Raindrops fall, kookaburras call...

Kookaburra sits on…(in this case the branch of a Manchurian Pear tree!)

I sometimes wonder if I’m less observant during the warmer months…or perhaps it’s just because the trees are more densely clothed, that I fail to notice kookaburras perching patiently on branches. I know they’re there, because from time to time a raucous peal of laughter escapes their throats, and occasionally I see one sitting on a fence rail; but for the most part, they seem to hide during the heat.

Do you know…? I heard on a radio interview just this last summer, that apparently a kookaburra’s daytime call is likely to be a warning to fellow birds and animals that a snake is nearby. So we should heed such laughter. My Dad always used to say “kookaburras by 7, rain by 11”. Perhaps it was true in his day, or the particular locality where he grew up, but I’ve long dismissed it as untrue in these parts…too many times disappointed have I been! In a similar way to my being told years ago by a dinky-di local, that black cockatoos mean rain’s on the way…to these parts. I’ve discovered they hold no such meaning in other places; but over and over, that belief has been proved correct here, and we greet their rare appearance with due fanfare.

Happy chappy (?) …I dared not disturb…

These last weeks, as the leaves have coloured and gradually fallen to the ground, and the subsequent tracery of bare branches has become increasingly apparent, so too have my sightings of these plump birds. I imagine them to be the same ones…as last year, the year before and the one before that; that they’re local to here, and consider them to be friends. I’ve no doubt they’re more aware of me than I am of them, and am always so delighted when they come out of hiding.

I’m sorry the leading image was taken on extreme zoom…I knew if I got any closer he/she would fly…and as a result it’s not as sharply in focus as it might be. I spied this scene through the kitchen window (though it may just as well have been from the bedroom window any morning this week, where I’ve noticed the same or another kookaburra resting quietly on a branch of the Persimmon tree). The closest I dared get without disturbing our friend was the kitchen verandah, where even the second image had to be taken on zoom, across the lemon tree and oleander hedge. But what a jolly, heartwarming autumn scene this makes…one typical of here, as we head into the winter months.

I don’t think any copies went back in the box!

Huddle! It’s release so beautifully timed for the season in which we’re most likely to. And huddle is exactly what we did do on Sunday, when author (and quite frankly super-human) Jade Miles came to visit, to share her words of wisdom with a room full of eager huddlees or perhaps huddlers.

Author Jade Miles…

Reading her introductory page was a good way to begin, as everyone settled themselves, a gentle fire crackling in the background - the first to flicker in the Dairy hearth this year. But as Jade launched in proper, she held the room in the palm of her hand, with her thought-provoking, articulate and inspiring words on ‘making meaningful impact in the face of a rapidly changing world’. You could have heard a pin drop…Jade is a storyteller, one who gathers for the greater good of humanity and has the capacity to inspire others to do likewise.

I haven’t yet had a chance to properly read, only to flick (today would have been ideal, as rain pitter-patters against the window panes!) but I’m still high on Jade’s words and sometimes a little space can be a good thing. How I encourage you to get hold of a copy and delve in, to absorb the sentiment and insights held within the pages of Huddle.

A tower of sourdough chunks for dunking into luscious, golden, extra virgin olive oil…

Oh but the preparation and setting up was fun! I was up with the sparrows and out collecting armfuls of raindrop-heavy branches of Cottonwood Hibiscus, long stems of Elder, sporting clusters of glossy berries, lengths of leathery-leaved Port Jackson Fig, tall stems of fennel fronds, pendulous heads of amaranth…and getting drenched in the process! We were lucky the rain held off for the rest of the day and the temperature for brunch on arrival in the Hayshed was even pleasant…as everyone loaded their plates with caramelised fennel, olive and thyme pissaladière, (made specially that morning by Renee at Epicure in Camden), individual gbejniet (from local Gowrie Farm Cheese) and both olives and EVOO from just down the road (Monks Lane).

Gbejniet, pissaladière and cured olives in evoo…

What joy to see peeps dunking generous chunks of sourdough into a big bowl of Anna’s delicious olive oil! Good bread and olive oil must surely be one of life’s greatest, simple pleasures…

When Jade’s conversation finally came to an end (I had to draw it to a close eventually…we might still be there!), a flurry of book signing ensued. When I opened the Dairy door, I discovered the morning’s reasonable temperature had plummeted whilst we’d all been feeling cosy to the tips of our toes. As a result there’s not one image of gratefully received cups of steaming tomato soup, each with a generous dollop of fennel frond pistou for swirling, or of chilled fingers picking up morsels of just-out-of-the-oven, gooey Jerusalem artichoke!

What a wonderful day…

Calling: Ken Unsworth’s ‘Suspended Stone Circle II’

As a result of Sunday’s event, there was little gardening done last weekend, beyond tying-in and primping and preening in the kitchen garden on Saturday (it was such a pleasure to see that space filled with peeps absorbing all it has to offer just now). Given this week’s weather…I’ve taken not a single image here save the kookaburra, as even my regular evening insta captures of the ‘day’s pick’ have been in the dark - I haven’t yet acclimatised to the evenings drawing in so quickly!

So instead I’ll share something that held me captive earlier in the week, when thanks to a necessary visit to the city, I thought to take the opportunity to visit the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Some weeks ago, I happened upon reference to a work called ‘Suspended Stone Circle II’ by artist Ken Unsworth. I do often think I live under a rock…too many things seemingly pass me by…and this installation is one of those things (purchased as it was by the AGNSW in 1988, though first made in 1974 - I’m not sure where it’s been hanging around in the intervening years!). Anyway, better late than never - I’m one of those peeps inclined to believe things cross our paths when they’re meant to; and this installation has been calling to me ever since I noticed that article.

So off I set on my mission…wrapped against the chill wind that buffeted the umbrella I held against the rain (via the most direct path I could think of) to the imposing building of Sydney sandstone that has sat squarely at the top of The Domain since 1872. Up the shallow steps and through the imposing portico…I lodged my brolly at the cloakroom and went in search of…the rocks! Where oh where might they be? But it didn’t take long to find them…very soon I was peering over an entry level barrier, and down into the bowels of the floor below…

Viewed from above…

How compelling! Maybe it’s just me…but their suspended weight suggests a gravitational force that draws one in…the shadow play beneath alive with every gentle movement left or right; the supporting wires a complex, transfixing, geometric maze.

I found my way to the level below for closer inspection and circled it slowly. The whole is a meditation…a force…so simple and yet…

“Did you see the Archibald?” A fellow patron enquired as I waited in line to collect my umbrella. “Er…no…another time” I replied. I was not in an Archibald frame of mind!

Sibyl, the velveteen fat cat…

Today is the kind of wet, grey day I wouldn’t mind behaving like the pusscat - oh to sit and watch raindrops trickle down the window panes…though how I feel for those up north who are so badly flooded…who have lost everything…loved ones, livestock, homes and businesses. And all while others in the opposite direction suffer continued, debilitating drought. Yet here we are, lodged between the two. As peeps in the city bemoan the rain, I sit here hoping for more - enough to fill the dams to capacity would be lovely, but mindful of the havoc being wreaked elsewhere. What a land we live in…as seemingly in turn we deal with whatever turmoil is thrown in our direction.

Go gently all. I perceive this last weekend of autumn that is almost upon us, to be the final opportunity to plant for winter-growing, spring-harvesting veg, so I’ll be off to the market tomorrow morning to buy the last seedlings. I also intend (as I’ve been meaning to for weeks!) to sow a few seeds into punnets of the winter/spring growing Australian Yellow Lettuce - that frilly, chartreuse beauty that sings in a winter leaf salad!

Warmest wishes

Mickey x

Productive garden notes:

Eating from the garden:

Onions, garlic (stores of both diminishing fast now), aubergines, tomatoes, coloured chard and spinach; lettuce, rocket, red elk mustard. Kohl rabi, parsnip, Jerusalem artichokes. Lemons and celery (new). Rhubarb. Lovage, mint, chives, rosemary, thyme. Calendula, nasturtium and borage petals, fennel fronds. Celeriac are almost big enough to pull!

Going / gone: zucchini, basil, onions, garlic

Seed saving: tomato

Sowing: Australian yellow leaf lettuce, cima di rapa, carrot, beetroot, parsnip, coriander, parsley, poppy, sweet peas (Tuesday was a root veg day, so I scattered the last dried parsnip seed from the last stem standing)

Planting: brassicas (kale, cavolo nero, cabbage, broccoli, kohl rabi, cauliflower), lettuce, radicchio, fennel (bulbing), bok choy and leeks…this weekend and possibly next will be the last planting/sowing…although the Almanac suggests the next window will be the first week of June…so I may continue to trickle in a few more - if I can find any space! Oooh and onions…I must not forget onion seedlings tomorrow…

Ornamental garden notes:

Picking for the house: a rose here and there…though I had a wonderful time with Sunday’s arrangements (see above!)

Perfumes and aromas: I need to walk close by but the faintest hint of Osmanthus is hiding down near the pool

Pruning and other: Thalia completed cutting back the Cliveas - what a job, but some are already beginning to shoot new leaves! She also took down the shade canopy we’d so carefully put up together ‘between the wings’ at the beginning of summer. We’re tentatively beginning the winter prune / clean-up: first the Crocosmia in Mrs R’s have been cut to the quick…the dahlias and gingers there too, as the whole gets into quite an overgrown mess by this time. Next I’m picking off one plant at a time, with those in ‘the Arc’ next on the schedule, beginning with the Tree of Chastity Vitex agnus-castus, which we effectively pollard each year. Next will be the Philadelphus - the one that annoyingly has no perfume and so I care not about cutting off its first flush of flowers - its growth is out of control! Next the Bog Sage Salvia uliginosa is cut to the ground: while I believe in some plants remaining in place throughout the winter months, others have seemingly no redeeming features and this is one best cut early, to allow the winter winds to whistle through disintegrating detritus. Doing all of this will allow the burgeoning Melianthus and Roldana petasitis (the latter already forming buds) to perform at their winter best.

‘I cycled past a farmhouse in Provence’ Xanga Connelley

Ending tomorrow…dear friend Xanga Connelley’s pop-up exhibition at 7 Clovelly Road, Randwick. Many of you know her ‘Auriculas’ that feature on my Barn doors here…