July 17, 2016

Down by the creek I hear a noisy flapping in the canopy, a bumbling from tree to tree. A heavy flight, wings beating in a high-pitched whirr, and it lands in a tree near me. I stare up, walk around the tree, finally see a bright little eye staring nervously down at me. I can’t see the pink chest but it must be a wompoo fruit dove, big and plump, shades of green in its head and body, bright golden dots strung across its wing.

Up in the garden there are the winter birds. The white-cheeked honeyeaters fill the stunted gums, dashing, hopping, sprinting – joyous, animated. They cluster in the trees, chasing and swirling. Eastern spinebills feed from the gradually opening flowers of a grevillea, their wings agitating in hover. A yellow robin flies urgently around the deck, crashing into a window, righting itself and fluttering off, a magpie in pursuit, zooming, jet-like, after its prey. The robin veers into the mess of shrubbery – curry plant, lemon verbena – and the magpie continues down the hill, returning moments later, putting on an extra cranky burst of speed in its frustration.

Meanwhile, in the chookyard, the broody hen continues to sit on as many eggs as she can collect. I have to be careful when I lift her off (unexpectedly thin bony body under all those puffed out feathers) to make sure she hasn’t gathered any eggs within her wings. I put her on the ground and she fluffs out, has a wander around the yard, a little drink, a peck of food, then returns to her nest.

9/7/16

There must have been a night of terror last week. We arrived to find feathers all over the yard and two of the chooks – the two Andalusians, Andy and Lucia – missing. On closer inspection, the feathers were black, or grey. Some were fluffy, like down, like feathers that must have been on their bellies. Others were bigger, like quills – they must have been the wing feathers – the feathers that we should have clipped a few weeks ago to keep them in their run.

They discovered that they could fly out of the run about a month ago. First it was just Bub, fluttering heavily up onto the gate, swaying there and waiting for a partner. Once Andy joined her they were away, jumping down into the garden and gradually exploring further and further afield. Bib and Lucia soon joined the escapees, leaving the two old aunties (whose wings were clipped last year, and who have never realised that their wing feathers have regrown) to enjoy the run of the run, just like old times. The wanderers grew bolder, staying out longer, venturing further, until we woke one morning to hear the pleasant sound of smug chooks and saw a little cavalcade of the four of them trotting down the hill to the happy lands of the onion seedlings, just waiting to be scratched up.

But Andy and Lucia – who were always slightly stupider – had trouble getting back into the run, and would scurry up and down the outside of the fence looking for a way in long after Bib and Bub had returned to the fold. Maybe one night they just gave up and settled down somewhere near the house, maybe on the porch. Telltale smears of blood on two of the glass doors conjure tragic images of terrified chooks trying to find safety.

Now Bib has gone broody, sitting in a half-comatose state all day on the two plastic eggs and any other real eggs that she can steal from the nesting boxes, leaving only the canny Bub to come and go as she pleases.

6 May 2016

Two willy wagtails are out on the deck, sitting under the cane chair on its crossbar. Seen up close their black and white colouring is so precise, so sharp and stylish. They are tcchhing at each other, sidling closer then away, facing their plump chests at each other then turning. One jumps down to the ground and starts singing, a clear joyful four-note tune that rises quickly and ends still on a happy note. I have heard that song all my life, in suburban backyards and in the bush, but never known who was singing it.

The bird that has stayed on the crossbar starts pecking at a piece of spidersweb hanging from the chair, pulls it off and drops it to the ground. The singing bird keeps singing and strutting, wagging its tail with that distinctive whole-body wagtail wag, and bowing its head. The bird on the chair adds the occasional tcchh. Then the singing bird flies up into the top corner of the deck, where the roof is thick with spiderswebs, and probably the spiders’ larders. The crossbar bird joins the singing bird up in the corner, where they flutter and fall back, flutter and fall back before they fly away, out into the morning sunshine.

21/4/16

We look back with nostalgia now on the weeks after the young chickens arrived. They were so frightened that they couldn’t walk up the ladder to their house. We had to go up to the pen at dusk every night, pick up the four drowsy chickens nestled together in the long grass, and place them in the house, closing the door on the squawks and bangs as the old chooks showed them to their roosts. Gradually they learned the way up, learning to go to bed before the older ones so they didn’t get pecked, like Ping, as they made their way through the door. Gradually they became a flock of six. The older ones slowly became less aggressive, the younger ones less scared. The younger ones discovered the tree, and pioneered roosting in its branches, impressing the older ones with this daring. We gave them names for the first time, calling the old ones the Aunties and the younger ones Andy and Lucia (the Andalusians) and Bib and Bub (the identical New Hampshires).

As predicted by the chook lady back in December, the two Aunties are now ‘spent’. Or nearly. They rarely lay eggs any more, and the darker Aunty, the one who used to rule the roost, who used to peck kind friends when they looked in to top up the water, is rapidly losing feathers. The base of her neck is bare, and she is hesitant about coming forward when there’s food in the offing. She sits on a branch in the tree, away from the rest of the flock below her. In contrast, her partner in crime, the lighter-coloured Aunty, the one who used to wait behind her boss for the scraps, is now top of the roost. She delivers a sharp peck to the younger ones when they come too close to her favourite foods – the sunflower seeds out of the mixed seed, or the rolled oats – which I am using for handfeeding in an attempt to make them all a little tamer.

But she is mellowing too, and when I leave the pen I look back and see her sharing the water dispenser with Bib (or Bub). Surely she can see the time coming when the younger ones realise that they’re bigger than her? Change is all around. The pen is full of feathers, either from moulting or fighting or both. Bib and Bub have started laying eggs – little pink-brown eggs with freckles, sometimes without their shells – and Andy and Lucia can’t be far behind. This Aunty’s time at the top of the ladder will be brief. Maybe there’s a lesson in this for all of us.

14/1/16
Back at the farm, where a flock of galahs flies overhead, bellies storybook pink. Back from a few days in Sydney, where long grey greasy footpaths string the way beside roads, where a tall man covered in sores wearing a lank dress walks, scattering neatly dressed woman with clutched handbags as they emerge from the Greek centre.

Back at the farm where black sapote flowers have appeared for the first time on our tree, grown from seed – the flowers turning into tiny fruit, little squashed balls with petals that come around and touch at the front like origami gifts.

Where the night smells of lemon verbena and scented geranium, washed into the air by a sudden storm, thunder booming and thin lines of lightning sparking through the sky.

29 December 2015

There’s been a lot of indignation in the chook run. We bought four new little chickens on Sunday, two New Hampshires (chestnut brown, with a few black feathers in the tail) and two Andalusians (one black, one blue ie silvery-grey). They spent the first night in the old chook house – the little, pre-fab cutesy house that’s never been the same since the pig escaped from next door and headed for the chook food. The front door doesn’t really shut properly and the grass has taken over completely since the chooks moved to their new industrial-strength run. Nevertheless, with a bit of urgent weeding and displacing of spiders we made it liveable and the chickens quickly made it their home, snuggling down together in the nesting box in a delightful huddle of chestnut and black feathers.

Yesterday we fenced off a portion of the chook run and put the chickens in, along with their food bowl and water. The two old chooks were horrified. Even, terrified. They cackled loudly, crankily, for the rest of the day. It was the same noise they had made the day there was a brown snake in the run. The noise only stopped when the chickens all nestled together under the pomegranate tree for a siesta and were no longer visible. In the evening we caught the chickens and put them back in the pre-fab house.

This morning we put them in their section of the run again. The cackling started at once, but didn’t persevere for long. The older chooks even allowed themselves a peek at the enemy, and moved around their run more normally rather than running past any area where they could see the upstarts. But when we went to check on progress this afternoon we found the two New Hampshires had made their way into the main run, their quiet cheeping giving away their position. They were tucked into the long grass at one end while the old chooks remained firmly at the other end, with a very determined refusal to look in THAT direction. Later, at dusk, it was again the New Hampshires who appeared, striding across the lawn, having escaped the run but not having any real destination. We put down our dinner and ushered them back through the gate. They were as keen to be reunited with their Andalusian friends as we were.

The two old chooks will, according to the chicken lady, be ‘spent’ by the end of summer. For her this means they’ll be disposed of. For us, I suspect it means that they will no longer reliably lay eggs, but that they’ll fuss around the run until the grim reaper catches up with them, naturally.

20/12/15

When I was a very little girl, one of the jobs I enjoyed doing was helping my mother to hang out the washing. I would hand her the pegs as she put the washing on the line. We had our own measure of the heat of the day. If it was a cool day, two hankies would be pegged together. (It was never cool enough for each hankie to have its own peg.) If it was a warm day, three hankies would be pegged together, and if it was very hot, four. I would ask, ‘Is it a three-hankie day or a four-hankie day?’ as I felt the sun beating down on my hatless head, and my mother would tell me. I would then pick out the right number of hankies, and a peg, and hand it to her. Sometimes, if she wasn’t in a hurry, I would be allowed to pair the socks, and hand them to her with a peg as well.

Today is a four or even five hankie day. I hang out the washing and the line spins around, catching the wind. It will be dry before I get to the bottom of the basket. The thyme plants have shut down for the day, their leaves compressed. The birds have already headed down to the creek after spending the very early morning in the garden, looking for seeds and bathing in the birdbath. The sky is that far-away blue colour.

Even after I’ve come inside, and despite wearing my hat, I can feel the burn of the heat pressing down on the top of my head.

12/12/15

Since we got the bees, our minds have turned to flowers. Not a huge imperative in the garden beforehand, but now an ex-vegetable patch has become a patch of native plants – grevilleas, a low-growing banksia, melaleucas, an eremophila, a midyin berry, all being linked up by a creeping myoporum. They’ve done well, and most of them, even the tiny ones, have flowered. The melaleucas with puffs of lilac and white, the eremophila with a startlingly pink pendulous flower. One of the grevilleas has powered ahead, thickening up quickly and taking a greater share of the garden, threatening to dominate with its thrusting stems covered in fleshy grey-green leaves and spidery red flowers.

This morning a blue-banded bee had found the melaleuca lilac puffs and was unmissable with its distinctive buzz – loud and persistent – around the flowers, darting in impulsively then backing off to hover and buzz. We noticed that the large grevillea was being badly eaten by something. I had thought that the bare tips of the stems were new growth, but in fact the leaves had been munched off. I saw one caterpillar, thin and camouflaged, the same width as the stem, similar yellowy colour, with a slight red stripe along its length. I picked it off and put it on a brick where I squashed it. Then I saw another one, then a much larger one, with its colours more pronounced in side bands of red and greeny-brown. It reared up when I reached down for it, curling back and threatening me with its tiny rounded head, but it too was consigned to the killing brick. Soon the brick was covered in squelch, and I was so inured to the killing that I was just squashing them with my gloves.

When the plant seemed free of its invaders I noticed that a couple had fallen on the ground. Squash. Next to them was a sort of small white leathery sac, like an egg but malleable. I squashed that too – it was clearly associated with the caterpillars – and a green substance oozed out of it. It was the colour of a baby rug, cute and pastel. Then I saw some brown segmented creatures wriggling around the base of the grevillea. Their shells were hard and crunchy, pointed at both ends, and they could have been cocoons except that they were very active. They wriggled menacingly, like extras in Alien, pointing their blind tips at me. They too had pastel-green insides when squashed, the astonishingly benign colour oozing out between the ugly brown segments. You couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried.

I had nearly the whole life cycle in front of me, from eggs in a sac, to needle-thin caterpillars, to large rearing-up caterpillars, to cocooned transition creatures. I was killing them all, knowing nothing of the caterpillar or its butterfly or their place in the ecosystem. All I knew was that they were stripping my grevillea, and I was fighting back.

18 November 2015

If I could, I would paint this scene. I would call it ‘Late afternoon with flying ants’. I would capture the bright late afternoon light on the little eucalypt – fading now, the leaves no longer glowing yellow but reduced to their usual grey-green – and the continuous flow of flying ants from the old tree stump. Each set of wings catches the light as it rises. Collectively they catch the wind, blowing to the north, then to the east. Reminding me ridiculously of a bubble machine, they stream up and out, glinting gold against a background of multiple greens – every green in the Derwent pencil box. The swallows circle them, paragons of control against the wafting mass of ants.

Once the sun is behind the hills, the land slowly darkens and the orchestra of the night commences. Against the violin section of cicadas and frogs, magpies, catbird and whipbird add highlights. The magpies are in the distance, their four-note call rising and falling sweetly. Closer in, the catbird adds a harsh, throaty stream, punctuated by the whip! whhhhip! whipbird. The deep repetitive bass of the wonga pigeon sets a dignified underlying tone. The magpies move further away, the catbird takes a solo. One frog calls, magnified from the drainpipe, chuckchuckchuck. The owlet nightjar starts its trilling, the frog-cicada chorus takes over, louder and louder, rhythmic, unstoppable. Kookaburras make a final call. It’s night-time.

In the dark night (the half-moon already well on its way into the west) the spotted marsh frog sputters out its crk crk crk, the stony creek frog purrs gently behind the house. A green tree frog is plastered to the bedroom door, its white belly flat against the glass, its sucker feet spread. When I turn off the light the bumps of moths and small insects against the door slows down, then stops.

30 October 2015

My gardening technique veers between ‘that should work’ and thorough research. ‘That should work’ has about a 50% success rate. Thorough research probably has a lower rate, because I can never quite find the exact answer to my question, and I end up reverting to ‘that should work’. Take these broad beans. They’ve grown well and we’ve had a decent crop, but now they’ve come to their end. We’ve stripped off the remaining beans and the stalks are wilting. Some are black and rubbery. I remember reading somewhere that you should leave broad bean roots in the ground as they fix nitrogen, so I drag out all our gardening books. Some of them say nothing about broad beans after you’ve harvested, but the rest seem to reach a consensus that you should dig the roots and stalks into the ground. None of them say the thing I remember, about leaving the roots in the ground to rot.

So I go out to the broad bean patch and chop down the stalks, which I then chop into smaller pieces. Some of them don’t chop easily, because the stalks are limp and just bend under the blade instead of cutting. Then I contemplate digging. Do I just dig them in, so that there are long bits of stalk through the soil? Or am I meant to be chopping them into finer pieces as I dig, so they’re integrated into the soil? I try chipping them in with the hoe, but that doesn’t work – same problem with the bendy stalks not wanting to be cut. At least the hoe helps me cover my bets by chopping through some of the roots. I then try digging with the fork, turning the soil over the stalks and roots, but it looks too chunky. Given that the books all recommend following broad bean crops with leafy greens, how are the leafy green seeds – which are tiny – going to manage in ground that is hillocked with partially-chopped broad bean roots and stalks?

I think about the term ‘no dig garden’.

I place a thick layer of mulch over the whole bed and water it in. Maybe the microbes will do the work for me. Maybe I’ll come back to this bed in a week’s time and find a beautifully even bed of tilth in which lettuce seeds will germinate and thrive, sucking up their extra nitrogen and expressing it in gorgeously ruffled fabulously flavoured leaves. That should work.