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!"
5 comments:
We have a thing in common....our soil. Like cement, it is. I don't know what to say about the packages. That's a lot of stuff.
Did you say stamps? Little pieces of paper an inch square? That's an awful lot of stamps!!
Hope your shoulder begins to improve soon...
May your shoulder heal soon and your living room be box-free as well.
There's always someone who has decided to take up extra space with their hobbies here. It's frustrating, isn't it? .. but I'm guilty, too, esp. when the sewing/quilting happens.
Hoping your shoulder heals up quickly. Have you tried Arnica to help with the bruising?
Gracious me! What manner of stamps are these? That fill multitudes of boxes and take over rooms?
My sympathies are with you my dear... they are indeed.
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