The Year 2018 to Date

There's a quiet feeling of confidence I hold for the year 2018 which has not diminished in the ten days to this date.

I had a minor setback yesterday when I reversed my car in Meredith's driveway and hit a retaining wall post that bent the plastic fender and hooked under it. Aware that I hit it, but unaware it was hooked, I quickly drove forward and the fender ripped off on the driver's side, to be hanging loose and damaged. I taped it up so it didn't flap as I drove and do more damage, if not fall off and drag on the road. Maybe up to $1000 to repair is my guess, not worth claiming insurance because of the excess but I won't know till I get a quote.

Sadly I was only there because a new customer turned up wanting elder flowers on a day I wouldn't normally have been there. I have been picking elder flowers along the creek below Meredith and Roger's house where they grow wild a couple of times a week lately as the restaurant demand for these has escalated. I was in a bit of a hurry as I had to pick some beech at the farm before taking my whipper snipper and a mower to a good repairman in Ferntree Gully. It was my first opportunity to do that since the Christmas break, and this after a vet visit for Pip in the the morning (annual parvo/ heartworm shots, anal gland clean) in Gembrook and mowing Mrs Pepi's lawns and spraying her lengthy street drain. A busy day but then they always seem to be that way.

It's upsetting to damage the van like that through my own error, but if that's the worst misfortune for the year I should not be overly concerned. It's a long time since I've had a collision with another vehicle and yet I have had numerous near misses with idiots transgressing to the wrong side of the road cutting corners, turning without indicators, and speeding up behind me on wet roads, trucks included. Cars collide all the time sustaining severe damage, killing and maiming passengers and drivers. No. I musn't be too worried by a bit of cosmetic damage.

In the nine finished days this year I have been busy for all, except last Saturday when I hid inside due to the 40C+ temperatures until the late afternoon when I went out and watered and potted on 40 variegated pittosporum tubes into pots, and some variegated box cuttings. My other days have been spent picking beech for florists, elder flowers for restaurants, rosemary-I had a big order last week for a wedding, weeding 'the vegie garden' -it is more herbs than vegies eg basil dill coriander- slashing grass with the whipper, and last Monday finally getting to begin the annual crawl through thickets and fencelines cutting and painting blackberries. The wood splitting of the bigger rounds of firewood to dry out is ahead of me in the next few weeks and should have been well underway by now but has not yet started.

I have also been occupied peparing and planting out pumpkins where the broad beans were at Marguerita's. The pumpkins I sowed in pots about five weeks ago. Tying up the tomatoes is time consuming, there's about fifty of them and they grow quickly.

This work is all pleasant really, the worst of it is when people want things in a hurry or at short notice. The flies crawling up your nose and in your eyes when your hands are busy is not fun, neither is the pounding sun when you are looking up picking beech but these are minor difficulties compared to the plight of many.

Another quote from Khalil Gibran -

"For to be idle is to become a stranger to the seasons, and to step out of life's procession that marches in majesty, in proud submission towards the infinite."