winter days

342 Canning Highway circa 1900


These cool winters days make us regret not having a North facing backyard to bask in the sun. Our old house in Bicton had a nice, large backyard facing north...wonderful! The house itself was built in 1897 and we were the second family to occupy it. We lived there for 28 years.
Canning Road (Highway) circa 1900. Leopold Hotel with the Bicton house on the right. Kids playing on the road amongst the horse poo.

Both of us go to our GP next to our old Bicton residence and sometimes we wish we could take a tour of the place next door and the back yard to see what they have done with it. We had a concrete pool which lapsed into disuse and we converted it into a pond with waterfall and limestone edging. It was stocked with Koi, Goldfish and Yabbies. It was good to drop a trap in the pond and get a feed of Yabbies at any time. Yabbies, locally called Koonaks, are minature lobsters and they are a source of income to farmers who grow them in their dams. They are sold mainly overseas at inflated prices.

One of the crazy things about the pool/pond was that when it was a pool the local council had to inspect it annually to see that the fences and locks were in place to avoid drownings, but once we converted it to a pond, no inspection was necessary.

A couple of pics of the house and the highway out front and the pool conversion. The small building in the background of the pond is a 'cubby' with a spiral staircase and cellar underground.