Bunny love

Introducing Taja and Fawn! A pair of sisters adopted from RSPCA

 Fawn and Taja lounging around after a meal of hay

 Fawn begging for food xD Too cute!!!

 

Grooming each other

 Checking out the camera lens

 Konked out Fawn

Taja having a nap

I finally got myself some buns. My family and I used to look after 2 rabbits and I've wanted to get them since I'm no longer renting. I decided to adopt buns from RSPCA instead of buying them from a pet shop. Sure the younger rabbits are cuter and would have received training from only myself and Hann, but the rabbits at RSPCA could use some help. Plus the RSPCA de-sex, vaccinate, and micro-chip the rabbits. They are toilet trained too :P I have built them an extension for an outdoor hutch but I've kept them in the bathroom for the time being due to the wet and cold winter weather. We are also planning to build an indoor enclosure for the =) Taja and Fawn are ADORABLE! They are starting to warm up to us now but Taja is very weary of being picked up. Fawn is less picky about that issue but both of them love a good patting!

On another note, more beautiful mosses and more terrariums. Hann and I went up to a trail near Warburton dam and collected some mosses and lichen.

 I love the light green fluffy moss

 Managed to find more dicracum moss

This next one is my favourite terrarium so far. I've had trouble keeping the yellowish moss alive so I hope I have better luck this time by keeping it well ventilated and not too wet.

With a healthy dose of haircap moss

A closer look

Side view

Another view

I also gave a lichen terrarium a go! I've read that they don't need as much water and might be less likely to go mouldy since I can water it less. The pixie cup lichen is pretty cool!

 

 A flat bottomed flask terrarium

 A detailed look

 Last but not least, some WIP sketches I've been working on:

 Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock

Prince Noctis from Final Fantasy versus XIII XV. It's exciting news that they've started working on it again. Especially the new trailer showing a good relationship between him and his dad (Finally! A good father and son relationship in the series!)

Until next time

Lemon harvest + more terrariums

We have a lemon tree in the backyard (came with the house when we bought it) and it's been fruiting for a while but have only started to ripen recently. And boy there were a lot of lemons! I started clipping off the ones which looked ready. The harvest gave me 60 lemons! I was able to give a lot of them to family, friends, neighbours and still had a lot left over for myself. The second harvest 2 weeks later gave me another 50 lemons. Decided to try out some baking recipes with them.

 Basket full of lemons *yum*

They don't look too pretty, but they taste great!

Lemon cupcakes!

The cupcakes turned out better than expected. I didn't have time to frost them but they managed to stay moist and fluffy after 2 days. I think I'll make them again. Also tried a hand at baking biscuits. It was my first time making a pastry/dough so I didn't know the kind of consistency I should be getting. I also realised mid way through that a rolling pin might come in handy for rolling out the dough...

Lemon butter biscuits

I ended up using my palms to flatten the dough before cutting and baking them with lemon icing drizzled over them :P Yummy

Among other things, the sunny weekend gave me some time to do some gardening and make another terrarium. I was lucky to come by a huge pot of Zebra Hawarthia succulents at a local nursery for cheap as it was slightly overgrown with weeds. The plants looked like they were suffocating cause the pot was too mall for them! I had to lift them off the pot and separate the plants one by one. There were about 14 healthy plants in that 5" pot! I planted a lot of them in the garden beds but kept a few small ones for other projects.

Filled to the brim!

 Tear drop glass globe for a small terrarium

 Finished product with some mosses, lichen and pebbles

Close-up

What my dream succulent garden would look like:

 Fantastic landscaping at Melbourne's Royal Botanic Garden

 Mass planting of red jelly beans

More mass planting of a sort of sedum

 Bright red Echeveria

More sketches and works in progress in the next post :)

Thesis vs PhD student: 1, nil

The pelvis thesis is pointing me to dead ends everywhere. Come on mode shapes, give me some info!

For those of you who are wondering, the title of my thesis is "Monitoring the fracture healing of an internally fixated pelvis using vibration analysis". Stop laughing.

Photos from Winton Racetrack

This post is mainly for the EXE forum guys who wanted to have a look at the photos I got on track day. Photo heavy post (50 photos *gasp*)

Went to the Winton racetrack last weekend with Hann and had a blast taking photos. Weather turned out awesome despite wet weather forecasts. I spent most of the morning eating food prepared by Belinda (thanks!) and watching the cars at the spectator area. It was only after lunch that I decided to go out to the bunkers to test out my fast-moving-object-camera-skills. Timing turned out perfect. The sun was low so it gave me perfect lighting reflecting off the lines of the cars.

BEHOLD shiny photos of cars!!! ... and some random shots in between...

Favourite cars: 350Z and the Lotus :)