Stalked by a straw neck

At home we have a resident Ibis. I don't know why he's decided to hang out at our place but he's been there since we arrived.

He sometimes eats from a near by park but lately he's been stalking me!
This morning as I spread some Rosella bush seeds that I've been soaking he swooped down from his vantage point on the TV antenna and proceeded to pick out every seed I had sewn!

Settling in

Still not much closer to reaching equilibrium but the dry season is always like that, too much happening, routines all messed up.

Thought I'd post a few more photos from the space I'm in until I'm able to write.

 A mate left town to start a new life in Alice Springs and needed to unload some of his hoarded treasures so I inherited among a few other things, a fantastic 1970s (or 80s) family tent! It has now become my new bike stable! I doubt it will survive a wet season but makes a cozy work space in the dry.

Since we moved in I've managed to semi-restore this old trike for the kids. I'm surprised how stable it is, they've had a great time riding it round our new, enormous back yard.

Trike, tent.... and the aged pooch.

Finally a quiet place to sit and work on my bikes!

Mint

We've also done some extensive planting, both in the garden and pots. It's so great to have space to grow things... food garden on it's way!

Cassava harvest

Last year I brought home a few sticks from a friends cassava plant and stuck them in the ground.
They have provided our back yard with a very lush screening of foliage but the plants became too big and with heavy monsoonal rains the wet leaves were dragging the plants down on top of the clothesline and other plants. So I decided it was time to harvest.

cleared space for new planting

I went through the garden ripping cutting the tops off the plants and putting them aside for replanting and then proceeded to pull the tubers out from the remaining trunk of the bushes. I couldn't believe the size and number of tubers I collected from just a small corner of the garden.

Some of the harvest. There were many more just like these

Cassava can be toxic if not prepared properly and I've not been in much mood for learning anything new or actually doing anything productive at all for that matter, so I gave the whole lot to Yolngu friends at work. My friends and colleagues from North East Arnhemland love cassava, it's been a staple in Arnhem Land ever since the Fijian missionaries arrived in the early 1900's. You can buy it at the Alpa stores across Arnhem Land but I haven't actually seen it for sale here in town so it was a welcome addition to their dinner pot.

New crop of cassava sprouting amongst the pigeon pea

All up I reckon I harvested about 20 kilos of cassava tubers and I didn't bother digging around to find any that broke off in the ground. Some of them were like elephant trunks!

Finaly the rain

A good morning is when I rise early and spend some time outside sweating toiling with a hoe in my hand or peddling my bicycle. After yet another very late night I didn't rise early, but, I did make it across to one of the local schools in time to chip in for a working bee. The school principal with support from the community has decided to open the, recently erected, gates and invite members of the local community to join them in creating a food garden! 

I may have got there late but I soon got into the action and yes I raised a sweat. (Not hard to do in the Darwin buildup, especially when your working with a body whose primary tasks have been striking a key board and lifting several coffee cups to the lips per day. 

I got home sweaty and covered in hay, happy!

Back at home the neighbors get kind of fussy about our messy garden and I can see their point but the back lawn is so much more interesting now than it used to be. I still mow it a couple of times during the wet season but I've really enjoyed watching it evolve naturally. Once it was a monoculture of cooch grass but now there's a variety of grasses and sedges popping up and seeding. The kids and I also threw a handful of rosella seeds around which are sprouting in odd spots through the lawn and will hopefully give us some fruit for jam when the dry season comes around. If the neighbors want someone to blame for our lawn they can look to Masanobu Fukuoka!

Oh yeah... the rain. It's been hot and muggy but there's been no rain for such a long time all the buildup greenery has wilted and shriveled. But tonight the waiting was over. Just as I arrived at a meeting a couple of suburbs away, a great wind came roaring through the verandah where we were sitting. Leaves came swarming into our sheltered gathering place with the ferocity of a tornado! Leaves and dust and scraps of paper were swirling around us in forceful willie willies that were blown horizontal by those huge gusts that always precede the first tropical storms of the season. Awesome! Pretty soon the rain was pelting down hard! After just an hour it slackened off to an even drizel and it's still going now 4 hours later. And the garden cries 'Finally The Rain!'

Pin cushions and planter boxes

The kids and I have come to Melbourne to spend Christmas with the family (more fossil fuels guzzled to get here). We left Sam at home with Kuta the dog... who, while we're away, is allowed to live inside the house. I'm not sure how long that arrangement will last since she has been farting constantly and the smell is noxious!

It's the first time we've traveled without Sam and the kids are missing her terribly... well intermittently, presents seem to be a suitable distraction and temporary replacement for mothers love. ;)

Mum and Dad's veggie boxes are producing food now, yesterday we picked cucumbers for our Christmas lunch, there are tomatoes, not ripe yet, pumpkins, zukini, carrots and the beetroot looks like it's ready to pick! Also the apple and apricot trees are covered in leaves and have grown heaps since we planted the dormant plants back in April.

Raised Bed veggie garden a couple of months later

Beetroot! (and the edge of a carrot)

Since we were last here mum has been on a Quilting tour of the USA. Her trip of a lifetime with a bunch of other quilters from her Knotties group. The primary reason for their trip was to attend a quilting convention in Texas but to get there they criss-crossed the country visiting quilting shows, shops, displays and museums. I thought I'd post a couple of the photos she took which I found most interesting.

This quilting mob are a funny bunch, they buy expensive materials and spend a fortune trying to replicate an art form which was born from necessity, scraps of old material, respect for the value of fabric, innovation and resourcefulness.

Amish farmer riding cart past a plowed field

Amish kick scooter

Textile Mill

One of the places they visited was an old textile mill, apparently the ladies all thought it was a wonderful magical place... When she was young my mum worked as a seamstress in a sewing factory, she has worked in the mills and remembers just how magical it was. Noisy, smelly, dangerous! No proper ventilation, no heating no air-conditioning... In summer it was hot and noisy in winter their fingers froze and fumbled with the unforgiving machinery which would not discriminate between several layers of fabric and the thin fingers of a poorly paid factory worker. Many fingers pierced mercilessly on the factory floor. She was finished with that business by the time I came on the scene but I remember she always had a sewing machine at home and most of my early clothes were either hand made or heavily patched up hand-me-downs. You would think she'd be well and truly over sewing after working in those sewing factories but once we'd all grown up and left home mum took up quilting and has become more productive than ever! She's made quilts for everyone in our family... and extended family... all the grandchildren and great nieces and nephews and even the people living with my brother in supported accommodation. Everyone loves mum's quilts! 

Blog post 445

Once again there's so much to blog about and so little time or energy to actually type!

This is my 445th blog post. There's nothing significant about Post 445 except that I just noticed in my stats that my last post was No. 444. Nothing significant about that either I guess. Actually considering the fact that I've been attempting to write something here since 2006 I'd say it's just another example of mediocrity! I'm barely able to write here once or twice a month and am struggling even with that.

They say that having one's train of thought constantly interrupted is a form of torture... But where are you going to find anyone who's so committed to interrupting you 24 hours a day? Who is going to sit around and wait for you to try and do something just so they can disrupt you or distract you, interrupt your conversations or just simply create so much white noise that your brain can't physically process anything? Throw things at you, wreck all your stuff, steal your last $2 and stick their grubby fingers between your guitar strings when you think you've finally found a quiet moment to recommence the lessons you started 8 years ago when a hard day simply meant you had to do some work between the hours of 9am and 5pm? Surely such a person could not exist! Well if you don't have kids you'll always wonder if it could ever be possible for someone to dedicate so much time to such unrelenting harassment. God Love Em!

If you've ever wondered what is the most hideous product ever devised for consumption by human beings let me introduce you to... Smiley Face!

Smiley Face :(

Smiley Face is some kind of over processed meat (and probably soy) product kind of like Devon (I've never tasted that either but it looks kind of the same). Besides being offensive to look at Smiley Face also smells like the refuse pit of a toxic chemical plant! It stinks! It smells so bad that when it's in the fridge it spreads it's stink over everything that is not sealed! It is an abomination and I wonder how it was ever classified as a food!

As with most things in my universe I have absolutely no say in what my kids get to eat! Around here I am the bad guy who is constantly grumbling about all the crap their mother provides them to play with and to eat. My concerns are duly disregarded and I am reminded to stop bringing everyone down and so my kids continue to eat what can generously be called Shit!

I'm bitching about this now because I spent the whole night on spew watch after my boy proceeded to eat 'Smiley Face' after having actually eaten a reasonable dinner... He spent the rest of the night spewing his dinner which was laced with the chemical stench of his favorite snack!

There I go again getting distracted with rambling meaningless nonsense... It was easier to maintain a clear train of thought back when I could get a decent night's sleep and my brain hadn't been turned to moosh by the torture I've just mentioned... supplemented by endless replays of children's videos with the volume on full!

What really drives me crazy about the kids though is just when you think they've been sent by the Devil to destroy your spirit and turn you into a blubbering zombie they come out with the most amazing stuff! In a flash they can switch from a state of absolute self interest to a being that is completely compassionate and loving! Within on short hour I have watched my two kids attack each other with fists and claws, burst into tears, play cooperatively and then fall asleep in each others' arms.

Poem about the Earth that child one whipped out yesterday

What's been happening? OK.

Long bike In Dry Rapid Creek Bed

Rapid Creek: Riding past the stables at Rapid Creek last week I found a Potty calf had escaped so I joined a lady who was walking her dog and we wrangled it back into it's paddock. (quite fun actually)

Taking the long bike for a spin out into the wetlands behind the airport I followed it down to the salt water and found that the fresh water had completely dried up in many areas so I explored along the river bed for a while. The seasons correspond quite nicely here in the Top End, we always seem to get a bit of rain just as the very end of the previous wet season's rain has finished draining from the wetlands. While down there I got a great view of a Pacific Bazar at head level just a few metres away.

Basil babies...

Garden: The basil seeds I planted with the kids have really sprung up and now I'm thinking about mass producing them for friends. The seeds all came from a single plant in our yard that has shriveled to a stick every dry season but miraculously resurrects itself when the humidity returns. (Besides smiley face the boy actually likes to pick the leaves and eat them straight from the bush)

Quilting: My Mum, who's on a quilting tour of the USA, had to spend 3 days in a motel in Boston M.A. as Hurricane Sandy destroyed a huge chunk of New York. There was a chance they would be affected but I don't think anyone was truly worried about their safety up there. Very sad for those who have lost family in the US and Caribbean. It was very unlikely her group would make it to Houston for the show but amazingly they did. I think they still have another week of their tour to go. Visiting quilters and exhibitions from San Francisco to Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, Houston and onward! Who'd have thought making quilt would be so exciting? We've received a post card from an Amish village somewhere (Postcard just said Amish Village), where, she said everything smells like horse dung. Actually I've always thought horse shit smells kind of sweet. I asked if they have bicycles but apparently they ride them kind of like scooters, without peddles or chains... I hope she got some photos... Actually how weird... A tour bus full of 70 year old Australian quilters who buy their material new, custom printed arrive in an Amish village with cameras and probably Iphone's snapping away, come to steel their homely secrets. LOL what a circus that must be. Maybe they have to leave their technology at the gate...? That would make for a very quick visit.

Cruelty to the stranger: There's a bunch of other stuff I'd like to chat about like the fascist stunt pulled by the Australian Government to send all Asylum seekers who arrive by boat to inhumane camps in Nauru and Manus Island even if they have actually managed to arrive on our shore. Now that's an amazing act of bureaucratic brutality! Imagine you've successfully fled torture, murder, starvation, drowning and general fleacing by every opportunist from Burma to Australia, you hop on a boat, statistically doomed to sink and use all your resources to get to a country that you hope and pray will treat you like a human being. Get off the boat walk up to the house of parliament, knock on the door and declare yourself as a person seeking asylum from the worst of humanity. They look at you, smirk and have you taken away, lock you up and fly you off to a place where you're shoved into a crowded tent in 45 degree heat and told to wait until... (you're forgotten about!) If I had time I'd say something about that, with all due disrespect to our Elected fascist leaders!

Garden State.... a shiny happy post

Last week I defied my ethical position on air travel and somewhat bleak economic position. I boarded a plane and deserted my crumbling husk of a failed and miserable excuse for a life, I defected to Melbourne for a few days to visit family and spend some time with my Dad on his 70th birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD and MUM! (I missed my mum's birthday so I felt much better having seen them both.

I had intended to take a bike on the plane but didn't want to spend a cent on luggage so settled for a car ride from the airport. It was 3 decrees C when I landed. Chilly but lovely! Back in Melbourne again! The traffic the people the dry barren fields water restrictions etc... I have to admit I haven't kept track of the weather down there. Apparently they've had heaps of rain. The fields were all green and lush!  Actually greener than anything I can remember! 

When we got home to my parents house, I was blown away by all the flowers! The whole yard was in bloom it was beautiful! The old granny flat my brother had lived in was gone there is now a great big space in the yard for growing food. My brother has finally moved out into supported accommodation (and loving it!) One of his house mates, David, loves those old beach huts you see down at Brighton. He creates art out of every kind of material you can imaging, I thought his work was excellent so I was wrapped when he sent this wonderful piece home for me.

Art by David W. All rights reserved!

I wondered down and kicked the dirt around the back yard. It was thick and dark! Unbelievable! Stuff just grows in it! Anything you can think of! Oh I miss soil so much! Deep rich black soil! You can push a shovel into it and it will just sink down deep into the wholesome earth! When they first moved in it was mostly clay but they built it up. Of course we can build our soil up here in Darwin too but it'll be bloody gone by the end of the wet season!

Back when I was a kid we grew everything. Corn, tomatoes, mint. If we didn't pick the zukini quick enough it would grow to massive proportions! Tamarillos (nobody even knew what they were back then!), Feijoas (what the hell are they? Right?) Pumpkins, peas and beans! Oh yeh and the sacred lemon tree! The obligatory piss stop for little boys. I remember the neighbors had one and they used to piss on theirs too... there were four males in that family... they had plenty of good lemons! The old veggie garden gradually disappeared as the years went by. Mum and Dad always had something edible growing in the yard but it became only a token. Although the lemons trees seemed to produce a prolific amount of fruit.

 I am so glad the yard is now changing back into a productive food garden!  Check it out!

They've put in these wicking garden beds and are already growing some rhubarb. I wish I could have stayed longer to help them set it all up. I dug a couple of holes and we planted an Apricot and a Granny Smith apple both just reviving out of their winter torpor. 

It was great to get back down there again.I didn't do too much riding but did make a couple of trips along the plenty river. As I rode to Greensborough via Partingtons Flats I tool the long way past the old Diamond Valley swimming pool. (A deep pool at a bend in the river Not many people have any idea it even existed) There was a Chineese guy down there fishing. He'd actually caught one! I thought the river was dead but apparently they're discovering platypus along the Yarra and its tributaries. That is such great news. Life persists despite the odds!

Peace!

Wednesdays

Wednesdays. We spend Wednesdays in the garden.
The weather is getting hot.
Sometimes we are drenched in sweat before we even get there; but, we go!
We like to feed the horses and look at the cattle along the way, sometimes there are calves,
As we ride along the river there are magpie geese, and egrets, sometimes whistling ducks.
Today it was hot! I felt tired, things felt wrong... I wanted to leave but persisted.
We have friends at the garden and it feels bad to desert them but the energy felt wrong and my heart said no,
It's like getting out of bed on the wrong side or wearing your clothes inside out...
We stayed. I felt like the sun had already drained me. There were feelings of anxiety and uneasiness around.
We stayed... but our hearts weren't in it! I was covered in ants, they bit, I welted! I became dehydrated, the kids dropped their tadpoles on the dry earth and everything began to feel really crappy.
We struggled to move heavy things, we dug holes and chipped away at claystone, shards of coffee rock sprayed our faces as the mattock forced it from the ground, sweat dripped, vision blurred, head thumping... drink as much as you can! The pond wouldn't fit no matter how hard I bashed the rock. Somebody said it's facing the wrong way... OK, no problem how would you like it? (I could shove it sideways for you if I had the energy!... I didn't have the energy!) Big f-----g Deal I thought, what's next?

Then someone stood on a piece of tin that had been hiding a baby blue-tongued lizard and I knew the day was lost! Poor thing had a broken back and we tried to carry on as though it was OK.
It wasn't OK.The lizard was badly hurt and will die. I said kill it, somebody said no... What can you do? The lizard will die, we all die! We shouldn't have killed the lizard, we should have been listening... We weren't.

My mate Dan got some new teeth. Teeth are important, it's good to have teeth. They can chomp food and also make you look better when you smile, people stare when you have a gaping hole where teeth should be... I know because I do... I stare.
Some of my teeth are gone. I won't get them back? What does it mean to loose teeth? Death. That's all. It's only a sign that we are dying. We're all dying so what's the big deal? I'm glad I won't have a head full of perfectly good teeth when I die. What would they be good for? Some people pay big money to have their teeth straightened. Just to look good! True! Why leave this place without a few dents and scratches? Surely we need something to carry with us into old age. To show the senile and forgetful that we lived! Something cool to show the kiddies. What about the stories? I wonder what the tooth fairy would pay me for that chunk that fell out the other day? 
Some days you've just got to find a place in the shade, sit down and find let the spirit rest, listen. Dadirri!

Down in Melbourne they buried a family friend. It's OK to mourn! Sometimes it's all we really should be doing! 100s went to his funeral and celebrated his life.

Now I'm home, cooled off and relaxed, sunburned neck and nose. Enjoying a cool glass of water. Water is precious, lovely and sweet.

A life choice dilemma

Finally I've arrived home after having spent about 4 and a half hours sitting on the locally manufactured bricks at Maningrida airport terminal. Although I am impressed that they make their own... I am not so satisfied with them as a day bed!

(Maningrida Bricks, Glad I didn't have to sleep on them!)

I've just spent a day at Elcho Island, where I had to go as part of my work. It kills me to think that I'm flying all that way just for one day! I'm trying to live simply and in the process reduce my carbon emissions, I ride my bicycle everywhere around town yet here I am jumping on a damned plane and flying across the country like some kind of jet-setting wanker executive! Or actually a lot more like the hundreds, possibly thousands of contract laborers, (and qualified tradesmen of course) who fly in and fly out of remote communities every week! It sucks and it kind of makes me sick to think about how ridiculous the situation is! Don't get me wrong, I do like flying and I really like visiting the people and staying in Arnhem land Communities but it's just not sustainable and besides my job simply isn't so important that it should require me to travel like this... yet here I go again! Anyway, I was on my way home this morning when the plane had technical difficulties and we had to wait for someone to come from Darwin to fix it. four hours later and we're wondering if we'll ever leave.
If the aroma of burning av gass and the sound of screaming engines turned me on then today would have been a real treat! Unfortunately I was kind of keen to get back to Darwin to see my wife and kids and to throw myself into sweat labor down at the Mulch Pit! It was possibly some kind of a blessing that I shouldn't complain about but I did have other plans and wasn't feeling terribly philosophical about the delay... at first.


Having recently read 'Radical Simplicity: small footprints on a finite Earth', by Jim Merkel (who happens to be an ex military weapons developer and trader) I am well aware that this trip alone has completely engulfed any fuel I would have used driving to work throughout the year...
The book is interesting but Jim lost me with all the calculations! Even if I was into maths I don't think I'd ever enjoy scrutinizing my consumption to the extent that he advocates. It just isn't fun! Anyway since I've read the book and now have a hundred formulas for finding out exactly how many planets it would take to sustain my consumption of resources. I am seriously reconsidering what I do for a living and how I can find a more acceptable way to put bread on the table.

There are several positive aspects to my work, which I shouldn't take for granted. I come in contact with some amazing and inspiring people.I have learned so much from them that I always balk at the decision to leave. It's a very peculiar problem... to leave would feel like deserting my family... actually because of the Yolngu system of adoption and Malk it would be exactly like deserting my family... and that is the biggest dilemma! So I guess I'll stick with it for a while.


(A very healthy cashew, hidden in a jungle)

The thing that has really been firing me up lately is my interest in learning more about growing food. How shared gardens can actually build resilient and caring communities! It might sound a bit mooshy but this is something that energizes me! Nightcliff Uniting Church has recently taken the extraordinary step of  employing a Permaculturist to coordinate activities at The Mulch Pit! I think that's an amazing and thing to do! A community that runs on the smell of an oily rag has deemed it's appropriate to employ someone to develop their permaculture garden! That's awesome!
I recently spent some time with Dan, and was instantly infected with his love for plants, soil and everything that lives in a permaculture system! I've always been interested and my minor involvement down at the The Patch gave me a sense of why I think it's such a special thing to do but now that I've been talking to Dan at the Mulch Pit, and having just spent 4 hours reading our mate Robbie Lloyd's book 'Going Walkabout through the Suburbs' (about creating inclusive societies) I'm thinking that now is the time for me to start studying permaculture.


(Timothy with his banana and sugar cane plantation)


Meanwhile back on Elcho this morning I was fortunate to spend time with the Community Minister, Timothy Buthimang, my Mari. Timothy is a devoted gardener and a Uniting Church 'Community Minister', although he can illustrate many things through the metaphor of gardening, he is a man of action and wisdom... a Worrier of the Spirit who is a living demonstration of the power of wuburr (sweat) to overcome adversity! His lessons provide real fruit! Timothy has maintained a garden of some description for many years. Recently Buthimang's farm/plantation was burned by a wildfire, but he showed me this morning that he has reclaimed the garden from the ashes and now has some very healthy banana and sugar cane growing in the ground. He has pots full of Pawpaw seedlings and various melon varieties as well. Having spent time with Timothy, I know what I need to be doing.

So here's to gardening tomorrow!

Gardening for broke!

Demise of a green space
The little front yard garden took a pounding this year!
Having lost two wet season crops in a row this season I discovered the most sinister of causes... The gardeners contracted by our body corporate had poisoned all my lemon grass, basil and snake beans! I caught the guy actually applying the poison while I was off work one day and couldn't believe my eyes!

Over the past couple of years I'd had pretty decent crops of snake beans which were providing our family with some pretty regular snack food and great shade for the north facing window! Our kids had become accustomed to picking beans and basil straight from the plant and eating it on the spot. It was great to see them discerning the ripeness of beans and determining which should be eaten green or which should be saved for seed. All that had to stop when I found the gardener spraying our beans with Roundup! I was really pissed off to find these guys knowingly putting poison on plants that were obviously food, but it was devastating to know that it was my kids who could be poisoned!


Disheartened I watched our beautiful food producing plants shrivel and die within hours of being sprayed? I recalled a previous time when I'd been away for a couple of days and returned to find my healthy garden looking like it had just been napalmed! At the time I'd convinced myself it must have been a soil borne disease. At least the PawPaw in the backyard was spared!

I don't grow enough in the garden to feed the family but it is nice to have a little home grown tucker if only to remind the kids where food actually comes from... Of course we don't go hunting the tree monitors, fruit bats or frogs we find in the back yard, but a few vegetables makes a good start for becoming intimate with your food. We generally leave the wildlife to go about it's business relatively unmolested.

Food production continues
Last year during the build-up, my kids got hold of the Roselle seeds I'd been saving for some time when they should be planted (I wasn't actually sure when that should be). It was November and they'd left them soaking in the tadpole water for a couple of days. Then when the bucket was full of wrigglers (mosquito larvae) they tipped the whole lot out on a bare patch of dirt where the trampoline used to be....! What do you suppose happened?

Yep it was just the right time and conditions for planting Roselle seeds! So some time in December I noticed the sprouts and before we knew it there was a beautiful thick clump of Hibiscus sabdariffa growing in the back yard. COOL!


(Young Hibiscus sabdariffa)

So weeks rolled by and we watched the plants grow and eventually the flowers came. Beautiful! (Don't worry this story doesn't end in herbicide!)


(Budding flower)


(Yellow flower as seen early in the morning, they turn pink before falling off in the evening)

There were heaps of flowers each living for barely a day before they would fall to the ground leaving a small red calyx... as more flowers bloomed the calyxes (the Roselles) grew bigger with the ripening fruit inside...


(Bushes in full flower displaying some maturing calyx and fruit)


(Maturing calyx and fruit)

As the bushes were looking quite laden with heavy fruit and brilliant red calyxes we took off to Mataranka for a long weekend. Having just celebrated a birthday party and spent the remainder of our money on the trip away we returned with a budget deficit but discovered that the Roselle bushes had blown over in the wind due to the weight of all that fruit!


(Laden bush fallen in the wind)

Well what great timing! with little food left in the cupboard what better time to pick forage in the yard! The boy and I munched on the leaves as we picked a bucket full of crimson treasure from the back yard then I sat with our eldest and separated fruit from calyx preparing for the boiling of the Jam (luckily there was sugar an apple and half a lemon just waiting to go in the pot)! Our home has become an Idlers paradise! No more trecking miles away from home, through 7 ft high grass to raid spindly ant covered bushes! We can just go and pick the fruit right in our own back yard!

Looking back in the cupboard the next day my darling wife discovered some wholemeal flower and when I got home from work we delighted in our hand made fresh bread and spiky jam! Sometimes the very best of life seems to appear just when you think the cupboard is bare!


(The fruits of our harvest)

Thanks to the natural habit of our kids we now know the right time and conditions for planting Roselles!

Wabi-sabi!

Simplify

Right now here in Darwin we are experiencing the eye of category 1 Cyclone Carlos. Prior to the development of the tropical low and the accompanying 'very' wet (Over 400mm in 24 hours) weather I was busy getting on with simplifying my life and leaving the blogging world behind me. Just give it up, cold turkey like a bad habit or addiction... (I'm sure Thoreau wouldn't have spent his days blogging...! He'd probably have some great derogatory description for those who waste their time on such egocentric nonsense)

Instead of blogging mindless 'twitter' I have been reading 'Walden' by Henry David Thoreau and spending my days exploring, walking, paddling, planting etc... and loving it! But now I'm housebound, taking shelter from Carlos, the Wind and the Rain,and I'm too close to the computer to resist.

Here's some things I've seen over the past month or so.


(A great train headed south)


(A walk through the mangroves amongst the Mud-skippers)


(A mossy wonderland)


(Wild Ginger on a hillside in Litchfield National Park)


(Giant Myrtle Beach trees in a sacred gully in the Otways)


(Paddling a swollen river in Geelong)


(A living sculpture of plants and food in Collingwood)


(A magical era of bicycle innovation and invention)

Over the past month I have enjoyed some really wonderful experiences. I have shared most of these with the ones I love and we have felt blessed to live in a place that has so much natural beauty and to have the right to travel freely to almost any place we like in this country. 

I have also seen the continued trauma and pain suffered by Asylum Seekers and the lack of compassion shown by our Governments, media and many members of our society toward these vulnerable people. 

I have seen the continuation of racist policies and sanctioned discrimination against Indigenous people in the Northern Territory and I have seen the destruction and defilement of places that are incredibly dear to me.

It's a busy time in this life and everything seems to be moving way too fast. I resolved at the end of last year to make better use of my time and not bother too much with useless things. The more practical the better and there's no point to prattling on about it. I may find that while tapping away on this keyboard I have missed a perfect opportunity to learn to knit, sharpen a tool, identify a plant, skin a rabbit or grow a bean! Right now I could be writing a letter to a certain Shire Council challenging them on their decision to allow developers to channel their stinking festering drain pipes from their environmentally disastrous housing estate straight into the Plenty River that I love!
Maybe if I'd had just one spare day I could have spent it collecting all the shit that has washed through those drains and dumped it in the nearest showroom of that housing estate? Now that would have been time well spent!


(The destruction of the fields where I used to roam)

I took my boy out to the fields so he could experience the fresh air, the smell of the grass and to feel the dry bark and clay under his feet just as I did when I was his age! Alas I was too late! They have taken it all away!

Planting

Apparently Darwin has seen it's highest November rainfall in 15 years!
Everything has turned green again and life is sprouting from every nook and cranny.


(Raised garden beds at a local school)


(Cantaloupe growing in a raised bed at local school)

I thought I'd end the month with some pictures of the green that is all around us now as we enjoy some lovely coolish days, amazing thunder heads, dark ominous skies proceeded by a rush of cool air and fairly regular thunder storms. (Power outages and blackouts too)
The gardens are enjoying a hefty splash of rain!


(New council planting along Mc Millans Service Rd)

There have been a series of community tree plantings over the past couple of weeks and more that I know of which have been planned for this coming weekend. Now must be the right time to plant wet season crops, but what's really great is that there are heaps of trees being put in the ground. Down at the Mulch Pit the holes have already been dug (with that cool hole digger tool) and a variety of fruit trees are waiting to be stuck in the ground. I've also heard that some friends of Rapid Creek are planning some re-vegetation work that will include tree planting.

The most surprising thing is that it looks like the council has gone bananas planting trees along McMillans Rd! (Or maybe it was the State Government's department of Roads Planning and Infrastructure)
I'd been cursing them all dry season for being heavy handed with their pruning and tree removal but now I am very pleased to see that they have planted heaps of trees. Some of them exotic but I have noticed quite a few Milkwoods going in which is great to see.

The frogs love this unusually wet weather! They seem to have been much more vocal this year than I have ever heard them... well at this time of year anyway! This afternoon we discovered frogs eggs in a bucket full of rainwater at our back door. The kids are so excited.

Life seems full of new beginnings at the moment.

Tool of the week

I know I already posted this morning but I'm a bit high on caffeine and that poison shit they put in soft drink to replace sugar...

OK so here we go again... No I don't write reviews on tools generally... But I had some fun with this one today and thought I'd post a picture of it. (I'll try to make this quick because I'm really tired!)


(Introducing The Post Hole Digger 9/10)

It's a 'Post Hole Digger', I got a bit carried away with this thing this morning. I've never used one before and I imagined it would be really hard work to try and gouge out earth by cutting it in a circular motion... I was wrong!
I thought the ground I used it on would be pretty hard, it generally is, but we've had a fair bit of rain lately. Once I got through the grass and the organic layer the thing just wanted to carve it's way straight through to China! (Or maybe Great Brittan or wherever is directly opposite us on the globe) It was awesome!

The holes are for some trees we'll be planting at the Mulch Pit. (The Mulch Pit is a kind of community garden I sometimes help out at, I can't recall if I've posted about it before, you can check the links if you're interested Here )


(Mangos, late in the season)


(Grasshopper)

Although production is not really high, it's still nice to wander around and see what's living in the garden.

The Pit started about a year or so ago when a bunch of people from a Church in Nightcliff decided they'd like to convert a barren piece of rock and dirt into a garden that can be utilized by the community. Most of us are novices at the gardening business and we're all kind of learning as we go. I don't do much gardening there because I usually have my hands full with other things but I try to help out when I can... Especially when there's something fun to play with.

I was asked to dig the holes about a foot deep but couldn't help digging at least two feet deep in some of the holes! I wish I'd taken some photos of the holes I'd dug... You'd probably find steam rising from the earth's core!

- Tool rating for manual orbital post hole digger: 9 out of 10.

It would have been 10 but I got a small blister in webbing of my thumb. I don't like blisters.

(Making furniture)


(Garden seat... complete)

At the Pit this morning Russel made some awesome garden chairs out of scrap wood,

We discovered that one of the chickens is actually a rooster!

(Rooster)