Monthly Archives: June 2016

Striped Marsh Frogs

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In our area of Newtown, the basic house block is only about 5 metres across.  Neighbouring yards are separated by high wooden fences, and the gardens, traditionally, have been small and rough. The local council warns against growing vegetables because of concern about lead and arsenic in the soil. And there is a large dog and cat population.

This might not seem a promising environment for frogs, but even before we put in our first fish pond, sixteen years ago, we had striped marsh frogs passing through our garden, sometimes even coming indoors. I don’t know where they came from or where they were going, but, since we built the ponds, many seem to have stayed.

Continue reading Striped Marsh Frogs

greetings

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I am often struck by the different ways we use words.

Rereading a favourite book of mine recently I found myself marvelling at the author’s ability to evoke particular experiences and emotional states. Her unusual choice of words drew me into her world, but equally, caused me to consider their meaning. I had to read slowly and in reading slowly found myself consciously appreciating the craftsmanship of her writing. Continue reading greetings

This is not a grasshopper

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the force

of what lives us

outliving the mountain.

John Berger

 

Last week I was delighted to come across this animal.

Part of my pleasure was that I thought I could identify it. Even though it was now in the front herb garden, and no longer among the camellias at the back, I presumed it was the same fine grasshopper with which I began this series of blog posts.

I don’t think this recognition was at the heart of my response though. The best clue to this  are the words I said to myself at the time. If my response had been recognition of the same individual, I would have thought ‘Oh, it’s that same grasshopper‘.  But this wasn’t my response. The delighted thought that came to me was ‘Oh, it’s you‘. Why did I say You? What did I see that made this a You and not just ‘that same grasshopper’?

This isn’t a minor grammatical quibble. There is a world — an ecology — of difference between the two utterances. Continue reading This is not a grasshopper

Camouflage

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Looking at this caterpillar, in a basil plant, it is tempting to ascribe it intentions that it does not have.  Certainly it has brilliant camouflage, not only in its colour but in its twig-like behaviour, but is it intending to deceive a predator? Is it deliberately hiding in greenery; has it decided to act like a twig? Continue reading Camouflage

Birds of Newtown

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I am fond of this photograph, because of its poor quality.

I find it difficult to take good photos of the birds that frequent the garden. They move fast, they move often, without regard for garden fences, and I don’t own a telephoto lens. But a family of noisy miner birds moved into the back yard during autumn, with a demanding fledgling, and I was determined to take their picture. Several times a day, whenever I heard them being especially chatty, I’d go out with my camera. But they were always too high and too fast for me.

One day I saw a docile pigeon on my neighbour’s TV antenna. Pigeons aren’t exciting, and it was too far away to get a good shot, but here, I thought, photographically speaking, was a sitting duck. I took three images of the distant pigeon surrounded by too much blue sky. As I pushed the shutter button for the middle image, I heard a whooshing noise, but only when I enlarged the photo did I realise that the noisy miners had photobombed me. There they were, tiny figures about to depart the top right corner of my shot. To show their disdain, they had glided past, not even bothering to flap. Continue reading Birds of Newtown

A gardening state of mind

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Gardeners often talk of their state of mind. Gardening relaxes them. It changes their mood or perspective. It makes them feel differently about their lives. Although we often imagine that moods and states of mind are attributes of an individual, these experiences of gardening suggest that states of mind are a matter of ecology or sociology rather than individual psychology.  The changed state of mind befalls the gardener; it emerges from their relation with the garden.

Indeed, just to take this thought a step further, maybe this is what is important about gardens. They are special places where people learn that what is innermost is also outside them. This is how they learn how they fit in a broader world that includes them but doesn’t belong to them. Continue reading A gardening state of mind