(tales from the birdgirl)
As I mentioned in my previous post,
there is something about the colour of the sea in summer.
The quality of blue is different from other times of the year.
It’s silky blue.
Pearly blue.
The truest kind of blue.
Blue sky.
Blue sea.
Bluer than blue.
A celebration of blue.
The bush is in the throes of mid-summer right now.
It’s dry and brown.
It’s a tangle of trunks and branches —
and grasses —
and twigs and leaves.
But the mistletoe in the trees …
… is in flower:
And one or two bushes are heavy with creamy blossom.
Insects tick.
Shrike thrushes sing.
Whistlers call.
Black cockatoos swoop and shriek.
Kookaburras laugh.
Summer slumbers on.
Native plants and vegetation are my passion.
(We all know that.)
So you won’t be surprised when I say I haven’t always been the hugest fan of roses.
They’re not native to Australia.
Sometimes they seem overblown to me, and showy — blowsy, even.
But once a year, the rose bushes outside a library I visit frequently put on quite a show.
Somehow, these roses please even my curmudgeonly spirit.
They are, simply, quite lovely.
They bring joy, not just into my day …
but into my very soul.
I think I’m slowly joining the rose-lover’s world …
In late October, I went for another bushwalk.
In blossom were fan flowers:
muntries:
and those papery, daisy-like flowers, the common everlastings:
I encountered other inhabitants of the area, too —
many of them.
It was mid-morning — grazing time, I think, before the sun gets too hot.
I don’t like disturbing roos:
when threatened, they can be aggressive, especially if they are guarding joeys.
And besides, I’m aware that I’m on their territory, not vice versa.
So I stepped away and left them happily to it …
… Do you think it’s comfortable in that pouch?
It doesn’t look it to me!
On one of my favourite bike rides,
I pass an empty field outside a GP clinic.
Most of the year, it’s just a bare field with long, uncut grass.
But in spring, it changes.
Such deceptive beauty!
These flowers, heralding from South Africa,
are considered weeds here.
They’ve spread far and wide, pushing out our own native flowers.
It’s hard not to admire them, though —
their abandoned spread;
their cheerful, bright colours …
… and their faces uplifted to the sun.
I took a walk through the bush again in late September.
Skinks rustled through the undergrowth.
Whistlers burbled; shrike thrushes sang; blue fairy-wrens and fantails darted about.
And there were wild flowers everywhere, including common fringe-myrtles;
paper flowers;
smooth rice-flowers;
and grevilleas.
Every month brings a new season in the bush.
Every month brings a new, different kind of joy.
My garden originally had several patches of arum lilies.
Also called calla lilies, these flowers are sometimes thought to symbolise death. They’re considered a toxic weed in South Australia, so I ended up reducing my lilies to one small, protected patch.
They spring up during the mid-winter rains, when the grass is long and wet and green, and the soil damp and crumbly — reminding me not of death, but of life.
Of growth.
Of abundance.
I’m happy to let them grow in that small patch, ready for picking and putting in a vase — tall, elegant and lush.
One of my favourite native plants is the grasstree.
In the last few weeks, walking through the bush,
I’ve glimpsed grasstrees at all stages of their life cycle.
Some were growing and establishing themselves:
Some were flowering:
And some were dying and decaying:
At each stage of their life
grasstrees seem to me unique, strange, prehistoric …
and beautiful.
It’s that time of year again … at last.
twenty-one words 