by a zoo keeper. He brought out 4 animals and gave a little talk about what was interesting about each and let everyone pat/touch/smell the critter. There was a koala (they have the most incredibly beautiful smell, like eucalypts and passionfruit), a ringtail possum, a crocodile and a snake.

Squeeze the Burmese Python is the snake. He was rather small!!! And we got to touch him, watch his muscles ripple as he was held upright, we saw his two 'legs' and his anus, we heard about his girlfriend and their planned new enclosure.

During the chat, the keeper told us how friendly Squeeze was because he'd been handled daily since birth. He never associates handling with feeding or stress, so he's just relaxed and enjoys the attention from people. This was really important for a snake used in these talks, obviously!

Then he showed us how cool Squeeze was by kissing the snake a dozen times with big smacking kisses on the snake's head.

Then he says, "I don't do this with my snake at home because he's nowhere near as relaxed as Squeeze."

Me...I'm fascinated.

My sister...almost choking with laughter.

Some hours pass while we're at the zoo and then as we're leaving, the same guy is doing the talk again and tells us he has a different animal for this talk - a sugar glider - so we go again. There's only us and another family who have seen the talk before too but are keen to be there again.

The sugar glider is the softest, tiniest thing. Then we get to Squeeze again. The kisses happen and my sister is again choking, me thinking up questions. After the talk, I asked him how he could tell that one snake would appreciate his kisses and another wouldn't. A legitimate question I thought...but my sister is snorting now.

I kiss animals, usually the furry kind, and I know how you can tell if a dog would appreciate a kiss or if it wouldn't. Same with a cat or a horse. A snake...I've never thought of kissing it (can you hear my sister snorting more!?)

He explains that you can feel how relaxed the snake is by the tension in the muscles. As you bring the snake close to your face, you know if it's happy or not by how stiff it's become (yep, my sister's almost rolling on the ground by now; me, still fascinated that a python has body language you can read). So I ply the poor guy with more questions, get onto the Diamond Python thing from Wednesday, and then off we go.

I'm ecstatic that I have new knowledge. My sister is snorting, still. Out of earshot of her 4 year old, she says, "His snake at home gets all stiff and he can't kiss it." She's hardly able to get the words out around her laughter...and suddenly the innuendo sinks in.

OMG! I was asking him about his snake at home. Alluding to masturbating, blow jobs, whatever... in front of three kids! And I was oblivious to what I was insinuating. The poor guy. Me and my curiosity!

Wildlife Wednesday - Diamond Python

I have visitors this week, from London, and the day they arrived I had a Diamond Python visiting! I've lived here for 7 years and have never seen a snake here...just when visitors are coming, there's one - typical :)

So here's the diamond python. It was early, and I'm not a good morning person, so I stagger out after Mr E tells me it's there and I identify it (in my thongs and shorts). I grab some shots. Then I start to wonder what's stuck on its head - doe sit need help - should I do something?

Then I worry about my identification - am I 100% sure it's a diamond python/carpet snake and therefore harmless, or is it something else and I'm deluded? And if you read this blog you'll know I'm not THAT good on my id. So I worried.

I went inside and in baggy long pants, thick socks and boots, I came back to have another look, take more photos and decide what to do.

Somehow in that time away from the excitement, my brain started to work. The snake was coming out of the winter hibernation. It was just becoming active. It was a fairly long snake but fairly lean, but that's okay if it's just coming into spring it won't have eaten much. And then, I yell to Mr E, "It's shedding!"

The thing over it's head was the old skin it was sloughing off - and it just hadn't all come off yet. Well, that's what I think it is. What do you reckon?

After I'd taken my shots, I went inside whereby Mr/s Snake took himself/herself off through the garden beds and we went to get our visitors. We haven't seen the snake again and the visitors are making sure I don't look too closely for it!!

Any idea if my id was right and my diagnosis?

Phallic Friday - sex and violence

I need to rave a bit today - like a crazy woman, I think! So be warned.

There's been so much in the Sydney media this week about sex - all negative things. So many rapes, gang rapes, murders and bashings over relationships or ended relationships. It's horrifying. It makes me not want to watch the news. When did we become so violent?

I guess humans have always had violence as an integral part of life - history is filled with wars and battles and fighting on a small and large scale.

Sex is a violent act in many ways. It's also ripe to be used as a power game. So I suppose it's logical that sex and violence are lumped together so often.

But does it have to be reported so much? Do I need to know how horrifying life can be?

Maybe I'm getting old. Maybe my rose-coloured glasses need adjusting.

I write sex for the beauty of the intimacy, the power of the act, the intensity of union, all the emotions that get stirred to the surface by the physical act.

I guess violence and anger are emotions that can be shaken up to the surface and be exposed/relieved by/through sex...but it's not what I want to read or write about.

So I'll be the one bucking the sex and violence trend, who's thinking about the fun, intimacy and excitement sex brings.

How do you find sex and violence? Is it something you read? 

Wildlife Wednesday - Red-browed Firetail

These Red-browed firetails caught my eye the other week. They were flitting around at a park-type place near home.

Birds in Backyards have some info here if you're looking for more.

They say these birds are easily recognisable because of their red rump, eyebrow and beak. So, I might remember what they are next time I see them!!

The brilliant red is what caught my eye. They're tiny birds, and so unless you see the red, they could flit right past me. They're a bit like the male Superb Wrens with their dash of blue - the brown females fly all around without me getting excited, but once that dash of blue appears, out comes the camera!

The red-browed firetails do shared parenting duties of nest building, incubating eggs, and rearing chicks.

My trusty Pizzey book tells me that these belong to the family of Grass-finches. Grass finches are very social in non-breeding season and form large groups, but it appears that they have strong pairings during mating, which may last a lifetime.

It makes me wonder how people know if birds mate for life or not. Did they observe bird pairs and were they able to identify each individual? Were they tagged? Hmm...that's a lot of research to conduct!

Phallic Friday - pony fetish

Sometimes good things come when I'm AWOL and not smutty - like realising I didn't do a pony fetish in my fetish blogs. So today I'll rectify that!

This is called 'ponyplay' and it's exactly as it sounds - a person 'becomes' a pony and is treated as such. They can be ridden, they can draw a cart/buggy, parade in full costume, or graze and act with other ponies.

The 'costumes' are many and varied but usually include some form of bit and bridle, reins/harness, and a butt plug with a pony tail. There can also be hobbles, pony boots, corsets or other body items to depict harnesses or something similar.

There's a classic erotic book, I just have no idea which it is, that had a Pony scene in it that just blew my mind. I wish I could remember where I read it but a quick Google search hasn't helped me. I was thinking it may have been The Adventures of Fanny Hill or The Story of O, but it may have been in one of the Marquis deSade's books. Anyway...in my memory of this scene...the female submissive is taken to the pony day at some rich person's establishment where there are stables...but for the human-horses, paddocks...for human-horses, complete with water troughs and buckets of feed. There are racing tracks, trotting tracks, parks for parading, etc., all designed for human-horses but exactly mimicking that used for animals.

The pony tails are of varying lengths and thickness and this is explained to her. A 'new' horse can only hold so much weight in the tail coming from the butt plug, so the 'new' horses have thinner, shorter tails. A very experienced pony has a thick heavy tail which they wear with pride. It's one of those things that my mind may have made much more prominent than the scene had it because it blew my mind when I read it. Something so obvious...when you think about it!

I guess ponyplay links in with extreme D/s we discussed here, the animal fetishes we looked at here and role play, here.
And in case you need a reminder of what ponies and pony tails look like, here are two of the cutest ponies! I was looking after them the last few weeks. It's been 7 years since I had a horse to care for and I forgot how much I loved it...and them. I loved their gentleness, the scent of dust, hay and horse, their big thick tails and manes, their soft eyes and nose, the snuffle of warm horse breath on your face and neck.

Yes, I know, I have a pony fetish...but mine's the "teenage girl who's horse mad" fetish, not the dress-up one!

I don't think I've grown out of that love of horses. And I made an interesting observation too - my love of horses is an on-the-ground one more than a riding one. I love working around them, brushing them, being with them. My friend prefers to be riding and she gets nervous on the ground. Me...I'm nervous once I'm off the ground and on them. We'd make a good team. She could be the champion rider and I'd be the strapper... and somehow it still sounds like a strange sexual thing, doesn't it? I came home and found my smutty mind - I must have left it behind :)

Wildlife Wednesday - Rainford's Butterflyfish

Sorry I've been AWOL. I went out to house sit for friends and took a pocket wifi, but when you're in the bush, sometimes those things don't work as well as they're marketed. It was fabulous compared with the noting we had 2 years ago, but compared to wifi in the city, it was patchy and intermittent. Unfortunately my day job sucked all my wifi patience, and my blog got little attention. But I'm home now!

The Australian Museum has some info here if you're interested. It eats algae and benthic invertebrates (which are backbone-less critters at the bottom of the water).

These are rather small fish growing to about 15 cm. Their colours are their distinctive feature.

There are heaps of different butterfly fish but they all have this incredible body shape. I get excited every time I see one because when I was a kid, they fascinated me when I saw them in books, so to see them for real is a thrill that never goes, no matter how many I see.

Oh, the Australian Museum site claims they're one of the most beautiful tropical fishes - so it's not just me who's taken by them! If you want to ogle some more of these gorgeous fish, they have heaps here.

These guys are tropical fish only coming down so far as southern Qld. They can be seen up the Qld coast and around PNG. This one is in the waters around Green Island, off Cairns.

Wildlife Wednesday - corals

Here are a bunch of photos to show the different types of corals that I saw on my Green Island snorkels. I'm being slack today and not giving any information - sorry. I'm away house-sitting, inland, and all my books are at home. I know there's Google but I have a dodgy wifi and I'm struggling :)

Phallic Friday - losing your mind

I'm at a loss for a topic today. I'm away from home and my smutty mind seems to have been left behind and I don't really know how that happened! How can you leave half of yourself behind?

But there is something on my mind, and I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not for a blog post, but anyway...

I've worked in a male dominated industry all my life, which I've thoroughly enjoyed. I like men. I feel comfortable around them. The only issues have been with the female partners of the men I've worked with - not all, just some. And it's always been a puzzle to me. I'm not stunningly attractive, and mostly these women have been, so a large part of the puzzle has been why they find me a threat. So I've always been a bit wary of being overly familiar with the men I've worked with when I'm with their partners (and overly familiar doesn't mean in a touchy way, just that I'm careful not to talk to the men too much, or know too much about their life, etc).

So, I'm with a friend the other day. She's married. And as strange as this is, she worked with my husband, and I worked with her husband (not directly, but he was in the same line of work), before she and I became friends. Now I think we're better friends than either of us were with the men in our lives.

We're chatting the day after I'd been yacking too much to her husband (we were catching up on work-related things) and I apologised for talking too much shop with him. She laughed and said she didn't care and she was glad that he could talk to me. This was part of a larger discussion about other things - we have quite in-depth character analysis discussions sometimes and I think this is what we'd been talking about.

She said something that's been running around my mind ever since. She said that I don't have any games. I walk up and I'm saying, "This is me, who are you?" and then I ask questions to find out who that person is. She reckons this is why I get along with men because there's no artifice or games they need to wade through. She reckons the women I have problems with are the game-playing women who have mine-field conversations and I don't pick them because they dress and appear like most women - just some dress to play the game, others dress to fit in. (And me, I dress for comfort never fashion, so I don't fit in at all! :) Not that she said that!)

So I've been wondering about this conversation we had and her analysis of my character. And that's been on my mind, so much so that there's no smuttiness available at present! Stay tuned I'm sure it will return :)

Wildlife Wednesday - Brush Turkey

I'm late today - so sorry. I'm house sitting and I was so sure I'd have heaps of time to do things. I don't! My house is a tiny little box. I walk a few steps and get to my bathroom. This house, I walk 35 m to the bathroom!!!! I used to complain about my tiny box house, now I want it!!! I'm so lazy but it's wearing me out. Add in two dogs, two cats and two ponies to care for - plus me and my high maintenance needs, and I'm flat chat :)

Here's some information on Brush Turkeys from Birds in Backyards http://birdsinbackyards.net/species/Alectura-lathami

This one is from Cairns Botanic Gardens. We came across him strolling down the boardwalk. When he got to us, he hopped off, walked around us in the rainforest, then hopped back on the board walk for the rest of his stroll :)

My Dad and my nephew have both had Brush Turkeys visit their yards in Sydney, which I thought odd but it seems they live anywhere!

Sorry for the brief post - but pony duty calls (and that's the animal kind, not the fetish) :)

(Actually, did I do a pony fetish?)