Ausgarden: Australia's Gardening Community

Living Simply and Laughing...

Maybe this could be called a blog of sorts and it will possibly have other members of this forum telling us a bit about how they live, their gardens and making us get to know each other better? Or maybe not, but as the spirit moves each individual. Living simply - as I'm cutting Tagasaste for the sheep I think about this. Years ago people would call this lifestyle farming, hobby farming, and I would laugh as they spoke in that way and I considered that we are here and had to be on our toes almost 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But we take time away, often a bus-mans holiday, but that's enjoyable as well. How often did I hear one of our poultry squawk in the middle of a cold night and race out of bed with nothing on but my hat and boots, up the hill to where I knew some of the birds roosted, precariously as it turned out, proving my assumption. The fox had got away with the bird and the dogs couldn't overtake him, but then I had suspected something like this when I had seen the birds begin taking up residence in those trees. There is something about living like this that makes us allow others to make mistakes as we do ourselves. Then there are the wet days [what are wet days?] in the years that promised a bit more follow up rain, I would get out into the weather with an old oil skin coat and spread pasture seed by hand. Walking the hills and finally coming back in with gumboots full of water, and thinking what a great job I had done, but with mixed results. But these are hardly worth mentioning, because we are accustomed to this, carting our own water and being responsible how we ration it, the largess from the sky being unpredictable and unreliable. The universe testing us out, and hopefully not too often finding us wanting. I have been using this best of all tree loppers that I have ever seen in my life and they work a treat. They cost quite a bit of money and using them every day for two years sometimes for as long as 3 hours a day, has not so far as I can tell, allowed them to wear in such a way that any replacement parts are required. These like these that we need to live and we rely on on those rely on who rely on us, we appreciate when they are of good quality and work well. The things that are important being the things to rely upon, the things that our hand can fall upon and start to do what must be done. But we are only too aware that nothing will break down before we start using it, because most tools don't break as they are put away, but rather when there is a need for them and are picked up again, then they break, and if they do another way of accomplishing the task has to be found. It's true we live close to nature, rely on the chatter of birds to know a snake is where they are angrily scolding it for being there, a warning for us so that we can keep our dogs out of the road. We are mindful of the snake and all who were here before us, and whose lineage goes far back into the mists of time, and try to be humble in their presence. There are many of these things we no longer think about but are just part of the routine of life. The life we live is not better, neither is it worse, but it's the life we have chosen, and as the days go by I will attempt to tell a bit about it. This will help me to get it clear in my mind, as well. Will see how this blog software works.

We have found the blue things.

We have found the blue things; by accident certainly, while doing a bit of fencing. They were all there the blue ribbons from the door streamers, the blue pen tops, the blue orange juice bottle top, the blue ear tag from one of our stud sheep. Some of these things we had left for the bower bird to find and he did just that. We have had the Satin Bower Bird build a bower close to the cottage in other years and watched the females come to his courting couch. These birds are pillagers of the fruit from the apple trees and are capable because of their numbers, of consuming a huge amount of apples over the period of a day. What is really interesting is that they also like various other foods that we grow. Carrots are an example. We have left these orange roots with their long feather like greens in the ground over winter to save storage, then gone into the vegetable garden one afternoon to pull some for tea and found only holes in the ground. In these holes about 20mm from the surface were orange circles. The birds had eaten the carrots into the ground and it left an interesting effect. Like every living thing, bower birds are beautiful creatures, but they are a caution, and having them around means some kind of forfeit has to be paid.