I always thought that described Melbourne... but it turns out Tasmania is just as guilty. Since my spontaneous weeding session the other day the weather has been unpredictable. But perhaps that's unfair. Its been predictably unpredictable. The kind of weather you can't make any plans in. The sun comes out and you think 'What a wonderful day' and you go outside and start working, then go running inside when it suddenly buckets down. When you've lit the fire cause its cold, the sun comes out again and you have to open the doors to let some cool air in. So you think, 'What the heck, go outside and do more work', only to get soaked to the skin cause it started to rain when you were at the other end of the paddock.
Friday was gorgeous. I took Montana and Romeo for a play date at the park with Harvey and his friends. The weather was perfect.
Afterwards I groomed Moghli (the bouvier) and his mom gave me some forget me nots. They've gone feral all over their garden and they look so nice. I could do with some feral blue flowers in our yard. So I dug out a few clumps and brought them home thinking I'll keep them in pots till I'm ready to put them in the ground.
I was thinking of putting them in the embankment area of our yard, but in order to do that I'd either have to dig out weeds for days, or I'd have to spray them and wait till they die, THEN dig them out... ie: a long time in pots for the FMNs!
The embankment and the weeds.
Wayne just shook his head when he saw me unloading plants from the car. He asked what I plan to do with them. I said I planned to put them in the ground and watch them die as I seem to do with everything. He suggested I should shortcut the process and just get dead plants, thus saving time.
Anyway, yesterday between drenchings and gale force winds, I had a look around the yard and my eyes fell upon the overgrown bushes in a garden bed at the corner of the house. Someone said I should prune them back so I got out those big scissor type things (I'm a real gardener!) and attacked them. I managed to get them into a tidy round shape, exposing areas of garden bed just begging for flowers. I had to dig up the dirt to soften it, removed a gazillion rocks, but eventually (and only slightly wet) I managed to put in some FMNs and a few packets of flower seeds.
Sure, the packets said 'plant seeds 6-8in apart' but seriously... have you ever seen the size of some of those seeds? They make lice look big! And it was windy. I considered myself lucky when I managed to sprinkle the seeds in little trenches!
So now its up to nature... I sow the seeds, nature grows the seeds... does anyone remember Neil from the Young Ones?
- NEIL: [picks up a large bag of seed packets] OK, I've plowed this bit, right. And now I'm going to sow it. [throws packets of seed down] This self-sufficiency thing really is amazing. We sow the seed, right. Nature grows the seed, and then, we eat the seed. And then, after that, we sow the seed, nature grows the seed, and then, we eat the seed. And then, after that again, we sow the seed, nature grows the seed....
First thing I did was clean it and get all the old chicken poop out of it. I then sanded it back and painted it cream. I rubbed burnt umber paint into the cracks and scratches. Then I lined the back of the inside with pages ripped out of old dog magazines. Last I screwed castor wheels to the bottom so it can be moved to wherever its needed easily.
And before I finish this entry, we had some visitors yesterday morning. I looked outside the window and saw 2 plovers with 3 babies on our lawn!
I can't leave well enough alone so I went out there trying to move them along, get them outside the yard where the dogs could get them. Instead all I managed to do was scare off the parents and send the babies into hiding. We had to find the babies and move them out into the paddock. I sure they were alright. The parents were screeching for a while but eventually it was quiet and they were gone so I'm thinking they took their babies away.
I am not good for plovers.
On the way home this afternoon I was looking at some plovers on the side of the road and didn't notice another one in the middle of the road. By the time I saw it I'd run clean over it. I was so upset. That poor bird was only protecting its babies and I flattened it.
I really hate killing animals, even if I don't mean to. I tell myself that if I didn't get it another car would have, playing chicken with cars leads to many plovers' deaths... it still doesn't make me feel any better.
Since I don't want to end this on such a sad note, here is a photo of one of our beautiful roosters.
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