Excellent sticks + heckling hens
Dear gosh. The rain has made such a difference to the garden. Where there was dormant earth there are now tiny weeds sprouting up everywhere. What are weeds, anyway? I mean, I know there are plants that do no good to the usual vegetation. But surely some perfectly lovely plants are often mischaracterised?
I wandered the garden for a while this afternoon. It was lovely and sunny, but still cool. I took in the view which is truly spectacular every day of the week.
The native hens were shouting up an absolute storm down by the river. They’re honestly the most hilarious hecklers of all time. Think you are having a private moment and threading together some meaningful thoughts about the restorative power of nature? The hens would beg to differ. They sound like this, if you have never heard one. So raucous!
After that I made a medium-sized pile of sticks. A new one. By the mossy rocks. I went to take a photo but my phone was out of charge, so I’ll do that another day. They are excellent sticks, as you can imagine.
I did some millipede spotting, but did not manage to uncover any snails or lizards as yet. I live in hope, I admit.
The ravens were missing today too, but the man with the chainsaw was out the back again, stocking up on wood for tonight’s fire, no doubt.
It’s been a period of weather extremes since I last posted. Yesterday it snowed in the hills around my place but it’s sunny today so the pretty smattering has disappeared.
The day before that it was ridiculously windy. It blew the clothes and then the actual line off my Hill’s Hoist. I picked up all the muddy washing this afternoon. Now to work out where to hang it after it’s cleaned all over again.
This makes me wonder about the wisdom of putting Nan’s old table and chairs up in the garden, to be honest. Perhaps they too will blow away? Or they might just blow OVER, which is not such a bad thing. What the heck I am going to give it a shot!
I stared at the almost empty raised beds for a good while this afternoon too, remembering the spinach, broccoli, lettuce and cauliflower the possums polished off. Maybe I’ll just plant some lettuce seedlings and see if the possums attack? I’m going to. I am. And I’m going to try the decoy possum feeding spot too. I’ve got those big black tubs I piled last week’s sticks in. I’ll start putting fruit and vegetable scraps in one of those and see if they think it’s a party. What have I got to lose? Just a few dollars? But maybe NOT! Maybe we can live in harmony!
I’m also going to sow some tomato seeds v, v soon, but I need to research the best way to do this 1/ because my pets will be keen to explore them inside and 2/ because I want to grow lots of tomatoes this year! I think starting them indoors will be best. Even better if the cats can’t dig in them.
I bought my tomato seeds from Seed Freaks, a business based in Tassie’s Huon Valley. They have over 100 varieties of tomatoes. I spent about 3 hours looking at them all a few months ago. A seed catalogue meditation (highly recommended if you are feeling stressed!) In the end I chose:
Santorini
Big Boy
Costoluto Genovese &
Swift
I shall report back on progress re all of the above tomorrow or the next day.
x pip
PS: I also found this rock.