Poor Owl

This owl was dead on the road when I walked last week. I think it's a Boobook owl. I put it in the bird cemetery, a thick photinia tree I have along Launching Place Rd, where it rests with the large number of other roadkill birds I've placed there over the years.
Owls are wonderful beccause they are nocturnal and help control numbers of rodents by preying on rats and mice, part of the ecological system.
I propped it on the transistor radio for the purpose of the photo. The radio is about six 150mm across and the bird was about 300 mm in length. I noticed its feathers were so soft. The bird book tells me this is why owl fly so silently to catch their prey without alarm.
In my dream future of the world there are no cars.

Shrooming Tour

My friend Pat booked me into a mushroom tour as a birthday gift last month and the day arrived on Sunday. Lib and I made our way to Mooruduc Estate Winery arriving fifteen minutes before the requested 9.45, for the tour beginning at 10.00am. We enjoyed coffee and cake and met Jane from Bentleigh who came in our car as we headed off in convoy of about 15 vehicles containing about 30 people to the first of two locations the tour visited.

The gentleman conducting the tour, an extremely knowledgeable person named Cameron Russell whom I'd heard interviewed on the radio a few weeks ago, when he said pine mushrooms are usually safe but there's one similar type that if eaten mistakenly, on about the sixth to tenth time, can destroy your red blood cells and kill you. This fuelled my quest for more knowledge, given that I'd endured the strange incident about a year ago when I had to go to hospital in the middle of the night as blood tests showed possible arteritis.

I asked him before we left the winery about what I'd heard him say, adding that I'd eaten pine mushrooms every year for many years but now had concerns. He allayed my fears straight away, telling me if you pick only the young fresh pinies with the concave cap and not bigger than the palm of your hand you can't really go wrong. As they get older and bigger, the caps tend to rise at the edges forming a shallow cup shape. This is where you can go wrong he said as the dangerous one resembles the older up curved ones. I told him that it had been worthwhile me coming already, and we hadn't started yet.

The tour itself was only two half hour sessions on roadside locations about five minutes from the winery. There were varoius fungi at both. I came away happy my main questions had been answered. I always wondered about eating those brown mushrooms with the sponge underneath rather than gills (slippery jacks) but had only done so once when a lady had been shown by someone who knew and rang me to come round and pick some from the same place. I took them home and cooked them but didn't like the texture although they had a lovely rich flavour. Cameron said they are safe if you scratch them or cut them and they don't go blue or black quickly where you do with oxidisation. They are best dried out thoroughly then powdered and added to dishes when you want strong mushroom flavour.

Field mushrooms out in paddocks, nice rich pink going brown underneath with brownish tops are safe. Mushrooms under trees that look similar can be dangerous. The test is to scratch the skin off and if the flesh discolours yellow, even very slightly, don't eat them as they could be yellow stained mushrooms which will cause 8 or so hours of vomiting and sitting on a toilet. Nice brown ones with no hint of yellow when skinned or peeled means they are 'agaricus augustus' I think he said, and delicious eating, as I have found many times around our house and on my walk under wattles and eucalypts. The main message is, if there's the slightest doubt, DON"T EAT.

There were many other fungi we saw but they were not edible and could be dangerous. It's only really the three above mentioned that I'd eat, the pinies, the slippery jacks if I could be bothered drying and powdering them, and the field mushies with it's similar looking variant of wooded areas provided you are sure it isn't the yellow stained.

We returned to the winery for mushrooms on toast and superb mushroom soup and a glass of wine. On the way home we called into Mornington race track and caught a few races, not staying for the last two as it was too cold.

A great day and many thanks to Pat.



 

Farewell Hughesy

I was invited to Allan and Shirley's house at Avonsleigh last Thursday afternoon to join his family and friends for afternoon tea. Shirley greeted me with a hug and quickly ran through the events of the the 24 hours preceding Allan's death.

After a day sitting a card table working on a jigsaw puzzle and a pleasant evening meal with Shirley and their  visiting daughter Debbie, Allan suggested they have a nightcap. He had a 'Bailey's' and went to bed. He woke at 1.00am saying he had a toothache and went to the toilet. Shirley got him a couple of Panamax. He woke again about 3.00 am complaining of pain in his neck and Shirley, an ex nurse, didn't muck around and rang the ambulance. When the ambos arrived he was incoherent and losing consciousness.
The ambos said he may not make it to hospital, did Shirley want them to resuscitate him, given that he may suffer brain damage. She said no he wouldn't want that.

He did make it to hospital but died soon after. They did a scan and said he'd had a massive haemmorrage which had filled once side of his head pushing his brain across to the other.

I was amazed at how well Shirley was was bearing up. I talked to the daughters all of whom I'd met before and some of Allan's friends that I'd also met, like old Bill Opey RAAF mate from Ballarat. It was a surprisingly happy event with four generations of family, the great grand children running about the house giving an atmosphere of life continuing.

As I was saying goodbye to those inside and moving towards the front door, an old fellow ran in saying Shirley had fainted as she was seeing him off. I rushed out to find Shirley lying flat on her back seemingly asleep on the concrete. As I carefully picked her head and shoulders up I asked her was she OK and she replied "Yes I'm fine I was just having a little rest." Clearly she did not know how she came to be lying down. A big egg quickly rose on the back of her head. It was fortunate that one of Shirley's grandaughters present was a doctor and she calmly assessed the situation and had Shirley go to hospital to be checked out.

I had to go out that evening to a volunteer's reception put on by the Council in Pakenham and was taking June the museum secretary. Somewhere in all the excitement I lost my glasses so had to drive Emerald to Pakenham without them, back to Emerald to take June home, then to Gembrook by which time I was exhausted, but we did enjoy the evening. They had a singing group and light food and refreshments. Sometimes it's good to just participate and it took me out of myself a bit.

The glasses were found the next day, they'd fallen out of my shirt pocket at the farm as I unloaded some things. It was a relief to find them, a feeling many people would know. I called in on Shirley today. She spent that night in hospital and was home by midday Friday. She seemed in good spirits but talked rapid fire going over the events of last week. I could tell she needed to talk. I plan to call in on Thursday again and do a bit of pruning. Her daughters have all had to leave interstate on committments and I told them I'd call in regularly. They ring Shirley each day but the house is empty and it must be hard on your own after 60 years of marriage. 

Feeling Desolate Today

I went to a funeral yesterday, that of a lovely lady whom I did not know well, but one I had great respect for through numerous meetings and phone conversations in the course of some years in my association with her tradesman husband. We are about he same vintage. The service was in Cockatoo and I could not help but shed tears after hearing her children, about the the same age as ours, speak so lovingly well in their eulogy. She was a Christian lady, 58, totally dedicated to her family, who was diagnosed last December with motor neuron disease which claimed her in the short space of six months.

I could not attend the burial later at the Gembrook Cemetery, I had arranged to meet Mrs B on my way back to look at something she wanted me to do in her garden. Mrs B as it turned out wasn't there but I picked some red holly berries and before going home to change I decided to visit the cemetery to pay my final respects in the quiet of my own company, everyone having left by then.

I found the grave and said my prayer then strolled about the cemetery where so many of my aquaintance have found their final resting place. This is inevitable the older you get and the longer you stay in one place. I have lived here thirty one years now. Four of my close neighbours are there. Les down the end died ten years ago, collapsed in the shower aged 51. I used to find empty VB cans on my nature strip, obviously tossed from a vehicle by someone on their way home. They stopped after Les died. His son Dwayne died in a car accident a decade earlier. Young Luke across the road, 21, hit the oak tree opposite the pub, early on his way to work, when he swerved to miss a car that went out round the school bus after dropping off kids. The lady next door to them died of breast cancer aged 37. My dog Blitz got after her kids' guinea pigs once. And my old friend Lionel, and Harry, Gord's Tim, Pat's Franz killed by a tree, a wall fell on 'Squid', and many others.

The weather is cold and wet. Business is bad. I am struggling with a lack of enthusiasm borne of weariness and sorrow. This morning, after my walk and letting out the chooks I heard the phone inside. Catching it before it stopped ringing a voice shaken by emotion told me it belonged to Jenny Hughes, daughter of Allan and Shirley. Allan died last night, a massive stroke.

He was 90. No one can begrudge the grim reaper. He survived war and heart attacks and brain tumour. I hung up quickly, Jenny was not seeking counsel from me. I could not help but cry. I'll not see Allan again and I grieve with his wife and daughters. I shared a beer with him last Thursday.

I'm feeling desolate today.

Anzac Day Came and Went

Anzac Day week came and went the week before last. I started a post but didn't get far, such is the depth of emotions it provokes, in my case mostly anger at the stupidity and callousness of politicians who lead nations into war through economic strategies and hubris. I just wish these bastards would fight amongst themselves and leave the man in the street his taxes to be used in a more positive way. The occupation of Afghanistan is a case in point, it's my opinion that the $billions being spent could be far better utilized.

I find it difficult to write about. I'm not qualified in any way to expand my opinion into a valid article. I do know that late on Anzac Day on SBS there was a show on the Gallipoli campaign that upset me greatly. I turned on the TV for relief after wrestling for hours with the computer to get my book keeping up to date in order to complete my BAS. The show followed the campaign by way of the letters of several soldiers there, some of whom died, and others who survived. According to the show, 8000 Australians died there in 8 months. Altogether including British, French, New Zealanders and Turks, 120,000 soldiers breathed their last. At least the Turks could say they died defending their homeland from invasion. For the British it was a complete waste. The British war cabinet expected the Turks to turn and flee at the sight of the all powerful British Navy. Such is the arrogance of power.

Sister Meredith gave me some information around Anzac Day about my great great grandfather on my father's side, Charles Brown, who died in Terang in 1906, aged 73 years. Meredith took a few days off in March and found Charles Brown's grave in the Terang cemetery. She has researched on the internet to find that he changed his name from Karl Heinrich Bruhn which was his birth name when he was born in Hamburg Germany. He first visited Victoria at age 14. He spent 7 years sea voyaging between Hamburg and Australia. It's believed he jumped ship as a young man, would have been around the time of the gold rush and settled in the Barrabool Hills district where in 1862 he married Emily Parker who arrived from England on 'The Aden' in 1849 with her family when she was 10 years old. One of their daughters married a 'Williams'.

So my grandfather's grandfather was full blood German. I don't know how many brothers and sisters he had in Germany, but there's every chance my relatives were trying to slaughter each other in WW1, for God, King and country. Same God too.

  

First Mushy

I picked the first pine mushroom of the season on my walk today, on this last day of April. With all the rain we've had lately I was looking each day with anticipation and thinking it has got too cold too quickly. Perhaps some warmer temperatures followed by rain will bring a flush.

My friend Pat bought me two tickets for a mushroom tour for my birthday as a gift. Lib has said she'll come for the tour at Mooraduc which is guided by an expert in wild mushrooms. They run them on weekends through May and June and ours is booked for the 20th May. I'm looking forward to learning  about more edible varieties, and the dangerous ones to avoid.

April was a full on month with some large difficulties but the bell rings to end round 4 and I'm feeling strong. We've lit the fire early with the April cold snap and it's grand sitting by the open fire in the evenings. Business is depressed, something we do not suffer alone if the reports are believed. My intention is to put a big effort into growing vegies this year, beginning now, eg broccoli, broadbeans, garlic, but planning also for the new season in spring. The thing is about food, you can always eat it. And I reckon it'll be good for Gord, to learn more about it as we go.

I was very happy tonight to receive a phone call from Peter De La Rue thanking me for my article on Grace for 'Signpost'. I worked hard on that one, having been a good friend of Grace and knowing the grief of her surviving children and many grandchildren and great grandchildren. Peter said I got it spot on and it was beautifully done. I was happy with it but it's always a relief to get a nod of approval for your work. It does take a bit of pluck to put your work out there for others to read and possibly judge harshly.

Another major filip was a comment on my blog from Chas Stewart who moved from Gembrook to Pakenham a year or two ago. I failed to get the comment published due to some internal glitch in the system but Chas thanked me for blogging and encouraged me to continue. It was especially good to hear from Chas because the last time I saw him he was recovering from an operation for cancer of the oesophagus and had lost a heap of weight and had no appetite, hardly being able to force himself to eat the smallest amounts of food. Fantastic to hear from you Chas.