Monday, August 28, 2006


I'm alive! That must have been some sort of flu because I was simply out of it for 9 days and I still am coughing a little now. The bad thing is I have given it to the Bear who is now coughing and spluttering like I was.

While I was sick, spring arrived. All our fruit trees except the pear are in bloom, the peas are up, there is about an inch of asparagus coming up, my Earlicheer narcissus are popping open and the rosellas are courting. The Imp and I both found the chirping and waggling of tail feathers by red birds with blue wings and tails quite entertaining. There is much weeding to do and I need to get the berry bushes up on their trellis but I thinks I will take activity a little slow today. Oh, and there is wattle in bloom everywhere. It's hard to describe how overwhelming all this yellow is. Entire hillsides turn golden, or lemon, depending on the species. And since there are so many species, when one stops blooming, another starts. We have 2 Cootamundra wattles in our front yard which were self seeders from somewhere. It can be considered a pest but I love the colour and when not in bloom it has sort of silvery grey fern-like leaves. They don't live long and the bigger of the two is already dying after 10 years.

I was listening to Cast On today at work wherein an old mill was visited, and I thought as the weaver described his tasks about a story on 60 Minutes last night about the gloom regarding the future of the petroleum-based economy. I had to think while I was listening that at least I knew enough about vegetable growing and textiles that we wouldn't go hungry or naked. I am glad I have a practical skill like knitting instead of whiz-bang computer graphics. And if we face cultural collapse due to a) running out of oil; b) global warming; or c) escalating ethnic violence, I hope by then I am on my farmlet with a whopping big garden, some sheep and goats and an ecologically sensible house with at least some solar power. All those years of reading Mother Earth News must count for something.

Round 21: The Swannies beat Brisbane soundly. We are sitting in 5th place on the ladder and on percentage are quite aways from the 6th. We play Carlton next week which is a pretty sure win. Adelaide plays Melbourne next week which could have interesting results for placings. Melbourne incredibly drew with Geelong; you would think in a sport where scores are over 100 points in many matches that a draw was unlikely but it's happened twice this season and there is no extra-time completion of the match.

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