From the category archives:
It’s September, so it must be Spring, but at this altitude we are often some weeks behind in flowering times. I love the way bulbs have naturalised and thickened into clumps over the years — and I love that wallabies don’t find them tasty. The winter snowflakes and the jonquils of several varieties, both white [...]
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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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The wallabies took very little time to adjust to my moving back in to their domain. There are lots of mothers carrying young in pouches. Some of the joeys are very small and pink, and some, like this one, are really too big. It is so cramped in that low-hanging pouch that you can see [...]
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The quaint Rosebank cottage where I stayed ( courtesy of Mary Delahunty and the Victorian Writers’ Centre) was surrounded by introduced trees and garden plants – and did have a bank of roses. The king of the garden was this giant oak, whose bark was dappled blue with lichen and whose branches reached 15 metres [...]
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Typical of April, it’s been raining here, offering the sort of disappointingly drizzly days I associated with Saturdays when I was a child. The main splash of colour I see from my desk is the Glory Vine, the grapeless ornamental grape vine that decorates and shades my verandah. Its job nearly done for the year, [...]
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This young wallaby mother has taken to sleeping up against the western wall of the cabin. As the eaves are wide, it is usually dry and warm there, with heat reflected from the mud walls and the rock base further along. She is quite relaxed about me walking up and down the nearby steps. The [...]
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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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Lately, with the aytpically tropical afternoon storms and heat, the grass had been growing at such a rate that I couldn’t keep up with it. I had to wait until afternoon before it was dry enough to mow and by then it would be raining again. A bout of illness which took away any energy [...]
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After showers, if the air is still enough, for a very brief period before the sun soaks up the raindrops — I am given diamonds. Every tiny leaf holds a trembling drop of water that catches the sunlight to sparkle and shimmer. The magic only works while the light is at a certain angle, so [...]
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Usually the parrots and I share the crop from my two large Nashi pear trees. I get hundreds of fruit from the lower branches and they take even more hundreds from the higher ones. Nashis ripen well off the tree so I can pick them when big enough, but not quite ripe, and layer them [...]
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Christmas is over and it’s been raining steadily on the mountain since Christmas night. Welcome gentle rain falling from cloud cover that is allowing a pale warm light through as well –and probably putting a light charge into the solar batteries as well. I have moved the car out of the carport so it can [...]
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Without the need to sow or prune or feed, native plants appear, thrive and flower on my yard, where and as they choose. One of the most common and obvious flowering plants is the Twining Guinea Flower (Hibbertia scandens), whose bright clear yellow blooms are easy to spot. I have been told it is also [...]
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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?'
