The Big Sneeze

'Tis the season to be sneezin' --

Is it mimosa or is it golden wattle? I don't (kershoo) even care any(kerchoo!)more.
South Australia in August ... okay. Ker-CHOO! At Woorabinda last week.

Mimosa and golden wattle. The air is full of pollen, the trees are raining it in yellow snow-like drifts. My eyes are red and itchy and my sinuses --! What can you say? It's just part of the landscape, always has been.Talk to indigenous Australians; they'll probably tell you legendary stories of the Great Sneezing of 20,000 years ago.

(Oddly enough, we were watching a couple of episodes of Luke's Kingdom just the other week, and you couldn't fail to notice, in the background, the woodland was golden. "Ah," says I, "this was filmed in August or September." The year? Oh, probably 1974, since the show went to air in 1975. What's really weird is, I have clear memories of it being on TV that year. Ouch!)

Right now the golden woodland looks like the "enchanted forest" you see in Alaska, all too briefly, but it's the other end of the scale: Alaska turns golden as the birch races through fall (or autumn, if you prefer), whereas these flowers riot as we head up out of winter and into spring.  See here for "enchanted forest" pictures from my Alaskan days. See here for some enchanted forest pics from Jupiter Creek just last year...

But one doesn't sneeze when the birch turns golden. Golly, I wonder why not, LOL. Wellll... the golden wattle was here before humans arrived ... but it reminds you, the dinosaurs died out around the time the first flowers appeared, which once prompted some paleontologists to hypothesize that the dinosaurs died of hayfever. I can surely empathize with them.

But the good thing is, spring is breaking out all over the place. About time. Winter always tends to outstay its welcome.

Kerchoo.