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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As Autumn becomes Winter, under perpetual grey skies, the intermittent thin drizzle keeps the saturated ground weeping down the hillside. In all the dimmed-down garden and bushland, one light shines each day to greet and cheer me with its brightness. My Liquid Amber tree is incandescent with warm colour, from yellow to purple and every [...]
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After a windy week, the leaves are fast disappearing from the wisteria and the ornamental grape vines draping my verandah edges. One evening the decking was covered in leaves, the next morning it was swept almost clean by stronger winds. Except for what had been deposited in my rubber outdoor shoes. Not a common sight, [...]
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When the wisteria leaves begin to turn their beautiful clear yellow, they suddenly justify my colour choice of bright yellow for the painted wooden chairs on the verandah. It’s what I see through the window in front of my desk, so I’m very aware of the transition. My verandah is as big as my small [...]
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It’s hard to believe that a year has passed since I began this blog, but the leaves were definitely turning and falling in those first photos. I was reminded of this the other day when I saw a crimson rosella clearly visible amongst the thinning vine cover on the verandah in front of me, where [...]
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This small horizontal stained glass window was made years ago by a friend, Nigel, who was attending hobby classes. He proved very capable in the craft itself but not so on the design side. I offered to do his designs if he made me a window to replace a cracked one on my western wall. [...]
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As Autumn nears its end, my verandah view is no longer filtered through the pink and burgundy curtain of the ornamental grape vine leaves, for they have all fallen, leaving long lost woody stems that reproach me as I pass, waving bony arms and begging to be pruned. Now I look through to the darker [...]
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It’s a glorious autumn on the Mountain. The Woman ought to be out there planting trees but is spending too much time indoors right now, doing interviews, preparing talks, because her book is out! The Woman on the Mountain is now in any bookshop worthy of the name. Published by Exisle Publishing, (ISBN 978 090 [...]
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Here's the cover of my new book — Rich Land, Wasteland — How coal is killing Australia — which is now in bookshops.
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?'
Stories about the wild things who allow me to share their living space — and a plea to look after them before it's too late.