2008-02-03

Rooted but Proactive

We have been extremely proactive around the house and garden in the last couple of weeks. Our 5.1 surround system in the lounge is now fully wired up (after a bit of clambering around in the crawlspace under our lounge) as is the tumble drier. Sounds in the office are halfway there. I've climbed up on the roof and cleaned the leaf mulch out of the guttering. I've cleared the encroaching bush from a sizeable vegetable plot. I've mowed the entire road frontage. The garden as a whole has taken a beating - between me and Fran we have planted out a root vegetable plot in the newly cleared space, trimmed back two large native figs, and completed a survey of the trees we will have to finish off with a chainsaw and a tub of glyphosate. On the garden-fixing front, while getting my coffee fix at the Rainbow café, I bumped into Junior, our affable South African professional-diver-cum-cook-cum-project-manager friend, and it turns out that he also has his chainsaw licence (as though he didn't have enough hats already!) When he gets back from his annoyingly glamorous stint diving in the Red Sea off the Yemen, he will come and have a look at the camphor laurel problem in our garden, and, with a bit of luck, get rid of the problem trees for "mates rates". Some of the work on our garden has made me realise that I still have some serious thinking to do in terms of reducing the amount of ongoing work that it generates. For example, Fran not only dragged the dead palm leaves off the lawn and onto our brush-piles, but even cut off the dead palm leaves that were still attached to palm trees in our front garden, and there is now lots more light coming through the kitchen window. There must be a way (other than killing all the palm trees) to cut down on that - I just need some ingenuity.
There has been more light generally in the last couple of weeks, as the preceding weeks' constant rain has been broken up by quite a few sunny days. We have used the good weather to get into Lismore and explore the town with Fran, to go swimming At Nimbin pool, and to spend a day around Byron Bay. I had to work for half the day in Byron, so I ended up heading to a WiFi cafe for a few hours (and getting twice as much done as usual - probably due to more regular doses of caffeine). Fran, K and C had a great day on the beach, and we met up afterwards and headed to the Hari Krishna restaurant for dinner. Before driving off, just before sunset we witnessed something I hadn't seen before - flocking lorikeets. These birds are pretty alone or in pairs, but they looked like hundreds of flying jewels as they spiralled around the pines above the Byron beach in the evening light. They are quite small, and fly (and flap their wings) quickly though, so you'd need a top-end video camera to capture the scene.
Before we got back to our house in Nimbin last week, I had been very worried about possible water damage due to the severity of the rain we'd had previously. In the event, our house stood up very well to what was, really, an unusual and severe climatic event. The most noticeable effect of the severe rain has been a jump in the number of spiders and insects, and of course in the lizards, frogs and presumably snakes that feed on them -though I haven't seen any snakes yet since the rains. Another, much more enjoyable effect of the severe rain is to make our friends Steffan and Iris's little creek swell up to the point where it is a veritable river (though not in flash-flood mode like it was three weeks ago) which means that the bigger of the two swimming holes on their property is now about three metres deep and 30 metres long. We went along with a bottle of wine, and had a fine time - all that was missing was a lilo, and I'll make sure I bring one next time!
We are learning to sleep when the baby sleeps, and K is now often sleeping 4 hours per night, which is making it a lot easier to get up for work in the morning. Nonetheless, last night, which I spent in Brisbane for work, was my first night of uninterrupted sleep since December 21, and I don't believe that it is coincidence that it is this evening I have finally found the energy to write this blog entry.

1 comment:

Alex said...

Yes! Sleep when the baby sleeps! J settled into a nightly sleep on her second month, so give it two more weeks... I have a friend whose daughter did not sleep through the night for the first 18 months. I'll cross my fingers for you and Claire.