long-toothed hinterland dweller

Taking a break

For anyone wondering about the silence - I am away on holidays for the next couple of weeks.  I'll be in New Zealand where there is a smallish but important branch of the family tree.

I expect that I will miss you more than you will miss me.  I thought of taking my notebook along - so I could at least keep up with my favourite bloggers - but I was given good advice to leave it behind.

I won't know what to do with myself at that time of night when I am usually navigating my way around the the blogosphere by the light of the midnight oil.   But I have a couple of good books, so the edification process will continue.

It has rained for the past two days so it's no longer such a worry that some of my favourite plants might die of dehydration while I'm not around.  And I'm glad I chose such a low-maintenance cat, as he too will be fine without me.

Off with a book

I've been away from this for a while - just going through a phase when I've felt more like reading than writing.  Something always has to give when I get into reading mode, and this time it's been blogging.

I used to be an avid reader and was forever worried about neglecting other priorities whilst in the grip of a good book.  Finally, about 30 years ago, I came to the conclusion that if I were to forgo reading all fiction, and keep only to newspapers, periodicals and reference works, I could get my life back into balance.  So that is what I did.  With 2 or 3 notable exceptions, I haven't read a novel since the 1970s.  Biographies, travellers' tales, 'how to' books, essays and treatises on anything and everything - these are my fare.  I am still a big reader, and I can't say I've achieved the ultimate of a balanced life, but I no longer feel pressured to keep up with a favourite author, or to rush out for the latest best seller.

Ronni of TIME GOES BY commented in a recent post on the fact that books have continued to hold their own despite the growing contribution that the electronic word has been making to reading material.   It made me wonder.  I know how long I spend each day reading text from a screen - far too long!  So which of my other activities have been curtailed to gain the luxury of sitting for prolonged periods in front of a computer?

A factor for me was that I retired from full-time work around five years ago - at about the same time that the internet started to become a prolific and reliable source of information.  Retirement was initially a source of many upheavals  - moving house, taking on a larger garden, tacking renovations, indulging in some long-anticipated travel, and taking on other recreational and volunteer activities.  But immediately some of my new-found leisure time could devoted to this exciting new interest of electronic browsing and communicating.

Eventually, when the internet began to make serious inroads into my time, there had to be some compromises and bit by bit there was a shifting in priorities.  One change was that I began to watch television less - and that included hired movies.  The same went for the cinema - although I continued to conscientiously check out all the reviews and listen to my friends' recommendations, I became more selective about what I chose to see.

Other savings on time?  I know I make fewer long telephone calls these days.  E-mail makes contact with family and friends so convenient - especially when one long newsy bulletin can go to multiple addresses.  I also like having a record of what I said and when.

I think I spend roughly the same amount of time reading hard-copy newspapers.  Several come into our house each day, but I always leave reading them for at least a day, by which time I can happily skip the main news items - already gleaned from TV or the radio - and go straight to the pages with the thought provoking articles and the more leisurely subject matter.  Not that this reading takes place at the leisurely pace it warrants: unfortunately I am compulsive about never discarding a paper before I have scanned every page.  (Who knows which tiny paragraph might contain the gem to change my life!)  So speed reading is the only way - usually in a marathon session on the evening that the recycling bin is due to go out. (Student days of pre-exam cramming created excellent skills here.)

What I am certain of though, is that I am spending less time reading actual books.  My main reading time used to be at night on going to bed.  These days I am invariably exhausted from late night blog reading, and once I finally make it to bed, about half a page is my limit - no matter how appealing the book.  And I am far less likely to wake during the night in order to fit in one of those long, delicious, uninterrupted 'bonus' sessions.

I used to often tackle a chapter or two in the mornings upon waking.  These days I tend to go on-line early to scan the e-mail and see what some of the antipodean bloggers had to say while I was asleep.

So I have to say, that whilst books have never lost their wonder and their pleasure, I am not reading as much, and certainly not tackling the huge tomes I did in the past.  I agree that books have an emotional appeal and offer a tangible satisfaction that electronic material doesn't have. 

That is why I will never lose my compulsion for 'window shopping' in bookshops and libraries.

Suddenly summer

Summer has arrived too early this year, before all the spring chores were done - in fact, to be honest, even before my annual Grand List, 'SPRING JOBS', had been drawn up.  This is always subdivided into indoor and outdoor tasks and there is also a third column of things that are to happen off-site - like shopping, visiting or attending appointments.

I'm a great list maker: I knock one out every morning over breakfast - and during the morning ambitiously keep adding items, regardless of whether any of the earlier tasks have been accomplished.  By mid-afternoon, after a dozen diversions, I'm usually so behind and so overwhelmed that I don't refer back to it again - by then what has to done is pretty obvious and the rest can wait until tomorrow.

Sometimes, but not often, I use the previous day's list to help formulate the new one.  Mostly though, I can't even find it - usually it's been a case of it becoming out of sight and therefore out of mind.  Anyway, each new list tends to have a mind of its own, depending on the mood I'm in.  The things I felt urged to achieve yesterday may no longer be on the agenda. 

Every so often I gather up a handful of abandoned lists and retrieve a whole hotch-potch of forgotten intentions.  These I use to make up a Grand List of still important tasks I want to get to in the longer term.  This TO DO list frequently has the status worthy of becoming an electronic document.  My hard drive has a whole folder headed LISTS - with my Birthdays list, Addresses list, Movies to see list, Books to read list, and so on.  The THINGS TO DO WHEN I RETIRE list, begun two years before the event, makes a fascinating read five years down the track.

Permanently on the outdoor side of the list for the next few weeks will be 'mulch'.  Nine of these densely packed bales of sugar-cane tops were delivered this week.  We order in a load every year to spread on the garden to help it through the summer.

These babies are BIG - each roll is as high as my shoulder - and they take a lot of grunt to move around the garden, even before the spreading begins.  It's hot dusty work, whether you use a pitch-fork (him) or gloved hands (me).  Much easier to do on a cool day!

So, away with the blog and on with the slog.  Just need to get today's list together first - and perhaps make a start on the new Grand List.   Too late to bother with SPRING JOBS now, it's time for the THINGS TO DO BEFORE CHRISTMAS list.

Dry as a bone

Yesterday I took a wander along the totally dry bed of the small un-named local creek that borders our land.  It's what they call in these parts a 'summer creek' - in other words, it's always dry excepting during the summer rainy season.

A summer creek is probably more interesting than a permanent one.  Whenever there is a shower, muddy pools quickly appear ... and after a few days of constant rain it becomes deep and fast-flowing overnight.  At these times it is quite a novelty to lie in bed and listen to the water rushing and gurgling by.

But even now, in the dry, the presence of large logs, snags and other debris are an indication of the volume and force of the flow at its peak.  Each year the banks sport a wider variety of exotic plants that are carried down from the back gardens upstream to take root wherever they become caught.

But in this time of drought all is not doom and gloom.  The lettuces and spinach may have shrivelled up and the grass may be crackling underfoot, but some things don't mind it hot and dry.  The wisteria is blooming with gay abandon and just next to it this other wisteria-like vine is also at its peak.  It's Purple Wreath / Queen's Wreath or Sandpaper Vine (Petrea volubilis ), a Central American native that has made itself nicely at home.

The warm weather and the general shortage of water makes backyard pools popular bathing spots for local bird life.   All day they can be seen swooping and splasing, then fluttering off to the fence to shake themselves dry.  All are welcome, apart from the persistent pair of brown wild duck that try to outstay their welcome and would happily take over our pool as their private pond if given half a chance.

More watering today, on our rostered day on - although only one of us was up in time to man the hose before breakfast - but I made up for it later by doing some trips reminiscent of the sorcerer's apprentice, plodding back and forth with buckets to the droopiest looking trees.  Very good for the upper arm muscles they tell me.

First the good news...

Just three weeks ago I wrote this about the tiny fruit forming on our Fingered Citron tree (a.k.a. Buddha's Hand).

And here is the photo I posted.

Because of the size of the tree, it was obvious that only one of these fruits should be retained.

We kept the lower, larger one.

Here it is now ... growing well and almost double the size.

Meanwhile, over in the banana plantation (our modest stand of four plants) the only bunch for this season is filling out too.

Now for the crunch...  although we are still six weeks away from summer, the weather has been excessively warm and there has been no sign of much needed rain. 

These producing plants need WATER and plenty of it.

This week the whole of the S.E. corner of Queensland was placed under Level 2 water restrictions - until further notice - maybe until the end of summer. 

That means no irrigation, no sprays, no sprinklers.  It is permissable to water with a hand-held hose only, on 3 days of each week - but this is also restricted to the hours before 7 a.m. and after 7 p.m.

Wandering about the garden with a hose after dark is to offer oneself as a meal for mosquitoes.  Mornings are more practical, but only so much water can be delivered in an hour.  Buckets and watering-cans are OK at any time.

With 45 fruit trees, a hundred herbs, a big vegie patch and numerous ornamental shrubs and trees, it looks like we might become busier than the proverbial one-armed paper hanger.

Wish it would rain!

The Butterfly Lady

Neither this flower, nor the butterfly resting on it (called I think, a Speckled Wood) has ever been sighted in my garden.  It is unlikely that they ever will.  They are English and I 'borowed' the photo from Linda Walls' Butterfly Garden Journal. 

I have been visiting these pages for a year or so, just to enjoy Linda's glorious photos and to share in the simple pleasure she takes in observing and recording her butterfly visitors.  Linda lives in Gloucestershire and has been building a database and sharing her knowledge of British butterflies with others for many years.

The other special fact about Linda is that for the past 15 months she has been living with the knowledge that she has Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML).  Over that period she has had her ups and downs, but mostly she has been well enough to continue with her journal entries. But this month her blood test results were not good ... and the Butterfly Lady is finding it hard to remain optimistic. 

Perhaps not wanting to detract from the carefree image of the butterflies, Linda has just created a companion blog Life After Leukaemia to document the personal experience of her illness and treatment.  I am sure her other readers, like me, will be checking in regularly at both sites.  Each new butterfly photo will be a victory sign - that Linda is out and about in her garden and enjoying the new season's hatchings.

Stay well, gentle Butterfly Lady.  And each time I see a pair of wings alight upon a bloom, I'll be thinking of you.

Back to basics

Amused by this one, sent to me today:

MAJOR TECHNOLOGICAL BREAKTHROUGH
Introducing the new Bio-Optic Organized Knowledge device, trade named BOOK

BOOK is a revolutionary breakthrough in technology: no wires, no electric circuits, no batteries, nothing to be connected or switched on. It's so easy to use, even a child can operate it. Compact and portable, it can be used anywhere -- even sitting in an armchair by the fire -- yet it is powerful enough to hold as much information as a CD-ROM disc. Here's how it works:

BOOK is constructed of sequentially numbered sheets of paper (recyclable), each capable of holding thousands of bits of information. The pages are locked together with a custom-fit device called a binder which keeps the sheets in their correct sequence. Opaque Paper Technology (OPT) allows manufacturers to use both sides of the sheet, doubling the information density and cutting costs. Experts are divided on the prospects for further increases in information density; for now, BOOKS with more information simply use more pages.

Each sheet is scanned optically, registering information directly into your brain. A flick of the finger takes you to the next sheet. BOOK may be taken up at any time and used merely by opening it.

BOOK never crashes or requires rebooting, though like other display devices it can become unusable if dropped overboard. The "browse" feature allows you to move instantly to any sheet, and move forward or backward as you wish. Many come with an "index" feature, which pin-points the exact location of any selected information for instant retrieval. An optional "BOOKmark" accessory allows you to open BOOK to the exact place you left it in a previous session -- even if the BOOK has been closed. BOOKmarks fit universal design standards; thus, a single BOOKmark can be used in BOOKs by various manufacturers. Conversely, numerous BOOK markers can be used in a single BOOK if the user wants to store numerous views at once. The number is limited only by the number of pages in the BOOK.

You can also make personal notes next to BOOK text entries with an optional programming tool, the Portable Erasable Nib Cryptic Intercommunication Language Stylus (PENCILS).

Portable, durable, and affordable, BOOK is being hailed as a precursor of a new entertainment wave. Also, BOOK's appeal seems so certain that thousands of content creators have committed to the platform and investors are reportedly flocking. Look for a flood of new titles soon.

- Author unknown