Author: Monica Oppen

Swimming into the flow

Fish have been in the pond for a year now. The numbers are depleted but who knows why some have died. Sometimes I squint through the layers of water and they all of them seem to have disappeared, particularly in the mornings. But we don’t give animals such as these small fish enough credit for… Continue reading Swimming into the flow

New planting

The shadow is creeping back from the raised garden bed. It is time to dig. The soil is dark and crumbly, breaking into lumps. It is time to clear out the violets (Viola hederacea) (Viola sororia), the scurvy weed (Commelina cyanea). A silverbeet has survived the winter and is standing tall. The garden mint (Mentha… Continue reading New planting

Why?

We had been away for a few days. Walking down the side path, checking the garden, there lying on the ground was a ring-tailed possum (Pseudocheirus peregrinus), as if asleep, though dead. It made me twinge.Why? There were marks in its fur. Claw marks? Bite marks? From a cat?I couldn’t leave it there so tried… Continue reading Why?

“The jasmine has popped!”

This was how a fellow student at my yoga class acknowledged the arrival of spring. Though it wasn’t the jasmine I noticed first but a cherry blossom tree (not sure about the ‘cherry’ though) on Douglas Street with the full moon rising. It was early September so the flowers were right on time. Also the… Continue reading “The jasmine has popped!”

Wildlife on the streets

I’m walking to Leichhardt along Crystal Street. There are two women in WIRES fluoro vests standing below a street tree. In the tree a possum is clinging. Broad daylight for a nocturnal animal must be frightening, perhaps terrifying. The women armed with a stick and banana are trying to coax the possum down. It will… Continue reading Wildlife on the streets

New roof

The tiles were replaced and to get up there they built a scaffold in the front garden, a tower towering. And in between days of rainstorms they slid the tiles down, rebuilt the support structure and wound the new tiles up, clunking them into place. After the tower was gone I looked at the mud… Continue reading New roof

Pecking and fungi

There were little holes dotted over the ground. My first thought is “rats!” Because I remembered one year when the rats neatly stole the corn seeds I’d planted. But there were no corn seeds here. A couple of days later I come out the front door and there is a currawong pecking at the ground.… Continue reading Pecking and fungi

The gate is padlocked

My neighbour, Matthew, (no.38) has all but abandoned his garden. It’s been years now and the garden has become more and more overgrown, re-wilding. The grass has disappeared. Bracken (Pteridium sp.), Tradescantia fluminensis, Madeira vine (Anredera cordifolia)  have replaced it. Self-seeded trees are growing, forming an arcade along beside the path. The species of tree,… Continue reading The gate is padlocked

Living with…huntsmen

For a period of time over Christmas and New Year I shared the kitchen bench with a huntsman spider. A small one. It seemed to like the compost bucket and I imagined it was eating the tiny flies that hover in there, providing an ‘ecosystem service’. Sometimes it would be at the other end of… Continue reading Living with…huntsmen