A Christmas Gift from Mother Nature

 

The Monarch (Wanderer) butterflies seem to thrive on the Milkweed bush in the back garden here at home. The bush is about six years old now -- I keep it very well pruned -- and we counted upwards of 25 caterpillars before they started to chrysalis. Around 80% of the chrysalises seem to have hatched, and so far we haven't found any of the new-hatched Wanderers dead in the vicinity, so they really do seem to thrive here. This was a genuinely beaut Christmas gift from Mother Nature, and we were lucky enough to get good pictures in a patch of sunshine between the omnipresent rain...

It's raining again, in January, and the hills are green. Still green? Green again? Very weird. By this time of the year, the state of South Australia ought to be burned brown and desiccated, but this year everything remains soooo green -- 

The downside to which is, I'm not going to be able to save the roses. There's rust and black spot on every single bush, and some are a disaster zone. I'm pretty disappointed with this, because I had them looking marvellous before all the rain came back. Well ... back to square one and start again! Time to cut them back to sticks and spray everything in sight.

The forecast for these coming days also includes rain, so I'll just wait and see if January gets warmer before I start with the chemicals. Argh. 

Interlude in the Catch-up Process: La Nina takes its toll in this backyard

Feeling sad ... sigh. The wind-and-rain storm came through here like an express train last night, and when I went out for a breath of fresh air, in a break in this incessant cold rain ... Charles de Gaulle is down. I'm kicking myself now, because in ten years I never troubled to photograph it properly. It was always just ... there. It was the old rose tree Zolie loved to climb -- which is why the only longshots of it are ones in which she's perched.

It was always outrageously difficult to photograph its huge, mop-head flowers, because almost as soon as they opened, they began to spoil; and, fair to say, the place it was planted had a fence in the background in one direction, plus the neighbour's shed, and from t'other side it was lost in the background clutter of the lemon tree. So I put off and put off photographing it, even when it was in full bloom, with a dozen or twenty huge flowers. Then suddenly, it's too late.

Soooo ... the plan right now is to take several cuttings off it, while the plant is still viable (tomorrow morning), and it's also possible that one or more of its numerous runners might be nurtured into a new shrub off the old root mass. But at the moment ... there it is, sheared right off at the base and lying flat in the area Dave calls "the plum pit," because it's a sunken garden where the old plum tree lives. Sigh.

And yes, I shed a tear. In fact, I shed a lot.

Catching up with myself: mid-late September: The Covid Experience

 

Covid-19 is weird. Don't let anybody tell you it's not, because this thing plays mind games, as well as knocking you flat with symptoms that can oscillate back and forth from a heavy cold to something that feels like full-on pleurisy or pneumonia, inside the same day. One day you think you're getting better; the next, you feel like death is imminent. 

The only thing you can do is play it by ear, take each day as it comes, handle it on its own terms. When you feel bloody awful, take it easy ... when you feel a bit better, try try try to get some exercise and fresh air, because as for getting over this thing in 7 - 14 days and putting it behind you? Ha! That's a lousy joke.

So, as things warmed up, and/or brightened up, while I was in the throes of ploughing through this, I would grab the camera and stagger out into the backyard, where everything was in bloom and the birds, bees and butterflies were a-frolicking among the flowers and plum blossom. This is all you can do: get out there, sit on the bench or on the top step leading down into what Dave calls "the plum pit," sit with the camera on your lap and wait for a bird to come, or for inspiration to strike. 

As it happens, they both came along.

If you miss the garden at this time of year, it's such a loss, because by Christmas it'll be bare, right down to woodchips and sand. Scorched earth. As I write this, it's February 1 (I still have four months to catch up), and almost nothing is blooming, there's just ... woodchips. It's all been weeded, pruned, cut back. The occasional flower here and there is not enough to woo the eye or lure the birds back, so ...

In retrospect, I'm so glad I got these photos. Checking through the archive, I see dates corresponding with the time when I almost headed for the ER on a couple of occasions! Hard to think, this was happening thirty yards away, and outside, while I would be huddled in a blanket, struggling for the next breath, and worrying that those pains in my chest needed professional help. At the same time, one knew what was going on at the hospital -- 

I told Doctor Tim, the GP, the story a few months later, and said how I hadn't wanted to "die in a car park." He didn't pooh-pooh the concept, contradict or admonish. There is is. And at least I got into the fresh air often enough to have something pretty to look back on from these days. Miss them, and you won't see them again for a year --

Welcome Rain!

Happy, happy! After some serious heat for several days, it's cool and damp this morning. A slow wind out of the west is bringing some welcome rain that'll put out the fire that's been blazing though a blue gum forest (okay, it's a plantation, but it is a forest) at Luicindale, in the southeast, between Naracoorte and Mount Gambier. Haven't been there in years, but we went there two or three times, on our way to and fro on the Limestone Coast. The thought of a major bushfire is always disspiriting, and every season brings another.

I couldn't resist taking the "flat camera" into the garden this morning, between showers, and a haiku came to mind, which says it all:

Silver morning sky,

Soft rain, cool upon my face ―

How the garden sings!

I'm very impressed with the "flat camera," which is obviously a phablet, not a camera, and certainly not a phone. Am just starting to get the hang of it, and for wide shots, macro and bokeh, it's exactly what I need. Good choice of birthday present, that one.

Nothing much is happening here, though I've recently started to write again. My muse is talking to me at last -- at least insistently enough that I've completed two short stories and am working on the end of a third, much longer "short."

Dave is working in full PPE, and I don't know how he does it. He's holding everything together, and the lure of a new bike brightens his world. It's on order; not sure when it'll arrive. For myself, "holding it together" has a lot to do with art. We still need to get this computer back to the workshop to have an HDMI socket replaced, so that I can get my graphics tablet, which was my Christmas pressie, installed! There's no hurry. Dave has the month of March off, free and clear, and it'll be a simple matter to get the work done then.

Happy Birthday, Your Majesty ... Now we are Seven!

 

It's been a big year in the life of our resident royalty. Life's an adventure, full of explorations, and naps, and guarding the citadel, and naps, and stalking the jungle trails, and (did I mention?) naps. It all began twelve months ago, with a van in the street and a knock at the door...

Ooooh! You got me a new mattress! Wonderful! Uh, where are you going to sleep?

But of course, there's much more to life than merely taking one's leisure...

All manner of exotic creatures inhabit the jungle. Lizzie (the plaster lizard) doesn't say much...

And of course, in one's forest fastness, one enjoys intellectual pursuits...

...also dessert. Chocolate bunnies swiftly succumb to laser eyes!

But one does like to help around the house occasionally; and let's be honest, these humans can't be trusted to make beds by themselves. Leaving them to do it without supervision? Unthinkable! So --

And since we're in the mood for a little housework, let's give the peasants a hand with the vacuum cleaning...

...helping with the vacuuming is only fair, after all, when one's feline duty, recorded in a charter back in the days of Ramses II, is to shed on everything, allathe time...

And of course, chairs belong to royalty. All of them. 24/7-365 --

It's MY chair. MINE, y'understand? Now buzz off, lemme take naps!

All that sleeping charges the batteries, awakens the spirit of Lion, of Tiger, of Panther, in the breast of the feline. A stretch, a yawn, and it's time to explore, to stalk those jungle trails. Good thing the jungle begins right outside the backdoor!

On the trackless ways, in search of adventure --

Never forget ... Tiger is an ambush predator. Channelling Tiger...

Deep in the jungle, at the watering hole --

-- and if adventure should be just too hard to find, well, bark was made for rolling in!

A puddytat's adventures lead to the roof, and the neighbour's roof, (though they've ruined it with acres of solar panels: kitties don't like it so much lately), and occasionally into alien territory: the front garden, when strange creatures pass by, but seldom stop. It's important to patrol there, and be vigilant:

Always vigilance. Take notes, kids: this is how you guard the citadel!

Ah, so nice to return from the wilds. Glad to be home from the war...

Home from the wars, and -- hey, what's this? How long's this been here? You say it's been here since before I was born? Can't have been! I never saw it before -- what is it?

Its good to be home from the wars, yeah? Nothing beats being in the big, warm cave, safe in the bosom of one's family and taking one's ease...

...even if, occasionally the humans do something unspeakable. They put you in the carry case, and you take a short ride to the Puddytat Repair Shop, where they check your teeth, take your temperature, stick something sharp in the back of your neck, and pronounce you good to go for another year of adventures ... I mean, what's that about? 

Best to humour the pink monkeys, make nice and pretend the yearly physical's no biggie. We're cool. we're all cool here, man. Like, groovy. Yeah. And then just show them how kewl you are -- not to mention how divinely beautiful. Pose among the flowers ... what a good idea!

And if you're really good (or good at pretending to be good), Christmas comes early. Took you seven years to get the old cat tree shredded to purrrrfection, and what do they do? They chuck it in the bin, and this happens! Then again ... 

This is neat! It must be Christmas! Yay!

Actually, this was Christmas!

And this year, we managed to get through the whole holiday season without demolishing the entire tree, though a pretty good job was done on the lower branches. (For some reasons the humans get into a snit when the tree keels over. Why would they do that?!) This is altogether too much work. Time for naps, I believe...

So many places to nap, so little time! Anything happen when I was asleep? Hey --

-- it rained! The pavers are wet ... that's diabolical. Harrumph.  

Yes, they're not all sunny days ... but the rainy ones make the sunny ones all the brighter, and after the heat of summer, what's a few drops of water? A good shower, and the garden -- excuse me, the jungle -- blooms! Tiger is in her natural habitat...

And that's the life of the Queen of the Jungle, for another year! Easy. Nothing to it. You just look cute, take naps, let the humans think they're in charge, and ... cruise. Yeaaaaah.

And that's all, folks!