I Love Nature

While I am getting the last bits of info together for the final "episodes" of The Taste Test, I thought I might regale you with some of my thoughts on nature here in Queensland.

I love Mother Nature and the wonderful way she always seems to regenerate herself (with a little help from us) right from the wonderful big tomato plants from such tiny seeds to the humongous trees that withstand everything that Nature at its worst can throw at them. The recent floods over the East Coast were devastating I know, but I really think that its just Nature's way of letting us know who is in charge and giving us a not so gentle hint that we are doing things wrong!!!

I also am intrigued by the wildlife around our place here in Yamanto. There is such a plethora of birds and small creatures, and some not so small and cute, in our garden. Just look at this chappy -- I have called him Lurch the Lace Monitor. I found him perched on a tomato stake pretending to be a tomato, i think.

I have also counted about 12 different types of ladybirds!!! But they tend to eat great holes in the leaves of our plants. But we can't have paradise all the time.

Of course with the good comes the very bad!!!! There are also beautiful, big butterflies, but they lay eggs and their caterpillars also eat our plants.

And there are the birds .. who can ignore them. If they are not flitting around with their lovely colours they are screeching as they fly past. I have been watching some wrens fighting for mates. The blokes  are a beautiful blue but the poor old shielah is a drab brown colour. Not like us humans!!!! And the bad - noisy Indian Minahs - birds that wake you even before sparrow fart - the sparrows haven't even stirred yet!!!! The Minahs fight over dog or cat food left in pets' bowls. Perched on the fence they yell at each other and there is no way to get back to sleep until they have decided that it is time to go elsewhere!!!

And then there is our old favourite hate -- the humble (??) cane toad!! There cannot be an uglier creature on earth. It is always a shock to come out to the bar-b-q area for a smoke and find 2 or 3 of them on the lawn just staring at you as if to say "Whatcha doin' mate??" I was cutting a friend's lawns on Sunday and accidentally ran over one with the mower. It wasn't a cruel death .. it was fast and the toad didn't feel anything. That will teach it to always use the "toadestrian" crossing!!!

And then there is the real beauty of a flower garden. We have Bird of Paradise and Hibiscus in flower at the moment and I think they make our front garden look "a little bit fancy" (sorry Macca's).

 Kay selected the Hibiscus and we have four different colours and types. I think that she made a terrific choice. They look stunning when they are all in flower.

 The Bird of Paradise took a long time to flower. I was almost going to dig it out , but I'm pleased now that I didn't. I have never seen them growing, only in photos. So it is a real pleasure to have them in our front garden.

I didn't have much luck with tomatoes this year. I made the mistake of growing whoppers like these Hungarian Hearts. Apparently here the fruit fly absolutely love big tomatoes and they really infested our crop. These are the first off the vines and were not infected with grubs. They were HUGE!!! as you can see compared to my cigarette lighter. Very disappointed that we didn't get more, but I am now growing salad sized tomatoes and I hope we can get a crop from them.





Well that's about your lot for today. I will get the finals of the test finished and publish in the next day or so.

So until then .. May you have fair winds and calm seas.