I've managed to keep up my morning walks lately, if not blog posts. This morning it was cold and misty and I picked pine mushies round the pines along the way. There's a flush at the moment. I picked enough on Monday for breakfast for two days so the mushies picked yesterday, two or three kilos, were surplus. I took them to the farm. Elvie rang Australian Herb Supplies who were having an order picked up in the afternoon and they said they'd be pleased to take them. Jod had picked plenty of field mushies at the farm so I had a nice tray to take home for today's brekky, nothing like variety, leaving today's pinies again surplus. Our other herb wholesale buyer, Herb and Spice Garden, picks up this arvo and I'm hoping they'll take them.
Winter looms. Most of the autumn show has gone. Some of the birches retain brilliant yellow, some liquid ambers yet resemble a fiery shower, but you feel in the air that they'll be gone with next strong wind or decent rain. There's a feel of dormancy or hibernation, a patience.
The dogs don't mind the cold first thing in the morning, eager to take off on their walk. Old 'Snow' trots stiffly like fat piglet. Young 'Pip' prances, springs and sprints, soft footed like a cat. A couple of weeks ago she had a mishap, traumatic to her and me. For months, as we leave the Post Office after I untie them, she pulled on the lead, keen to talk through the fence to two dogs in the house two doors up. The two confined dogs barked and snarled while 'Pip' yipped and squealed in delight at seeing her 'friends'. I'd stop for a few seconds letting them calm down and have a sniff, always holding 'Pip' back on the lead a couple of inches from the noses of the other dogs, at the small gap in the corner of the fence and a rock wall. 'Snow' was usually indifferent, occasionally joining in.
On the morning of the mishap, after a build up of a few days when they all seemed to be becoming friends, I relaxed my hold on the lead a little. Pip got too close, the blue heeler grabbing her by the snout in a fierce bite which took small bits out of her nose and puctured the roof of her mouth. She screamed, and cried loudly for a time after the beast had released her. There was quite a lot of blood. I felt sick out of sympathy, and guilt for letting it happen.
All the way home she stayed close to my heels. She was not herself for a couple of days. We were fortunate there was no major or permanent damage. She had learnt a hard lesson, that the world is a dangerous place, and pain lies in wait. As if it was a speeding up of her maturity, she's actually easier to manage now, more attentive to whistle and voice. It's as if she thinks, "I'd better listen and do as I'm told or some thing might grab me again." When we leave the post office now she pulls on the lead to take me across the road. She won't go anywhere near that fence.
I stopped to pick mushrooms this morning in Quinn Rd., just up from our corner. The dogs are off the lead here. 'Snowy' goes on about 40 metres and sits waiting, Pip stays close, sniffing at the mushrooms. There was a clicky, scratchy sound overhead, like sparking electricity in the wires. It was a group of small birds about 30-35 feet up a peppermint tree, busily flitting about in the tree, presumably eating lerp insects or such. I couldn't see them well, perhaps they were thornbills or pardalotes, but the clicking noise must have been their feeding beaks. I'd say there was more than a dozen. The bellbirds around our place, that chase away other small birds, remarkably don't extend up Quinn Rd.
At the other end of Quinn Rd, at 'the gouge', concrete was being poured to make the shed floor as I came past. The McMansion now has a double brick garage on the top side and will have a very large shed on the low side. My view into the valley will soon be totaly gone.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Mother's Day
The road and the town were quieter than usual this morning, even for a Sunday. Perhaps people were getting mum breakfast in bed for mother's day or getting ready to go out later for lunch with relatives. I'll have the quietness anytime. The sky was grey and the air still, enough autumn colour yet to set an interesting scene.
I've been impressed this year by the autumn foliage on the beech trees. We have 6 young ones at home, about thirty at the farm, and there are quite a few scattered around Emerald, including a number in Nobelius Park. A mature copper beech there at the bottom of the driveway is a superb example of the graceful majesty of this tree, perhaps the best I've seen.
I won't be seeing my mother today. Our family has never put much store on mother's day, other than dealing with the frantic week it causes work wise, as the florists are busy and our customers require twice or more what they normally buy in the week prior. But during the week I gave mum a couple of ox tails from the butcher as a mother's day gesture. Never one to bother much with cooking, Elvie has soft spot for ox tail stew and is quick to have a pot on the stove slowly cooking the oxies and vegies.
Ox tails, flower posies, and beech trees always will connect my thoughts to Elvie. Ox tails because it's a treat we've shared in recent years, and posies and beech trees because for almost as long as I remember she has worked with them. In childhood I remember Elvie cutting copper beech foliage for her florist shop from a tree in the Forster's garden in Mt.Waverley. Graeme 'Bubsy' Forster was my best mate in the last year of primary school and the early years of secondary school. His parents Bill and Ethel, who both died of cancer in the late 1970's, were warm generous souls happy to have their tree pruned as beech trees do grow big and love to be cut. Elvie had another tree in High St. Rd. just east of Warrigal Rd. and another in Malvern in the garden of her butcher, Mr Eames. These trees she used as back up when her weekly supply from the growers fell short.
In my mid teens I worked in Elvie's shop for a few weeks after school finished for the year, to earn some dollars, before Christmas, while the shop was busy. I was of course a junior assistant in the shop with duties like keeping the floor swept while the florists were busy putting together arrangements and wreaths etc, washing vases, making tea, answering the phone, running errands, doing up the bank, typing up accounts, and sorting the foliage that came in from growers, some of it of course beech in all its summer glory. It was my favourite task, tidying and splitting the stems and arranging the foliage in large urns of water up against the the back wall of the shop display. Mr.Peterson came down each week with his foliage from Mt. Macedon and Henry Kowalski came from his garden at 'Blue Haze' at Emerald. Henry called in on his way back from the market and by this time, still early in the day, he often smelled of strong liquor. Who would have thought at the time, that twenty years later I would become good friends with Henry's wife. Henry died many years ago but 'Blossom' remains a dear friend to this day.
I believe beech, oaks and sweet chestnuts are of the same family, the royal family of the broadleaves. If the sturdy oak is the king, the beech is the queen. It has a feminine grace and charm, almost daintiness, unusual in big trees. The bark is smooth and fresh and the foliage at any time has richness in colour and texture. In autumn it gleams rich, golden, yellow and brown.
My tree of the week, on mother's day, copper, green or purple, is the beech. Fagus sylvatica. Any desire I have to visit Europe, it would be foremost to see the beech forests of Buckinghamshire and Normandy.
I've been impressed this year by the autumn foliage on the beech trees. We have 6 young ones at home, about thirty at the farm, and there are quite a few scattered around Emerald, including a number in Nobelius Park. A mature copper beech there at the bottom of the driveway is a superb example of the graceful majesty of this tree, perhaps the best I've seen.
I won't be seeing my mother today. Our family has never put much store on mother's day, other than dealing with the frantic week it causes work wise, as the florists are busy and our customers require twice or more what they normally buy in the week prior. But during the week I gave mum a couple of ox tails from the butcher as a mother's day gesture. Never one to bother much with cooking, Elvie has soft spot for ox tail stew and is quick to have a pot on the stove slowly cooking the oxies and vegies.
Ox tails, flower posies, and beech trees always will connect my thoughts to Elvie. Ox tails because it's a treat we've shared in recent years, and posies and beech trees because for almost as long as I remember she has worked with them. In childhood I remember Elvie cutting copper beech foliage for her florist shop from a tree in the Forster's garden in Mt.Waverley. Graeme 'Bubsy' Forster was my best mate in the last year of primary school and the early years of secondary school. His parents Bill and Ethel, who both died of cancer in the late 1970's, were warm generous souls happy to have their tree pruned as beech trees do grow big and love to be cut. Elvie had another tree in High St. Rd. just east of Warrigal Rd. and another in Malvern in the garden of her butcher, Mr Eames. These trees she used as back up when her weekly supply from the growers fell short.
In my mid teens I worked in Elvie's shop for a few weeks after school finished for the year, to earn some dollars, before Christmas, while the shop was busy. I was of course a junior assistant in the shop with duties like keeping the floor swept while the florists were busy putting together arrangements and wreaths etc, washing vases, making tea, answering the phone, running errands, doing up the bank, typing up accounts, and sorting the foliage that came in from growers, some of it of course beech in all its summer glory. It was my favourite task, tidying and splitting the stems and arranging the foliage in large urns of water up against the the back wall of the shop display. Mr.Peterson came down each week with his foliage from Mt. Macedon and Henry Kowalski came from his garden at 'Blue Haze' at Emerald. Henry called in on his way back from the market and by this time, still early in the day, he often smelled of strong liquor. Who would have thought at the time, that twenty years later I would become good friends with Henry's wife. Henry died many years ago but 'Blossom' remains a dear friend to this day.
I believe beech, oaks and sweet chestnuts are of the same family, the royal family of the broadleaves. If the sturdy oak is the king, the beech is the queen. It has a feminine grace and charm, almost daintiness, unusual in big trees. The bark is smooth and fresh and the foliage at any time has richness in colour and texture. In autumn it gleams rich, golden, yellow and brown.
My tree of the week, on mother's day, copper, green or purple, is the beech. Fagus sylvatica. Any desire I have to visit Europe, it would be foremost to see the beech forests of Buckinghamshire and Normandy.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Belvedere Estate
Speaking of Monterey pines as I was on 15th April, it's topical to tell you that several large ones along Station Street. bordering Bill Parker's paddock have been removed this week. Of couse it's not Bill Parkers paddock at all now, he sold it last year. It's the Belvedere Estate.
I wonder where the name 'Belvedere' came from? It sounds odd to me, but then I've never really been into estate names.
It's with some relief that I can answer my own question, the relief because I've discovered the name 'Belvedere' is from historical source and not some market driven attempt to sound sophisticated. I had a look at Bill Parker's book, 'Forest to Farming, Gembrook: an early history'. I quote from Bill's book, written in 1995.
"By the time I was of school age we had moved into the heart of Gembrook township. My older brother, at the age of 23, bought the 6 and 3/4 acre propery 'Belvedere' in Station Street just up from the Puffing Billy railway station. I eventually inherited and still own this property."
Bill told me once, I was picking holly before Christmas along his boundary with the school, that he'd planted those pine trees from cones in his youth. He told me the year but I can't remember, but as Bill was born in 1914, I'd say the 1920's. There's a picture of a timber cottage, "'Belvedere', my home" in his book, taken in 1942, so there was a residence there.
I walked along Station Street this morning. The giant 80 year old pines were gone. A huge bonfire burned in the middle of the paddock as an excavator worked noisily where the pines had been, digging stumps and roots and levelling. For good measure my holly trees had also gone. I've picked holly for Christmas orders there for nearly twenty years so I'll have to find another source. Not that I sell a lot of holly these days, the demand having steadily declined.
There are 17 blocks of land selling in 'Belvedere Estate'. Most are a quarter acre with some larger. Prices start at $150,000 and rise to $180,000 or more. Someone told me Bill sold the land for $870,000 so if you do the sums the blocks will bring over $3 million. I think the developer will make a handsome profit, there being only one road to be built up the middle of the estate to provide access.
Other than me, no one will mourn the loss of the hollies, they are regarded as an environmental weed. Same for the pines. I'll miss them too, just for their size and strong dark prescence. So will the black cockatoos who loved to roost there and feed on the cones.
I wonder where the name 'Belvedere' came from? It sounds odd to me, but then I've never really been into estate names.
It's with some relief that I can answer my own question, the relief because I've discovered the name 'Belvedere' is from historical source and not some market driven attempt to sound sophisticated. I had a look at Bill Parker's book, 'Forest to Farming, Gembrook: an early history'. I quote from Bill's book, written in 1995.
"By the time I was of school age we had moved into the heart of Gembrook township. My older brother, at the age of 23, bought the 6 and 3/4 acre propery 'Belvedere' in Station Street just up from the Puffing Billy railway station. I eventually inherited and still own this property."
Bill told me once, I was picking holly before Christmas along his boundary with the school, that he'd planted those pine trees from cones in his youth. He told me the year but I can't remember, but as Bill was born in 1914, I'd say the 1920's. There's a picture of a timber cottage, "'Belvedere', my home" in his book, taken in 1942, so there was a residence there.
I walked along Station Street this morning. The giant 80 year old pines were gone. A huge bonfire burned in the middle of the paddock as an excavator worked noisily where the pines had been, digging stumps and roots and levelling. For good measure my holly trees had also gone. I've picked holly for Christmas orders there for nearly twenty years so I'll have to find another source. Not that I sell a lot of holly these days, the demand having steadily declined.
There are 17 blocks of land selling in 'Belvedere Estate'. Most are a quarter acre with some larger. Prices start at $150,000 and rise to $180,000 or more. Someone told me Bill sold the land for $870,000 so if you do the sums the blocks will bring over $3 million. I think the developer will make a handsome profit, there being only one road to be built up the middle of the estate to provide access.
Other than me, no one will mourn the loss of the hollies, they are regarded as an environmental weed. Same for the pines. I'll miss them too, just for their size and strong dark prescence. So will the black cockatoos who loved to roost there and feed on the cones.
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