friends

No Janet, no blog

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The trip to Clunes and subsequent camping in Victoria was meant to inspire lots of blog posts. The soaring price of diesel just had to be borne: I’d booked everything, and after all, we weren’t being bombed…

However, by the time I got to Goulburn on 16th March, the whole trip was under a different, darker cloud, as I learnt that my lovely friend Janet Cohen had suddenly died that day.

She – and we – knew that her time was coming, but I thought she had months of gradual decline in which we could farewell each other. After 12 years of cancer treatments, she was in the last stage of that battle, planning on using the Voluntary Assisted Dying outlet, the legislation for which she had fought long and hard.

When I was undergoing radiation for a skin cancer on my face, at the same unit she used, Janet sent me the photo above. It sums up her attitude to the ‘dance of life’ and, to the raw deal she’d been dealt. I loved it.

I’d been looking forward to regaling Janet with tales from this trip, and so had she. After her death, so many things went wrong that I felt that my world was as out of kilter as the loss of a wonderful person like Janet could… and should … mean.

I just wanted to get home, to be in the same area as she had lived so I could believe she was really no longer here. And maybe her spirit was partly lingering. I don’t think it is, but her absence does seem more dreadfully real here.

On the long drive home, I thought of many words to describe her, and because I write to try to make sense of life, I have to use words to make sense of her death.

Janet was a beautiful mix of qualities:

Radiant and rational

Life-loving and love-giving

Feisty and fair-minded

Spritely and spiritual

Activist and artist

Natural and nature-caring

Gracious and generous

She was passionate about social and environmental injustice and brought her clear thinking and considerable intelligence to any issue.

She was the most kindred of the very few kindred spirits I have been fortunate to meet in my life.

I had feared the words on my CDs would cause more weeping, but when back in more familiar territory I played the ‘O Brother’ CD. While there is plenty of loss and dying in those songs, I found one that seemed appropriate to Janet’s attitude. Its message was ‘Keep on the sunny side of life’, that no matter how dark and dreary days may be, the sun will always shine again.

I know Janet was as troubled by the world’s events as the rest of us, but somehow she could put things in perspective, even if not exactly optimistic.

Vale, Janet. 

The sparkle and sunshine you radiated in this ‘dance of life’ will be greatly missed by many.

Deep sadness dwells in me. 

I look at the half-read book Janet recommended I get, The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller, and vow to begin it again. Maybe some of her grace and acceptance will come to me.

Macropods rule again

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This male Wallaroo never came close to the cabin, despite all the fences coming down. I never saw more than one couple, and usually only one of the pair. The females are paler and smaller, but still stocky and longhaired.

It rained a lot at the Mountain, as this bedraggled little Roo family could attest.

It was the Eastern Redneck Wallabies who made themselves most at home as the netting gradually was rolled out of their way.

But they were happy to share ‘my’ space with the Eastern Grey Kangaroos. The male Roo by the barbeque is on alert, as always when I appeared, but if I came no closer he would stay. The females and joeys were much more relaxed.

Here they are all lying about drying off in the sunshine after a rainy spell, with me well distanced.

Being the only human there, I was allowed to witness many aspects of macropod behaviour.

Like these young male Wallabies practice-boxing. They balanced on their tails as they ’stood’, clasping each other and cuffing faces.

The bravado often fell as they overbalanced and did the same, which would usually end the ‘fight’.

Or their methods of cleaning themselves, like sitting back with their tail stretched out in front between their legs, and carefully defleaing it.

Sometimes the joey would help its mother deal with awkward places for the process, repaying her usual role as cleaner.

Not that the young were slack about their own cleanliness, like cleaning their dainty black paws.

When I say the Wallabies were the most relaxed, I mean it! I simply didn’t count, and often had to step over one to get past. I put up a toddler-type gate at the top of the verandah steps, for fear those long feet would get them into trouble.

While there were plenty of these Wallabies at my place, I never tired of watching them, of photographing them. I especially  loved the mother/joey connections, no matter how old the ‘child’, pouch-fitting or not.

Kangaroos welcome

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It wasn’t only the gentle wallabies who took over my Mountain house yard once I’d let them in. The bigger Eastern Grey Kangaroos eventually used it too. The families became easy around me, but never the males.  When a male stood erect, he was taller than my gate had been.

This one is clearly ready for chasing a female; their penises were always curved like this, although mostly not seen.

They were slower than the wallabies to venture inside my yard, no doubt concerned that the gates might shut them in. The females and young came first.

The kangaroo joeys were as cute as the wallaby ones, and gradually ceased to bother about me, the only human… and pathetically without a tail.

The next drastic step was taking down the netting fence altogether. As you can see, the kikuyu grass was long inside it. That’s a Wallaroo outside; they remained wary and never did venture in far. 

That fence had been a labour to build, and mostly by me, so it was a painful step to dismantle it.

Taking off the netting and rolling it up was a sort of relief and a sort of defeat. I think the roos felt better without it there to possibly hem them in, as even the males seemed more relaxed, preening and cleaning as they usually would.

For me, having an uninterrupted flow down to the small dam allowed better viewing of all the wildlife who came to drink there. Once I saw a female roo even hop in to escape a persistent male! But that was rare.

I felt closer to the wildlife as the man-made barriers came down, while I still regretted the garden dream, the heritage roses…

The price I paid for the overwhelming task and trauma of writing Rich Land, Wasteland was actually incalculable.

Wallaby world

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On my Substack posts I am going through my archives, so I thought I might do the same here, in between trips elsewhere and posts about them.

I urge you to subscribe so you get an email notification when I post; it’s free.

When choosing my favourite photo, it had to be this one.

The mum (an Eastern Redneck, my most common wallaby there) had decided my western mud brick cabin wall, not far from my steps, was her spot.

I was overwhelmed when her joey and I locked eyes one day, as for it I was its first human, likely to be the only human it would ever see in its life here on my isolated mountain wildlife refuge.

So that meant that my theme was going to be wallabies, especially wallaby joeys. I never got over how small the mothers often were, and how big the joeys got and were still carried about in that cosy pouch. And besides, they are so very cute…

I watched them go from hairless and totally pouch-bound to hairy and venturing their front legs out, having the best of both worlds. They would nibble the grass as Mum levered herself along as she grazed.

Yet even when too big to fit in the pouch, they could still drink her milk. The mothers would tolerate this for a while, then cuff the young away. Final weaning steps, I guess.

I wasn’t so keen on some of the adults’ habits.

After I had to let them all into the yard, due to the pressure of writing ‘Rich Land, Wasteland’, they totally trashed my garden.

I’d foolishly thought they’d mainly eat the grass that I no longer had time to mow. Hah!

They didn’t eat the leaves of bulbs, so the naturalised jonquils and daffodils survived.

But it was unexpected that they’d eat strong-smelling plants like lavender. This was a rosemary bush!

Nor did thorns deter them, as they did the same to roses.

But they were a daily treat to watch. They could ignore me as the only human, and be totally natural. They knew it was their world.

How sweet is this young one? Even as it poses in front of a stripped heritage rose bush…

No wonder I miss the real world of my Mountain and the real wildlife with whom I shared it.

Up close with dragons

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The family of Eastern Water Dragons (Intellagama leseurii) who live here are getting extremely comfortable with my place. Maybe too comfortable.

Uninvited, they are often on my verandah, its railings or its furniture.

I don’t usually mind, as I think these dragons are spectacular, as well as interesting.

Their markings are as amazing as those of goannas, their ridged tails are longer than their bodies, and they catch prey with their thick tongues, unlike other lizards, which use their jaws.

I especially marvel at their long delicate toes.

The younger ones haven’t got the trick of balancing correctly yet; this one was half hanging off the railing, looking very precarious.

Others use the cane chairs. Sometimes one will drape itself on the chair closest to the house and and peer in the window. 

So far none have actually knocked to come in, but I won’t be surprised when they do…

Arrivederci Piero

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On our last day I wander back along the creek, absorbing details, fixing memories, of art made by man and nature, here in harmony.

Water trickles down the curving slump in these so-regular rock layers, seemingly made to be used upside-down as an arch.

Trees give way to rocks, grow into shapes to suit them.

Even the fungi are tinged with green.

Tiny flowers share the stones with moss. This small bush is I think what we suffer as a weed, Broom, since there are a lot of them in the open spaces and Gigi says they have yellow flowers and that they use them to make brooms to sweep with.

Dotted through the meadowy path are these electricity cable access points; I am astonished, but pleased there are no cables slung overhead as at Piero.

In Piero, Gigi shows us his almost vertical back garden and shares the delicious fruit of his ‘mora’, a sort of red blackberry.

Many walks start here, following paths trodden by generations over centuries. I have to prefer the old stone marker…

Saying goodbye to the warmly welcoming Nicoletta feels like it should be ‘arivederci’, as to a friend; I’d love to return some day, but doubt I can.  Nicoletta speaks Italian, German and English, so I will send her a copy of The Woman on the Mountain; we have a lot in common…

Pattern master

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This large Goanna, or Lace Monitor, scoots past my yard most days.  That netting fence means nothing to it and the set route goes right through it. Usually I only catch a glimpse, so fast and determinedly does it move.

But this day I wanted to see it over the fence and moved higher and closer. The click of the camera caused it to stop and look at me… or the source of the noise.

I am always amazed at massivity of these creatures: look at those legs! Common in eastern Australia, it is one of our largest lizards; some of the males can exceed 2m in length. 

Carnivores, they are quite partial to carrion.

I have seen them foraging around campsites… and enjoying a meat pie.

This one decided it was safer off the ground;  one of their common names is Tree Goanna. Those claws give good grip, holding it here for me to admire the extraordinary patterning of stripes and spots… an Aboriginal art template.

They are actually shy, and while they have been known to run up a human, it is not from aggression, but because they have mistaken the vertical ‘thing’ for a safe tree.

One aspect of their lives that was new to me was how they breed: the female digs a hole in a termite mound and lays her 6-12 eggs there. The termites rebuild over the hole and keep the eggs steadily warm (30ºC). Then 8-9 months later, she returns to dig out the hatchlings. How clever is that at delegating?!

Moving mountains

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I would like to introduce everyone to my new home surroundings, and to my new mountain, which will be featured often in my blogs. It is Dooragan, or North Brother, near Laurieton. I am near both river and sea and two national parks, so I look forward to exploring and sharing sunrises, sunsets and clouds, and plants and creatures of sea, sand and rocks, mangroves, swamps and mountain forests.

Why am I here? Partly by force of nature.

It seems like an eternity, but is about six weeks since I woke up about 6.30 a.m., swung my feet over to stand on the carpet… and found that my bed was standing in water.

Floodwater.

Was I actually awake?! How could this be  real?

In water to my knees, I grabbed the torch I kept on my bedside table, and shone it about. The water certainly felt real; it looked real. 

Yet I was incredulous.

This was not supposed to happen; I had been unable to get flood insurance due to the zoning, but I had not worried as my neighbouring ‘constructed wetland’ forest had been a ’90s flood mitigation measure that had worked ever since.

Wading out into the hall, my torch showed two yellow discs bobbing about in. The halved skins of a passionfruit, they’d have been in my compost bin in the kitchen… I passed a large container of corn chips that would have been in a cupboard down there…

This was real all right.

Over the night of March 19 the flooded creek/river had silently far exceeded its expected reach, snuck up the hill on which my house sat, and into my house.

At 8.30 that night I’d checked and there was water only in the lowest bottom corner of my large yard, a not unusual occurrence.

I slept soundly. There was no sound, no SMS alert or warning, no knock on the door.

While up to mattress height in the bedroom part of my house, in the lower part (two steps down) it was up to kitchen bench height, and my fridge and furniture … and compost bin contents… were floating about.

My garage, further downhill, was flooded far higher; it was full of tools and camping gear, and most precious of all, the carefully stored boxes of my own books, taped with chalk inside to absorb any moisture, placed on pallets to avoid any dampness… !! They were now just a pile of mush. 

Irreplaceable. Heartbreaking.

As the SES boat took me and my few hastily grabbed possessions out, I only managed to take the above two photos.

My car in the carport even lower down was under many metres of water, and next day as the water receded, it was clear it would be a write-off… as it was.

When I was allowed back in, SES volunteers helped me take out heavy items like sodden mattresses. Once family could get through other flooded roads, days later, we frantically threw out ruined items large and small, and broke apart lower swollen cupboards and furniture to get the stinking clothes and books and albums out before worse mould set in. 

Fixed carpets were ripped up, large mats removed with hope they could be washed and salvaged. 

My grandkids dried and separated pages and peeled off photos in the oldest family albums… again, irreplaceable.

Several mountains of dumped belongings formed out the front, to be picked up by a Council excavator and loaded into trucks. Things like the fridge and washing machine looked OK, but were irretrievably ruined.

It took weeks to empty the place, but the cleaning began apace.  Friends and family were wonderful; some washed many loads of linen and clothes, others washed down walls with vinegar; others washed cupboard contents deemed OK to use again, like crockery and pans; I mopped the timber floors… five moppings so far!

Many of you know of this disaster that befell me because my friend David ran a fundraiser, and while I did not look at that until weeks later, a truly humbling number of people donated to help me out. I would not have managed without those funds and I am overwhelmed with gratitude to everyone, whether they gave $10 or much more. Knowing that such kindness and emotional support was out there helped me greatly.

I have since had to pay to have done, and do myself, certain flood-damage remedial work on the house, but being mostly built of timber and timber-lined, it has come up well. Only one added-on room was plasterboard… a costly mess. 

Once the underfloor foamboard insulation I’d installed was removed, the old floorboards slowly dried and uncupped. Amazing.

Chipboard does not cope with inundation well either… but the new vanity looks nice.

I’d been planning to sell and move to this smaller place on the coast. Folk had been booked to look at my lovely furnished and decorated house on the very Monday after the flood; in preparation I’d de-cluttered and put things in lower cupboards and moved much to the garage. A double punch to the guts for me; now what did I have to show or sell?

But a few weeks later, they still wanted to look at the empty and cleaned house, despite my being in process of touching up and fixing.

They made an offer; I accepted, and in a few weeks it will be theirs. Only one more trip for me back to finish painting… and say goodbye.

So now I live here. It’s small, but I write this first blog post here looking into the tops of a paperbark forest, I hear lorikeets in blossom-feeding frenzy, a goanna waddled through the carport the other day… and I have but to turn my head to see the river and that Mountain.

Silver linings indeed…

I am tired, exhausted really, but I can see they will be a comfort once I get past the shock, which has not quite hit as I have been so very busy. 

Again, thanks to everyone for your support and good wishes. 

Welcome resident reptile

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I love my little skinks but I was delighted to realise that this very big and handsome skink, an Eastern Bluetongue (Tiliqua scincoides), has taken up residence in my yard.

Over several weeks I have seen it in three different places, but was still surprised to spot it by my back steps. These can grow up to 60cm long, but often only the head will be seen, protruding from a drainpipe or other shelter.

You would usually only see its blue tongue when it is in defensive mode, puffing up its body and holding its mouth open to scare the perceived intruder. This one seems used to me and does not scurry away as it did at first.

I am in awe of the intricate arrangement of its head scales… and a little in love with its cute little feet…!

All creatures great and small

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Every morning I go out to check on my Frogmouth residents. They were not there the last two days and I fretted that they had left me. But no, they are back today, and not cuddled together as was usual. Is it warmer?

As I greeted them, one fixed me with its golden eye while its mate began assuming the broken branch pose. ‘I am not here’.

‘Don’t worry’, I assured them. ‘You are safe here, so please don’t go elsewhere for good!’

On my early mornings checks of the yard, I often see the intact wonders of overnight webweaving. I think this quite raggedy one on the Native Finger Lime may have its weaver at the centre? Better eyesight than mine must decide.

The maker of this more symmetrical circular web on the Acacia perangusta must be hiding amongst its leaves and blossoms.

Not having as much wildlife as I had at the Mountain, I treasure each and every creature… great and small.

Cool couple

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It’s no secret that I love Tawny Frogmouths. Every day now I go out to look up into the bottlebrush tree and and see if my two new visitors are still there. They have been sitting well apart, and are mostly just visible as two blobs amongst the branches. Only one can really be seen in the dense foliage.

And he/she can see me, as this rather annoyed look shows. ‘So what you gawping at?!’

Or is it ‘Can’t a bird get some decent sleep around here?’

Most of the time they seem to take up the same separate positions on the branch each day, and sleep the warm days away.

I have seen them described as ‘grotesque’ but to me they are beautiful in a unique and characterful way.

Who could resist those softly patterned feathers, such clever camouflage that they can simply nap in view all day, unlike other night birds like owls?

Or that prominent tuft above the beak, which always impresses me as long eyelashes, although unromantically described as ‘bristles’ in my bird book

Then, after one especially cold night, early next morning when I went to check, I found them snuggled up together, feathers fatly fluffed. And so they stayed all day. My very cool couple, keeping warm.

Domestic Ups & Downs

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Being confined to home doesn’t mean life is less interesting. You just have to look more.

Remember to go outside before dinner to see is there’s a sunset; autumn is a great time for sky spectacles!

And in the mornings, check out what the spiders have been up to overnight. This major engineering feat on my deck looked even more impressive when only half-lit; how was it hanging there?!

And look down.

Amongst the dull leaf litter this vibrant little Stinkhorn fungus ventures up to see what the weather is doing.  It’s one of the stinkhorn family and apparently smells like rotting meat or sewage.

Often found as a solitary specimen, it is Phallus rubicundus. Can’t imagine why…

And while looking down, I was surprised to see this decorative pair remaining in place like statues, sunning themselves together even as I walked past several times, quite close. 

Eastern Water Skinks, they are cherished residents here in town. Burnished bronze and gold and chocolate, with such delicate fingers and toes I fear for them — I’d like to think they know they are safe here. No need to bolt for cover when I appear…