One week away from Winter

As Chloe mentions, there's a winter chill in the air now. It seems to have been a long time coming, but on the other hand, it's hard to believe that almost 5 months of the year have gone already. Some trees are bare whilst others, like the pear and apple trees, have scarcely started to change colour. My jonquils have stagnated at 7cm tall, they've been like that for weeks. Maybe it had something to do with me cutting them down last year before they were ready. I was tired of the great mass of leaves falling everywhere and didn't worry if I weakened them a bit; seems that I might have done just that. Perhaps they will start to grow again when and if they ever get any water/rain. We had about 40 drops of rain today - must have been some that escaped from Swan Hill (eh, Calidore?) - especially as the forecast said "No chance of rain for several days." Due to the lack of frosts we've had a longer time to enjoy the tree dahlias this year and my second generation of cosmos are flowering. I wonder if I put some in pots will they flower on the deck through the winter? Worth a try.

Any suggestions for keeping white cockatoos off the roof? They land on the Colourbond roofing over the deck and I worry about what they do up there. I just hope they're not trying to remove the nails from the roof! I've heard of them practically destroying houses when they've a mind too, so I'd rather see them from a distance, not on my roof.

I planted 100 Ranunculus recently and then promptly forgot where I put them. They all appear to be coming up in the most unlikely places. Ah, the 'joys' of being forgetful!