They say that education continues throughout your life and I have to agree. I found another almost empty bottle of 'GLACEAU vitamin water' last week, this time in J.A.C. Russell Park next to the Puffing Billy station. The dregs in the bottle were the same syrupy pink colour and had the same fruity odour reminiscent of bubblegum and lollies in my childhood. Into my backpack it went for a closer look another day when I could sit quietly and think.
Here I am, some days later. This bottle contained a different variety of 'nutrient enhanced water beverage'. It says 'focus', then underneath, 'kiwi-strawberry (c+b+lutein)'. Underneath this is more amazing text, worth recording here in case you have not yet come across this product -
"now that everyone is glued to their mobile phones, no one really pays attention to what's going on around them. with all that walking and talking, you never know what you could be missing: birds chirping, flowers blooming, shoe sales, really good looking people, celebrities without make-up, telephone poles, or piles of poo (and we don't mean winnie). that's why this stuff has lutein - to help keep you focused, so keep your eyes peeled or that smell could be your shoe."
Lutein being another new word for me I went to my Chambers dictionary. No luck, but there is a listing for 'luteinizing hormone', as follows. "a hormone secreted by the pituitary gland in vertebrates, which stimulates ovulation and the formation of the corpus luteum in females, and the secretion of testesterone by the testes in males. (from Latin luteum, eggyolk)". Perhaps I'll need to do more homework to get the full picture, it's a little cloudy for me as yet.
Looking at the nutrition information grid and other small print I see this variety has the same sugar content (5.4 grams per 100ml) as the 'triple-x acai-blueberry-pomegranate' variety and also contains less than 1% juice. Lutein is listed at the bottom of the grid. There are 15.0 ug's in 100ml of product. More homework. I know a mg is a thousandth of a gram, a ug must be smaller again.
You learn every day.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
A Quote Worth Sharing.
I had a rest yesterday, for the most part. Lib and the boys went to Box Hill to visit Molly who's in the Epworth Box Hill for an operation to have have a plastic vein inserted in her leg to improve circulation and halt the gangrene threatening her toes.
I'd agreed to doorknock collect in our street for the Heart Foundation at some time during September (they rang me out of the blue a couple of months ago) and I did some houses before lunch. It was, as I thought it would be, a good chance to say gidday to the neighbours, most of whom I know, and it was good to meet those I didn't.
I had lunch at the Pandora's Book Cafe. While wating for my soup I looked at the preface of a book on Indonesia by Ian Southall published in 1962. The following quote by a volunteer worker struck me as especially relevant.
"One realizes that the so called 'Western' high standard of living is, after all, only an enumeration of gadgets and gimmicks which delude us into an illusion of comfort amidst much strain and tension... There is much more comfort in a bowl of rice than a big fat T bone steak."
I like that, but it seems to have gone unheeded. Apparently, 46 years on, much of Asia, including Indonesia, is aspiring to 'Western' standards of consumerism, greatly adding to the environmental crisis we face.
I did some more door knocking after lunch and with the exception of four houses with no one home my task is finished. Most people were happy to donate some coins or $5 or $10. I had four knockbacks, one saying he was a 'non donater', a lady saying she'd just donated over the phone, another lady said she'd like to give something but couldn't as her husband was not working. Another said her husband had died of cancer and she gives what she can to the Cancer Council.
About 4.pm I slipped up to the footy ground and caught a little of the the local grand final. Upwey was a point up on Silvan half way through the third quarter, 11.6 to 11.5. Silvan snagged three goals to go to 3/4 time seventeen points up, then kicked the first four goals of the last term to be up 18 goals to 11 when I left.
I'd agreed to doorknock collect in our street for the Heart Foundation at some time during September (they rang me out of the blue a couple of months ago) and I did some houses before lunch. It was, as I thought it would be, a good chance to say gidday to the neighbours, most of whom I know, and it was good to meet those I didn't.
I had lunch at the Pandora's Book Cafe. While wating for my soup I looked at the preface of a book on Indonesia by Ian Southall published in 1962. The following quote by a volunteer worker struck me as especially relevant.
"One realizes that the so called 'Western' high standard of living is, after all, only an enumeration of gadgets and gimmicks which delude us into an illusion of comfort amidst much strain and tension... There is much more comfort in a bowl of rice than a big fat T bone steak."
I like that, but it seems to have gone unheeded. Apparently, 46 years on, much of Asia, including Indonesia, is aspiring to 'Western' standards of consumerism, greatly adding to the environmental crisis we face.
I did some more door knocking after lunch and with the exception of four houses with no one home my task is finished. Most people were happy to donate some coins or $5 or $10. I had four knockbacks, one saying he was a 'non donater', a lady saying she'd just donated over the phone, another lady said she'd like to give something but couldn't as her husband was not working. Another said her husband had died of cancer and she gives what she can to the Cancer Council.
About 4.pm I slipped up to the footy ground and caught a little of the the local grand final. Upwey was a point up on Silvan half way through the third quarter, 11.6 to 11.5. Silvan snagged three goals to go to 3/4 time seventeen points up, then kicked the first four goals of the last term to be up 18 goals to 11 when I left.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Heaven Scent
Twice this morning I've been enveloped by the heavy scent of the sweet pittosporum, firstly on my walk, then when I was hanging out the washing. I'm lucky to have a double dose this year, at Lakes Entrance a couple of weeks ago where it flowers earlier, and now at Gembrook.
The council purge on this tree on roadside reserves has been done, but fortunately there are enough trees on private land to keep the perfume in the air and the lick of nectar available for the bees.
The council purge on this tree on roadside reserves has been done, but fortunately there are enough trees on private land to keep the perfume in the air and the lick of nectar available for the bees.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Quercus
Yesterday, after three days of brutal winds during which the messmate and peppermint on the hillsides seethed and boiled in protest and the big roadside pines roared as only they can, a lull came from nowhere in the morning. The sun shone and all was eerily still as I pulled up my van and got out under Huit's large oak tree. Huit is on holiday and I'm looking after his chooks. I looked up into the dome of the tree, admiring the pale green new leaves clinging to the twigs like millions of soft butterflies. A bird whistled from the trees behind Huit's shed. I whistled back imitating, and an exchange of whistles followed for a minute or two as the song came closer, till the grey shrike-thrush landed in the oak above my head, then flitted closer still, to about 10 feet above, head cocked with curiosity.
The bird flew away after a minute or two, then almost immediately a group of chittering thornbills worked their way through the tree, followed in turn by a pair of eastern spinebills. I like that about trees and birds. They have no concept of nationality or indigenousness. I thought this the other day when a thornbill came into the the shop at the farm and worked away in a bunch of mixed flowers and foliage waiting to be picked up by a customer. At first we thought a mouse had got stuck in the bunch as we noticed the flowers and leaves moving. The dear little thing was enticed by the mini knifofias. We gently herded it back outside.
Huit planted the oak, grown from an acorn, when he first moved to his Gembrook property about 35 years ago. He likes the tree. It gives his vehicles and bedroom window good shade in summer, protection from the north winds, is fire safe, and being deciduous it allows light through in the dreary winter. It's of the English oak variety, Quercus robur, but of course it would not be a pure strain, no doubt having hybridized, as oaks and other trees do when they are so proficient at growing from seed and surviving. There are 600 species of oak in the world, but the legend of strength started with the English oak. If I recall correctly, I learned at school that the might of the British empire was largely due to the superior strength of the English oak timber, giving the British ships a critical advantage in naval warfare over their Spanish, Potugese, French, and Dutch rivals.
Oak trees have been large in my mind lately. How could they not, when they are so spectacular as I see them every day walking. Since returning from Lakes Entrance, the many oaks shooting new leaves have been striking in Gembrook's main street and surrounds. They're a great asset for the town.
And last month when the big cold snap came, being low on firewood, I brought some home from the farm to tide me over. It was oak from a large tree that we'd removed a couple of years ago, a tree that Meredith grew from an acorn she picked up under a Quercus robur in the Melbourne Botanical gardens in 1971. The parent tree was planted by King Edward 7th (whose reign was from 1901-1911 I think). Rabbits bit the young tree in half shortly after it was planted at the farm and it grew multi-trunked and of poor form, becoming massive and dominating the garden, allowing nothing to thrive underneath and taking all the moisture in summer. It had to go. The wood, having been stored under cover, hard and dry, made good heat. Nostalgic evenings they were that week by the hot fire.
Meredith planted a number of oaks; English, Turkey, Portugese, red, and pinoaks. She grew them from acorns she'd gathered, the pinoaks from the tree in our front yard in Mt. Waverley. They got too big for their situation, and one by one have been removed from the front garden, except the Portugese which is a large stately tree in good position. We've planted some red oaks, pin oaks and cork oaks down the back where they can do the big oak tree thing. I selected the red and pinoaks from a nursery for their good autumn colour, planning to use them for autumn foliage, but after we put them in the ground, about fifteen years ago, they grew like mad and only a couple of them have the good colour they showed when restricted to pots.
There are some excellent oaks in Nobelius Park at Emerald; reds, pinoaks, evergreens, mostly planted by Gus Ryberg. I planted three white oaks, Quercus alba, apparently quite rare and donated by an oak tree specialist, in NP a few years ago. Rabbits destroyed one but two are thriving. The leaves are a rich purple in autumn. My book says of white oak- "the classic oak of America, native from Maine to Texas. Wide, spreading." Also, "it's acorns are reasonably sweet to eat". I can't wait to try them when the trees are big enough to produce acorns. And to grow some.
A worthy tree of the week. The oak tree. Native of Europe, America and Asia, and as happy as a pig in mud in Australia.
The bird flew away after a minute or two, then almost immediately a group of chittering thornbills worked their way through the tree, followed in turn by a pair of eastern spinebills. I like that about trees and birds. They have no concept of nationality or indigenousness. I thought this the other day when a thornbill came into the the shop at the farm and worked away in a bunch of mixed flowers and foliage waiting to be picked up by a customer. At first we thought a mouse had got stuck in the bunch as we noticed the flowers and leaves moving. The dear little thing was enticed by the mini knifofias. We gently herded it back outside.
Huit planted the oak, grown from an acorn, when he first moved to his Gembrook property about 35 years ago. He likes the tree. It gives his vehicles and bedroom window good shade in summer, protection from the north winds, is fire safe, and being deciduous it allows light through in the dreary winter. It's of the English oak variety, Quercus robur, but of course it would not be a pure strain, no doubt having hybridized, as oaks and other trees do when they are so proficient at growing from seed and surviving. There are 600 species of oak in the world, but the legend of strength started with the English oak. If I recall correctly, I learned at school that the might of the British empire was largely due to the superior strength of the English oak timber, giving the British ships a critical advantage in naval warfare over their Spanish, Potugese, French, and Dutch rivals.
Oak trees have been large in my mind lately. How could they not, when they are so spectacular as I see them every day walking. Since returning from Lakes Entrance, the many oaks shooting new leaves have been striking in Gembrook's main street and surrounds. They're a great asset for the town.
And last month when the big cold snap came, being low on firewood, I brought some home from the farm to tide me over. It was oak from a large tree that we'd removed a couple of years ago, a tree that Meredith grew from an acorn she picked up under a Quercus robur in the Melbourne Botanical gardens in 1971. The parent tree was planted by King Edward 7th (whose reign was from 1901-1911 I think). Rabbits bit the young tree in half shortly after it was planted at the farm and it grew multi-trunked and of poor form, becoming massive and dominating the garden, allowing nothing to thrive underneath and taking all the moisture in summer. It had to go. The wood, having been stored under cover, hard and dry, made good heat. Nostalgic evenings they were that week by the hot fire.
Meredith planted a number of oaks; English, Turkey, Portugese, red, and pinoaks. She grew them from acorns she'd gathered, the pinoaks from the tree in our front yard in Mt. Waverley. They got too big for their situation, and one by one have been removed from the front garden, except the Portugese which is a large stately tree in good position. We've planted some red oaks, pin oaks and cork oaks down the back where they can do the big oak tree thing. I selected the red and pinoaks from a nursery for their good autumn colour, planning to use them for autumn foliage, but after we put them in the ground, about fifteen years ago, they grew like mad and only a couple of them have the good colour they showed when restricted to pots.
There are some excellent oaks in Nobelius Park at Emerald; reds, pinoaks, evergreens, mostly planted by Gus Ryberg. I planted three white oaks, Quercus alba, apparently quite rare and donated by an oak tree specialist, in NP a few years ago. Rabbits destroyed one but two are thriving. The leaves are a rich purple in autumn. My book says of white oak- "the classic oak of America, native from Maine to Texas. Wide, spreading." Also, "it's acorns are reasonably sweet to eat". I can't wait to try them when the trees are big enough to produce acorns. And to grow some.
A worthy tree of the week. The oak tree. Native of Europe, America and Asia, and as happy as a pig in mud in Australia.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Lakes Entrance Highlights
Stepping out of the car when we pulled up at the house on the Monday evening I was met by a shock of perfume from the flowering sweet pittosporum. Olfactory euphoria! The scent was heavy all week, sweet pitto being a major flora species in the district and in the immediate vicinity of the house, including the hillside on which the hose perches about half way up.
Next day on my morning walk, the first of six while we were there, along the Lake Bunya walking track which starts between the sewage treatment plant and the golf course, three fairy wrens, two female and a spectacular male, flitted about in the banksias and teatrees. I hadn't seen a blue wren in a while. We used to have them around the house at Gembrook. I guess they left when the bellbirds came. I see the odd one at Huit's place on the other side of town occassionally.
On the same day on the way back from Bunga, I looked up at the blue sky patchwork through the tree canopy, and there was a white bellied sea eagle cruising majestically. WOW!
On the second morning I walked the other direction from the house, down to the Eastern beach carpark, then taking the walk along the lake foreshore to the town. Young Pip saw a black swan on the water and ran like a bullet after it, straight into the water, swimming furiously towards it. The swan casually paddled away looking with disdain and Pip soon changed direction back to shore, where she shook herself and wondered what had happened. The same day we bought fresh fish from the shop on the lake near the fishing boats. There were many swans in the area and the lady in the shop told us they were driving them mad with all the fighting going on as the breeding season had started. I said that last year when we were there and there were a lot of brown fluffy cygnets swimming with parents and she said that was probably November or late October.
Day 3, again walking back from Bunga, on the bitumen road with the dogs on the lead, a spur wing plover started chirping at us agitatedly from the edge of the grassy drain between the road and the golf course. Wondering what all the fuss was about I looked around to see two young plover chicks, little balls of fluff on stick-like legs, nearby, pecking at the grass about twenty feet from the parent, which was giving me fair warning. I stopped to watch. The chicks darted under a pitto as a magpie swooped, then it was on. Three magpies attacking the chicks and the plover parent defending in a helluva set to. When the dogs and I resumed walking home it seemed the plover had the situ in hand. It struck me that plovers must start breeding early, then I recalled Jod telling me about he Steve Edgelow wagging school to search for plovers eggs in July in his bird egg collecting youth. They found them on the dairy farm which was where VFL Park Waverley stood for some thirty years before it was demolished for a housing estate. In July it was freezing and the farmer's wife, when they asked permission to look for plover's eggs on the property, brought out a bucket of hot water for them to warm their hands.
The next day a mudlark flew over me with what looked like a blade of grass in its beak. I followed its flight to a paperbark tree at the start of the foreshore walk and looked for the mud nest, which sure enough was about 3 parts of the way up. The bird was in the nest, the tail sticking out moving jerkily. Then the bird's head briefly appeared over the edge. It seemed to be regurging and working on the sides of the nest with its beak which was the reason for the jerking tail. It seemed the nest was a work in progress and I thought that the wonderful little creature must carry up the mud in its crop(?) and use grass to bind it all with strength. Walking along back where I first saw the bird fly overhead, another was busy on the ground, as were two willy wag tails jumping about with great energy.
Next day on my morning walk, the first of six while we were there, along the Lake Bunya walking track which starts between the sewage treatment plant and the golf course, three fairy wrens, two female and a spectacular male, flitted about in the banksias and teatrees. I hadn't seen a blue wren in a while. We used to have them around the house at Gembrook. I guess they left when the bellbirds came. I see the odd one at Huit's place on the other side of town occassionally.
On the same day on the way back from Bunga, I looked up at the blue sky patchwork through the tree canopy, and there was a white bellied sea eagle cruising majestically. WOW!
On the second morning I walked the other direction from the house, down to the Eastern beach carpark, then taking the walk along the lake foreshore to the town. Young Pip saw a black swan on the water and ran like a bullet after it, straight into the water, swimming furiously towards it. The swan casually paddled away looking with disdain and Pip soon changed direction back to shore, where she shook herself and wondered what had happened. The same day we bought fresh fish from the shop on the lake near the fishing boats. There were many swans in the area and the lady in the shop told us they were driving them mad with all the fighting going on as the breeding season had started. I said that last year when we were there and there were a lot of brown fluffy cygnets swimming with parents and she said that was probably November or late October.
Day 3, again walking back from Bunga, on the bitumen road with the dogs on the lead, a spur wing plover started chirping at us agitatedly from the edge of the grassy drain between the road and the golf course. Wondering what all the fuss was about I looked around to see two young plover chicks, little balls of fluff on stick-like legs, nearby, pecking at the grass about twenty feet from the parent, which was giving me fair warning. I stopped to watch. The chicks darted under a pitto as a magpie swooped, then it was on. Three magpies attacking the chicks and the plover parent defending in a helluva set to. When the dogs and I resumed walking home it seemed the plover had the situ in hand. It struck me that plovers must start breeding early, then I recalled Jod telling me about he Steve Edgelow wagging school to search for plovers eggs in July in his bird egg collecting youth. They found them on the dairy farm which was where VFL Park Waverley stood for some thirty years before it was demolished for a housing estate. In July it was freezing and the farmer's wife, when they asked permission to look for plover's eggs on the property, brought out a bucket of hot water for them to warm their hands.
The next day a mudlark flew over me with what looked like a blade of grass in its beak. I followed its flight to a paperbark tree at the start of the foreshore walk and looked for the mud nest, which sure enough was about 3 parts of the way up. The bird was in the nest, the tail sticking out moving jerkily. Then the bird's head briefly appeared over the edge. It seemed to be regurging and working on the sides of the nest with its beak which was the reason for the jerking tail. It seemed the nest was a work in progress and I thought that the wonderful little creature must carry up the mud in its crop(?) and use grass to bind it all with strength. Walking along back where I first saw the bird fly overhead, another was busy on the ground, as were two willy wag tails jumping about with great energy.
Monday, September 01, 2008
First Day of Spring
On my walk this morning, the first day of September 2008, 6 corellas munched on the large flowers of the Michaelea dolstopa in the front of the 'Five Elements' nursery.
Ravens cawed and flew high in the stiff breeze.
Two galahs roosted motionless, high in the upper branches of a tall messmate, watching.
The pair of whipbirds cracked and whistled, and scritched and tittered at young Pip.
An Eastern spinebill worked the stachyurus' spiketail bloom, in company with the hum of bees.
A satin bower bird stole blackbirds' dog minis from the shed windowsill.
Currawongs lounged, wattlebirds busied, mynas hassled.
We leave this joyous garden today for some days at Lakes Entrance, where I'll walk by the water and watch birds of different type. Swans, gulls, pelicans, cormorants. Maybe we'll catch some bream or flatties.
Ravens cawed and flew high in the stiff breeze.
Two galahs roosted motionless, high in the upper branches of a tall messmate, watching.
The pair of whipbirds cracked and whistled, and scritched and tittered at young Pip.
An Eastern spinebill worked the stachyurus' spiketail bloom, in company with the hum of bees.
A satin bower bird stole blackbirds' dog minis from the shed windowsill.
Currawongs lounged, wattlebirds busied, mynas hassled.
We leave this joyous garden today for some days at Lakes Entrance, where I'll walk by the water and watch birds of different type. Swans, gulls, pelicans, cormorants. Maybe we'll catch some bream or flatties.
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