Australia

Xu Xu is back in the land of Oz. I arrived back to my apartment on the orchard, the front door unopened since I was last there in early june. I was greeted by the daddy long legs spiders which had woven their webs throughout the three rooms, covering me as I enter. There are also numerous black house spiders, which I always take as a good sign as meaning there are no poisonous white tail spiders in the rooms. This could just be some class of urban myth but it is known that the black house spider is the favourite prey of the white tail. The flyscreen edges are the favourite dwelling places of the mean looking black house spiders, which keep to themselves and I like to have around, as they are very adept at catching any flies that manage to get inside. Sometimes I catch a fly or two and throw them into a web and watch spidey come out and grab it. There are soooo many flies outside, which is par for the course in these parts.
Work - currently I'm busy thinning peaches, which will be finished this week and followed by some apple thinning before the first harvesting of the season begins in a couple of weeks with apricots.
The crop is looking good this year with the exception of the plums which are disappointing.