Earthrise Diary 1208
The Earthrise Diary
Don Diespecker
"I am now 72 years old and have almost completely retired from business. For the first time since my childhood, I feel that I have the leisure to sit back, to reflect and to recall. Even though 72 years is quite a long time, the memories of youth are as fresh and bright as they ever were. Because I had a happy, cheerful childhood it should be easy for me to tell about it and about the world and culture that have disappeared forever.
"The year 1914 and with it, World War I, was the first cataclysm to come down on the civilization into which I was born. The onset of Nazism in Germany swept away what was left. That I was able to save myself and pick up a new life across the sea is a constant source of wonderment and gratitude to me. The events of those days are forever in out blood and bones; they are the constant unseen companions of our feelings and reactions, and they will not go away until they are buried with us."
Joe H Dispeker, ‘The Dispeker's: A Family History,’ unpublished manuscript (1980).
(Summer Solstice December 2008). I begin the December Diary with an excerpt from my cousin’s introduction to his family history. Joe passed away recently, aged 100 years. I sometimes reflect on the notion that when each of us dies we do indeed ‘take with us’ uniquely personal memories, the last images of recent times and of times long past that we’re able to ‘see’ in our minds. If photographs and paintings and perhaps movies or videos survive, others may see something of what we each once saw and heard and even felt.
Sunday Nov 30 ‘08. I’m standing on the river’s side of the belvedere wall. This isn’t exactly the north face of the Eiger but it’s as well that I don’t absentmindedly step back to admire my work and plunge into the weeds and lawn cuttings between the wall and the river and not forgetting the snarling leeches waiting refreshment… My purpose here is to scan at eyelevel the relatively flat tops of stones dressing the inside of the wall (and I’ve been placing barrow-loads of good loam in the area, building it up for a renewed lawn. As I squint and then stare, a medium-sized goanna strolls into the frame from stage right, glances moodily at me clinging to the rock wall and calmly moves across the landscape to exit stage left. Nothing seems to trouble the goannas that share Earthrise.
Dec 9 ’08. Before dawn there was broken cloud and moonlight; by sunrise the clouds began shifting toward the Tasman and when I went for a walk at 07:40: no clouds at all. The air was crystal clear. Such a rhapsodic beginning is the consequence of far too much rain (showers and thundery showers, really). Going for a walk has necessitated taking an umbrella; gardening has had to be done between showers.
Sunday Dec 14 ’08. Sun at last. I walk early and for the first time in days, don’t carry an umbrella. The air is sparkling and clean after days of high humidity and showers (walk outside and stroll about the garden for five minutes and you’re drenched…). Maybe I can resume mowing, transporting soil, levelling, transplanting grass?
I’ve been thoughtfully recovering from strange maladies (hopefully, physiological rather than mental). So this is a fraught time for several reasons and also because the computer has been malfunctioning (you would scarcely believe the dysfunctional computer ‘events’). I remember times when I’d first write every word with a pen of some kind and then risk transcribing the best-looking or most agreeable words onto paper via an Olivetti Lettera 22 (remember them?). Now I’m remembering Pam and I on the Orient Express (!) in the ‘50s en route from Trieste to Ljubljana in what was then Slovenia, the northern part of Jugoslavia (or Yugoslavia, if you prefer) and a uniformed Customs officer sits with us, minutely examining the little typewriter. He even records its production number… He had a streaming cold and sniffed and snuffled. It was a long time ago. Those of us who now use computers surely have this in common: we take a lot of IT technology for granted, so much so that when a computer malfunctions many of us (I for one) have conniptions, turn pale, tremble, and frantically Seek Help? How can we manage without these things? Was there ever a time when we did (yes, there was)? The little Apple iBook at my fingertips is no larger than a book. If the Jugoslav (or Yugoslav) Customs guy 50 years ago had found this little beauty in my rucksack would he have supposed it was a ‘computer’ or possibly a Nazi Enigma machine ex WW 2 or a kind of typewriter used by spies?
When my computer malfunctions it is as if the machine is suddenly overwhelmed by a grossly contagious disease that is instantly infects me. I am now infected and as demented and deranged as the computer. My head spins; cold sweat pours from me. In desperation I telephone my good friend Kerry and although he is wonderfully capable and calm I suspect that the sound of my panic-stricken voice must surely trigger qualms, a clutching of the brow.
Enough. I’m presently sitting in front of a big machine that is generations, or is it light years ahead of the poor little iBook.
The year is ending. I’ll end this edition of the Diaries with one of my stories. And my best wishes for a Merry Christmas, a Peaceful Hanukkah and a Happy New Year to all my readers.
Once upon a time in Mozambique
© Don Diespecker 2008
There he sits: Colonel Gongora Nunes (retd).
He enjoyed sitting happily in his gardens every afternoon, watched lovingly through a window by his Amelie. Not watched all of the time, but some of the time because he so often was her inspiration. One must take it where one finds it. Perhaps it was more than enjoyed, she thought; he adored sitting in the gardens. Must get it right. And she lovingly watched him? Tenderly watched him, possibly? No. Lovingly felt better, was the better word. Accurate must I be. Nunes had become a man of new habits. The dear man was so much more available to her since he’d retired and was at home where she could cheekily call him ‘Nunes’ or ‘Colonel, dear.’ A young fair-haired blue-eyed Australian woman could get away with anything. Mustn’t call him by his given name however; ‘Gongora,’ a burdensome name we both dislike.
And Nunes always delighted sitting in his wonderful garden chair. Anybody could see that. He could use it simply for sitting of course although he used it for much else besides, especially writing. When he had his monocle up he’d be writing carefully, precisely really.
There were those colour-coded notebooks and there were weapons and ammunition in the chair and even food to nibble on in searching moments. When Nunes was in his chair, eyes open or eyes closed, he was working on one thing or another: he never fell asleep in the gardens. She knew, before she verified with the Zeiss monocular, that he was in a romantic mood and working on Gongorism, that ornate euphuistic old style of Spanish poetry that the dear man was named for. The language of his body unfailingly showed his mood. Her spyglass always confirmed the notebook code colour and yes there it was: red. Seen at a distance easily. He even looked deeply into the sky poetically and waved cheering flourishes at the heavens. She quite liked it when he indulged in poetry because he’d be calm and happy when he came in, completed somehow. Intelligence matters, the black book, left him in a mood of contrived cheerfulness. Such sinister matters, so unsettling. Caused him to hunch forward and she imagined him grinding his teeth, the way he sometimes did in bed, as if engaged in a deadly struggle. If he returned to the house smiling she knew he’d been writing in the green notebook. Gardening was the one that he wrote greenly to share with her. Green serenity. And the images of flowers seemed almost to float from the covers when she saw the green notebook. Together they planned bands of colour across the nearby hillsides: each contour created by a single species of coloured flower. There’d be millions of flowers. Soon they’d choose the species and choosing would be like prizes, awarded prizes. Even now she could visualise the coloured hills. Oh how wonderful it would be! Would coloured hillsides be reflected on Delagoa Bay? Would the water be calm enough, at least in places? And from where would it best be viewed? Above, possibly, if that could be imagined, probably only to be seen and fully appreciated by birds! Imagine a coloured hillside reflection shimmering, wavering, primary colours embracing? Was that possible? Surely, if that could be imagined it could be made, constructed, built? Designed first of course. Yes!
Ah! There they were, the four servants with clubs, his bodyguards all. Well concealed in dark green bushes near the circle of jacarandas enclosing Nunes. Advance warning he had. How beautiful was the blue of the late flowering jacarandas and the timely red of the poincianas. Or were all the hues darker there near Nunes? Merely her imagination perhaps was it? Don’t think of his black notebook, not on such a fine summer afternoon, definitely not on her birthday. Black was too bad. Whenever Nunes put on his black uniform, particularly his tunic, and he still did wear it sometimes everybody knew he was dangerous, unswervingly methodical and completely efficient. Black uniform. So unsettling for her and not for him. Presumably. At all other times and now that he wore casual shorts at home he was convincingly relaxed, informal and creative. Un-uniformed. De-uniformed? Retired and mostly out of uniform! That was it. Now life was almost a holiday for Nunes. And he’d be thinking happily in Spanish now, for the poetry. Thinking in English was for the black book, for Intelligence and all those dangerous damned secrets. Re-focus quickly the spyglass. No sign of green today. Clearly the poetry continued. Still code red. Good. Two other notebooks there were, not coloured, but he never said. Portuguese, English, French, Spanish, some Dutch, all fluently he spoke. Remarkable man, remarkable! And I so fortunate! And he wrote and read too. Easy linguistic voyages made depending on mood, choice and task. Such a big man, not looking Portuguese at all and his hair clipped short and that dramatic sabre scar from Academy days. Well before the Secret Police. He so loved sabres, even in retirement; ‘training,’ he called it, but never said what for. Discrete. Dangerous. Always. Thinking in English she was while Nunes thought in Spanish at the same time. She was sure. She might say something about that, lightly of course, just as a comment. Banter really. Quirky otherwise.
He’d never be completely retired. Everybody knew that. Besides, he was still in charge, really. Should she have spoken to him about that? Could she have? No, probably not. Colonel Gongora Nunes (retd), he was and still surrogate or was it proxy Director of the Lourenço Marques Intelligence Department, the Secret Police, and still the power too behind the Chief of Police, and also the Governor of Lourenço Marques and also behind the Governor-General of Mozambique, as well. Still so busy always! And, it should be remembered, the good friend he was too of the British Consul-General who secretly ran the British Lourenço Marques Intelligence Network, and of course Britain remained Portugal’s oldest ally. She wasn’t supposed to know about the Secret Anglo Portuguese Agreement and she was quite certain Nunes was not directing De Geheime Dienst, the South African Republic’s Secret Service, although she wouldn’t be surprised if he were, somehow. Secretly. Wouldn’t that be entertaining? Such a story that would be! Shouldn’t make light of such serious matters. Must be serious about those jobs, offices, tasks, services; now service was precisely the word; Nunes served whatever else it was he did! Served his country, served his people. Dedicated! To be of service and dedicated in desperate dangerous times and surrounded by spies of one kind or another with French and German state of the art guns still being landed at Lourenço Marques and railed across the border into the Transvaal. Contraband. Provocation. Such an open secret and everybody including allies turning a blind eye! The secret life was so…what? Entertaining? Enlivening? Possibly. Clandestine? Marvellous word. Looked it up. And another good one, exciting and mysterious was vespertine: late afternoon or early evening. Vespertine flowers opened in the evening. Ah! Must tell Nunes in case he doesn’t know it. He’d like it, be amused. Won’t mind my saying that. Would write a poem he probably would. Goodness. In English, would he? Dare I suggest?
There he sits. If she looked closely she’d see the butt of the big Mauser pistol partly concealed behind the cushion on his left side. Kept in the left side chair arm otherwise. How many enemies accumulated? How many for both of them? Really must consider if I have desperate enemies too, ones who might capture me, ransom me? Hold me to ransom? How did one put that? Could she properly use the semi-automatic Colt he’d given her? So daunting. And beautifully made the gun and so heavy. Somebody said there were fewer dangerous enemies in the town these days, but where were they now? Somewhere beneath the trees possibly, enriching the gardens, producing dark-hued flowers. Vespertine flowers? Oh! There’s a black thought! Could there be a story there? But shouldn’t joke about such matters, probably.
Such a regal chair my Colonel has and presently his Poetry Chair. Big like him, made of wicker and cane with the spacious compartment beneath the seat: his binoculars kept there, possibly for studying the hillsides yet to be coloured; the small folding Kodak, an ox-tail fly whisk, some crockery, a bottle of water, a sharp knife, and three kinds of sun-dried meat in a decorated biscuit tin: biltong made from wildebeest, beef and oddly, ostrich, all beneath the diagonally-placed shotgun with the shortened barrel. Buckshot. Such a chair! Made for him by that old African Nunes rescued from being beaten and robbed in the Fish Market. Years ago it was. Was that a story, possibly?
Oh? Why had he stood suddenly and what changed? Had his thinking and language changed, perhaps? She’d close her eyes for a moment, monitor his thinking, read his thinking if that were at all possible and then glance again. Aha! He’s thinking in Portuguese, not holding any notebook. Of course! He’s going to the Ocean Beach for a swim. Had forgotten. Almost forgot he’ll order dinner at the Estrela where he’ll go first oh I’m sure he’ll talk to Sergio and Rivka Samedo to arrange our dinner and of course there’ll be fish on the menu. Probably rock salmon or something special brought up from Durban overnight on the steamer. Barracuda perhaps for careful baking and accompanied by that wine from the Loire they always keep hidden for special occasions. Muscadet so dry, yet fruity, crisp and cold, that wine secret shared with us and also the British Consul-General’s Dorman brothers, Louis and Jules. Oh I hope there’ll be no trouble tonight! All those spies dining publicly at the Estrela! How absolutely insane! What can be the collective word for spies, an eye of spies, perhaps? Oh, I like that! And what could anybody do if our Secret Police and the British Secret Service and Kruger’s men should start an affray would it be or an assassination or an old-fashioned brawl oh it’d be too bad and what an insane family of spies they all are like mad babies unless Sergio has music to soothe the savages and surely Nunes will suggest Sergio have that big Zulu, Joshua, Louis Dorman’s best spy, play the marimba and our favourite guitarists Gustavo Moreles and Fernão Braga one each side on the little stage and if we’re fortunate the old Venezuelan man José Valera, will make it a bigger orchestra playing the bandoneon and if we’re truly very fortunate our marvelous fado singer Elvira Tomes will sing for us oh and it’s my birthday and Nunes will conceal a tear at the beauty of the music a gentle tear in the lamplight and I’ll dare to put my hand on his, yes! But first he’ll walk soon to the town and the Estrela the dear man grinning and waving up to the bordello girls waving down at him when he passes the Mountains of Heaven before his swim and possibly after as well and now he turns to me oh waving his towel and how did I forget he said he’d go swimming first and leaving shortly now certainly yes and what a splendid evening I hope awaits us all and not only is it my birthday but we’ll all welcome the New Year and leap from 1899 to 1900 and a new century at midnight! And she’d follow him down shortly. There he was instructing the bodyguards to escort her. Should she take the pistol? Best to. Must complete the notes first. Feel so preoccupied. How to write a novel and what on earth to write about? Oh! Perhaps the secret treaty: Nunes loved secret treaties. Could write a secret treaty story for him. Indeed, yes! Would be such a pleasure. Only where to begin? Begin at the beginning with ‘once upon a time,’ of course! Once upon a time, decidedly!
‘Yes, my love, we’ll follow in an hour, thank you! Take your good clothes to the Estrela to save time! Yes, meet at the Estrela at sunset!’
This Diary is No. 13 (new series). (Previously 1107, 108, 208, 308, 408, 508, 608, 708, 808, 908, 1008, 1108; this is 1208). DDD December 21 2008.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Don Diespecker
‘The Grey-headed Flying Fox is the largest of the Australian bats, and is by far the most abundant in the area. The Little Red Flying Fox is slightly smaller.
‘Note: The Grey-headed flying fox plays a principal role in the pollination of eucalypt flowers and the dispersal of rainforest seeds in the Bellinger Valley. Without them the rainforest would lose some of its diversity and much of its ability to colonise new locations. Thousands take off from their camp on Bellingen Island each night at dusk. They fly up to 50-km from the campsite: the scouts on their reconnaissance missions, and the rest of the squadron heading for known feeding grounds.
‘Flying fox camps existed in several locations in the valley earlier this century. “Flying-fox Scrub,” the original name for Thora, supported a camp near the Thora Bridge until 1926, as did Stoney Creek at Gleniffer, until 1910, and Rosewood Creek at Thora, until 1959. There was also a campsite at Raleigh. Bellingen Island has been used as a campsite since 1974.’
Maree Blewitt. The Bellinger Valley: A Window in Time (1997).
Nov 4 ’08. I was woken at 03:15 today by what sounded like a big snake directly overhead. I was puzzled because in recent days I'd stood outside on the roof (rapidly frying) in order to reach up with a length of wood and block most of the many gaps and spaces between the roofing iron and the ceiling. I couldn't see anything but certainly could hear it (at times it seemed as though an 800-lb gorilla was making himself comfortable overhead). I expected the ceiling to collapse. I doubt it was a goanna (the local lace monitor) but these do grow to a considerable size. Nor could a possum have got into the roof space. . How could such a big creature (apparently) have gained access in such a constricted space? The mystery continues. By the way, the smaller bats that like to use my wall spaces (see earlier notes about bats and the Singing Rake) are not flying foxes.
Nov 9 ’08. The first week of November has raced by. Xmas is on the way. Again. October, my Bad Luck Month has passed (praise the Lord) and I’ve been discharged by the Community Nurses today so feel I can again reclaim chunks of my life, or at the very least reorganise my daily schedule. And in the afternoon I took time out to watch the live footage from the US presidential election and suspect I may not be the only foreigner watching who was moved by the speeches. It was an emotional time, obviously. It would be easy to dismiss the speeches as mere rhetoric; they seemed much more than that to me. I was impressed by the speed of votes counting and the remarkable presentation of statistics and graphics and very surprised by the eloquence of McCain’s concession speech.
I wrote it last month and write it again: the Valley is many beautiful shades of green. The neighbour’s long roadside paddock is an emerald green and the jacarandas are in flower there. One of the biggest jacarandas there is close to the river. It’s almost like a Xmas card with Mt Die Happy looming above it and wispy cloud swirling near the Mount.
Here Big Lawn has been mowed again, this time in great circles and it has its own carpet of jacaranda flowers now (and more blue blossom covers the road here and in other places in the Valley). Another spectacular tree along both Darkwood Road and the Trunk Road (Waterfall Way) between here and Bellingen is the flame tree (Brachychiton acerifolius)). Two of the flame trees planted here (c 1985) are almost as tall as flooded gums (e.grandis) that are twice the age. Flame trees (they drop their leaves before flowering) are ‘probably Australia’s most widely known rainforest tree’ and can be grown from seed or cuttings. The biggest one planted here is flowering but the flowers are so far up they can hardly be seen among the other big trees; the flowers are best seen on the lawn, when they fall.
Nov 11 ’08. Remembering Armistice Day.
The lawn mowing, the lawn flora and the two lawn mowers have given me an idea for a light-hearted story so I’m taking time out to write that, after which I’ll return to my dysfunctional (but charming) characters in the ‘Earthrise’ novel (hoping they’re still waiting patiently for me to reappear).
Nov 13 ’08. My TV set has been switched to digital channels; some of the channels deliver exquisitely clear pictures, but two do not: the picture breaks up or freezes, the sound is delayed, the set emits unearthly shrieks and squeaks and signal strengths are well below 84%. Sigh. Note: ask somebody if heavy clouds and rain somehow crunch the signal’s strength…and why are some pictures perfect although all the signals make a tortured entry into my domain via a much battered television antenna? It’s all very odd.
Big Lawn is returning to it’s beautiful best (passers by have been seen to stop their motors, to leap out and to photograph…before resuming their (usual) fast journeys past Earthrise). I’m flattered. The Dogs Memorial Garden is cleared of jungle; roses bloom therein, dahlias leap from the ground. In addition to the jacaranda-blue parts of the lawn some sections, when mowed, have varieties of different and mysterious fragrances. (What if these mowed fragrances, these combinations of jacaranda blooms, native violets, umpteen different grasses, weeds and pink-flowering clovers are Subtle Vapours that induce magical memories, visions and re-visions? Hmm, perhaps I can use that in my light-hearted story?).
Neighbour-Across-The-River, Doug Spiller, sent this message on November 13:
‘I'm walking across a gravel bench in the shallows of the river. Beyond the bench the deeper, clear, green water meanders through dark grey, bedrock channels and pools. In one of the closest pools a shimmering loose scatter of pearls coalesce smoothly with the cautious, coordinated movement of a very large monitor goanna.
‘I do not really see the clear goanna outline that is one with the green water and dark grey rock. The 'pearl' highlights of its skin seem to float gently on the bottom of the pool. I sense that it is turning to look at me. I am aware of its beauty and its threat.
‘We both retreat.
Doug.’
My guest this month is Dr Brenda Herzberg who lives in Israel. In this piece she describes and discusses aspects of the natural world near her home.
Other Worlds
Brenda Herzberg
The road winds up from the Arava valley to the plateau of the Negev, a climb of over two thousand feet in ten minutes. The first part is a rocky, dusty gorge where, at one sharp bend, a car chassis, twisted and rusting rests on the valley floor telling of a past disaster. Sunrise was about half an hour ago and we see the occasional stalwart cyclist persevering in the uphill haul but there are few cars.
At the next bend, we see the rocky shelf about twenty feet below the road where others have spotted hyraxes. These furry and endearing creatures are about the size of rabbits and live in family groups. They are thought by many scientists to be the vanishing remnants of an ancient subspecies which includes, believe it or not, elephants and manatees. Their temperature regulation is somewhere between the cold-blooded reptiles, and the warm blooded mammals, so they seek the sun and each other for warmth. We have not yet seen them here on this shelf, which is warmed for only a few hours by the morning sun and each time we pass I look hopefully but I am disappointed again today.
This is wild country, the few walking trails with marker signs painted on the rocks, are likely to lead to stiff clambers and scrambles across the scree. It is rocky desert, the scarp face of the plateau falling to the east to the Syro African rift valley. It is a geography and geology lecture set out by mighty forces and worthy of deep respect. Natural survival depends on how one, whether plant, animal or human, conserves water since no more than 25 mm falls each year in the rift valley. Thorny acacias and desert broom push through the stone strewn sand where maybe once or twice a year, there will be a flash flood and for a few hours, a raging torrent will flow from the hills. Nearly always though, the earth is barren and stony, and the sun beats down. There are wolves and hyenas, rarely seen, though occasionally one of the newly born calves in the kibbutz cow barn is taken, and its mother howls her bovine grief. Tracks in the sand tell those who want to know of desert rodents, porcupines and snakes. The skies, too, appear to be empty, but if you are patient, and know where to look, other worlds are yours to discover, as this area of southern Israel is the narrow land channel through which millions of birds migrate in spring and autumn.
The two of us look professional with binoculars slung round our necks, carrying telescopes on our shoulders as we drive to hot spots familiar to birders in the area. The professional gear is misleading and once again it is only sparrows and pigeons that we spot in abundance. However, we are pleased to make the acquaintance of a handsome young red-backed shrike that seems to pose for us on a wire fence while he nonchalantly surveys the ground for beetles, and the stylish white and black pied wagtails with their black shirtfronts, scampering on the ground and of course wagging their long tails have not yet left for their wintering quarters. I saw a black dot on a rock which, on closer inspection was a white crowned black wheatear, a glossy and handsome small black bird at home in these barren wastes.
The rocky desert stretches as far as the eye can see, both on the Negev plateau and in the Arava valley. The Jordanian mountains on the eastern side of the Syro African rift form a dark backdrop, still in slightly menacing shadow at this hour of the morning. Sharp valleys slice through them opening into estuarial like sands at the floor of the rift. Further north from where we are now, hidden in these sandstone craggy cliffs is Jordan's jewel, Petra.
The Nabateans, enterprising traders of two to three millennia ago, built cities along trade routes across the Negev, the remains of which attract tourists. The Bedouin who have known how to survive in this desert for centuries have also contributed to its desolation by their foraging herds of goats. These days, one is more likely to find Bedouin living near the towns, making their living as efficient car mechanics, a camel or two tethered near their workshops.
Along the Arava valley, and here at the eastern edge of the Negev plateau there is Jewish settlement, kibbutzim with field crops in small patchworks, and flourishing date plantations. German Templars settling in the Holy Land in the 19th Century were industrious farmers whose Holstein cattle adapted surprisingly well in their new environment. Their descendants, the cattle and not the Templars, form dairy herds which are tended in large sheltered sheds far distant from lush green pastures, and are handfed gourmet diets of selected cattle feeds to enrich their plentiful milk. The most successful of the kibbutzim in this area is Kibbutz Yotvata, a name synonymous in Israel with milk and milk products, and for the local residents, flavours of ice cream that rival any Italian brand.
As we return, I contemplate the awe-inspiring view that stretches across and along the Arava valley. Mountains extend into the misty distance to the north and south where tiny specks of human settlement are dwarfed by vast rocky spaces and forms. It was, it is and it will be after my few years are over. Sandstorms will still sweep through; the sun will scorch it by day and somewhere in the hills, at night wolves will howl. In spring and autumn, the birds will migrate to and from their far distant nesting grounds, journeying with precision that seems miraculous.
Nov 18 ’08. The weather is wet again and although most of the rain falls as intermittent thundery showers, the river is rising. So far there’s no panic because the river level has been low for weeks. On a wet Sunday I drove early to Coffs Harbour and after doing my grocery shopping I went in search of plants. Eventually I found a display of packaged dahlia tubers and re-discovered an old favourite: Mrs Rees! The picture on the packet seemed a good likeness…except that the blue centre was missing (could this be the real Mrs Rees?). Thanks to Bruce and Tracey who kindly sent me several (Mrs Rees) tubers I have several fair dinkum plants growing in the Dog’s Garden so bought no new ones; instead, I brought home ‘Melissa’ (she looks like becoming an orange ‘decorative’ or should that be a ‘cactus’?). I like both the name and the colour (are there any L Durrell fans reading this who remember Melissa in The Alexandria Quartet?). Melissa is now in the ground and staked, as is a lively looking new plant, Grevillea hookeriana, The grevillea has a good position in front of the belvedere (it has ‘nectar rich, flowers through the year’) The new plant is within a short distance of the birdbath where honeyeaters as well as humans will enjoy it. Years ago, at Otford, on the south side of the Royal National Park, I was able to grow about 40 different grevilleas and although I’ve grown a few specimens here none survived floods and animals with exotic tastes; this new specimen is closer to the house.
The weeping coral tree began flowering several days ago and overhangs the birdbath (I understand that ‘many Bellingen gardens, in the old days, had weeping coral trees). This used to be an almost fully-grown tree until it was wrecked and buried by the flood in 2001; it was chain-sawed level with the ground because it was well rooted on the edge of the lawn/riverbank. To my amazement, it simply decided to re-grow and is again a proper tree. And I was working on the Lookout Lawn, before the rain, cutting flood loam (dumped on a nearby circular garden by the 2001 Big Flood) and using it to level some of depressions in the most-used parts of the lawn. And I’ve also been rebuilding the supporting walls in this area. There’s some ‘new’ colour growing in front of the wall: recovering impatiens (or balsam) that had all but disappeared when the feral deer tried to muscle in on this paradise (the story is that the deer, or some of them, are being Removed…after some of the feral ones in the area were shot… Before this alleged shooting the dense ‘thickets’ of lantana covering the slopes close to the house looked grotesque, having been traversed and trampled by deer paths).
Freed, at last, from rampaging deer and pit-stop wallabies that ate the flowering plants and took the short way down the front of the wall (now being rebuilt) I’m hoping to re-establish a garden of sorts. No flood has eventuated here.
Nov 23 ’08. Most of the month has passed. The great brush box trees have split and shed their barks and some of the flooded gums began splitting a fortnight ago. The Christmas orchids have well developed flower heads and seem eager to flower in November. There is the ominous sound of cicada choirs tentatively practising after sunset. The fireflies continue their relaxed cruising near the house in the dusk (I sometimes think of them as Very Small Spaceships). The weeping coral tree, now in full bloom, looks magnificent. I’ve collected some bleeding heart cuttings from forest trees along the road and have planted them in containers (safely, I hope) as an experiment and left them to strike inside the Dog’s Garden.
A minute ago a bird slammed into the sliding glass door between the lounge and the east deck: a sacred kingfisher lay on its back, stunned (that projecting long beak) so I turned him over and then picked him up (which he didn’t much care for) and like a groggy boxer determined to avoid the full count, shakily stood in the palm of my hand and then took off, whirring away into the forest in a straight line and flying well.
Despite the soggy lawn clippings mulch weighing her down, dahlia ‘Melissa’ has pushed her way upward with a show of strong leaves.
This day began with more strong winds and branches crashing down; yesterday was much worse: a real Agincourt Day with the tall trees whipping and bending in gale-strength gusts (sections of Darkwood Road are littered with broken branches and I have two big white cedar limbs down on Big Lawn). Both machete and axe were needed to dispose of the branches. By the time I tottered back into the house the wind again began gusting. The TV pictures are perfect, following two clearing windstorms, it seems. What can I say?
Nov 24 ’08. It’s another beautifully clear sunny morning, the air clean and sparkling. The windstorms have dried everything and even kept the leeches at bay for a day or so; similarly, the midges and mosquitoes that like humid air have stayed at home. The river level has fallen and the familiar snags, and bedrock markers have reappeared. Mandy and Doug have brought me some irises so I was inspired to Keep Working after a partial cleanup (branches and twigs still litter the gardens). I’ve tidied up the circular stonewalled garden behind the ‘viewing chairs’ where I shared time and space with a small black snake and removed all the wild grass so that there is only the big bushy begonia (still flowering profusely after about 23 years in this spot). Now that garden has some irises and the other circular garden behind it (where I’ve been cutting flood loam from around the base of an old white cedar) also has some new irises). I’ve noticed that a strolling brush turkey flies in every morning before sunrise for a relaxed clawing and grazing and there’s a high probability he’ll dig up the irises; so far so good. The windstorms have ruined the show of jacaranda flowers in many places, as well as the poor old coral tree overlooking my birdbath.
Nov 25 ’08. Although it’s wet I take my umbrella and walk in the rain. Returning in a dry-ish spell I see a metre or so of snake ahead in the middle of the road and approach cautiously. The snake is in no hurry; my footsteps cause it to stop unwisely in the road where it may be killed if it fails to complete the crossing. What to do? When I walk the young python picks up my vibrations and stays put. Should I stand in the middle of the road and stop the next vehicle? I think not: too dangerous on this long fast bend. I walk on quickly behind the snake. The further I walk the more relaxed the snake. He melds into the roadside grass.
I’ve been enjoying an unusual book by Marc Weingarten, Who’s afraid of Tom Wolfe? How New Journalism rewrote the world (London: Aurum, 2005). For those of us who write non-fiction as well as fiction and flirt with journalism (or even become absorbed by it) reportage means writing objectively. The New Journalism encourages us to write more subjectively.
‘The first rule of what came to be known as New Journalism was that the old rules didn’t apply. The leaders of the movement had all been reared in the traditional methods of fact-gathering, but they all realized that journalism could do more than merely provide an objective correlative of events, and, more important, that they could do more. Convinced that American journalism’s potential hadn’t yet been explored to its fullest, they began to think like novelists’ (p 7).
‘As soon as Wolfe codified this new reporting tendency with the name ‘New Journalism’ in his 1973 anthology, critics emerged to strike it down, confusing Wolfe’s theorizing with self-promotion. There’s no fixed definition for New Journalism, granted, and its critics have often pointed to its maddeningly indeterminate meaning as a major shortcoming. How can you have a movement when nobody knows what that movement represents? Is New Journalism the participatory ‘gonzo’ journalism of Hunter S Thompson? Jimmy Breslin’s impressionistic rogue’s tales? Tom Wolfe’s jittery gyroscope prose? The answer is that it’s journalism that reads like fiction and rings with the truth of reported fact. It is, to borrow the title of a 1997 anthology of literary journalism, the art of fact’ (p 7).
(Wolfe’s 1973 ‘New Journalism’ anthology featured Gay Talese, Hunter S. Thompson, Joan Didion, Norman Mailer and others. Weingarten also discusses the writings of Jonathan Swift and Charles Dickens. Some of Dickens’s writings ‘existed in a shadow region between speculative fiction and reportage, which gave him the license to write about the inner lives of his characters with great specificity’ (p 11). There’s nothing new under the sun).
Nov 27 ’08. Happy Thanksgiving Day to all!
Nov 29 ’08. Yesterday there were thunderstorms so I switched off the electronics and worked in the garden for a couple of hours, moving loads of flood loam by wheelbarrow from the old walled gardens in front of the house across to the belvedere, most of which I’ve decided, will now be grassed. I also cut down the spiky palm tree that was flattened by the 2001 flood. Sigh. I was joined for a while by a beautiful small snake with light brown to bronze colouring. The Xmas orchids are flowering. There have been no opportunities to mow, the air being humid and everything wet. Then the rain came and I had to run for shelter (I can still run a bit). There were loud electrical storms through the night so I followed the Mumbai attacks on TV.
Up early, the gardens soaked and proto clouds rising from ‘my’ forest behind the house. At 06: 40 there’s a good chance I can miss most of the leeches that seem to sleep in for another hour. Low wispy cloud covers the Valley and obscures the Dorrigo heights. I see cloud vapour rising from the river and from the far side of the bridge I can see proto clouds drifting upward from the summit high above the house. I recall pictures of cloud or vapour blowing off the summit of Everest. Maybe I’ll call my forested summit Mount Earthrise? The river’s course is marked by wisps of cloud rising over the Happenstance trees. Frogs along the road in flooded ditches rattle and pop. Lifting up mine eyes at Richardson’s Bridge I see much white blossom on one particular species of the wild trees scattered among the eucalypts. The hillside forest reminds me of hanging gardens.
Roses bloom in the Dog’s Garden and some of the dahlias are budding.
Happy St Andrews Day tomorrow to all of us with Scottish ancestry!
This Diary is No. 12 in the New Series (previously 1107, 108, 208, 308, 408, 508, 608, 708, 808, 908, 1008; this is 1108). DDD November 29 2008.
‘The Grey-headed Flying Fox is the largest of the Australian bats, and is by far the most abundant in the area. The Little Red Flying Fox is slightly smaller.
‘Note: The Grey-headed flying fox plays a principal role in the pollination of eucalypt flowers and the dispersal of rainforest seeds in the Bellinger Valley. Without them the rainforest would lose some of its diversity and much of its ability to colonise new locations. Thousands take off from their camp on Bellingen Island each night at dusk. They fly up to 50-km from the campsite: the scouts on their reconnaissance missions, and the rest of the squadron heading for known feeding grounds.
‘Flying fox camps existed in several locations in the valley earlier this century. “Flying-fox Scrub,” the original name for Thora, supported a camp near the Thora Bridge until 1926, as did Stoney Creek at Gleniffer, until 1910, and Rosewood Creek at Thora, until 1959. There was also a campsite at Raleigh. Bellingen Island has been used as a campsite since 1974.’
Maree Blewitt. The Bellinger Valley: A Window in Time (1997).
Nov 4 ’08. I was woken at 03:15 today by what sounded like a big snake directly overhead. I was puzzled because in recent days I'd stood outside on the roof (rapidly frying) in order to reach up with a length of wood and block most of the many gaps and spaces between the roofing iron and the ceiling. I couldn't see anything but certainly could hear it (at times it seemed as though an 800-lb gorilla was making himself comfortable overhead). I expected the ceiling to collapse. I doubt it was a goanna (the local lace monitor) but these do grow to a considerable size. Nor could a possum have got into the roof space. . How could such a big creature (apparently) have gained access in such a constricted space? The mystery continues. By the way, the smaller bats that like to use my wall spaces (see earlier notes about bats and the Singing Rake) are not flying foxes.
Nov 9 ’08. The first week of November has raced by. Xmas is on the way. Again. October, my Bad Luck Month has passed (praise the Lord) and I’ve been discharged by the Community Nurses today so feel I can again reclaim chunks of my life, or at the very least reorganise my daily schedule. And in the afternoon I took time out to watch the live footage from the US presidential election and suspect I may not be the only foreigner watching who was moved by the speeches. It was an emotional time, obviously. It would be easy to dismiss the speeches as mere rhetoric; they seemed much more than that to me. I was impressed by the speed of votes counting and the remarkable presentation of statistics and graphics and very surprised by the eloquence of McCain’s concession speech.
I wrote it last month and write it again: the Valley is many beautiful shades of green. The neighbour’s long roadside paddock is an emerald green and the jacarandas are in flower there. One of the biggest jacarandas there is close to the river. It’s almost like a Xmas card with Mt Die Happy looming above it and wispy cloud swirling near the Mount.
Here Big Lawn has been mowed again, this time in great circles and it has its own carpet of jacaranda flowers now (and more blue blossom covers the road here and in other places in the Valley). Another spectacular tree along both Darkwood Road and the Trunk Road (Waterfall Way) between here and Bellingen is the flame tree (Brachychiton acerifolius)). Two of the flame trees planted here (c 1985) are almost as tall as flooded gums (e.grandis) that are twice the age. Flame trees (they drop their leaves before flowering) are ‘probably Australia’s most widely known rainforest tree’ and can be grown from seed or cuttings. The biggest one planted here is flowering but the flowers are so far up they can hardly be seen among the other big trees; the flowers are best seen on the lawn, when they fall.
Nov 11 ’08. Remembering Armistice Day.
The lawn mowing, the lawn flora and the two lawn mowers have given me an idea for a light-hearted story so I’m taking time out to write that, after which I’ll return to my dysfunctional (but charming) characters in the ‘Earthrise’ novel (hoping they’re still waiting patiently for me to reappear).
Nov 13 ’08. My TV set has been switched to digital channels; some of the channels deliver exquisitely clear pictures, but two do not: the picture breaks up or freezes, the sound is delayed, the set emits unearthly shrieks and squeaks and signal strengths are well below 84%. Sigh. Note: ask somebody if heavy clouds and rain somehow crunch the signal’s strength…and why are some pictures perfect although all the signals make a tortured entry into my domain via a much battered television antenna? It’s all very odd.
Big Lawn is returning to it’s beautiful best (passers by have been seen to stop their motors, to leap out and to photograph…before resuming their (usual) fast journeys past Earthrise). I’m flattered. The Dogs Memorial Garden is cleared of jungle; roses bloom therein, dahlias leap from the ground. In addition to the jacaranda-blue parts of the lawn some sections, when mowed, have varieties of different and mysterious fragrances. (What if these mowed fragrances, these combinations of jacaranda blooms, native violets, umpteen different grasses, weeds and pink-flowering clovers are Subtle Vapours that induce magical memories, visions and re-visions? Hmm, perhaps I can use that in my light-hearted story?).
Neighbour-Across-The-River, Doug Spiller, sent this message on November 13:
‘I'm walking across a gravel bench in the shallows of the river. Beyond the bench the deeper, clear, green water meanders through dark grey, bedrock channels and pools. In one of the closest pools a shimmering loose scatter of pearls coalesce smoothly with the cautious, coordinated movement of a very large monitor goanna.
‘I do not really see the clear goanna outline that is one with the green water and dark grey rock. The 'pearl' highlights of its skin seem to float gently on the bottom of the pool. I sense that it is turning to look at me. I am aware of its beauty and its threat.
‘We both retreat.
Doug.’
My guest this month is Dr Brenda Herzberg who lives in Israel. In this piece she describes and discusses aspects of the natural world near her home.
Other Worlds
Brenda Herzberg
The road winds up from the Arava valley to the plateau of the Negev, a climb of over two thousand feet in ten minutes. The first part is a rocky, dusty gorge where, at one sharp bend, a car chassis, twisted and rusting rests on the valley floor telling of a past disaster. Sunrise was about half an hour ago and we see the occasional stalwart cyclist persevering in the uphill haul but there are few cars.
At the next bend, we see the rocky shelf about twenty feet below the road where others have spotted hyraxes. These furry and endearing creatures are about the size of rabbits and live in family groups. They are thought by many scientists to be the vanishing remnants of an ancient subspecies which includes, believe it or not, elephants and manatees. Their temperature regulation is somewhere between the cold-blooded reptiles, and the warm blooded mammals, so they seek the sun and each other for warmth. We have not yet seen them here on this shelf, which is warmed for only a few hours by the morning sun and each time we pass I look hopefully but I am disappointed again today.
This is wild country, the few walking trails with marker signs painted on the rocks, are likely to lead to stiff clambers and scrambles across the scree. It is rocky desert, the scarp face of the plateau falling to the east to the Syro African rift valley. It is a geography and geology lecture set out by mighty forces and worthy of deep respect. Natural survival depends on how one, whether plant, animal or human, conserves water since no more than 25 mm falls each year in the rift valley. Thorny acacias and desert broom push through the stone strewn sand where maybe once or twice a year, there will be a flash flood and for a few hours, a raging torrent will flow from the hills. Nearly always though, the earth is barren and stony, and the sun beats down. There are wolves and hyenas, rarely seen, though occasionally one of the newly born calves in the kibbutz cow barn is taken, and its mother howls her bovine grief. Tracks in the sand tell those who want to know of desert rodents, porcupines and snakes. The skies, too, appear to be empty, but if you are patient, and know where to look, other worlds are yours to discover, as this area of southern Israel is the narrow land channel through which millions of birds migrate in spring and autumn.
The two of us look professional with binoculars slung round our necks, carrying telescopes on our shoulders as we drive to hot spots familiar to birders in the area. The professional gear is misleading and once again it is only sparrows and pigeons that we spot in abundance. However, we are pleased to make the acquaintance of a handsome young red-backed shrike that seems to pose for us on a wire fence while he nonchalantly surveys the ground for beetles, and the stylish white and black pied wagtails with their black shirtfronts, scampering on the ground and of course wagging their long tails have not yet left for their wintering quarters. I saw a black dot on a rock which, on closer inspection was a white crowned black wheatear, a glossy and handsome small black bird at home in these barren wastes.
The rocky desert stretches as far as the eye can see, both on the Negev plateau and in the Arava valley. The Jordanian mountains on the eastern side of the Syro African rift form a dark backdrop, still in slightly menacing shadow at this hour of the morning. Sharp valleys slice through them opening into estuarial like sands at the floor of the rift. Further north from where we are now, hidden in these sandstone craggy cliffs is Jordan's jewel, Petra.
The Nabateans, enterprising traders of two to three millennia ago, built cities along trade routes across the Negev, the remains of which attract tourists. The Bedouin who have known how to survive in this desert for centuries have also contributed to its desolation by their foraging herds of goats. These days, one is more likely to find Bedouin living near the towns, making their living as efficient car mechanics, a camel or two tethered near their workshops.
Along the Arava valley, and here at the eastern edge of the Negev plateau there is Jewish settlement, kibbutzim with field crops in small patchworks, and flourishing date plantations. German Templars settling in the Holy Land in the 19th Century were industrious farmers whose Holstein cattle adapted surprisingly well in their new environment. Their descendants, the cattle and not the Templars, form dairy herds which are tended in large sheltered sheds far distant from lush green pastures, and are handfed gourmet diets of selected cattle feeds to enrich their plentiful milk. The most successful of the kibbutzim in this area is Kibbutz Yotvata, a name synonymous in Israel with milk and milk products, and for the local residents, flavours of ice cream that rival any Italian brand.
As we return, I contemplate the awe-inspiring view that stretches across and along the Arava valley. Mountains extend into the misty distance to the north and south where tiny specks of human settlement are dwarfed by vast rocky spaces and forms. It was, it is and it will be after my few years are over. Sandstorms will still sweep through; the sun will scorch it by day and somewhere in the hills, at night wolves will howl. In spring and autumn, the birds will migrate to and from their far distant nesting grounds, journeying with precision that seems miraculous.
Nov 18 ’08. The weather is wet again and although most of the rain falls as intermittent thundery showers, the river is rising. So far there’s no panic because the river level has been low for weeks. On a wet Sunday I drove early to Coffs Harbour and after doing my grocery shopping I went in search of plants. Eventually I found a display of packaged dahlia tubers and re-discovered an old favourite: Mrs Rees! The picture on the packet seemed a good likeness…except that the blue centre was missing (could this be the real Mrs Rees?). Thanks to Bruce and Tracey who kindly sent me several (Mrs Rees) tubers I have several fair dinkum plants growing in the Dog’s Garden so bought no new ones; instead, I brought home ‘Melissa’ (she looks like becoming an orange ‘decorative’ or should that be a ‘cactus’?). I like both the name and the colour (are there any L Durrell fans reading this who remember Melissa in The Alexandria Quartet?). Melissa is now in the ground and staked, as is a lively looking new plant, Grevillea hookeriana, The grevillea has a good position in front of the belvedere (it has ‘nectar rich, flowers through the year’) The new plant is within a short distance of the birdbath where honeyeaters as well as humans will enjoy it. Years ago, at Otford, on the south side of the Royal National Park, I was able to grow about 40 different grevilleas and although I’ve grown a few specimens here none survived floods and animals with exotic tastes; this new specimen is closer to the house.
The weeping coral tree began flowering several days ago and overhangs the birdbath (I understand that ‘many Bellingen gardens, in the old days, had weeping coral trees). This used to be an almost fully-grown tree until it was wrecked and buried by the flood in 2001; it was chain-sawed level with the ground because it was well rooted on the edge of the lawn/riverbank. To my amazement, it simply decided to re-grow and is again a proper tree. And I was working on the Lookout Lawn, before the rain, cutting flood loam (dumped on a nearby circular garden by the 2001 Big Flood) and using it to level some of depressions in the most-used parts of the lawn. And I’ve also been rebuilding the supporting walls in this area. There’s some ‘new’ colour growing in front of the wall: recovering impatiens (or balsam) that had all but disappeared when the feral deer tried to muscle in on this paradise (the story is that the deer, or some of them, are being Removed…after some of the feral ones in the area were shot… Before this alleged shooting the dense ‘thickets’ of lantana covering the slopes close to the house looked grotesque, having been traversed and trampled by deer paths).
Freed, at last, from rampaging deer and pit-stop wallabies that ate the flowering plants and took the short way down the front of the wall (now being rebuilt) I’m hoping to re-establish a garden of sorts. No flood has eventuated here.
Nov 23 ’08. Most of the month has passed. The great brush box trees have split and shed their barks and some of the flooded gums began splitting a fortnight ago. The Christmas orchids have well developed flower heads and seem eager to flower in November. There is the ominous sound of cicada choirs tentatively practising after sunset. The fireflies continue their relaxed cruising near the house in the dusk (I sometimes think of them as Very Small Spaceships). The weeping coral tree, now in full bloom, looks magnificent. I’ve collected some bleeding heart cuttings from forest trees along the road and have planted them in containers (safely, I hope) as an experiment and left them to strike inside the Dog’s Garden.
A minute ago a bird slammed into the sliding glass door between the lounge and the east deck: a sacred kingfisher lay on its back, stunned (that projecting long beak) so I turned him over and then picked him up (which he didn’t much care for) and like a groggy boxer determined to avoid the full count, shakily stood in the palm of my hand and then took off, whirring away into the forest in a straight line and flying well.
Despite the soggy lawn clippings mulch weighing her down, dahlia ‘Melissa’ has pushed her way upward with a show of strong leaves.
This day began with more strong winds and branches crashing down; yesterday was much worse: a real Agincourt Day with the tall trees whipping and bending in gale-strength gusts (sections of Darkwood Road are littered with broken branches and I have two big white cedar limbs down on Big Lawn). Both machete and axe were needed to dispose of the branches. By the time I tottered back into the house the wind again began gusting. The TV pictures are perfect, following two clearing windstorms, it seems. What can I say?
Nov 24 ’08. It’s another beautifully clear sunny morning, the air clean and sparkling. The windstorms have dried everything and even kept the leeches at bay for a day or so; similarly, the midges and mosquitoes that like humid air have stayed at home. The river level has fallen and the familiar snags, and bedrock markers have reappeared. Mandy and Doug have brought me some irises so I was inspired to Keep Working after a partial cleanup (branches and twigs still litter the gardens). I’ve tidied up the circular stonewalled garden behind the ‘viewing chairs’ where I shared time and space with a small black snake and removed all the wild grass so that there is only the big bushy begonia (still flowering profusely after about 23 years in this spot). Now that garden has some irises and the other circular garden behind it (where I’ve been cutting flood loam from around the base of an old white cedar) also has some new irises). I’ve noticed that a strolling brush turkey flies in every morning before sunrise for a relaxed clawing and grazing and there’s a high probability he’ll dig up the irises; so far so good. The windstorms have ruined the show of jacaranda flowers in many places, as well as the poor old coral tree overlooking my birdbath.
Nov 25 ’08. Although it’s wet I take my umbrella and walk in the rain. Returning in a dry-ish spell I see a metre or so of snake ahead in the middle of the road and approach cautiously. The snake is in no hurry; my footsteps cause it to stop unwisely in the road where it may be killed if it fails to complete the crossing. What to do? When I walk the young python picks up my vibrations and stays put. Should I stand in the middle of the road and stop the next vehicle? I think not: too dangerous on this long fast bend. I walk on quickly behind the snake. The further I walk the more relaxed the snake. He melds into the roadside grass.
I’ve been enjoying an unusual book by Marc Weingarten, Who’s afraid of Tom Wolfe? How New Journalism rewrote the world (London: Aurum, 2005). For those of us who write non-fiction as well as fiction and flirt with journalism (or even become absorbed by it) reportage means writing objectively. The New Journalism encourages us to write more subjectively.
‘The first rule of what came to be known as New Journalism was that the old rules didn’t apply. The leaders of the movement had all been reared in the traditional methods of fact-gathering, but they all realized that journalism could do more than merely provide an objective correlative of events, and, more important, that they could do more. Convinced that American journalism’s potential hadn’t yet been explored to its fullest, they began to think like novelists’ (p 7).
‘As soon as Wolfe codified this new reporting tendency with the name ‘New Journalism’ in his 1973 anthology, critics emerged to strike it down, confusing Wolfe’s theorizing with self-promotion. There’s no fixed definition for New Journalism, granted, and its critics have often pointed to its maddeningly indeterminate meaning as a major shortcoming. How can you have a movement when nobody knows what that movement represents? Is New Journalism the participatory ‘gonzo’ journalism of Hunter S Thompson? Jimmy Breslin’s impressionistic rogue’s tales? Tom Wolfe’s jittery gyroscope prose? The answer is that it’s journalism that reads like fiction and rings with the truth of reported fact. It is, to borrow the title of a 1997 anthology of literary journalism, the art of fact’ (p 7).
(Wolfe’s 1973 ‘New Journalism’ anthology featured Gay Talese, Hunter S. Thompson, Joan Didion, Norman Mailer and others. Weingarten also discusses the writings of Jonathan Swift and Charles Dickens. Some of Dickens’s writings ‘existed in a shadow region between speculative fiction and reportage, which gave him the license to write about the inner lives of his characters with great specificity’ (p 11). There’s nothing new under the sun).
Nov 27 ’08. Happy Thanksgiving Day to all!
Nov 29 ’08. Yesterday there were thunderstorms so I switched off the electronics and worked in the garden for a couple of hours, moving loads of flood loam by wheelbarrow from the old walled gardens in front of the house across to the belvedere, most of which I’ve decided, will now be grassed. I also cut down the spiky palm tree that was flattened by the 2001 flood. Sigh. I was joined for a while by a beautiful small snake with light brown to bronze colouring. The Xmas orchids are flowering. There have been no opportunities to mow, the air being humid and everything wet. Then the rain came and I had to run for shelter (I can still run a bit). There were loud electrical storms through the night so I followed the Mumbai attacks on TV.
Up early, the gardens soaked and proto clouds rising from ‘my’ forest behind the house. At 06: 40 there’s a good chance I can miss most of the leeches that seem to sleep in for another hour. Low wispy cloud covers the Valley and obscures the Dorrigo heights. I see cloud vapour rising from the river and from the far side of the bridge I can see proto clouds drifting upward from the summit high above the house. I recall pictures of cloud or vapour blowing off the summit of Everest. Maybe I’ll call my forested summit Mount Earthrise? The river’s course is marked by wisps of cloud rising over the Happenstance trees. Frogs along the road in flooded ditches rattle and pop. Lifting up mine eyes at Richardson’s Bridge I see much white blossom on one particular species of the wild trees scattered among the eucalypts. The hillside forest reminds me of hanging gardens.
Roses bloom in the Dog’s Garden and some of the dahlias are budding.
Happy St Andrews Day tomorrow to all of us with Scottish ancestry!
This Diary is No. 12 in the New Series (previously 1107, 108, 208, 308, 408, 508, 608, 708, 808, 908, 1008; this is 1108). DDD November 29 2008.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Earthrise Diary 1008
Don Diespecker
‘Hodgkinson named the main river the “Billingen”—an aboriginal word meaning “clear water”. The smaller of the two rivers he called the “Odalberrie” (Kalang)’
Maree Blewitt. The Bellinger Valley: A Window in Time (1997).
‘Nature writing is precisely about the emotional charge of the encounter,
the deep fulfilment that flows from our engagement with our fellow creatures. It is an intimacy that has been at the heart of our experience as humans for the last four million years. I believe that nature writing appeals to and draws upon some of the same impulse that created those magical Late Palaeolithic cave paintings at Lascaux or Altamira. I feel sure that it is the fundamental satisfaction we find in nature that explains the popularity of nature writing irrespective of the value, or the lack of it, which some critics may attach to it.’
Mark Cocker. A Tiger in the Sand (2006).
The sighting of a tiger’s full body imprint made in sand (that gave MC his title) has some resonance here: I’ve seen quite large wriggly impressions in the grasses and ground covers here, one of them adjacent to the house, another in the lawn/jungle near where I like to watch the river. These large impressions suggest either a very big python (or ‘carpet snake’ as locals usually call them), or a sizeable goanna. My neighbour, Doug, across the river, reports two recent sightings of big pythons sunning themselves on the riverbank (seen from the cockpit of his kayak). ‘Ten feet’ or about 3-m is big enough for me and I’m reminded of my past experiences of prodding these chaps with a long bamboo pole when they’d attached themselves to my house. Annoyed pythons would then transfer to the end of the pole and wind toward the pole-holder…and I would gallop through the open door and race through the gardens to deposit the snaked pole as far away as possible.
There are Aussie pythons big enough to crush and swallow small wallabies, but not, so far as I’m aware, in this part of the world. Touch wood.
Sept 29 ’08. At breakfast time, the sun beginning to bounce light off the river’s surface, I see clouds of flying ants swirling above the water, catching the light and seeming almost like a snow flurry.
There’s so much colour in the Valley from so many different trees and plants that it seems impossible to note or to remember them. The colours at Earthrise always manifest later than in the open Valley: Bauhinia (the orchid tree) and bottlebrush, the big pink azalea near the gate (now flowering profusely), pink new red cedar leaves (although trees along Darkwood Road are now fully leafed and densely green). Along the road: Tecoma stans (yellow Elder, ex Mexico) and magnificently full Virgilia capensis (the South African keurboom and yes, named for the Roman poet), the flowers a pale mauve-pink.
Oct 3 ’08. There were more flying creatures over the river at breakfast time yesterday and again this morning; seen through the binoculars the air between here and the next downstream bend is crowded with springtime fliers racing about in a lively cloud. And early this morning the reflected light of the rising sun danced from the rapids on to the back kitchen wall—all over the pine wall boards like the moving colours in a festival light show. (I’ve necessarily been working outside having recently acquired a fiendish little ‘Hand Lawn Mower’ that necessitates my sitting down very frequently; more of this testing experience later). Also, this morning: frequent ‘showers’ of dead-looking eucalypt leaves being discarded, possibly because the day is warm early and the temperature has quickly reached 28˚ by noon. I see that the old (lilly pilly) cheese tree close to the river has shed all of its winter leaves and is now festooned with bright green spring leaves.
There are more spangled drongos in the riverside trees than there were last year (most of the gang is further back in the high brush box trees) and similarly so further down the road where the birds gather long grass strands from the paddock fence to take to nests in the riverside trees. Perhaps this indicates their wanting to be closer to the water because the season seems likely to be hot. And, (Slater writes in A field guide to Australian birds), ‘Most of their food consists of flying insects, taken in flight.’ I was catching my breath (between mowing circuits) about 4-m from the birdbath when I saw that I had company: a flycatcher taking a very long bath; he wasn’t in the least troubled by me. And the water dragons are back on their beat too (I chased one out of the birdbath early this morning; perhaps it’s a cooling and safe place for dragons). There are at least three, each a different size; only one looks familiar, the medium-sized one (they pretend to rush off in a panic when I approach), but quickly return to drape themselves along the ramparts of the belvedere or they take vantage points on top of my cylindrical stone ‘table’ (the skinks will have moved out of the table’s crannies in disgust or have been eaten). The water dragons reappeared on Sunday (Sept 29) possibly because I’d mowed their hunting ground; they must otherwise tunnel or safari their ways through grass and groundcovers and in order to see any distance must crane upwards or bound up to a vantage point (like my stone table) or have a swing on my boot; any increased altitude is a benefit.
For the first time at Earthrise I see first one and then a second cat in the garden above the road; the one first seen is on the way out; the second is strolling nonchalantly in the same direction. Cats are not often seen in these parts; dogs, yes, but cats are rare. To see two cats is amazing (at least, for me). Cats hunt or playfully kill many birds in the area; they aren’t popular. (NOVEL: ‘Archie? Is that you, Archy? What brings you here, of all places?’ ‘Ah, Mehitabel, m’dear. Well, you know, I’ve always been a lawn chap, something of a flaneur, and Old Whatsisname has been scrupulously mowing after years of abstinence. How are the little kits?’ ‘They’re just fine and always a paw-full. Oh, Archie, you can’t fool me. It’s been so awfully hard struggling through all that darn grass and groundcover stuff; I just love a nice lawn where you can see for miles.’ ‘Ah, quite so, quite so, m’dear; it’s been so jolly unruly, the grass, that a chap has to strain to see over the top. This will make hunting a pleasure again—I say, I know a nice spot above the river where we can lie and smell the white flowering privet and watch the afternoon colours changing. The October-flowering privet reminds one of catnip. Care to join me?’ ‘Oh, Archie! I thought you’d never ask!’).
For those of you who wondered: ‘Wandering Jew, the Tradescantia pallida or Setcreasea purpurea is an evergreen perennial plant with elongated pointy leaves and small three-petaled pink flowers with yellow stamens. The leaves are most often purple, though another common variety has green [green at Earthrise] and purple leaves; rarer varieties are green and white or variegated. The plant thrives in sun or light shade in subtropical areas, grows to about a foot tall, and is typically used as an ornamental in gardens and borders. The plant is also used as a ground cover or hanging plant. The plant is native to America and is found from the southern United States through South America; in many areas it is considered an invasive weed. The green plant with white flowers is a common and invasive weed in Australia.
‘It is an invasive weed in native bush areas and is considered a noxious weed or pest plant that landowners are responsible for eradicating because Tradescantia is distinctive in its ability to colonize low light areas. It can form a dense mat under forest, which smothers low-growing plants and prevents the natural regeneration of taller native species. If left unchecked it can lead to the destruction of native forests.
‘The botanical name is derived from John Tradescant. Two John Tradescants, father and son, were among the earliest English botanists and plantsmen, travelers and collectors. John Tradescant the elder (ca 1570s 15/16 April 1638) was an English naturalist, gardener, collector and traveler, probably born in, [?] giving Tradescantia for the genus.’ [sic]
This information is from the Internet. Henceforth I shall call this little colonizer Trad Pal and add that, ‘At Earthrise, Upper Thora, NSW, Trad Pal sometimes subdues and then buries 90% of Big Lawn and reaches to the knees. Botanists wishing to study this prolific grower will find no better specimens anywhere on Earth. Gardeners wishing to remove Trad Pal and grass clippings for mulch are always welcome. The only way to defeat the Earthrise version of Trad Pal is to mow it. Moisture content is phenomenally high. The mown version makes good mulch and is non-toxic and that explains why feral deer in this area graze it. I wouldn’t be surprised if wine could be made from it.’
Oct 11 ’08, Saturday. So far I’ve found a decorative gecko (either leaf-tailed or possibly fishtailed) in the house and one of the house bronze skinks. The gecko is easily scooped into a plastic bucket and returned to the forest; the skink likes to rustle around the kitchen where there are noisy plastic bags (he makes noises that sound like a wildcat in a paper bag); he comes and goes as he pleases because he can climb up the structural poles (and past floor gaps) or walk under the front door (he tolerates me stroking his tale sometimes). There has been a large brush turkey that regularly comes up the front steps to see what I might have for him and also a small wallaby, perplexed, I think, (no bigger than a turkey) who sits looking at the house, but not for long. There are birds everywhere, non-stop and singing at all hours. There is the reek of flowering privet on the riverbank and along the road. There have been several sudden visits from five black cormorants (I call them the Gang of Five) who arrive like a squadron of jet fighters, making fast descending circuits that end in a joyous splash-down in the pool or across the mainstream running out of the pool. They immediately begin swimming, diving and fishing operations. Fishing is a busy hunting aside and every few minutes they stop feeding to hop up into deadwood branches near the opposite shore and sometimes roost there, presumably to prevent foxes hunting them. Of all the birds that live and work in this area, the Gang of Five seem always to combine work with pleasure. These marvelous swimmers are also able to rev up to take-off speed while in the water and to then lift off and fly, something we’ve not yet learned how to do. They’re a team of expert aviators and supreme swimmers. Dare I say they’re good examples of at-one-ment (Yom Kippur was on Oct 8; yom=day; kippur=atonement).
After much motor mowing yesterday arvo I was admiring my handiwork from an upstairs window at sunset when I saw the tail end of a python on the ridge roofing iron, the top half having already gone into that tight space immediately above the sloping peak of the roof over the lower floor lounge room where (beneath the ridge) are J’s stained glass windows. It occurred to me that this, ha ha, wriggler on the roof, all of 2-m or so, perhaps wanted to lie there looking blissfully down at Big Lawn, just as I was (from the top floor). He or she would have a splendidly safe view of Big Lawn, the magnificent great trees…and be entertained at dusk by the lawn fireflies.
And the other afternoon, looking back to the brightness of Big Lawn from the belvedere area I saw a peculiar and frenzied glittering and flashing near the roses. Slowly I walked closer. There were two or three small light brown and dark-brown-spotted butterflies hurling themselves about at speed—and there was also (almost as a spectator) a much larger blue/black butterfly. Neither of the two types were ‘attacking’ or pursuing the other. The brown fliers, I thought, may have been dancing or wooing or doing something of a very fast ritualistic nature. I mention this because I was astonished at the velocity and spectacular changes of direction of the small butterflies. They were so fast and in such close formation that my eyes weren’t quick enough to discriminate their perhaps identical speeds and individually varied directional changes (after two lens replacements, i.e., cataracts surgery, I can see superbly well and even read without glasses AND see spider web filaments floating in the sunlight over the river 50+m away). The speed and maneuverability of these tiny fliers reminds me of Welcome Swallows doing much the same thing. Perhaps it’s our big human brains that stop us from flying.
My visitors this month included old teaching colleagues, John Morris and Ronald Francis. It was a great pleasure to be sitting again in the garden with them.
Oct 22 ’08. Yesterday, following several days of cloudless blue sky, there was ten-tenths cloud. I cleverly thought I’d be quick and fire off two completed emails before the obvious storm arrived. Alas, one email was intent on arriving before I could yank the two out of draft form; this one announced itself as being ‘photos’. I’m perhaps the only person in Oz without broadband. Too late! The storm arrived. Lightning! Thunder! Normally I’d switch off and shut down the computer and disconnect the phone but the downloading process had begun. I hoped that there was nothing (particularly of me) that might attract lightning because not only would the computer and the phones be fried—I’d probably be toast, as well. The pics took 53 minutes to present themselves (that’s how it is with Dial-Up). I felt older. Sigh.
I’ve had necessarily to present at the hospital early each day to have a wound dressed, so my schedule is topsy-turvy. The early morning drivers of the single-lane Darkwood Road take their lives in their hands the moment we exit our gates. Everybody is driven by a self-organizing system (keep to the same speed and there’s a good chance of survival, but slow down or go too fast and everybody becomes a Hell Driver). To pass or be passed, at least one vehicle must drift to the one of the verges. The verges are either rutted and canyon-deep, or have recently been ‘repaired’ with rocks and soil that turns sticky when wet. Stones fly; windscreens are shattered; strong language is vented; there are slides and skids…
The day otherwise began beautifully. By the time I returned home a couple of hours later I was ready for bed. Nonetheless, I attempted to resume my schedule: I had a meal, listened to The Book-show, had a short walk and hurried home because the southern sky had turned black and a strong wind had sprung up. I got home in time to rush down to the roses with my secateurs and save two blooms: one Shocking Blue and one Just Joey. The storm began with hail and ended with rain (it’s usually the other way around here). I was charmed to see what looked like spring snow in places on Big Lawn and the ‘beach’ across the river looked snow-covered. Determined to have my lunchtime read in the sun I made some tea and sauntered down with my Literary Review and Quadrant and old newspaper for the wet chairs (one chair for me; another for the equipage). The hail was marble-sized and there were also thousands of small white cedar flowers in the grass. The hail had shredded many plants and leaves and knocked down countless five-petaled cedar flowers as well as small fine twigs holding a dozen or so of these tiny flowers. I managed to read the first few words of a sentence once I settled, but then another shower started falling and I hurried off, collecting twigs of flowers and filling my tea mug with them. They’re small and delicate flowers, white to mauve in colour; the centres are elongated and almost sepia-red. The SCENT is terrific, but you need a mug-full, at least. (I plan to launch Earthrise, a subtle white cedar scent that will take the fashion centres of the world by storm, ha ha; a possible name: Earthrise Storm). Nobody on Earth would want to launch Earthrise Privet Blossom as a scent
Oct 28 ’08. I pick a large hybrid tea rose: the season’s first Oklahoma is 140-mm across and has a great scent.
Several nights ago and listening to the night sounds I decide to switch on the outside light and immediately see an odd sight: one brush-tailed possum carrying Junior on her back. Mum is carefully moving along the suspended 1.5-in dia black poly-pipe that transports river water through the trees to my storage tank (when I pump). The little one stands on Mum’s back like a circus acrobat standing on a horse’s back. You might think that the diameter of the pipe would cause the bigger animal to lose her grip, to whirl, to rotate—but she manages beautifully.
A few days ago a long and quite heavy branch fell from the old bloodwood tree next to the house and all but wrecked the TV antenna on the roof. I climbed out onto the roof, teetering and hunched over, protective of my back wound, and did some delicate metal bending and straightening. Most channels are OK although half of the antenna is no longer straight and level (rather, it now looks like a ski-run). I lurch around like Quasimodo, remembering the 1939 movie in which Charles Laughton played The hunchback of Notre Dame.
The Chinese Toy, as I rudely call the little hand mower, recently purchased, does cut grass (sort of), but is thoroughly defeated by twigs of match-stick thickness (it’s perfectly suitable, being light and easy to carry around in the garden, for light trims that will benefit the Dragon Hunting Grounds or fiddly bits around the bird bath and is otherwise not worth the effort. Having persevered (over about a week) for 12 hours I estimate that I will easily cut the entire Big Lawn with The Toy in approximately 237 years.
There is nothing so impressive as good empirical data. I travel to Coffs Harbour where I purchase the aptly named Lawnmaker (a new Victa motor mower). I assemble and then begin to sculpt and chop up those parts of Big Lawn that have long been buried beneath Trad Pal jungles. The machine accomplishes in 20 minutes or so what had taken The Toy 12 hours to achieve. Parts of the garden, buried by flood loam in the 2001 Big Flood, re-emerge. The old Ariadne garden reappears. The wonderfully scented Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow flowering shrub is released from vine-bondage. My spirits soar. I’m on an archeological lawn-sculpting mission. Big Lawn is again beautiful.
Oct 31 ’08. Carl and I sit outside near the belvedere on a sultry day. The dragons appear and potter about in the new-mown short-cut grass. The word will have been passed to all dragons in the immediate vicinity to trust humans. Soon, one of them comes closer, one eye on us the other eye tracking stinging fly targets. Carl’s leg (enclosed in jeans) being immediately available and being also a temporary landing place for a stinger, the dragon leaps up to hang by his elegant claws from Carl’s jeans (he misses the stinger but stays there for a while in order to track new targets from this vantage point). The dragon later hops on to my boot, is given a swing or two, and then moves away again. We humans are mere stalking horses. There are three water dragons that seem much the same size; we count the stripes between fore- and back legs, trying to distinguish them (one is almost yellow in colouring). The three are all new this season. Later, two bigger dragons (Enforcer Tough Guys) arrive and (although wary of us), muscle in on the Three Amigos, chasing them away from the best positions on the ramparts of the belvedere. We discuss the peculiar antics of the dragons: the repeated head jerking, some tail twitching and even their raised leg waving (very strange behaviour, at least to us).
Carl spots a snake falling off the roof of the house. We stroll up to have a look. It’s a dark, almost black, python about 2-m long (with the typical yellowish carpet-like patterning contrasting with the black). He or she had surely been between the steel roofing and the ceiling (where it will have been very hot). He or she heads for the lantana-covered slopes, but slowly. A few minutes later and back in the house, Carl calls me over to the eastern deck: below is a second python, very much like the first. This one heads in a different direction, also slowly. I suspect both are rock pythons.
Nov 1 ’08. The dawn morning is grey and completely clouded. Carl has to leave early so I have an early walk. As I walk along the road the Usher’s pull up to say hello. They advise that there’s a big hatching of flying ants at Bishop’s Creek; the birds have been gorging. When I reach Richardson’s Bridge all of the heavy beam balusters on both sides of the bridge decking are alive with emerging flying ants (synchronicity, perhaps?). What do these little creatures know that we do not know, or is this merely a weather or seasonal phenomenon? Along the road and also at Earthrise, most of the white privet blossom is browning. The long Happenstance paddock is emerald green and there ‘s a touch of blue in the jacarandas. Once home again I see the first blue jacaranda among blossom among the native violets on Big Lawn. In the second half of October the jacarandas along Darkwood Road, Waterfall Way and in Bellingen are in full bloom, beautifully blue.
Vale. John Keats, who died earlier this year, was the Foundation Professor of Psychology in The University of Newcastle (NSW) (1965) and a distinguished psychometrician. He used to tell his students that if we wanted to learn about something we ought to try teaching that something. Enno Endt (1923-2007) was a Netherlands writer and scholar. I first met Enno in 1950 when we were passengers on the old Gerusalemme (bound from Durban to Venice).
Some References:
One of the books I’ve enjoyed reading this month is Marc Weingarten’s, Who’s afraid of Tom Wolfe? How New Journalism rewrote the world. London: Aurum, 2005. (Truman Capote, Tom Wolfe, Hunter S Thompson, Michael Herr, Joan Didion, Norman Mailer, Jimmy Breslin and others). It’s an excellent and informative read. (New Journalism: a form of news reporting developed in the 1960s that incorporated some of the features associated with fiction, lending an imaginative, literary character to the traditional, fact-based report. Among these features was an emphasis on the distinctive style and personality of the authors (Collins Dictionary of Literary Terms). Mark Cocker’s A tiger in the sand. Selected writings on Nature. London: Jonathan Cape (2006). Maree Blewitt. The Bellinger Valley: a window in time. Privately printed in Bellingen (Bellinger Shire Courier Sun, 1997).
This Diary is No. 11 in the New Series (previously 1107, 108, 208, 308, 408, 508, 608, 708, 808, 908; this is 1008). DDD November 1 2008.
Don Diespecker
‘Hodgkinson named the main river the “Billingen”—an aboriginal word meaning “clear water”. The smaller of the two rivers he called the “Odalberrie” (Kalang)’
Maree Blewitt. The Bellinger Valley: A Window in Time (1997).
‘Nature writing is precisely about the emotional charge of the encounter,
the deep fulfilment that flows from our engagement with our fellow creatures. It is an intimacy that has been at the heart of our experience as humans for the last four million years. I believe that nature writing appeals to and draws upon some of the same impulse that created those magical Late Palaeolithic cave paintings at Lascaux or Altamira. I feel sure that it is the fundamental satisfaction we find in nature that explains the popularity of nature writing irrespective of the value, or the lack of it, which some critics may attach to it.’
Mark Cocker. A Tiger in the Sand (2006).
The sighting of a tiger’s full body imprint made in sand (that gave MC his title) has some resonance here: I’ve seen quite large wriggly impressions in the grasses and ground covers here, one of them adjacent to the house, another in the lawn/jungle near where I like to watch the river. These large impressions suggest either a very big python (or ‘carpet snake’ as locals usually call them), or a sizeable goanna. My neighbour, Doug, across the river, reports two recent sightings of big pythons sunning themselves on the riverbank (seen from the cockpit of his kayak). ‘Ten feet’ or about 3-m is big enough for me and I’m reminded of my past experiences of prodding these chaps with a long bamboo pole when they’d attached themselves to my house. Annoyed pythons would then transfer to the end of the pole and wind toward the pole-holder…and I would gallop through the open door and race through the gardens to deposit the snaked pole as far away as possible.
There are Aussie pythons big enough to crush and swallow small wallabies, but not, so far as I’m aware, in this part of the world. Touch wood.
Sept 29 ’08. At breakfast time, the sun beginning to bounce light off the river’s surface, I see clouds of flying ants swirling above the water, catching the light and seeming almost like a snow flurry.
There’s so much colour in the Valley from so many different trees and plants that it seems impossible to note or to remember them. The colours at Earthrise always manifest later than in the open Valley: Bauhinia (the orchid tree) and bottlebrush, the big pink azalea near the gate (now flowering profusely), pink new red cedar leaves (although trees along Darkwood Road are now fully leafed and densely green). Along the road: Tecoma stans (yellow Elder, ex Mexico) and magnificently full Virgilia capensis (the South African keurboom and yes, named for the Roman poet), the flowers a pale mauve-pink.
Oct 3 ’08. There were more flying creatures over the river at breakfast time yesterday and again this morning; seen through the binoculars the air between here and the next downstream bend is crowded with springtime fliers racing about in a lively cloud. And early this morning the reflected light of the rising sun danced from the rapids on to the back kitchen wall—all over the pine wall boards like the moving colours in a festival light show. (I’ve necessarily been working outside having recently acquired a fiendish little ‘Hand Lawn Mower’ that necessitates my sitting down very frequently; more of this testing experience later). Also, this morning: frequent ‘showers’ of dead-looking eucalypt leaves being discarded, possibly because the day is warm early and the temperature has quickly reached 28˚ by noon. I see that the old (lilly pilly) cheese tree close to the river has shed all of its winter leaves and is now festooned with bright green spring leaves.
There are more spangled drongos in the riverside trees than there were last year (most of the gang is further back in the high brush box trees) and similarly so further down the road where the birds gather long grass strands from the paddock fence to take to nests in the riverside trees. Perhaps this indicates their wanting to be closer to the water because the season seems likely to be hot. And, (Slater writes in A field guide to Australian birds), ‘Most of their food consists of flying insects, taken in flight.’ I was catching my breath (between mowing circuits) about 4-m from the birdbath when I saw that I had company: a flycatcher taking a very long bath; he wasn’t in the least troubled by me. And the water dragons are back on their beat too (I chased one out of the birdbath early this morning; perhaps it’s a cooling and safe place for dragons). There are at least three, each a different size; only one looks familiar, the medium-sized one (they pretend to rush off in a panic when I approach), but quickly return to drape themselves along the ramparts of the belvedere or they take vantage points on top of my cylindrical stone ‘table’ (the skinks will have moved out of the table’s crannies in disgust or have been eaten). The water dragons reappeared on Sunday (Sept 29) possibly because I’d mowed their hunting ground; they must otherwise tunnel or safari their ways through grass and groundcovers and in order to see any distance must crane upwards or bound up to a vantage point (like my stone table) or have a swing on my boot; any increased altitude is a benefit.
For the first time at Earthrise I see first one and then a second cat in the garden above the road; the one first seen is on the way out; the second is strolling nonchalantly in the same direction. Cats are not often seen in these parts; dogs, yes, but cats are rare. To see two cats is amazing (at least, for me). Cats hunt or playfully kill many birds in the area; they aren’t popular. (NOVEL: ‘Archie? Is that you, Archy? What brings you here, of all places?’ ‘Ah, Mehitabel, m’dear. Well, you know, I’ve always been a lawn chap, something of a flaneur, and Old Whatsisname has been scrupulously mowing after years of abstinence. How are the little kits?’ ‘They’re just fine and always a paw-full. Oh, Archie, you can’t fool me. It’s been so awfully hard struggling through all that darn grass and groundcover stuff; I just love a nice lawn where you can see for miles.’ ‘Ah, quite so, quite so, m’dear; it’s been so jolly unruly, the grass, that a chap has to strain to see over the top. This will make hunting a pleasure again—I say, I know a nice spot above the river where we can lie and smell the white flowering privet and watch the afternoon colours changing. The October-flowering privet reminds one of catnip. Care to join me?’ ‘Oh, Archie! I thought you’d never ask!’).
For those of you who wondered: ‘Wandering Jew, the Tradescantia pallida or Setcreasea purpurea is an evergreen perennial plant with elongated pointy leaves and small three-petaled pink flowers with yellow stamens. The leaves are most often purple, though another common variety has green [green at Earthrise] and purple leaves; rarer varieties are green and white or variegated. The plant thrives in sun or light shade in subtropical areas, grows to about a foot tall, and is typically used as an ornamental in gardens and borders. The plant is also used as a ground cover or hanging plant. The plant is native to America and is found from the southern United States through South America; in many areas it is considered an invasive weed. The green plant with white flowers is a common and invasive weed in Australia.
‘It is an invasive weed in native bush areas and is considered a noxious weed or pest plant that landowners are responsible for eradicating because Tradescantia is distinctive in its ability to colonize low light areas. It can form a dense mat under forest, which smothers low-growing plants and prevents the natural regeneration of taller native species. If left unchecked it can lead to the destruction of native forests.
‘The botanical name is derived from John Tradescant. Two John Tradescants, father and son, were among the earliest English botanists and plantsmen, travelers and collectors. John Tradescant the elder (ca 1570s 15/16 April 1638) was an English naturalist, gardener, collector and traveler, probably born in, [?] giving Tradescantia for the genus.’ [sic]
This information is from the Internet. Henceforth I shall call this little colonizer Trad Pal and add that, ‘At Earthrise, Upper Thora, NSW, Trad Pal sometimes subdues and then buries 90% of Big Lawn and reaches to the knees. Botanists wishing to study this prolific grower will find no better specimens anywhere on Earth. Gardeners wishing to remove Trad Pal and grass clippings for mulch are always welcome. The only way to defeat the Earthrise version of Trad Pal is to mow it. Moisture content is phenomenally high. The mown version makes good mulch and is non-toxic and that explains why feral deer in this area graze it. I wouldn’t be surprised if wine could be made from it.’
Oct 11 ’08, Saturday. So far I’ve found a decorative gecko (either leaf-tailed or possibly fishtailed) in the house and one of the house bronze skinks. The gecko is easily scooped into a plastic bucket and returned to the forest; the skink likes to rustle around the kitchen where there are noisy plastic bags (he makes noises that sound like a wildcat in a paper bag); he comes and goes as he pleases because he can climb up the structural poles (and past floor gaps) or walk under the front door (he tolerates me stroking his tale sometimes). There has been a large brush turkey that regularly comes up the front steps to see what I might have for him and also a small wallaby, perplexed, I think, (no bigger than a turkey) who sits looking at the house, but not for long. There are birds everywhere, non-stop and singing at all hours. There is the reek of flowering privet on the riverbank and along the road. There have been several sudden visits from five black cormorants (I call them the Gang of Five) who arrive like a squadron of jet fighters, making fast descending circuits that end in a joyous splash-down in the pool or across the mainstream running out of the pool. They immediately begin swimming, diving and fishing operations. Fishing is a busy hunting aside and every few minutes they stop feeding to hop up into deadwood branches near the opposite shore and sometimes roost there, presumably to prevent foxes hunting them. Of all the birds that live and work in this area, the Gang of Five seem always to combine work with pleasure. These marvelous swimmers are also able to rev up to take-off speed while in the water and to then lift off and fly, something we’ve not yet learned how to do. They’re a team of expert aviators and supreme swimmers. Dare I say they’re good examples of at-one-ment (Yom Kippur was on Oct 8; yom=day; kippur=atonement).
After much motor mowing yesterday arvo I was admiring my handiwork from an upstairs window at sunset when I saw the tail end of a python on the ridge roofing iron, the top half having already gone into that tight space immediately above the sloping peak of the roof over the lower floor lounge room where (beneath the ridge) are J’s stained glass windows. It occurred to me that this, ha ha, wriggler on the roof, all of 2-m or so, perhaps wanted to lie there looking blissfully down at Big Lawn, just as I was (from the top floor). He or she would have a splendidly safe view of Big Lawn, the magnificent great trees…and be entertained at dusk by the lawn fireflies.
And the other afternoon, looking back to the brightness of Big Lawn from the belvedere area I saw a peculiar and frenzied glittering and flashing near the roses. Slowly I walked closer. There were two or three small light brown and dark-brown-spotted butterflies hurling themselves about at speed—and there was also (almost as a spectator) a much larger blue/black butterfly. Neither of the two types were ‘attacking’ or pursuing the other. The brown fliers, I thought, may have been dancing or wooing or doing something of a very fast ritualistic nature. I mention this because I was astonished at the velocity and spectacular changes of direction of the small butterflies. They were so fast and in such close formation that my eyes weren’t quick enough to discriminate their perhaps identical speeds and individually varied directional changes (after two lens replacements, i.e., cataracts surgery, I can see superbly well and even read without glasses AND see spider web filaments floating in the sunlight over the river 50+m away). The speed and maneuverability of these tiny fliers reminds me of Welcome Swallows doing much the same thing. Perhaps it’s our big human brains that stop us from flying.
My visitors this month included old teaching colleagues, John Morris and Ronald Francis. It was a great pleasure to be sitting again in the garden with them.
Oct 22 ’08. Yesterday, following several days of cloudless blue sky, there was ten-tenths cloud. I cleverly thought I’d be quick and fire off two completed emails before the obvious storm arrived. Alas, one email was intent on arriving before I could yank the two out of draft form; this one announced itself as being ‘photos’. I’m perhaps the only person in Oz without broadband. Too late! The storm arrived. Lightning! Thunder! Normally I’d switch off and shut down the computer and disconnect the phone but the downloading process had begun. I hoped that there was nothing (particularly of me) that might attract lightning because not only would the computer and the phones be fried—I’d probably be toast, as well. The pics took 53 minutes to present themselves (that’s how it is with Dial-Up). I felt older. Sigh.
I’ve had necessarily to present at the hospital early each day to have a wound dressed, so my schedule is topsy-turvy. The early morning drivers of the single-lane Darkwood Road take their lives in their hands the moment we exit our gates. Everybody is driven by a self-organizing system (keep to the same speed and there’s a good chance of survival, but slow down or go too fast and everybody becomes a Hell Driver). To pass or be passed, at least one vehicle must drift to the one of the verges. The verges are either rutted and canyon-deep, or have recently been ‘repaired’ with rocks and soil that turns sticky when wet. Stones fly; windscreens are shattered; strong language is vented; there are slides and skids…
The day otherwise began beautifully. By the time I returned home a couple of hours later I was ready for bed. Nonetheless, I attempted to resume my schedule: I had a meal, listened to The Book-show, had a short walk and hurried home because the southern sky had turned black and a strong wind had sprung up. I got home in time to rush down to the roses with my secateurs and save two blooms: one Shocking Blue and one Just Joey. The storm began with hail and ended with rain (it’s usually the other way around here). I was charmed to see what looked like spring snow in places on Big Lawn and the ‘beach’ across the river looked snow-covered. Determined to have my lunchtime read in the sun I made some tea and sauntered down with my Literary Review and Quadrant and old newspaper for the wet chairs (one chair for me; another for the equipage). The hail was marble-sized and there were also thousands of small white cedar flowers in the grass. The hail had shredded many plants and leaves and knocked down countless five-petaled cedar flowers as well as small fine twigs holding a dozen or so of these tiny flowers. I managed to read the first few words of a sentence once I settled, but then another shower started falling and I hurried off, collecting twigs of flowers and filling my tea mug with them. They’re small and delicate flowers, white to mauve in colour; the centres are elongated and almost sepia-red. The SCENT is terrific, but you need a mug-full, at least. (I plan to launch Earthrise, a subtle white cedar scent that will take the fashion centres of the world by storm, ha ha; a possible name: Earthrise Storm). Nobody on Earth would want to launch Earthrise Privet Blossom as a scent
Oct 28 ’08. I pick a large hybrid tea rose: the season’s first Oklahoma is 140-mm across and has a great scent.
Several nights ago and listening to the night sounds I decide to switch on the outside light and immediately see an odd sight: one brush-tailed possum carrying Junior on her back. Mum is carefully moving along the suspended 1.5-in dia black poly-pipe that transports river water through the trees to my storage tank (when I pump). The little one stands on Mum’s back like a circus acrobat standing on a horse’s back. You might think that the diameter of the pipe would cause the bigger animal to lose her grip, to whirl, to rotate—but she manages beautifully.
A few days ago a long and quite heavy branch fell from the old bloodwood tree next to the house and all but wrecked the TV antenna on the roof. I climbed out onto the roof, teetering and hunched over, protective of my back wound, and did some delicate metal bending and straightening. Most channels are OK although half of the antenna is no longer straight and level (rather, it now looks like a ski-run). I lurch around like Quasimodo, remembering the 1939 movie in which Charles Laughton played The hunchback of Notre Dame.
The Chinese Toy, as I rudely call the little hand mower, recently purchased, does cut grass (sort of), but is thoroughly defeated by twigs of match-stick thickness (it’s perfectly suitable, being light and easy to carry around in the garden, for light trims that will benefit the Dragon Hunting Grounds or fiddly bits around the bird bath and is otherwise not worth the effort. Having persevered (over about a week) for 12 hours I estimate that I will easily cut the entire Big Lawn with The Toy in approximately 237 years.
There is nothing so impressive as good empirical data. I travel to Coffs Harbour where I purchase the aptly named Lawnmaker (a new Victa motor mower). I assemble and then begin to sculpt and chop up those parts of Big Lawn that have long been buried beneath Trad Pal jungles. The machine accomplishes in 20 minutes or so what had taken The Toy 12 hours to achieve. Parts of the garden, buried by flood loam in the 2001 Big Flood, re-emerge. The old Ariadne garden reappears. The wonderfully scented Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow flowering shrub is released from vine-bondage. My spirits soar. I’m on an archeological lawn-sculpting mission. Big Lawn is again beautiful.
Oct 31 ’08. Carl and I sit outside near the belvedere on a sultry day. The dragons appear and potter about in the new-mown short-cut grass. The word will have been passed to all dragons in the immediate vicinity to trust humans. Soon, one of them comes closer, one eye on us the other eye tracking stinging fly targets. Carl’s leg (enclosed in jeans) being immediately available and being also a temporary landing place for a stinger, the dragon leaps up to hang by his elegant claws from Carl’s jeans (he misses the stinger but stays there for a while in order to track new targets from this vantage point). The dragon later hops on to my boot, is given a swing or two, and then moves away again. We humans are mere stalking horses. There are three water dragons that seem much the same size; we count the stripes between fore- and back legs, trying to distinguish them (one is almost yellow in colouring). The three are all new this season. Later, two bigger dragons (Enforcer Tough Guys) arrive and (although wary of us), muscle in on the Three Amigos, chasing them away from the best positions on the ramparts of the belvedere. We discuss the peculiar antics of the dragons: the repeated head jerking, some tail twitching and even their raised leg waving (very strange behaviour, at least to us).
Carl spots a snake falling off the roof of the house. We stroll up to have a look. It’s a dark, almost black, python about 2-m long (with the typical yellowish carpet-like patterning contrasting with the black). He or she had surely been between the steel roofing and the ceiling (where it will have been very hot). He or she heads for the lantana-covered slopes, but slowly. A few minutes later and back in the house, Carl calls me over to the eastern deck: below is a second python, very much like the first. This one heads in a different direction, also slowly. I suspect both are rock pythons.
Nov 1 ’08. The dawn morning is grey and completely clouded. Carl has to leave early so I have an early walk. As I walk along the road the Usher’s pull up to say hello. They advise that there’s a big hatching of flying ants at Bishop’s Creek; the birds have been gorging. When I reach Richardson’s Bridge all of the heavy beam balusters on both sides of the bridge decking are alive with emerging flying ants (synchronicity, perhaps?). What do these little creatures know that we do not know, or is this merely a weather or seasonal phenomenon? Along the road and also at Earthrise, most of the white privet blossom is browning. The long Happenstance paddock is emerald green and there ‘s a touch of blue in the jacarandas. Once home again I see the first blue jacaranda among blossom among the native violets on Big Lawn. In the second half of October the jacarandas along Darkwood Road, Waterfall Way and in Bellingen are in full bloom, beautifully blue.
Vale. John Keats, who died earlier this year, was the Foundation Professor of Psychology in The University of Newcastle (NSW) (1965) and a distinguished psychometrician. He used to tell his students that if we wanted to learn about something we ought to try teaching that something. Enno Endt (1923-2007) was a Netherlands writer and scholar. I first met Enno in 1950 when we were passengers on the old Gerusalemme (bound from Durban to Venice).
Some References:
One of the books I’ve enjoyed reading this month is Marc Weingarten’s, Who’s afraid of Tom Wolfe? How New Journalism rewrote the world. London: Aurum, 2005. (Truman Capote, Tom Wolfe, Hunter S Thompson, Michael Herr, Joan Didion, Norman Mailer, Jimmy Breslin and others). It’s an excellent and informative read. (New Journalism: a form of news reporting developed in the 1960s that incorporated some of the features associated with fiction, lending an imaginative, literary character to the traditional, fact-based report. Among these features was an emphasis on the distinctive style and personality of the authors (Collins Dictionary of Literary Terms). Mark Cocker’s A tiger in the sand. Selected writings on Nature. London: Jonathan Cape (2006). Maree Blewitt. The Bellinger Valley: a window in time. Privately printed in Bellingen (Bellinger Shire Courier Sun, 1997).
This Diary is No. 11 in the New Series (previously 1107, 108, 208, 308, 408, 508, 608, 708, 808, 908; this is 1008). DDD November 1 2008.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Earthrise Diary No: 808
“The cormorant above the water is using what in aviation terminology is called the ‘ground effect’. At speeds just above Vs (stall speed) an airfoil (wing) floats close to the ground on a cushion of air. I find that knowledge of aerodynamics increases my enjoyment of watching birds in flight.”
Charly Waldorf (in Alice Springs) re the cormorants at Earthrise
July 26 2008. Fence-line Force. I’m startled early in the morning (while walking the road) by the whirring of small wings. A sizeable mob of red-browed finches rises from its interrupted breakfast of multi-grain grass seeds along the Happenstance fence. Some settle on the wires to watch me safely past. I glance back; the birds settle again to feed. When looking back earlier I’d seen river mist in patches drifting along, marking the river line downstream from Earthrise (there was no breeze). If the gentle beating of butterfly wings in (Central America?) may initiate wind systems and trigger Big Winds, how much bigger might Australian Big Winds be? Could red-browed finches be rented out to move river mist? Finch Power. Finch Force. Avian Winds. (‘Rent our well-adjusted finches for all your mist and cloud-shifting needs’). (‘Your labour costs must be negligible?’ ‘Certainly not; we’ve had to build huge aviaries over 39 of their favourite grasses; our costs are enormous’). When finches park on wire fences they remind me of musical notes (not that I can read music). I wonder if composers take advantage of such bird notation?
Which reminds me of the huge totally enclosed aviaries in San Diego, (the SD Zoo or Balboa Park? I forget which). Now I’m remembering the Café del Rey Oro in Balboa Park and Sunday Brunch with a glass of champagne included (Gestalt therapy training at nearby La Jolla allowed us free weekends. Sigh).
Fence-line Art. Along the fence-line are the dewed heads of grasses and some taller dead weeds. Many of the weeds have dewy spider-webs attached. The rising sun turns the scene into artwork; all the dewdrops glister. I’m at the right place at the right time of day.
Toward the end of July most of the red cedars in the area have now leafed, pinkly; the cedars are slower here because Earthrise is so much in the forest and doesn’t become sunnier until summer. Most of the (unrelated) white cedars are still gaunt, bare, and grey-white; an occasional tree works to make leaf buds, but most are still resting. Do the red cedars have growth energy to spare? I’m puzzled that there are still so many yellow berries on the white cedars; normally, the fruit pigeons and magpies would remove them all well before mid winter (come to think of it I’ve not seen many brown pigeons since summer). The soaring pear tree in Cedar Grove looks gaunt now and has only a few bedraggled brown leaves; however, in the foreground the five crimson and scarlet azaleas are in full bloom. The eye sees what is most pleasing. The pear tree at the foot of the steep slope recedes into the forest background of dense scrub and big trees.
August 1 2008. I turn the La Provence calendar (thanks, Nick) page and admire a colour picture of sunlight at Pernes les Fontaines. The sky there is eye-achingly blue, as it also is here. Today, early, the weather is 5 or 6 outside with the meteorological promise of the temperature later reaching 25/26 (which, to my surprise, it did). Also today there is a Total Solar Eclipse (I don’t know where, exactly, but one of you Out There might witness this event) at 10:21 UT (by which time it will surely be dark here). (Yesterday was also brilliant; there was no cloud, a top temperature of 19 or 20˚). I’ve been able to read, comfortably, on Lookout Lawn on both days (not bad for mid winter?). The May Literary Review cover illustration features ‘Earth from the Air’ and one review is about doing archaeology from the air (which reminds me of Charly’s observation, above). Wouldn’t it be fun to have one’s own satellite? Perhaps I’d then be able to see a Lost City or an old buried space ship beneath Big Lawn or the outline of a Sunken Treasure Vessel beneath the banks where I like to sit in winter sunshine. Now I’m reminded of an unpublished novel of mine, ‘Selati,’ in which I ‘use’ a 1912 Antoinette Racer as the search/photography platform along the old Selati Railway Line in the S-E Transvaal (Louise, 12-years old daughter of the principal protagonists, grows up to become an aviator with a business of her own: aerial archaeology). Wouldn’t that be fun? Fiction writing can be a Grand Adventure. Sometimes.
I see that there’s a review (by Charlotte Appleyard) of Tom Fort’s book, Downstream: Across England in a Punt and I’m reminded of Pam and I punting on the Thames many years ago (I prefer a paddle to a pole). CA writes, “As a teenager I spent a day in a field in Kent waist deep in water with a large ruler and some string. I was, along with a group of equally disgruntled teenagers, measuring the gradient of the bend in a river.” They “concluded that the river was officially ‘meandering.’” I share author Fort’s annoyance “that there is no name for his passion [enjoying rivers]: fluviophilia and river-love are unsatisfactory…”
I’ve been casting a jaundiced eye at the belvedere: it appears to be settling differentially—toward the river, being right on the lawn’s edge at the top of the riverbank. I realised, years ago, that the base stones supporting gravity walls sometimes settle into the soil and virtually disappear. I remember reading that in John Jerome’s Stone Work, an old favourite of mine. Should the base stones settle, so will the wall, of course. The paved area behind the wall will slope at an increasingly acute angle. I’ll have to keep a close watch. Tai Chi chaps will have problems. I wonder if the deer like to lie there restfully on moonlit nights?
*
My cousin, Eliane Roos’s View: “Here in Paris we are bathing in a unusual hot climate. It is still a beautiful city even under such heat! Out of my window I can see modern buildings 6 to 15 stories high with flowers on many balconies and trees and wild shrubs in between and a light blue sky with some sheepshaped clouds.”
*
Aug 3 2008. While walking over the Plains Crossing Bridge I spot some of the first white spider orchids on one of the older river-oaks on ‘my’ bank. I know where a ‘veil’ of such orchids can be seen (it’s not here; it’s the best part of a metre long…but I’ll keep that location secret. In the past, vandals have chain-sawed trees to removed orchids).
Aug 7 2008. It continues cold in the mornings and at night; there are blue skies all day. The old native privet on the road near the group of silky oaks (grevillea robusta) hosts at least four species of birds these mornings: the privet is loaded with tight bunches of small dark blue fruits that look like bunches of mini grapes. Red/green king parrots, being so noticeable seem also the most nervous. Black/white magpies slip in and out of the food source without troubling other birds. Fruit pigeons are usually on the outside of the tree, above the road (and me).
Aug 16 ’08. Nine days later I stop abruptly in the same spot: the Regent Bower Bird is feeding in the privet six metres away and watching me watching him. I stand and watch him, walking carefully closer, for nearly ten minutes (probably a record for both of us). If you Google him you can study his striking plumage.
Today the five azalea bushes continue to bloom in Cedar Grove. The World’s Highest Pear Tree is putting out new leaves that look like coloured cotton wool. Near Richardson’s Bridge I see the Secret Mulberry bushes are leafing and also fruiting (!). They’ve been repeatedly slashed and mowed and now have tactfully moved further into the verges, down the riverbank slightly and closer to the protection of big casuarinas—well away from the road and safely beyond the slasher’s reach. No silkworms though.
Today, too, I see the first goanna of spring (can the snakes be far behind?). He’s close to the house on the scree slopes while I’m axing firewood and noisier than an elephant. Later I carry 150-mm logs from the West End to the chopping block on the stone pavement in front of the house steps. Viva chelation! Hard work. Something I dared not attempt 6/12 ago. Oddly, I have many thoughts about the past in Victoria, BC & Paris. Can this be a sign of approaching madness, I wonder?
Aug 18. I see two large turkeys scratching near the Dog’s Garden. BIG. Both are in excellent condition. And I see a wallaby bounding up from the riverbank. He stops in front of the house and I cluck at him. He turns, frowning like Grommit at me, then bounces up the track to the carport. He’s BIG too. Perhaps it’s my fevered state but this wallaby seems about twice the size of your average critter. Can it be an Eastern Red? Is this the return of the mega fauna? What’s going on?
Aug 28 ’08. I hear yet another goanna lurching past the house while I’m writing (he’s smaller than the first). I wonder at the ungainly lurching walk for the umpteenth time and remind myself that they can move VERY quickly when they’ve a mind to (and they have an unpleasant reputation for Running Up Humans). Their claws are formidable. You’ll all be aware I think of how cheerfully they snack on snakes of all sizes (see Google). Goanna claws remind me that a couple of days ago I heard a noisy clomping on my front steps. I stopped writing and politely opened the door. It was a very healthy-looking turkey (their claws are also huge). This turkey behaved like a pet or perhaps an old friend. He walked right up and accepted a multi-grain crust (gluten-free, too). What if he wants to move in?
If the weather improves I’ll risk planting some dahlia tubers this w/e. I’m the only person I know able to defeat turkeys at Dahlia Tuber Time (they love to dig up newly planted tubers): a square metre of chicken wire placed over the newly planted tuber.
Aug 29 ‘08. After last night’s storms the river has put on a little weight and risen 100-mm or so and washed down the corpse (possibly a platypus) that was caught on the concrete ford next to the bridge. Two weeks ago I’d watched a big eel on the bottom next to a bridge pier (upstream side) and had assumed the eel would clean up the evidence; the rain arrived first, however. The corpse may now be in the corner bend (from where I pump water to storage…). Further down the road there were ragged clouds and rising mists above the forest and the slopes leading up to Dorrigo and the sun was trying to break through. Too bad I no longer take pictures (except in my mind). Coming home from Coffs Harbour/Bellingen on the 27th I noticed a ‘near morning glory cloud’ lying along the range. This morning, too, there was a similar big cloud, half way up the slopes. I was reminded of Frank Herbert’s Dune books.
The swallows were larking about down at Richardson’s Bridge and I did my best to imagine magically slowing them down so I could see them more clearly. The swallows move wondrously fast and are scarcely recognisable as swallows when they sometimes land on dry stones in the stream. Flying, their actions are almost like contests—but that doesn’t make sense, does it? Might there be swallow experts reading this who could enlighten me? And as I start my return walk I’m struck by the artistic look of stag horns and elk horns growing on the trunks of riverside casuarinas. (I’m assuming that they’re epiphytes because they grow non-parasitically on the casuarinas and I know they’ll even grow on wooden fences; and that reminds me that I have half a dozen small birds nest ferns (so-called) growing on an exposed roof timber of my carport). Anyway. Near the bridge there’s a stag horn growing profusely on a wrecked casuarina that’s surely dead (the fern is 8-m up where the top of the tree has broken off and vanished). The fern is luxuriant and looks (at least, to me) amazingly like a green version of a Corinthian capital and its symbolic acanthus leaves, being at the top of the dead tree ‘column’. The more I look up at it the more it also looks like one of those very artistic capitals that Antoni Gaudi designed in the amazing Barcelona cathedral (La Sagrada Familia). At this time of year there are large brown ‘patches’ on the undersides of the bigger ferns (maybe ‘sporangia’?) (I plan to know all about plants in my next materialisation).
With my head still up I study the feeding action in the roadside native privet trees halfway home. The magpies go silent and move about cautiously. There are other (grey?) birds also feeding on the berries. I stop to watch and almost miss seeing the Regent Bower Bird (at eye level) for the second time this month! Can it be the same bird? He feeds nonchalantly (as if I don’t exist and I’m only 5 or 6-m from him)! After a couple of minutes this relaxed behaviour is too much for a second bird that drops down and muscles Regent away from his breakfast. Regent pops up several metres where he feeds without losing his composure. The new bird is grey, looks like a thrush, and is scalloped; later, I can’t identify him in my field book. Imagine having been so close to a Regent TWICE this month (he seemed almost as tame as my new turkey acquaintance!).
More rain falls—and some small hail. It’s being a day of Looking Up.
I’ve twice been denied my lunchtime reading by cool showery weather. I wandered about briefly and sulkily pulled a few weeds, particularly the fiendish Mist Flower (a smaller ‘version’ of Crofton Weed). As I tottered about I had a good look at the ‘lawn,’ where there are patches of umpteen different grasses (gifts of the BIG 2001 flood) and an almost endless expanse of so-called Wandering Jew, a fleshy creeping weed that colonises shady and damp areas and is forever green. I know that the feral deer (Deer Farm escapees from across the road) enjoy grazing here (my fence line was destroyed by the 2001 flood) I’d not realised quite how partial they are to the greenery (including the balsam or impatiens, now nearly extinct here and numerous other cultivated plants). The deer have grazed my lawn ‘pastures’ so enthusiastically that large areas appear mowed or brush-cut. They do this at night (there are many more deer hanging out here than there are wallabies). Indeed, there are now game paths connecting several areas of the gardens and beaten-down lantana on the slopes behind the house (wallabies behave quite differently). The lawn now looks like a great green unmade bed and the slopes look as though very busy safari traffic has been Opening New Routes. Should I perhaps organise a deer herd to do lawn mowing? Sheep do it, why not deer?
*
Aug 30 ’08. Here I borrow a neologism and way of notating from Durrell’s Justine: Workpoints. All the Valley misted, the weather damp and chilly; Darkwood Road puddles shining; a dark-coated fox bounding across Happenstance, stopping to stare me down before running to the river; remembering the scarlet head and golden collar of the plump brush turkey; first blossom on the Halfway Wild Peach Tree; the twice-seen Regent breakfasting; the river a little higher following storms; the surge and long trail of bubbles made by the log upstream of Richardson’s; the look of the neighbours’ paddocks at winter’s end: light to emerald dark greens and further along, russets, khaki’s, browns and pale yellows; green and red king parrots feeding; Mount Die-Happy’s summit swirled by mists; tiny apricot and blue flashes in images of those fly-past swallow.
*
‘What is the use of a book,’ thought Alice, ‘without pictures or conversation?’ Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderlsnd, Ch 1.
*
‘Chateaubriand on journal-keeping and the need to write down one’s impressions immediately: “Our existence is so fleeting that if we don’t record the events of the morning in the evening, the work will weigh us down and we will no longer have the time to bring it up to date. This doesn’t prevent us from wasting our years, from throwing to the wind those hours that are for us the seeds of eternity.”
Quoted by Alberto Manguel in A Reading Diary (2004).
This Diary is No. 9 in the New Series (previously, 1107, 108, 208, 308, 408, 508, 608, 708; this is 808). DDD August 29 2008.
Charly Waldorf (in Alice Springs) re the cormorants at Earthrise
July 26 2008. Fence-line Force. I’m startled early in the morning (while walking the road) by the whirring of small wings. A sizeable mob of red-browed finches rises from its interrupted breakfast of multi-grain grass seeds along the Happenstance fence. Some settle on the wires to watch me safely past. I glance back; the birds settle again to feed. When looking back earlier I’d seen river mist in patches drifting along, marking the river line downstream from Earthrise (there was no breeze). If the gentle beating of butterfly wings in (Central America?) may initiate wind systems and trigger Big Winds, how much bigger might Australian Big Winds be? Could red-browed finches be rented out to move river mist? Finch Power. Finch Force. Avian Winds. (‘Rent our well-adjusted finches for all your mist and cloud-shifting needs’). (‘Your labour costs must be negligible?’ ‘Certainly not; we’ve had to build huge aviaries over 39 of their favourite grasses; our costs are enormous’). When finches park on wire fences they remind me of musical notes (not that I can read music). I wonder if composers take advantage of such bird notation?
Which reminds me of the huge totally enclosed aviaries in San Diego, (the SD Zoo or Balboa Park? I forget which). Now I’m remembering the Café del Rey Oro in Balboa Park and Sunday Brunch with a glass of champagne included (Gestalt therapy training at nearby La Jolla allowed us free weekends. Sigh).
Fence-line Art. Along the fence-line are the dewed heads of grasses and some taller dead weeds. Many of the weeds have dewy spider-webs attached. The rising sun turns the scene into artwork; all the dewdrops glister. I’m at the right place at the right time of day.
Toward the end of July most of the red cedars in the area have now leafed, pinkly; the cedars are slower here because Earthrise is so much in the forest and doesn’t become sunnier until summer. Most of the (unrelated) white cedars are still gaunt, bare, and grey-white; an occasional tree works to make leaf buds, but most are still resting. Do the red cedars have growth energy to spare? I’m puzzled that there are still so many yellow berries on the white cedars; normally, the fruit pigeons and magpies would remove them all well before mid winter (come to think of it I’ve not seen many brown pigeons since summer). The soaring pear tree in Cedar Grove looks gaunt now and has only a few bedraggled brown leaves; however, in the foreground the five crimson and scarlet azaleas are in full bloom. The eye sees what is most pleasing. The pear tree at the foot of the steep slope recedes into the forest background of dense scrub and big trees.
August 1 2008. I turn the La Provence calendar (thanks, Nick) page and admire a colour picture of sunlight at Pernes les Fontaines. The sky there is eye-achingly blue, as it also is here. Today, early, the weather is 5 or 6 outside with the meteorological promise of the temperature later reaching 25/26 (which, to my surprise, it did). Also today there is a Total Solar Eclipse (I don’t know where, exactly, but one of you Out There might witness this event) at 10:21 UT (by which time it will surely be dark here). (Yesterday was also brilliant; there was no cloud, a top temperature of 19 or 20˚). I’ve been able to read, comfortably, on Lookout Lawn on both days (not bad for mid winter?). The May Literary Review cover illustration features ‘Earth from the Air’ and one review is about doing archaeology from the air (which reminds me of Charly’s observation, above). Wouldn’t it be fun to have one’s own satellite? Perhaps I’d then be able to see a Lost City or an old buried space ship beneath Big Lawn or the outline of a Sunken Treasure Vessel beneath the banks where I like to sit in winter sunshine. Now I’m reminded of an unpublished novel of mine, ‘Selati,’ in which I ‘use’ a 1912 Antoinette Racer as the search/photography platform along the old Selati Railway Line in the S-E Transvaal (Louise, 12-years old daughter of the principal protagonists, grows up to become an aviator with a business of her own: aerial archaeology). Wouldn’t that be fun? Fiction writing can be a Grand Adventure. Sometimes.
I see that there’s a review (by Charlotte Appleyard) of Tom Fort’s book, Downstream: Across England in a Punt and I’m reminded of Pam and I punting on the Thames many years ago (I prefer a paddle to a pole). CA writes, “As a teenager I spent a day in a field in Kent waist deep in water with a large ruler and some string. I was, along with a group of equally disgruntled teenagers, measuring the gradient of the bend in a river.” They “concluded that the river was officially ‘meandering.’” I share author Fort’s annoyance “that there is no name for his passion [enjoying rivers]: fluviophilia and river-love are unsatisfactory…”
I’ve been casting a jaundiced eye at the belvedere: it appears to be settling differentially—toward the river, being right on the lawn’s edge at the top of the riverbank. I realised, years ago, that the base stones supporting gravity walls sometimes settle into the soil and virtually disappear. I remember reading that in John Jerome’s Stone Work, an old favourite of mine. Should the base stones settle, so will the wall, of course. The paved area behind the wall will slope at an increasingly acute angle. I’ll have to keep a close watch. Tai Chi chaps will have problems. I wonder if the deer like to lie there restfully on moonlit nights?
*
My cousin, Eliane Roos’s View: “Here in Paris we are bathing in a unusual hot climate. It is still a beautiful city even under such heat! Out of my window I can see modern buildings 6 to 15 stories high with flowers on many balconies and trees and wild shrubs in between and a light blue sky with some sheepshaped clouds.”
*
Aug 3 2008. While walking over the Plains Crossing Bridge I spot some of the first white spider orchids on one of the older river-oaks on ‘my’ bank. I know where a ‘veil’ of such orchids can be seen (it’s not here; it’s the best part of a metre long…but I’ll keep that location secret. In the past, vandals have chain-sawed trees to removed orchids).
Aug 7 2008. It continues cold in the mornings and at night; there are blue skies all day. The old native privet on the road near the group of silky oaks (grevillea robusta) hosts at least four species of birds these mornings: the privet is loaded with tight bunches of small dark blue fruits that look like bunches of mini grapes. Red/green king parrots, being so noticeable seem also the most nervous. Black/white magpies slip in and out of the food source without troubling other birds. Fruit pigeons are usually on the outside of the tree, above the road (and me).
Aug 16 ’08. Nine days later I stop abruptly in the same spot: the Regent Bower Bird is feeding in the privet six metres away and watching me watching him. I stand and watch him, walking carefully closer, for nearly ten minutes (probably a record for both of us). If you Google him you can study his striking plumage.
Today the five azalea bushes continue to bloom in Cedar Grove. The World’s Highest Pear Tree is putting out new leaves that look like coloured cotton wool. Near Richardson’s Bridge I see the Secret Mulberry bushes are leafing and also fruiting (!). They’ve been repeatedly slashed and mowed and now have tactfully moved further into the verges, down the riverbank slightly and closer to the protection of big casuarinas—well away from the road and safely beyond the slasher’s reach. No silkworms though.
Today, too, I see the first goanna of spring (can the snakes be far behind?). He’s close to the house on the scree slopes while I’m axing firewood and noisier than an elephant. Later I carry 150-mm logs from the West End to the chopping block on the stone pavement in front of the house steps. Viva chelation! Hard work. Something I dared not attempt 6/12 ago. Oddly, I have many thoughts about the past in Victoria, BC & Paris. Can this be a sign of approaching madness, I wonder?
Aug 18. I see two large turkeys scratching near the Dog’s Garden. BIG. Both are in excellent condition. And I see a wallaby bounding up from the riverbank. He stops in front of the house and I cluck at him. He turns, frowning like Grommit at me, then bounces up the track to the carport. He’s BIG too. Perhaps it’s my fevered state but this wallaby seems about twice the size of your average critter. Can it be an Eastern Red? Is this the return of the mega fauna? What’s going on?
Aug 28 ’08. I hear yet another goanna lurching past the house while I’m writing (he’s smaller than the first). I wonder at the ungainly lurching walk for the umpteenth time and remind myself that they can move VERY quickly when they’ve a mind to (and they have an unpleasant reputation for Running Up Humans). Their claws are formidable. You’ll all be aware I think of how cheerfully they snack on snakes of all sizes (see Google). Goanna claws remind me that a couple of days ago I heard a noisy clomping on my front steps. I stopped writing and politely opened the door. It was a very healthy-looking turkey (their claws are also huge). This turkey behaved like a pet or perhaps an old friend. He walked right up and accepted a multi-grain crust (gluten-free, too). What if he wants to move in?
If the weather improves I’ll risk planting some dahlia tubers this w/e. I’m the only person I know able to defeat turkeys at Dahlia Tuber Time (they love to dig up newly planted tubers): a square metre of chicken wire placed over the newly planted tuber.
Aug 29 ‘08. After last night’s storms the river has put on a little weight and risen 100-mm or so and washed down the corpse (possibly a platypus) that was caught on the concrete ford next to the bridge. Two weeks ago I’d watched a big eel on the bottom next to a bridge pier (upstream side) and had assumed the eel would clean up the evidence; the rain arrived first, however. The corpse may now be in the corner bend (from where I pump water to storage…). Further down the road there were ragged clouds and rising mists above the forest and the slopes leading up to Dorrigo and the sun was trying to break through. Too bad I no longer take pictures (except in my mind). Coming home from Coffs Harbour/Bellingen on the 27th I noticed a ‘near morning glory cloud’ lying along the range. This morning, too, there was a similar big cloud, half way up the slopes. I was reminded of Frank Herbert’s Dune books.
The swallows were larking about down at Richardson’s Bridge and I did my best to imagine magically slowing them down so I could see them more clearly. The swallows move wondrously fast and are scarcely recognisable as swallows when they sometimes land on dry stones in the stream. Flying, their actions are almost like contests—but that doesn’t make sense, does it? Might there be swallow experts reading this who could enlighten me? And as I start my return walk I’m struck by the artistic look of stag horns and elk horns growing on the trunks of riverside casuarinas. (I’m assuming that they’re epiphytes because they grow non-parasitically on the casuarinas and I know they’ll even grow on wooden fences; and that reminds me that I have half a dozen small birds nest ferns (so-called) growing on an exposed roof timber of my carport). Anyway. Near the bridge there’s a stag horn growing profusely on a wrecked casuarina that’s surely dead (the fern is 8-m up where the top of the tree has broken off and vanished). The fern is luxuriant and looks (at least, to me) amazingly like a green version of a Corinthian capital and its symbolic acanthus leaves, being at the top of the dead tree ‘column’. The more I look up at it the more it also looks like one of those very artistic capitals that Antoni Gaudi designed in the amazing Barcelona cathedral (La Sagrada Familia). At this time of year there are large brown ‘patches’ on the undersides of the bigger ferns (maybe ‘sporangia’?) (I plan to know all about plants in my next materialisation).
With my head still up I study the feeding action in the roadside native privet trees halfway home. The magpies go silent and move about cautiously. There are other (grey?) birds also feeding on the berries. I stop to watch and almost miss seeing the Regent Bower Bird (at eye level) for the second time this month! Can it be the same bird? He feeds nonchalantly (as if I don’t exist and I’m only 5 or 6-m from him)! After a couple of minutes this relaxed behaviour is too much for a second bird that drops down and muscles Regent away from his breakfast. Regent pops up several metres where he feeds without losing his composure. The new bird is grey, looks like a thrush, and is scalloped; later, I can’t identify him in my field book. Imagine having been so close to a Regent TWICE this month (he seemed almost as tame as my new turkey acquaintance!).
More rain falls—and some small hail. It’s being a day of Looking Up.
I’ve twice been denied my lunchtime reading by cool showery weather. I wandered about briefly and sulkily pulled a few weeds, particularly the fiendish Mist Flower (a smaller ‘version’ of Crofton Weed). As I tottered about I had a good look at the ‘lawn,’ where there are patches of umpteen different grasses (gifts of the BIG 2001 flood) and an almost endless expanse of so-called Wandering Jew, a fleshy creeping weed that colonises shady and damp areas and is forever green. I know that the feral deer (Deer Farm escapees from across the road) enjoy grazing here (my fence line was destroyed by the 2001 flood) I’d not realised quite how partial they are to the greenery (including the balsam or impatiens, now nearly extinct here and numerous other cultivated plants). The deer have grazed my lawn ‘pastures’ so enthusiastically that large areas appear mowed or brush-cut. They do this at night (there are many more deer hanging out here than there are wallabies). Indeed, there are now game paths connecting several areas of the gardens and beaten-down lantana on the slopes behind the house (wallabies behave quite differently). The lawn now looks like a great green unmade bed and the slopes look as though very busy safari traffic has been Opening New Routes. Should I perhaps organise a deer herd to do lawn mowing? Sheep do it, why not deer?
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Aug 30 ’08. Here I borrow a neologism and way of notating from Durrell’s Justine: Workpoints. All the Valley misted, the weather damp and chilly; Darkwood Road puddles shining; a dark-coated fox bounding across Happenstance, stopping to stare me down before running to the river; remembering the scarlet head and golden collar of the plump brush turkey; first blossom on the Halfway Wild Peach Tree; the twice-seen Regent breakfasting; the river a little higher following storms; the surge and long trail of bubbles made by the log upstream of Richardson’s; the look of the neighbours’ paddocks at winter’s end: light to emerald dark greens and further along, russets, khaki’s, browns and pale yellows; green and red king parrots feeding; Mount Die-Happy’s summit swirled by mists; tiny apricot and blue flashes in images of those fly-past swallow.
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‘What is the use of a book,’ thought Alice, ‘without pictures or conversation?’ Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderlsnd, Ch 1.
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‘Chateaubriand on journal-keeping and the need to write down one’s impressions immediately: “Our existence is so fleeting that if we don’t record the events of the morning in the evening, the work will weigh us down and we will no longer have the time to bring it up to date. This doesn’t prevent us from wasting our years, from throwing to the wind those hours that are for us the seeds of eternity.”
Quoted by Alberto Manguel in A Reading Diary (2004).
This Diary is No. 9 in the New Series (previously, 1107, 108, 208, 308, 408, 508, 608, 708; this is 808). DDD August 29 2008.
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