From the category archives:
I know that the wallabies truly feel at home in the yard now by the way they sleep here in the warmth of the late winter days, letting me walk past so close to them. Some of the very newly outed joeys are skittish but they soon learn I’m no threat. This mother is so [...]
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I have often admired the work of textile artists like Jan Irvine-Nealie, where fine stitching subtly emphasises the shapes and patterns of nature. However, lacking such patience and delicacy, I have never attempted anything like that. Until the other day, after a short but violent hail storm and heavy rain, the sun came out for [...]
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Far treats here are the changing interactions of mountain and sky. After the rain I watch from my dripping verandah as Omo-white clouds boil and steam in and out of the nips and tucks of the densely forested southern slopes. Wisps linger to lick the gullies clean before joining the rising mass above. Closer to [...]
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It had rained for days, and when it wasn’t raining it was damp and grey and cold. Miserable, in fact. The hillsides were oozing and the track was a running stream. But just as dry firewood was becoming a concern, this day threw a final heavy shower at the mountain and then the sun came [...]
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Home on the mountain at last, I was greeted by a heavily pruned garden ruled by wallabies. Of course it was lovely to see the wallabies, but… they have been eating plants I had never expected to appeal to their taste buds. Strongly aromatic plants like rosemary and lavender have been stripped, and are regularly [...]
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If you look very closely at this roseate morning sky, you can see the tiny white curve of moon towards the upper right hand of the photo. A sunrise sliver, a night-time sky resident caught out by the dawn. Zoomed as close as my earthbound camera can take me, I can see no sphere beyond [...]
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Can you imagine anything more purely beautiful than this fungus? It had popped up in the the orchard paddock and was gleaming white at me across all the soggy green. There was another further up the hill. Each was alone in its perfection, a setting befitting the creation. It is Macrolepiota dolichaula, I discover, and [...]
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One brooding and steamy day in February, so still in summer, the weather finally decided to go into action and rain on my patch. But it wasn’t completely decisive, as it retained the bright light and heat of sunshine as well. From my verandah, the sunshower looked like it was raining diamonds, but on ‘film’ it looked [...]
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Each year the Crimson Glory Vine powers up from its woody trunk and heavily pruned short stems — and goes crazy along my western wall. I am amazed anew at its vigour. Before it begins to live up to its colourful name, I wanted to celebrate its green and growing summer stage. Not only does [...]
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The view from the inside of a cloud does not extend very far. Today, past the first dim line of trees, I see no mountain ridges or rainforest gullies or even eucalypt forest. They might no longer exist. If the evidence of the eyes counts, the world might end 100 metres from my verandah. I love this intimacy with [...]
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The days veer between hot and dry with winds that would push a fire to an inferno, and cool and cloudy. This particular day the clouds came so low they met the earth, and my mountain was transformed once again. These days of mystery and dripping moisture are probably my favourite weather here. I love [...]
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As with sunsets and sunrises, I never tire of rainbows. I think they are an especially welcome surprise because their clear colour treat occurs after the greys and blacks of rain and storms. The bush sparkles, newly washed, the sky is temporarily free of haze and pollution and the rainbow appears at its best. Very [...]
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Exisle, my publishers, have made a special arrangement for my web site visitors — you can buy Mountain Tails at a special 20 per cent discount by ordering from the Exisle website and quoting the coupon number MT2009; you can use that coupon any number of times.
A candid meander through my life up here on my remote mountain wildlife refuge, answering the oft-asked question 'Why do you live way out there?'
