Thursday, February 4, 2010

When the wind blows

The electricity supply can be... touchy shall we say. OK, today it has been mostly below gale force, but close, A nasty hot north east wind that gusts and rushes and wuthers, and does its evil best to unscrew my beetroot seedlings from the ground. It's days like today that make Flinders such a wonderful place for bird-watching. See... the birdies can't FLY without a risk of touring Antarctica, and so all the twitcher has to do get really close is crawl around on hands and knees on the forest floor - because even trees might end up in Antarctica (There is apparently a lot of coal in in Antarctica. Geologists claim it's from when the world was warmer, and Antarctica was further north (I asked if it only came north in winter and had my geologist son roll his eyes), but _I_ suspect it's whole forests from Tassie that blew there. They should search for frozen birdies to see if I am right. In the meanwhile those birdwatchers who like to get really close only need to work on being able to crawl faster than birds can run.
Speaking of birds and vegetables and geologist-type sons, there is a brown thrushy thing (yet to find out its name - give me a few more months - we'll call it Henry for now. The superb fairy wrens are called Tink and Wendy) that has formed an unholy alliance with my son. The Campaign for the Eradication, Demolition and Destruction of Yuck (AKA red lettuce) (CEDDY) has a new and powerful friend in Henry birds. I actually think it is Henry-birds love of red lettuce that makes them rip the leaves to shreds and actually pull seedlings out, but whether it is love or CEDDY they're a menace. My other great gardening decision is that leeks are just too confusing to plant here. The principal weed I am dealing with is a thin grass which looks exactly like a little leek
- only the little leeks are much much easier to pull out.
Two different people have given us Zucchini (Pura and Inge) which I appreciate right now very much. To think I would miss the abundant supply of Finnegan's Wake (53 new ways to cook/disguise zucchini by Dave Freer). My next book will probably be 53 new ways to cook Henry.

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