Spring 09

Showers seem appropriate, on this Monday, the last day of November, following the rain on the weekend. As far as rainfall goes it's been a good spring, the best for years. The harvest for the grain croppers looked to be huge but sadly this last rain came at the wrong time before many crops could be taken off, and there's likelihood of damage and downgrading of a fair part of the wheat harvest.

Our spring harvest was mixed. The dogwood blossom was poor, no doubt suffering from low rainfall last spring and last summer's punishing heat. Dogwood sets its flower buds in the autumn, so this spring's rain couldn't help. I'd expect a bumper crop next year on the back of this spring's good rain and as a response to the 'off' year. Lilac was good quality, thanks to the September rain, but quantity poor, again probably due to the previous spring's dry and the extreme summer. Philadelphus, a native I think of Mexico and drought hardy, was excellent, but it all came in a hurry due to the warm settled weather at flowering so we didn't get to some of it in time. The beech foliage is good this year, no doubt the rain has helped growth and the lack of hot north winds during the growth spurt makes for good quality.

All things considered we've come through the year quite well given the terrible spring we had last year and the horrific heat of last summer. We bought another water tank at the farm and put a few around the house here at Gembrook. The cost of water in future is a serious threat to our viability but we can hope for some respite and a good harvest next year as a result of the wonderful rain lately. Next spring should be a beauty, harvest wise, fingers crossed. Another spring and summer like the previous season may well have just about been a KO for us.

I've enjoyed watching the birds raising their young. A pair of mudlarks had a nest on a limb of a peppermint tree over Agnes St. A blackbird pair were successful with their brood in a nest in a purple rhodie growing into the footpath near St Silas church. Another in our carport wasn't so lucky. When I came home from work one day I wasn't quick enough to stop 'Pip' grabbing a fledgling that fell from the nest. I rescued it from the dog but with blood coming from its mouth it died in my hand after a minute or two, saving me from my indecision as to whether to put it down as humanely as possible. Mr and Mrs Whippy have been calling in the garden but I haven't seen the young yet.

I can't recall a year when the pawlonias have flowered so profusely and long. There are two near the corner of La Souef Rd. that knocked my socks off for weeks when I walked past. The one in neighbours Steve and Anne's garden was great too. The blossom on the silky oaks has been more brilliant in its fiery orange than I've can ever recall, and the native frangipanni tree or hymenosporum was exceptional.

For weeks on end I smelled it at the bottom of Agnes St on my walk but couldn't see a tree. Then one day I saw neighbour Rick hanging out the washing so I called him over to the fence and asked him did he have one somewhere in the garden. Sure enough, there was, where I couldn't see it from the road. Pat and Lois, two Gembrook ladies who had a big garden on Launching Place Rd gave it to him and Allison in a pot many years ago when they used to walk their daughter that way in the pusher. It stayed in the pot a while and nearly died, then was planted and nearly mowed over many times as it sat and did nothing. Then one year it took off and now has teased me two springs in a row with its glorious scent till I found its location. Pat and Lois both died some years ago. It was good to hear the story and find the tree, now thriving, a living example of Pat and Lois's love of gardens and generosity. We have a young one in our garden, about five feet high. It had a single cluster of flowers this year so I'm looking forward to the joy of its blossom in our backyard next spring.

Thank God for the promise of Spring 2010.

I Have Been To The Mountaintop

I have a dream. I dream day and night.

I day dream on my morning walk. I dream that people abandon their motor cars and walk and ride bikes, or catch solar electric shuttle buses. I see a time when humans revere peace and quite and silence. I see a 'Silence Day' once a week. No chainsaws, mowers, cars. Shops shut, no business. No noise at all, except in emergency. A day for walking, watching, listening, whispering, reading, dreaming.

In my dream, men and women of all creeds, colours and nationalities show others courtesy and respect. Goodness rules over evil. Decency, love and nurture is given freely, in a world of equality, devoid of greed and self interest, a world where people put out their hand to help the less fortunate. I see a clean green Earth where everyone has ample fresh water and food. A world without armies, weapons and viciousness. An Earth where Protties, Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddists, Jehovah's and athiests walk arm in arm with love of humanity and free spirit.

In my night dreams I am an exquisite and passionate lover, much sought after.

I like dreaming. In my dreams, everything is possible.

I try my best to live my dream.

It's free, and it beats reality.

Freedom

"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."

That's a line from a song titled 'Me and Bobby McGee', written by Kris Kristofferson, and made famous, I think, by Janis Joplin. I'm recalling from nearly forty years ago so pardon me if I'm wrong.

It goes on, "Nothin' ain't worth nothin', but it's free."

For us here in our 'free' country, Australia, or those in the 'land of the free', the USA, freedom bears thinking about.

Especially if, as I did tonight, you watched a show on SBS called 'Law and Disorder' (I think) about whistle blower Andrew Wilkie. Wilkie, an analyst in the intelligence area of the government, spoke out in the days leading up to the invasion of Iraq by the Axis of Deceit, claiming the Bush, Howard and Blair administrations were misleading the public by grossly exaggerating and deliberately distorting evidence to legitimize the invasion politically. He was ostracized.

The coalition of the willing never found the WMD's, as we all know. Wilkie may have put himself in the bad books, but to me he's a hero. His bravery in speaking out shows he's a free man. His life changed dramatically, but he was prepared to do what he thought was right, in the interests of the integrity of his country, and suffer whatever the consequences might be.

Freedom was sought by the Hellenistic philosopher Epicurus. He and his mates removed themselves from commercial employment in Athens ("We must free ourselves from the prison of everyday affairs and politics"), and began what could be best described as a commune, accepting a simpler way of life in exchange for independence. They would have less money, but, similar to Wilkie, would never again have to follow the commands of odious superiors. Simplicity did not affect their sense of status, but by distancing themselves from Athens, they had ceased to judge themselves on a material basis.

Andrew Wilkie differs from Epicurus in that he has not shunned politics. He stood at the last federal election as the Green's candidate for the seat of Benelong. He directed his preferences to Labour candidate Maxine McKew. You know the rest. What a hoot. He is now hoping to stand as an independent for the lower house in Tasmania.

While George, John and Tony, no longer in office, live like kings in tax payer funded retired opulence, the subservient majority toil long and hard. Most Australians, Americans and Great Britons, are far from free. They are prisoners of fear and anxiety; unemployement, interest rate rises, Muslims, refugees, terrorists, illness, climate change, loss of freedom. We are fighting for freedom, in Afghanistan. The body bag count rises. The brass says they died fighting for freedom.

It's often said, at funerals, "He/she (the cadaver) is now at peace, free of pain, suffering, and anxiety."

Like the song said, "Freedom is just another word for nothing less to lose. Nothin' aint worth nothin', but it's free."

Swarming Up

Harry called out, "Hello Carey", on Wednesday, as I walked through JAC Russell Park. He was on the footpath heading up the main road in the direction of the post office.

We exchanged news. I hadn't seen Harry since before I went to Alice Springs. His German visitor, Anya, has gone back home. Her partner, who was supposed to join her in Australia for a trip to Uluru etc and Nth Qld, never came. He found a new lady and stayed home. Anya had everything booked and was upset terribly.

"One of my beehives swarmed yesterday, it's hanging in a ti-tree just over the fence."

"It looks like rain today Harry, they'll probably stay where they are till it fines up. I'll try to get there tomorrow, about lunchtime it'll be."

"OK. They might fly off in the morning, but we'll hope for the best."

I had to put some foundation wax in some frames after doing some pressing bookwork and working at Pat's for a couple of hours in the morning. Pat wasn't home but Mal was. I tidied up with the whipper snipper a bit and shifted some earth where Mal wanted the vegie garden extendedand an edge wall moved. Mal's usually away on an engineering job somewhere at a mine in Qld. We talked about the war in Afghanistan. He reckons they'll never beat them. No one ever has. He had two Afghanistan body guards for two years while he built a petro chemical plant at Gatta in the Middle East. He got to know them well. They carried the biggest swords you'd ever see and he felt very safe. His labour force was 450 Indians and various other labourers hired daily as needed. He said his bodyguards talked and thought in the long term. They think for their children's children.

It was 2.00pm by the time I arrived at Harry's with the bee box and frames to box the swarm. They were still there. It was an awkward one, the ground under the ti-tree fell away steeply. I had to jack up the entrance end of the box with a brick so it was like an obstacle course for the bees to go in after I dropped them at the entrance. They were slow, I hung around for a long time thinking they might go back up the tree. I went to the farm and burnt off till 7.00pm, then returned to Harry's and picked up the bees as dusk closed in. It was surprisingly cold and the bees stopped flying well before dark. I couldn't leave them there. There are two horses in the paddock and I didn't want a horse accidentally knocking over the hive. Bees and horses don't mix, bees don't like the smell of them. I didn't want to take them home just over the hill, somemight fly back confused in the morning, it being only a few hundred metres as the crow flies. I took them to Keith Smith's at Boyd Rd, a few kms away, and will bring them home after a few days.

The good news is, when I went to my bees to take a frame of young brood to put in my swarm box, to make the swarm stay, I checked quickly the queenless half of the hive I divided a while ago. It's no longer queenless. A beautiful fat young freshly mated queen was examining cells in new comb the bees were building on the top bars.

Always good to see nature at its best.

Frustration

Returning one day on my morning walk in Alice Springs, a group of aboriginal men were standing under a red gum tree drinking cans of VB at 8.30am, next to the entrance of our caravan park on the banks of the Todd River. There was nothing threatening or aggressive in their manner, some empty cans were on the ground at their feet, and the men, aged I'd guess between 20 and 30, gave every impression of relaxed contentment.

The day was already warm. I wondered what the rest of the day would hold for them. Probably a few more cans, then sleep in the shade through the heat of the day. It saddenned to me think of their future. But it was not just sadness. There was a strong feeling of frustration that I was powerless to do anything about it. Why would those men choose to stand around drinking warm beer at the beginning of the day? How could they be so aimless?

I feel the same frustration when I hear about 'boat people'. What is the right thing? Let 'em in? Or send 'em away? If we let 'em in, will we be inundated? Again, there's nothing I can do about it, and the cause of the problem is outside anything I can affect.

Global warming or climate change is equally frustrating. I've installed solar hot water and water tanks, but it doesn't go away. We're a wealthy nation hooked on automobiles. The cities are clogged with traffic jams. As soon as a new freeway is built the increase in vehicles chokes it down. So what are the projections? More freeways, roads, more cars, emissions, noise. More climate change. Desal plants. More of the same decline into misery. And I'm powerless, except that I get to vote every few years. Does my vote change anything? Not that I can see. Man, that's frustrating.

It frustrates me to see my neighbours feeding birds. Don't they get the message? Do they miss all the information that explains they shouldn't?

The litter on the roadsides frustrates me. I pick it up on my walk. What is it that makes a person open his/her window of their personal version of a mobile lounge room and entertainment centre and throw their litter out, so that their space is not untidy with take away food and drink containers? They shove the garbage they can eat down their throats and throw the garbage they can't out the window. I see pooey plastic lined disposable nappies on the roadside. What are we becoming? A nation of pigs? I shouldn't say that. Pigs are a clean animal.

All the pollies seem to do is yap and argue and point score. And all the while the human race, like an out of control locomotive, is carreering toward the precipice where there's no bridge. Is it any wonder the dentist said I grind my teeth at night in my sleep?

Writing about it doesn't ease my frustration. It's worse than when I started.

A Hurried Picnic

Every day on our recent holiday Lib and I had picnic lunch. It's what we love to do. The Alice Pink Desert Botanical Gardens, Ormiston Gorge, Trephina Gorge, Uluru, and King's Canyon were some of the venues, but it is the one we had last Friday in the dry bed of the Todd river in Alice Springs that is the subject of this post.

We'd got to know our way around by then. It was a hot day, about 36C. We pulled in to the shade of a red gum tree in 'Rotary Park' near Heavitree Gap looking for a table and chair.

"There doesn't seem to be a table," Lib said.

"There has to be. That's what the Rotary Club does in parks. Yes, there's one further on. See it? But the shade's better here. Let's eat from the back of the car."

An olive green Range Rover had followed our Hyundai Getz hire car into the park and was stopped about thirty metres away adjacent to us. An aboriginal woman got out and walked off by herself in the direction of the table and chair which was about 70 or 80 metres along.

"I wonder why she's walking off alone and leaving her car windows open," Lib commented. We went to the boot and made up a sandwich of salami, cheese, tomato and cucumber in sliced wholemeal bread after quaffing on bottled water. The aboriginal lady was standing by herself about 100 metres away. We sat in the front of the car with our doors open enjoying the sandwich.

Lib said, "She must be waiting for.... Geez, he just punched her."

I looked in the direction of the aboriginal woman just in time to see an aboriginal man throw a second punch, not a king hit but a cuffing round arm to her head. It looked like his fist was clenched. She didn't cry out or scream, fall, or run, and hardly flinched as she kept walking back towards her car. The man ran ahead of her and when he got about thirty metres away from the car he picked up a jagged rock the size of an orange and hurled it at the Range Rover. Bang. It landed flush on the bonnet. The man keep running to the car and opened the door, grabbing clothing and chucking it onto the ground.

By this time I'd moved to the back of the Hyundai, quickly eating my sandwich and packing up the picnic. I jumped back in the car and said to Lib, "We're out of here."

"Geez, you ate that quick," said Lib, laughing, and still only halfway through her sandwich.

"Yeah well, we've come this far without a scratch on the car and there's a $330 excess if we get one. And believe me, a punch up in the heat at my age with an angry aborigine on the bank of the Todd River is the last thing I'm after."

A quarter of an hour later I was in a newsagency buying a tattslotto ticket when there was a lot of aggro shouting outside. As I came out the same angry man was stomping away about 20 metres ahead of me. He walked straight through the car park, turning right angles at our car and walking the length of it. I was expecting him to lash out with a boot and inflict damage, which I'd fled the park to avoid, in a bizarre twist of bad luck. Relieved I was.

Home Sweet Home

It's always nice coming home, no matter how enjoyable a trip away has been. We arrived back at Gembrook after 1.00am this morning, our flight delayed two hours. Robbie kindly picked us up at Tullamarine. I didn't go to bed till 3, after going through the mail and unwinding with a cup of tea. My walk this morning was a joy with two obedient dogs glad to have me back walking them after the 11 day hiatus. And, being curry pie day (last Sunday of the month), they were rewarded with half a sausage roll each.

After walking in the desert and gorges of the 'red centre', the Gembrook gardens and hillsides look lush and green. I came down the Launching Place road hill feeling philosophical, as if our trip away had blown dust and cobwebs from my mind like a spring clean. While away I read a book titled 'The New Nature' by Tim Low, which discusses changes to the environment in general, and particularly flora and fauna over the Australian continent, as human impact has changed and increased. There's always change in nature, we speed it up, and there are always winners and losers. Man's interference, often with perfectly good intent, can be catastrophic. Many species have become extinct or endangered, while others thrive. Tim Low's book is chock full of startling examples and surprises.

I made two resolutions. Firstly, to stay calm no matter the circumstances in future, and secondly, to try to keep an open mind and have broad vision. It is too easy to jump to wrong conclusions based on flawed information and opinion.

Back in Alice

My walk this morning was along the dry Todd River on the edge of Alice Springs where we stayed last night at the Heavytree Gap Caravan Park. The birds I saw were crested pigeons, yellow throated miners, pied honey eaters, ringnecked parrots, peewees, crows, a pair of what I think were black falcons, and another type of bird grey and black a bit like a tree creeper but yet to be identified from our bird book. There were a nomber of black footed fock wallabies in the caravan park at the base of a rocky rise forming part of the gap.

We're heading off now for a picnic lunch at Ross River in the East Macdonnell ranges and more gorge sightseeing.

Ayer's Rock

Well I'm no position to give an update on Gembrook weather. Today Lib and I walked around Uluru. It was fine, hot, we loved every step of the 10k or so.

A place of peace. Tomorrow we head to King's Canyon.

We've met a lot of travellers from all over the world. This place seems to bring out warmth from all things human.

Cold and Wet

More rain today after a little last night. This spring rain is fantastic. Melbourne's reservoirs are now at 35.3% of capacity after being at 26.0% in July when the line on the graph turned from down to up. They've been rising at 2,000 megalitres a day for about the past week after the peak of 8,000mg/l a day soon after that 100 ml weekend a couple of weeks ago. The rain is especially welcome by me as I've planted so much in recent weeks, but in the bigger picture farmers in the Wimmera in particular, but almost everywhere in Victoria, are benefitting hugely. The Wimmera river is flowing strongly and dozens of towns are having water restrictions eased.

If this keeps up the new code red catasrophic fire danger warnings may not be needed much this summer. Not that I need someone to tell me when there's a day of extreme fire danger. High temperatures and strong winds put me immediately on alert.

Wouldn't it be nice, a wet summer. I live in hope.

Humming Along

I looked into the beehives on the weekend, making use of what has been a rarity lately, a couple of warm sunny days. They were in good nick, quite strong hives building up well, with a good shake of of nectar in the combs and copious amounts of pollen coming in on forager's legs, which is no wonder given the paddocks about are yellow with cape weed flowers.

I divided one hive which had a poor brood pattern and some queen cells containing eggs, my hope is to avoid it swarming.(Artificial swarming is the term, the idea is to satisfy the swarming instinct without losing most of the bees, the two halves can be united later if it's desired, or more easily requeened with a bought queen of quiet stock, not that I've bought a queen for many years, which is probably why my hives can be a little testy). I left the small queenless half on the site of the old hive to draw in the returning foragers, with the bulk of the house bees with the queen in the new position. The hive at 'Sunset' was the strongest of all and had quite a few swarm cells. I took a comb containing a couple of well started queen cells with larvae swimming in royal jelly, putting it in the new hive at home, hoping they'll have a hatching queen quicker that way.

It was fun I have to say. The smell of the smoke as I lit the smoker with dried eucalypt leaves excited memories of working in the bush and times long past. It is exciting, the first foray of the season, and you feel the bees are old faithful friends, unswerving, diligent, yet aloof and mysterious.

More Seasonal Notes

I haven't looked in the beehives this spring yet, the weather not being conducive. The silvertop, I noticed last week when I went to my friend Pat's place for a couple of hours work, is flowering heavily in the bush east of Gembrook. I doubt it would be yielding honey in this cold, wet weather and bee flight would have been reduced reduced by the cold and rain. It's a far cry from the conditions of three years ago when the silvertop last flowered and the weather was warm, sunny and still, right through October, resulting in an early crop of honey the likes of which I'd never seen in this district.

The rainfall figures for September are up in the post office window. We had 200ml, far above the 30 year average of 126ml. It came a bit late to make this spring a good harvest from the garden point of view. Lilac is offering a reduced crop of blossom, same with pieris in most situations, and the dogwood is not promising. Rhodos have less flower than usual along with much burnt foliage and generally speaking our spring harvest of blossom is down considerably, no doubt a consequence of the extreme heat and dry of last summer. I'm wondering if the beech foliage will be similarly affected, or if this big September rain will save the day. They are just shooting now, and won't be firm enough to pick till well into November.

Maybe this rain will help set up a good spring next year. In the meantime the grass and weeds are about to explode into growth which will keep us busy. I'm hoping the cool continues through October with more rain to come. We had 6ml last night and it's cold enough again to be winter.

With our new tanks full Lib's talking vegie garden. Hopefully we can start a summer veg garden next weekend when Lib's holidays start. And if the weather's fine I'll fire up the bee smoker with some dry pine needles or messmate bark for fuel and check 'em out.

Stillness

This morning and yesterday were still. Not silent, for the air was full of birdsong, of great variety. Singing birds seem to heighten quietude. Chirping, squeaking, squwarking, twittering, pipping, pinging, whistling, cawing, cooing, ooming, choffing, ringing, honking. The screeching cockatoos have been absent fortunately.

The crow's nest a hundered feet above the ground in the pine tree at the lower end of Quinn Rd. seems to have been abandoned. Last week the pair of crows were mercilessly harassed by wattle birds in what looked like a territorial battle. Then no crows in that group of trees for a couple of days, but always wattle birds. Yesterday I saw a crow carrying a stick towards trees a couple of hundred metres away on Launching place Rd. It looks like the crows are starting again in another location. Another large pine tree behind messmates and peppermints seemed to be the crow's destination. They maybe prefer pine trees.

Last week I saw a quail in the yard of a house in Quinn Rd. The week before young Pip lept back in fright from the fence of the house at the top of Launching Place Rd., in turn giving me a start. A wild duck flapped as she rose, disturbed as we came past the other side of the picket fence. She hurried away along the side fence with her seven chicks in tow.

The bellbirds were back in the messmate opposite our lower drive this morning after a few days of no sign or sound of them. Their recent return has not yet become a full scale invasion and occupation like we had for several years, let's hope it doesn't. The wattle birds, who have built up in numbers, may be deterring them, also the currawongs who've not yet seasonally disappeared as they often do.

It seems to a constantly changing struggle for ascendency amongst the aggressive and territorial birds. It a shame that the aggressive types seem to adjust to man's intrusion into the environment better and we therefore have so many of them and less of the shyer types. Birds are all beautiful in their own way but birdworld is ruthless; chooks kill off sick comrades, so many species feed on the young of others, crows pick the eyes out of newborn lambs.

The strong survive.

History in the Making

Geelong will now be in the record books as Premiers 2009 for as long as there's AFL football or interest in it. Grand Final weekend, traditionally the last of September, will go down in my memory for another reason more important to me. At the weekend we had 100ml of rain. The water tanks we had installed last Friday are now full. Ian, Andrew and Dean from Vic Water Plumbing worked through Friday's showers and left before the rain became heavy late in the day.

It's been the wettest September for many years. I haven't kept a tally but I look forward to reading the rainfall figures for the completed month after they are put in the post office window. In excess of 200ml for sure.

Lib and I watched the footy with Ricky Ralph and wife Monica, who invited us for lunch. Monica, a native of Sweden, prepared a super meal with a Swedish theme. We kicked off with a shot of Shnapps followed by beer before entree of pickled herrings in three types of sauces, prawns, potatoes, dill eggs, salad and Jarlsberg cheese and Swedish dry biscuit. After two helpings of entree, and more Shnapps and beer, the main course of meatballs with red wine was equally satisfying, as was the desert of berries, the name of which escapes me just now but they're a common wild berry in Sweden. Monica has fond childhood memories of her family going out to the countryside to pick this berry, and blueberries, which both grow wild in the deciduous forests.

The day ended happily for Rick who is Geelong barracker. Interesting word that, barracker. I heard or read recently that it began in Melbourne, specifically at the MCG or Yarra Park, way back when there was an army or police barracks adjacent. A crowd of soldiers/police would come out to watch the game and congregate, loudly, on that side of the ground, becoming known as the barrackers. The story, attributed to no less than Geoffrey Blainey, said that the term barracker caught on and spread through Australia, then the world, and is now almost a universal term for team supporters at a football match.

With the rain came cold winds from the south and we've lit the fire the last three evenings after a break of a few weeks. Lib's cousin Margaret from California has been touring Vic and NSW visiting rellies and is due here Friday night. Before she left the states she emailed asking what sort of weather could she expect. I replied most likely mild temperatures but with quite a range, suggesting she brings something warm to wear. I'll be interested to hear what she's experienced. I think she was in Sydney for the dust storms.

Wombats

A wombat carcass appeared on the side of Launching Place Rd one day about the second week of August, obviously the victim of a car during the night. Young Pip's nostrils worked frantically as she pulled on the lead towards it wanting to investigate. I let her go up close and have sniff for a few mornings, saying, "That's how you end up if a car hits you."

Snowy showed no interest in the dead marsupial whatsoever, not venturing close, in fact staying at the extremity of her lead in the other direction. After a few days I didn't stop to let Pip look but kept walking briskly on the other side of the road. Approaching each day I was expecting it to have been removed. I know the council pays someone to pick up animal carcasses on the roadside and usually after a day or so they're gone.

This one stayed in the gutter, in fact what's left of it is still there and high on the nose. A few days on, I noticed it's belly torn open, something had been eating its guts, probably a fox or dog which go for the easiest part first. This interested me, as I buy from the vet a bag of seed and grain which I soak in water overnight to ferment before adding to meat for our dogs' dinner. Apparently in nature dogs eat such by means of offal. My hope is that the dogs will have less trouble with diseases like arthritis later in their life. I've observed when mine catch a rabbit the first thing they do is eat it's guts.

Over the following weeks the meat of the wombat carcass was slowly consumed. The weather was cool/cold and decomposition slow. Jan, who walks her dog most mornings told me she'd seen two of the dogs that live nearby having a feed. I thought we lived sufficiently far away, and given that Snow and Pip don't wander far, there was little chance of ours going back there.

Wrong! The day I had the vomiting fit and went the doctor, the boys told me when I got back that our neighbour Rick had called in saying he'd seen Snowy up at the skate park. His daughter Alisha, who had been doing work experience at the kindergarten, alerted him after seeing her as she walked home. Rick, who knows Snowy well, went up to investigate. Snowy seemed disorientated and took off, so he came to tell us. He couldn't be 100% sure it was Snowy, he said. Snowy has siblings around the town that look just like her. The boys drove up in Gord's car and here was Snowy running down the middle of Launching Place Rd., so they grabbed her with some difficulty and brought her home.

I was at a loss to understand why Snow was at the skate park. A few more days on I met another neighbour, Janice, who walks her dogs or rides her bike most mornings. She told me she saw Snowy there a few days ago having a feed of wombat hindquarter, a bit after midday, which was just after I left for the doctor's appt. The sneaky old Snowy. Maybe she was disturbed knowing I wasn't well and followed me. The strange thing was, the day after Snowy was found up the street, when I fed her in the morning, she wouldn't eat her dinner till I turned and left. Normally the dogs sit and wait till I say "OK" before eating. This time Pip woofed in but Snow just kept sitting and watching me. I said OK several times to no avail, but when I began walking away she wolfed in. She must have had the guilts I reckon, or at least I can find no other explanation.

Last week when I arrived at my friend Pat's to do a couple of hours work it was raining. Pat invited me in for a cuppa. As I sat enjoying the chrysanthemum flower tea, Pat was telling about a sick wombat that had been coming around for weeks. Pat's dog Cameron, a young deerhound, harrassed the wombat and it was a difficult situation. Pat rang the sanctuary, wildlife refuge people, the vet, all she could conjure, but as often is the case, nobody can come right then, and later, wombat has gone.

The rain eased and as I picked some bay foliage in the garden before leaving Cameron began barking excitedly and I could hear Pat doing her best to admonish the gigantic young dog, who thinks everything is a game. I twiigged Womby had turned up so I got down from my ladder and went over to see. Poor little wombat was suffering mange badly and seemed blind and deaf. A number of big blow flies were in court around the poxy skin sorers despite the light rain. I felt the poor animal should be destroyed for humane reason.

"Pat can I ring my friend Huit? He has the odd sick wombat at his place and he shoots them to put them out of misery. He may come over."

"Yes, you know where the phone is, I'll keep Cammie away."

Huit came shortly after. He couldn't shoot Womby, he forgot his magazine and therefore had no bullets. We managed to get Womby in a bag and Huit took him home, saying he'd bury him after he shot him.

I left soon after and called at the Post Office to collect the mail. Fellow flower/foliage grower Ron was leaving as I arrived. I hadn't seen him for a while.

"You still doin' the foiage? How's it goin?" he asked.

"It's been pretty tough Ron, demand's fickle and I had a lot of stuff damaged by the heat wave. It's been a tough year really. Are you still trapping the dogs?"

"Yeah, it pays a lot better than growing. My contract with DSE is for about 25-30 weeks. After that the growing's a bit of fun. I do alright at the markets, selling mixed bunches of whatever we can find. The wholesalers don't want to know, but people at markets love 'em. I put out some pokers at the the market, tall as I can get, people say, Gee I'll take them, I've never seen them tall like taht." If I take tall ones to the wholesaler he'll nash his teeth and say he wants them all 80cm stalks or nothing.

"How many dogs do you catch a week Ron?"

"About one a half. You might go three weeks and not get one, then catch four or five the next week. I get a lot of foxes. They send me to and area where there's a problem. I'm in the Acheron valley at the moment. I set 8 or 10 traps each day for a while then do the rounds, always looking for sign."

"So they send you out to where farmers are losing stock?"

"Yeah, that, and wildlife. The dogs eat a lot of wombats, they're easy for 'em, and wallabies. They run down samba deer with teamwork, working in shifts. The deer can outrun 'em but the dogs take turns, till the deer's exhausted.

You'd think with losses to cars, feral and native dogs and disease, wombats would be feeling the pinch, but there seems to be plenty about. The Vicroads warning sign in Launching Place Rd. has a picture of a wombat on yellow background, and underneath the words 'Next 10 km'. Maybe drivers pick up a subliminal message, but I walk and drive past that sign every day and can't remember seeing it, till lately, when wombats have been so obvious to me.

Pym David Mathew Cook

I met vet Tom in the main street this morming. I shook his hand and congratulated him on the birth of his first child. Tom was ecstatic telling me about his son who was born on the 7th. I'd noticed an 'It's a Boy' sign in the clinic's window a couple of days ago.

He and wife Kath are both vets and, and as Tom said, are not much good at anything except being vets, at which, he said humbly, they're reasonably good. It was so strange for them to come home with the new baby and look at each other and say, "What do we do now?" It reminded me so much of being a new parent all those years ago and the wonderment and excitement of a new person in your house.

We've had three days of georgeous gentle spring weather and I took my blood pressure this morning and it's fine. When I tested it recently it was more than a little high which worried me as I hate the thought of going to doctors for prescriptions and chemists for pills and all the time reaching for the wallet. I went off my cholesterol and BP pills a year ago and don't want to go back. I'm sure the answer is to keep walking and don't stress about anything. And go easy on the grog.

P.S. GemFred did a lovely job of Christian's drive. It was a large excavation really as it's quite a drop from the block to the road, about 1.5m, but the new drive has a gentle sweeping camber and a lot of the spare earth was spread evenly along the front to make it look like it's going to be well cared for as time passes.

A New Driveway

'Gemfred's' tipper went past me and was pulled up in Quinn Rd. on my way back down the hill this morning, unloading an excavator. Two men were talking before one I recognised hopped into his Hiace van and moved it forward some thirty feet. I noticed a wheel barrow with a spade in it by the side of the road where the van had been. As I came next to the van, the man I recognized as a local who owned the vacant block of land I'd just walked past, was alighting.

"Gidday mate. I've forgotten your name." I thrust out my hand.

"Christian." We shook hands warmly. He had pliers and a spanner of some sort in his other hand.

"We're putting in a driveway. It's great to have something happen at last. It's a start."

"You've got a good day for it. Good luck with it all."

"Thanks, it is a lovely day."

I'll enjoy watching Christian's house go up over the coming months. He told me a while ago when we met in the main street they'd decided to build. He used to live in Launching Place Rd and I'd say hello and have a quick chat sometimes if I saw him when I walked past. They sold their house a year or so ago, maybe two, and moved into a rented house on the Pakenham Rd. He'd told me they owned the block in Quinn Rd but initially they were undecided whether to build or not. A big step, he said, not to be taken lightly.

I've made a number of friends by walking in the morning. I don't know Christian well. I do know he's a motor mechanic, is Chilean by birth, and he seems a good bloke. I'll dropin with a bottle of celebratory wine for them when they move into their new house.

They're Back

It was too good to be true. On Friday morning I saw a number of bell birds attacking a wattlebird in the messmate tree opposite our lower drive. Then yesterday, as I passed under the same tree, came the dreaded pinging sound I've grown to loathe. They're obviously re-establishing their lost territory.

Woe is me. Sad am I. Bugger!

I believe I could see an improvement in the condition of the messmates and peppermints lately. And I'd certainly enjoyed seeing more small birds about including a family of thornbills(?) feeding in that same messmate not long ago.

I read in Tim Low's book 'The New Nature' that at Yellingbow the bell birds are culled to allow the helmeted honeyeater to survive. It's a pity the cull isn't extended to protect our stressed trees over a wider area. I don't like killing anything but I'd gladly volunteer to help. Bell birds really are little bastards.

Vale Joanee

In 1956 my father Lyle's rich aunt, Auntie Clare, bought him a new car, a powder blue FC(?) Holden. To 'run it in', a requirement with a new car in those days, a trip was taken to Queensland. Into Holden crammed Lyle, Elvie, Lyle's brother Geoff and fiancee Joan, Auntie Clare, and Jod (6 or 7) and me (4). I'm told Meredith, who was two years old, stayed with Nanna Wilson, Elvie's mother. It became part of family folklore in the years since how at toilet stops, A. Clare would buy an icy pole for Jod, the apple of her eye. Joan, annoyed that I was excluded, would go into the shop and buy me one.

In the early sixties, when Elvie had the florist shop, she'd sometimes leave Meredith and me at Auntie Joan's in Ashwood on Saturdays. Anne and Stephen were toddlers. I recall a glass of milk being put in front of Stephen in his high chair. He picked it up and promptly upended it onto the floor. Geoff was off playing cricket and Joan had her hands full looking after her kids but she always good to Meredith and I. We loved her, and were sad when she and Geoff split and she was lost to us.

The split, in 1966, was acrimonious. Joan went to Thailand with a man named Frank, who worked for Ford. Elvie tells me she didn't marry him, but changed her name by deedpoll to match his, and presumably the kids' too. They returned in 1973, living in Brisbane in the then new suburb, Mt. Ommaney. Frank was by now state manager of Austral Motors, the Chrysler dealer in Qld. That summer of 74, I went to study at QAC at Gatton and called at Joan's. While I was there it started to rain, and rain; more than 20 inches from memory was dumped in 24 hours and even more in the mountains to the west, causing the Brisbane river to flood, inundating many suburbs. I was stuck at Mt.Ommaney for some days. Provisions were dropped by helicopter. When the water subsided all the flooded houses and cars were covered by a couple of inches of slimy mud.

I visited Joan again 1977, on a trip to Nth Qld. By this time Frank had progressed to his own business, a second hand car yard, and was handing out match boxes with pictures of topless women on them, advertising 'Frank Tomlin Motors'. Not long after this Joan came home from work one day to find her house empty of the leased furniture. No note, no Frank. It took her weeks to find out that he'd run off to some place in the South Pacific with his secretary, leaving a mountain of debt. Joan was left to raise her now teenage children alone and had to vacate her house.

Joan and I kept in touch by letter and occasional phonecalls through the decades. Lib, myself, and the boys did a road trip to Qld in 1997 staying with Joan, who proudly worked as a sales rep selling plumbing products, the only female in Qld at James Hardie to do so. Her daughter Anne, now a single mum with a toddler and twin babies a few months old, lived with her. Stephen was married and lived in Tasmania.

I last saw her a few years ago. Stephen arranged a stopover in Melbourne to go to the footy while he was taking Joan to his place in Tassy for a holiday. He teed it up with me to knock on the door of the hotel room at a given time to surprise Joan while he'd stepped out 'for some air'. I was invited to Joan's surprise 70th birthday last year in Brisbane but didn't go, much to my regret now.

Joan, a fun loving lady with a great sense of humour and an engaging personality, was fiercely devoted to her children and grandchilren. She had Parkinson's, and learned last April she had lung cancer. The chemo didn't work, and she was told a few weeks ago she had months, not years, to live, after a growth came up on her neck. She had a heart attack a couple of weeks ago. After getting the twins off to school she felt her heart behaving strangely. She drove herself to hospital but it was downhill from there.

At the funeral service it seemed appropriate to me that I sat next to Uncle Geoff who travelled from a holiday at Caloundra, and who had married Joan fifty years earlier. He and Joan were estranged but in recent years Geoff had restored relations with Anne and Stephen without Joan's knowledge. Anne and Stephen were glad Geoff came.

I booked a Jetstar 'light travel' ticket to Brisbane at short notice, with no check in luggage. Into the carry on shoulder bag I hastily packed at 4.30 am on the day of the funeral, I threw a small note book I found in an old toilet bag. At Avalon airport, with a little time before boarding, I opened the notebook to jot down some thoughts. There was a quote on the first page I'd written years ago from a Jimmy Buffet book titled, 'A Salty Piece of Land'. It too seemed to suit the occasion.

"Everything leaves eventually in the physical form, but the memories of good people and good work are timeless."

I Am a Part of All That I Have Met

I sit in the departure lounge at Brisbane airport waiting for the sleek machine bird to take me south. I write at a public computer terminal into which I put some coins, giving me web access. I arrange letters and words, in the best manner I know so that my thoughts are conveyed to you. You know I live, where I am, and what I think by the sequence of the words.

It amazes me, modernity.

"A Fool's Paradise? Well, why not? There is a place for Folly."

Yesterday, north bound, I sat in the girth of the flying beast as it suspended above the clouds, carrying me to the funeral of my much loved Auntie Joan. I wanted to share the grief of my cousins, Ann and Stephen, whom I have known all their lives.

I wondered at the magnificence of design of the A320 airbus. The jet engine. An historic milestone in Man's conquest of nature. Come fly with me. Where did it start? Way back. In the cave. God's first words recorded at the start of the Bible, were, "Let there be light." Perhaps man's first conquest of nature was the torch or lamp, overcoming darkness.

I look out over tarmac and watch QF651 take flight, skywards majestically, Perth bound, taking Joan's relatives over mountains, deserts, plains. Home. After two days traversing two great cities; of concrete, steel, glass, freeways, snarling traffic, touchscreens, crematoriums, we are homeward bound.

"I am part of all that I have met."

I know what Ulysses meant.