There's something in the woodheap...

Today is a very good day to go to the movies, I think. Anything to avoid a day of letting Jack in and out of the back door.

My Jack Russell terrier, Jack, has spent the last few days patrolling the backyard, and under both side gates, with his nose glued to ground level, relentlessly following the unseen path of some invisible creature, which has obviously been passing through with some regularity.

In the past, we've suspected a possum, cats and/or small garden skinks, and it often has been the latter. I have also spotted blue tongue lizards (Jack's cornered two of these in the past, flipping one over on its back), and there was the famous ferret sighting - not to mention large water skinks at Zena's and my red-bellied black snake encounter down at Penrith railway station. Nor will I mention the near-tragedy of the baby blue tongue lizard at my aunt's last year.

Who knows what monster is lurking under the woodheap (the remains of the old balcony decking boards)? But Jack did finally see it under there twice this morning. "Bark, bark, bark" etc.


"Where is it? Where is it?"


On the topic of monsters, I've recently had a curiosity about the fate of Peter Jackson's "Son of Kong" movie, which he'd promoted in the bonus DVD features of his "King Kong" remake (2005). I haven't heard a thing about the sequel, which was going to star an albino progeny of "Kong", in ages; in fact, not since seeing the bonus features of the DVD, now that i think of it. Today it was time for that Google and IMDB (Internet Movie Database) search, and thus I discovered this comment in a review of the Jackson "King Kong" DVD:

For those that fell victim to the joke (I did) about "Son of Kong", there won't be a "Son of Kong". That was an April Fools joke.

Really? Now I feel silly.

I must admit, watching the DVD bonus features, I thought it was a weird move for Jackson to do such a sequel when "King Kong" itself had had a less-then-impressive performance at the box office, but I was equally surprised when the recent media seemed to be totally ignoring the progress of the (seemingly elaborate) sequel. The bit about Kong's son growing up to fight Nazis should have been the give away. Gosh, I'm slow.

You know, Peter, it was a great joke, but I'm still not looking under my woodheap.

Fine feral ferrets

After yesterday's entry about my concerns that Jack will one day fall victim to a deadly snake, it was with a sense of dread that I released him into the yard at 7 am to do his morning ablutions, while I went off to complete my own.

I became engrossed with a book, then realised Jack hadn't made his standard low growl to ask, "Let me back in", so I went to find him. There he was, peering into the house from the other side of the flyscreen door, but when he saw me coming he scarpered back into the yard, hoping I'd relent and let him down into the pool area so he could sniff out any nocturnal visitors who'd left him a wee-mail on a tree.

Then: we both saw it at the same instant! A huge, pale yellow ferret was rummaging in the garden! Jack went instantly ballistic, of course, barking and carrying on, although the cheeky ferret seemed to know that Jack was still behind bars. It spent several minutes twisting through the agapanthus, finishing up whatever it'd been up to and finally selecting its favourite exit hole under the fence.

I think I've now solved the mystery of our most recent regular visitor, whose mission, should it choose to accept it, is to drive a poor little Jack Russell beresk (sic)*. Who knows what the wee-mail said? Probably the furry equivalent of "Your mother wears army boots." I wonder if Jack even knows the local ferret dialect?

In the past, we've had a fox, two different blue-tongue lizards, many suicidal frogs, crappy birds, next door's cats, and now a feral ferret! Welcome to the jungle.

* With thanks to Dorrie Evans, "Number 96".