I did it! I turned the vegetable beds over a little bit and planted lettuce, spinach, silverbeet, broccolini and baby cauliflower. I put the open veggie compost in a tub by the fence and added my OLD compost to a third, mostly empty raised bed.
So far there has been zero possum activity, but that could change any day. I am on the edge of my seat, reader! Here’s hoping that I’ve managed some sort of a truce with them.
I took most of the wood and sticks I’d gathered inside to put on the fire, to save from buying the pricey kindling I told you about the other day.
I also bought a giant clothes horse to hang the washing on inside - and considering the inclement weather and giant windows in the living room it dried much more quickly than on the broken Hill’s Hoist. So that is a win.
All sorts of things are busting out and popping up outside. Blossom has sprouted all over the almond tree, the wattle tree is a gorgeously golden and I even found some tiny violets hidden in the undergrowth. It’s all very bolstering.
I have decided that apple, lemon and PLUM trees are on my tree wishlist. Thank you to the people who wrote to me about fruit trees! It’s so ace to get advice and suggestions.
Re feeling poorly, as discussed several posts ago: Last week I got all my tests back and was diagnosed with ME/CFS which was a bummer. I was hoping it was just my iron levels but alas no. Still, now I know what I’m dealing with I can stop pushing myself quite so hard and pay more attention to the things my body and brain are telling me, right? I think so. I don’t do enough of that, and really we all MUST whether we have a health condition or not.
Right this minute it’s raining, so rather than wander around the garden and come back in to write, I am at the living room table watching and listening to the weather. Is there anything nicer than being cosy indoors when it’s raining out? Possibly not!
Love to you, dear reader.
I’ll write here again in a day or two and I promise it will be a post-garden piece! Now I’m off to make a curry for our dinner!
xx Pip
“It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop.” ― Vita Sackville-West
Violets + Silverbeet
Love the quote from Vita, born at the spectacular Knole in Sevenoaks, just down the road from our house, you must come and visit one day😊
I’m sorry to hear of your diagnosis Pip. Chronic illnesses are so tough. As you say, by knowing you can manage it but it is still a lot to process. I am loving reading your emails about your life in Tassie and as someone who is struggling with her own “stuff”, I just love the soft gentle nuances you bring to my inbox. Take care of yourself lovely. Sending you much love ❤️