Early Pickings

Yesterday brought a cool change in weather. After being cooped up inside hiding from the heat I felt the need to venture out and get some fresh air.I knew it was early in the season for blackberries but hoped that the hot weather conditions might have bought on an early show of berries, so off I headed to Mt Compass to try my luck

It rained the whole way there and the clouds in the sky looked ominous - threatening to rain the whole day through. I'm not complaining as the rains are a welcome relief for the firefighters and mean that the fires are now under control. In fact our whole weather pattern is bizarre . We are expecting the heaviest rains ever for the month of January in the next three days, with warnings of flooding to widespread northern areas, Never a truer word was said when someone coined the phrase " Ït never rains it pours!"

Anyway as luck would have it the skies didn't decide to deluge me and dampen my spirits. All I got was a light drizzle and because of the heat to the previous days it was almost muggy/ humid, not in the least bit horrible or cold

The blackberry bushes are laden and promise a good fruiting season. Even though pickings were scarce I still managed to pick 2 kilograms worth of berries but I had to pick over a large area and over a long period of time. I do my picking on the roadside and there is a lot of passing traffic usually but because of the cloudy conditions probably fewer holiday makers than normal. Still some ventured a hello with a toot of their horns.

Even though it is a major road the country side is beautiful and two steps off the road and you are gone from view. So here are my happy snaps from yesterday

Can you see the spider in the photo above, my camera wouldn't focus on him (I was using my phone camera- my daughter has stolen my good camera to go away on holidays with friends)

I found the one and only thistle in amongst the brambles and risked life and limb to go and photograph. I was a bit worried about all the holes in the ground which I am hoping were due to rabbits and not some other dangerous animal..too big for snakes but that is not say that there weren't any snakes about but less likely in the cool weather.
Do you think the fur in between the thistles is due to spiders or part of the plant in growth?

 The alpacas came for a nosey at the fence as I picked on the otherside