Raise the earth towards the sun. Raise the plants out of the shade. Will it work? I don’t know but the new raised garden bed is finished and I am waiting for the sun to return, to rise above the house which casts its shadow all winter. First plants I want to plant are broad… Continue reading New garden bed
Author: Monica Oppen
Rain
It seems to me that since the drought broke in 2020 it rarely simply rains—rather it pours with a weight and drenching urgency. Water. Cloud. Rain. How can there be so much water in the sky? The thousands of litres floating, defying gravity until it doesn’t. And falls. It has been called a sky river… Continue reading Rain
Channel-billed cuckoo
The squawk, squawk, squawk of a baby bird begging for food itches in my ear… squawk, squawk, squawk. But it’s rougher, more irritating, scratchier than squawk, squawk, squawk. I go out onto the veranda because I know this baby bird is in the jacaranda…squawk, squawk, squawk. I search for it. First I see a currawong… Continue reading Channel-billed cuckoo
4 stages to Summer
We have passed the Summer solstice and so are heading towards Winter again. But before we turn fully away from the Spring here is that familiar transition from Winter to Summer as expressed by the interwoven wisteria and jacaranda. The blossoms come, the leaves come, the blossoms fall, the leaves come… the blossoms fall but… Continue reading 4 stages to Summer
What lies beneath
Fungus, they appear seemingly out of nowhere. But this nowhere is not nowhere but the life-full earth. Neither plants nor animals they have a kingdom all of their own. They web the earth with a super network of connectivity and partnership, unseen, until the rain calls up a fruiting body, sometimes elegant, sometimes delicate, sometimes… Continue reading What lies beneath
Is it the ground?
The thin trunk and the thinner branches are covered with scaly encrustations from some sort of bug infestation. The tree, a eucalyptus (Eucalyptus saligna) is dead. It must have been struggling. This strange spot between the two houses is perhaps inhospitable. The four blueberry ashes (Elaeocarpus reticulatus) have slowly died. Two have already been removed.… Continue reading Is it the ground?
We are not alone
Every now and again in the middle of the night I hear the possum (Trichosurus vulpecula) crossing the roof above me. There is a thud as it jumps from the tree to the roof, then paw-thread, then silence again. My house is connected to no.38 neighbour’s house. There is a canary island palm on the… Continue reading We are not alone
Let there be yellow
The wattle is flowering, the skinny one in my garden, bending itself to get around the jacaranda, and the half a dozen trees out on the street, which were planted by my neighbour, Kevin. There is something wonderful about this unabashed, overflowing abundance of bright yellow against the blue sky. The scent sweetens the air.… Continue reading Let there be yellow
To be moved…but to survive?
It was a Christmas gift from their great-aunt but when they arrived home my children (then c.9 and 10 years old) handed it immediately to me—a small Wollemi pine (Wollemia nobilis) with the potential to grow to 40m. The ancient pine species had been discovered in 1994 and its exact location kept secret to keep… Continue reading To be moved…but to survive?
Here we are in Winter– part 2
I rake and sweep and blow mounds on leaf litter in being. The deciduous trees have dropped the work of the Summer months, their leaves, the sun eaters, the photosynthesis containers, the sugar generators that feed them and the world—so they can rest for a while. Even the evergreen trees are perhaps dropping leaves, the… Continue reading Here we are in Winter– part 2