It's like this. The water just keeps coming. Depending where you read, between 65 & 70% of Queensland is now under water. That's a huge amount of land whichever way you try. It has rained on & off for months on end so our newly married friends have been rejoicing as they plant their garden. Silly me looked on their labours, cocked a knowledgeable eye at our overcast skies & promised to go grubbing in our yard for unwanted seedlings that have sprouted in quite formidable amounts. Free plants, dontcha know, & while nothing is exactly exotic it is all beautiful & generally of the smelly variety because I love a scented garden.
There was just one little hitch to all this. I have become unaccountably clumsy & have fallen on the same shoulder 3 times in just 10 days so the thought of wielding a mattock in my garden didn't exactly thrill me. I've been nursing my shoulder like a frail invalid prone to cark it at any moment. I comforted myself with the foreknowledge that it has been raining on & off for weeks on end & that even my soil was going to be beautifully soft & malleable. So thinking I armed myself with the mattock & went to investigate.
I have, in glorious profusion & seeding like weeds, Tropical Frangipanis. I have a wonderful Poinciana with a deep & fiery red flower, nicely shaped for a beautiful spreading canopy. Not a washed out red. Not a redy~orange but a deep, vibrant ,luxurious red. I have Moriah with it's delicious heady scent & year long profusion of white flowers in little thickets all over. Plants to delight any true gardener's very soul.
I hefted my mattock gingerly because the white ants found it & had a good old chomp on the handle so even though I have re secured the handle one never trusts a white ant infestation. I positioned myself so as to cushion my shoulder & took a tentative swing at my soil ~ & the mattock bounced right back at me! I stared at the ground in disbelief. All that rain & our awful combo of ironstone & clay is as rock solid as a cement slab! A 10 minute job quickly turned into a half hour struggle to grub roots free.
Our skies are still overcast but no rain is falling. I want it to. I have things to move before the root system is too big & that means solid drenching rain that will give me some chance against the clay. Meanwhile, while I wait for the skies to open & the rain to fall, our little G.P.O rang. They wanted me to come collect. Thankfully Liddy had the car so they had to deliver but Ditz & I had to lug all this into the house. Dearest is getting serious about his stamps but ladies, commiserate with me. That's my living room he's taken over & I loathe living in a muddle!
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