I.
In the last week I have spent 15 hours digging out grass. When I am not digging, I sleep. Thankfully the results are not dull even if I am.
Take care, everyone, and be generous with your kindness.
Kind Regards.
Tracy.
24 Stories – I
Canberra Whatnot
Yuma, everyone. After months of no rain, the temperature and humidity is rising here in Canberra, Australia’s national capital. In West Belconnen, the rain often splits around us, a promise broken. For example, Canberra airport had over 30mm of rain today, while we had only 0.3mm. So when it rained in our patch recently, I draped my camera in bubble wrap and took to the street. I thought I would share a few photos of one of our Landcare sites.
The rain is magical, turning ugly duckling trees to swans.
The drain rapidly turns green.
We cut off the seedheads of the African Love Grass by hand. No electric tools allowed. And sneak in some carex and poa to hopefully out compete the ALG one day.
The casuarinas like wet feet.
Not sure about this magpie chick.
The new plantings are enjoying the rain. Newly arrived rabbits are enjoying the plants. We need a chicken wire fence around the bare patches to allow the winter-dormant redleg grass to re-emerge. But the wheels of bureaucratic approvals move slowly, if at all.
As for me, I’m feeling a bit flat. 600 trees nearby will be cut down for an “upgraded” road to a new sustainable housing development. I think people are oblivious to the irony. Or just oblivious. Or they don’t care or feel they can’t do anything about it. It certainly makes me kind of depressed. Same old, same old, eh?
Hug a tree, readers. Save a tree. You’ll feel much better.
Kind Regards.
Tracy.
Spring Clean
Good morning.
A couple of photos so that long time readers will know that I am still alive. I want to say something, anything, but more and more, I am silent, assuaging my conscience by tending my garden.
The daisy bush is a mass of flowers this year but there are few insects about. We expect to see more now that we have had a few drops of rain.
Gardening in the backyard has been on hold for the last two years. During this time, the bulbine lilies and the weeds have been multiplying gaily.
I thought we might try to grow some of the native plants we have been trying to establish in the front yard in the back garden too. The soil is much better because it is has been left to go to weeds. The thick green patch at the bottom of the photo is an exotic cud weed. The work is strenuous and maybe a little mind-numbing, er, I mean, relaxing.
I’ve also started a campaign on face plough to save some big remnant eucalypts in my local area that are going to be cut down to make way for progress, er, I mean, for a road. I have all of 7 followers. A pointless exercise. Globally we are on track for a catastrophic 2.5c degrees warming and species extinction, but at least we will have good roads (until some disaster destroys them). Aren’t I a little ray of sunshine?
Below – one of the trees that may be cut down. I posted it first here in 2021. I knew blogging would come in handy one day.
Almost a quarter of a century ago, I asked someone why our emissions reduction target was so low. Emissions were increasing. That was the point. I had better stop there or I will start to sound self-righteous and, as you know, words are cheap but also powerful, which perfectly sums up many of life’s conundrums.
Well, better get back to my plants. As they say in the classics, “Have a good day.”
Cheerio and kind regards.
Tracy.
What’s In A Garden?
It has been ages since I have taken part in the Lens Artists Photo Challenge, but since Ann-Christine asked this week “What’s in a garden?”, I thought, well, how hard can it be to take one photo that would suit? Fortunately, I took one photo yesterday that I quite liked but I had no one with whom to share it, so I thought why not share it with my lovely readers?
A place that I often visit when I am feeling untidy is our wonderful Australian National Botanic Gardens (ANBG) here in Canberra. I have been feeling untidy for a while now so it was only a matter of time before I would find myself there again. As usual, I struggled getting a decent photo so I was absolutely stoked to come home with this nice bird photo that required no editing to make it look decent. The bird was in a garden so it met the criteria, don’t you agree?
I had to use Photoshop to brighten up the next two photos. The following plant was flowering in the rainforest garden. The rainforest garden was created completely from scratch when the ANBG was established. The rainforest is such a haven for birds, animals and people when city temperatures soar. It was a pleasant 17oC when we were there.
I think the plant in the next photo is Hardenbergia violacae. It was so lovely and delicate, glinting red where the sun fell on the twining stems. We saw many plants in bud, so if you happen to be in Canberra (Australia) over the next month, the floral displays at the ANBG are sure to be even more spectacular and well worth a visit. A tip – I much prefer the somewhat dishevelled, natural gardens up the hill rather than the more manicured, curated gardens that are on the lower levels.
Finally, a photo from today’s visit to my son’s house. This was the first day that all three dogs had visited him at the same time. They had fun and Ama tried to eat a lot of sticky weed. That, and the fake grass, has gotta go. I suspect there will also be some other modifications to make it more of a haven for small woodland birds. All in good time.
I hope you enjoyed my garden tour. Please visit Ann-Christine’s post here to see all the fabulous garden examples from her many contributors.
Take care everyone.
Kind Regards.
Tracy.
July – We Made It Through!
July has been a really big month.
My True Love was discharged from hospital. Some weird shit went down but he’s alive so that is the main thing. Did you know that many elderly people who probably should be cared for in nursing homes are parked in Australia’s public hospital wards, occupying scarce beds? (Note that WP’s AI assistant advises me that the word “probably” is a weasel word. I like the way it thinks. Note too that aged care is the responsibility of the Australian national government while public hospitals are the responsibility of Australian state governments.) Anyway, there were a lot of dementia patients on the ward where my TL was admitted. He wasn’t one of them. Anyway, anyway, the whole family was so happy when our dear one was discharged despite still not knowing what caused the weirdness.
I must have known that my TL was going to have a medical episode. (Have you noticed that the phrase “medical episode” is the latest fad to describe a serious life threatening medical emergency?) I digress. What were the subtle signs of impending illness? Well, I started to dig up my front yard. Long term readers may recall that another medical episode coincided with my last effort to start a verge garden. Anyway, this time I plan to establish a native grassland in my front yard, hopefully before the dirt is blown away in some summer dust storm or something else happens.
Also in July, my son finally moved into his new house. My heartfelt thanks go to my friends who between them supplied my son with enough secondhand furniture and bits and bobs to almost completely set up his house. The universe also provided him with a few freebies dumped or left out in the street for people to take. My son picked up some roadside coat hangers (!!!), some aluminum outdoor chairs in good nick and this practically new recliner (!!!!).
Who dumps a new recliner in a conservation area? My theory is that someone died in that chair so the grieving parties decided to offload the chair with minimum fuss by dumping it in our conservation area. My son found the same type of chair selling online for $600. Anyway, I rang the government to report it and the person I spoke to said they would add it to the next bulk waste run. Suffering succotash, by the time that happened, the chair would be ruined rain pending! So we took it home. It’s very comfortable and doesn’t smell.
Ama had her own weird medical episode. She’s not a young dog. But she survived. Fynn got another year older. Here he is on his birthday. It was a very cold, rainy day.
Fynn had special icecream as a birthday treat. He thanked us by weeing in the hallway. Fynn doesn’t like rain.
Plus other stuff happened, but these were the highlights.
I hope your July was a good one. Take care, everyone.
All the best.
Tracy.
Chirping In
Here I am. A poem for a new day.
After much silence
The twitteratee twitter.
Is this my good side?
Perhaps I am anxious. The longer I stay away from this place, the harder it is to make an appearance. Start with something you love is good advice. Who doesn’t love little birds?
🙂
Take care, everyone.
Kind Regards.
Tracy.
Reflections on May
Our big community park day event is over. Our team worked so hard on the event. I didn’t take a single photo. We had quite a few kids show up. They really got into fishing out the water bugs, insect hunting and planting (plants, not insects). I gave a little speech. I have a phobia about public speaking so consequently I remember nothing of what I said. I think I may have said something about birds or plants …. Who doesn’t love wildflowers?
No need for further Saturday house inspections. My son has found a small house and will be moving in shortly. Apparently the seller preferred to sell to a first-home buyer rather than an investor. There are still some kind people in this world. We are so excited for our son. The house is lovely. I think he will be very happy there. It is within walking distance so there are plans for the dogs to visit regularly and perhaps stay over for a few days at a time …. My son remained super calm through the whole stressful process.
Announcement to Shoppers. I went to the local hardware store. There was a public announcement in store asking shoppers not to be rude or aggressive to staff. It seems rudeness and aggression is a thing now. People are mostly kind to our park volunteers but not all. Those unkind people must be so miserable.
Strange Weather. It rained for a few days so we didn’t get to see the Southern Aurora. We are still waiting for the first frost of the year.
I am so proud of everyone who made our park day such a success. I am so proud of our park. I am so proud of my son – his kindness and calmness. He was an exemplary buyer. Kindness makes the world a better place. The sun has returned. We may get a frost soon.
Take care, everyone.
Kind Regards.
Tracy.
The Next Chapter
I’m late. I’m late. That is the tenor of my life recently. One of my sons is house hunting and like hundreds of other parents, each weekend we trudge around with our adult children hoping against hope that we will find something in their price range.
The houses are always so interesting. The building reports are complete fiction and the marketing descriptions are pure comedy. Sometimes the effort is rewarded in unexpected ways. Yesterday we went to a house that was redolent of Sarawak. I once lived with some people who hailed from that region. It was a real blast from the past. A gift. Thank you, house.
March 2024
Canberra, Australia – Turns out we have our fair share of tools.
I downed gardening tools the other day to go for a short walk with my love. I’ve spent a lot of time looking down lately at the garden so it was a nice change to look up.
March got a little merry when I met up with Mary. Hairy Mary, aka Anthela varia, mistook me for a tree. It crawled up the inside of my trouser leg. It was a good photo opportunity. No nudity involved. Check it out.
Many of my readers know that I have been focussing on some landcare activities at my local park over the last year. I have met some wonderful people doing that, but every now and then, such as when people continue to illegally dump their garden and other household waste in the park, or when they pull out our plants, or they ignore our greetings, it is dispiriting. I am actually shocked by the mean and petty behaviour we have encountered. I would be really embarrassed if I have behaved like that. Anyway, if I have few words to say here on this space, that is the reason why.
So my sanity saving strategy is just to plug away, pick up their rubbish, plant our government-approved plants and complete the government-approved weeding. And hope like hell that the culprits’ dicks rot off. One can only hope.
Now, where was I? The small woodland birds have returned from their summer homes in the hills. Their migration through our woodland is proving unexpectedly challenging due to the increased presence of larger predators attracted by the increase in insect numbers. [L-R Grey Fantail chick, Spotted Pardalote]
I have learnt that there is a subtlety to an Australian autumn. How have I not appreciated this quite so much before?
Take care, everyone.
Kind Regards.
Tracy.
All My Trials – Triennial Dog Bath
G’day, Readers. I hope you are all well and keeping busy. It seems I have lost the ability and will to blog at 3am. These days, 5pm seems to be my bedtime. It is all a bit strange really. I’m sure I have mentioned this before but it has been a long time between blog posts and I am sure you would have forgotten.
I’ve been watching a doctor show on the tele. The head doc is rude and his offsiders are pretty FITH. But they know their stuff. Amyloidosis, anyone? Since I am a real hypochondriac, it passes the time pleasantly. When I take my long list of ailments to my doctor, I get sent home with a fact sheet on menopause. What a cheek! Despite this, I am happy. A sure sign that I have really lost it.
However, continuing with all things positive, I thought I would overshare my dogs first bath in about three years. I bitch about my phone camera, but it sure does take nice dog photos. Makea had her bath last week when I was sleeping, so it was just Fynnie and Ama that faced today’s particular torture.
Actually, Ama was a little champion. She always is.
Plus, a well placed distraction.
Say cheese.
Excuse me!
Hope your day brings you a little slice of happiness.
Kind Regards.
Tracy.
Reflections of An Untidy Mind 