Yes, the last post did promise that the decision about the gum tree branch above the art studio roof-to-be would be revealed in the next post. But there’s time for that tomorrow.

As promised in a reply to a comment by Jenny on Day 21: pour time! it’s time for Damien’s loyal offsider Bella to have her close-ups.

Damien has been working diligently on the site since Day 1 and Bella has accompanied him each and every day. She’s a border collie for those who don’t know, a breed renowned for their loving nature and intelligence. You can judge for yourself. Bella is usually found patrolling the footpath above the building site, which is a very useful thing as many pedestrians appear unable to read or understand the propped-up signs at either end of the footpath that say: ‘Use other footpath’.

On the march

Ever vigilant

Damien reminds Bella that a safety vest and steel caps are required to enter the site. Chastised, she beats a retreat …

… and ferociously resumes her footpath surveillance.

As for the mountain dragon, what’s the connection? Damien, not Bella. About a month ago, Damien called out, ‘Hey Doug, come look at this!’

With Nikon primed, your photographer saw his first Rankinia diemensis outside of a glass case.

Hanging on the vertical face of the cut for the upper path, from head to tail this little bugger is about 20 cm (8 in.).

Well done, Damien, for noticing this well-camouflaged fella.

For more than 20 years living in inner west Sydney, your blogger was asked many times by friends and relatives from overseas if kangaroos hop around in the cities and towns. It is a serious question, borne out of a wonderful mix of curiosity, stereotype and of course genuine ignorance. And it’s really no different from another serious question – borne of just the same things – often asked of your blogger by friends in Australia: ‘Why does everyone carry a gun in the United States?’

So no, there are no species of marsupials hopping down the streets of the centre of Sydney or Hobart, just as not every person in the US is locked and loaded. But as always, what happens on the fringes can be a little different, and Tolmans Hill, is a bush suburb. We have seen plenty of daytime evidence on the building site – before it was a building site – of the active, nocturnal presence of wallabies and pademelons in the form of ‘scats’.

One of the benefits of completing the build will be the return to our site of native wildlife , who must be just a little annoyed at the disruption to their world.

We see ourselves as custodians, not owners, of this little patch of earth; hence our sense of responsibility toward the flora and fauna we interact with.

With great delight, we can already imagine sitting quietly on one of our finished decks up in the trees at dusk, waiting for a wallaby or two to hop through the block below us. Your photographer will point and shoot … his camera. He doesn’t own a gun.