Koalas and Kangaroos!

Randy Seaver author of the well-known genealogy blog, Genea-Musings, recently posed the topics of “Your Other Hobbies or Interests” for his “Saturday Night Genealogy Fun” weekly blog post, and it has spurred me to get writing again.

So just what are my other hobbies and interests?

Reading is one, and I’m a collector of various things, there’s no doubt about that. One of those is my 19 Crimes collection of corks and wine bottles, that is still growing slowly. But other than that … not so much of a hobby, but more of a passion, is keeping an eye on the local wildlife in my area.

So my answer is … koalas and kangaroos.

I live in the Adelaide Hills area of South Australia, and am incredibly fortunate to have koalas and kangaroos come and visit regularly. So regularly, that I can identify them, and have named many of them.

So let me introduce you to my girl koala Boomer, and a few of my regulars …

regular visitor Boomer (short for Boomerang since she keeps coming back) – she started it all!

Charlie is one of the big boy roos who comes to visit

beautiful Ellie, who is mum to baby Jaffa

handsome boy Franklin

beautiful little Genie

new mama roo Jewell, with her joey, Diamond

Vegemite with her first joey, Marmite

Vegemite with her new joey, Promite

Mumma Bear & Baby Bear

Toni, the girl with the fluffiest ears ever!

Popcorn, he’s the ultimate looking teddy bear

 

So what started with me going out for a walk and photographing the wildlife I saw along the way and putting some pictures on on Facebook for my friends, has resulted in my koalas and kangaroos totally having fans.

They suggested I should make a calendar from all my koala pics, so I did this and made a 2020 calendar which went well, and Boomer and her friends made it to many corners of the world. So recently I’ve been busy working on my 2021 calendar, and now Boomer has her own Facebook page as well. So it’s been keeping me busy, combine that with creating a proper separate website and there is absolutely no genealogy time at present.

Everyone has their ‘happy place’ – the place they love, the thing they love doing! Seeing my kangaroos and koalas is most certainly mine. It is just so good for the soul!

Just a side note: please note when I say I got out photographing the wildlife, I am absolutely not a pro-photographer. In fact I’d call myself a snapper, since my camera is simply a little auto-everything one. A lot of pics don’t turn out, but some do, and they look pretty good!

So that’s my other hobby/passion … what’s yours?

P.S. If you are interest in more koala pics, feel free to follow my Boomer and her friends Facebook page, and if you like the idea of looking at koalas all year round, you can find my koala calendar on sale here.

Family History Through the Alphabet Challenge: N is for … Never-Ending New Stuff and New Jersey

As has happened numerous times throughout the Family History Through the Alphabet Challenge, I’ve changed my mind of what to write about after already starting this post.

So for this N post I’d like to say that

N is for NEVER-ENDING NEW STUFF

We all know that the internet is an absolute wealth of information with new websites and new records being added online daily. Seriously the rate of growth is overwhelming. So how do we keep up with what new online that interests us? And by that I’m meaning anything genealogy or genealogy-related, but you knew that didn’t you … just checking!!

Well there are several ways, so let me share those with you …