Spring

[Heather]

Oh come on Maureen, it was one tree, ONCE! You can do it!

Maureen the only "accident" I've ever had while driving was when I was backing and didn't see a tree in my blind spot on the back corner. Make you feel better? Broke a light - costly little exercise.

Just down the driveway out of view on the left is where I set fire to the fence. That was one of my finest moments I'd have to say! Burning off a "little" pile of dry vegetation when the top rail of the fence caught fire - it got just a little bigger and hotter than I anticipated. Funniest thing I've ever seen - "him" running madly for water and swearing like a trooper and me hardly able to contain my laughter - well, in actual fact I did not contain my laughter. It's just a bit of fence! Worse things have happened.

[Bob Pacey]

Oh Ho Pray tell what worse things ?????



I drove very carefully in the Kaboto yesterday so as not to spill any of the rubbish bins in the trailer quitely rectinig poetry and hopped off to unload the bins ???


The trailer was where I had left it unhooked 300 hundred yards away. Lucky I can still laugh at myself ???


Bob

[Heather]

Like losing a good friend at 49 to cancer; like having friends lose their homes in a bushfire; like losing a much loved grandmother. A little piece of fence is insignificant Bob. It can be replaced. Those things change your perspective on life.

[Bob Pacey]

Sorry Heather I was thinking more of the funny thinks in life that make us laugh.

I don't know what to say now so I'll just creep off and if I had a tail it would be between my legs. Sorry

Robert

[Heather]

Ok Bob, here's one for you then. Like having a bloody great big cow come into your garden after inches and inches of rain and she has put gaping huge hoof prints all through what was the lawn, in the garden bed, stomped all over the plants and pooped everywhere. Now THAT is much harder to fix than some silly little fence. Whole garden needs re-doing, lawn needs rotary hoeing to get the holes out and you know what - it probably won't happen in my life time. Just got to watch out for sprained ankles now!

And yes, somewhere, there is a poem that has been started about the last cow that did the exact same thing. Only I won that time!

[Maureen K Clifford]

No don't do that Bob - life sends things to test us and what worries us today won't worry us tomorrow. The human spirit is wonderful and even when we have lost a loved one, or some disaster has befallen us we can still and should remember the good things and the funny things about those situations - for tears of laughter are as much a healing balm on the spirit as are tears of sadness.

As I wrote that I could hear my Dad's voice saying - since when did you get so philosophical? and I guess my answer to that would be when I lost him....we didn't always see eye to eye especially when I was young but he was always there for me. He was an extremely strict father as a result of his own lifes journey and I did not relate to him particularly well although I tried to be more tolerant of his foibles as we both got older...one of the things that makes me laugh so much still is that neither he nor Mum saw fit to tell me until I was 50 years old that he had been married before. Even when I went through a horrible divorce he never so much as breathed a word and two heartbreaking relationship endings still nothing was said. I asked Mum why that was last time she was here and she said it never occurred to them - yet my brother who is younger than me had been told years before and he never thought to mention it either.

Sorry didn't mean to ramble - my point was different things hold different levels of importance to different people

Heather a couple of bags of soil and a rake and Bobs your uncle - I've got bloody great indented tyre marks through mine from the tree fellers fellows and spent the morning severely pruning the plants they trampled underfoot whilst getting those big palms out. You got free fertilizer - lucky cow.


Cheers

Maureen

[Heather]

Who you calling a cow Maureen!

[Maureen K Clifford]

Heather if I was polite like my Mum I would call you a meadow lady but in the nicest possible way you understand and with love

[Heather]

Of course I know that Maureen. Wouldn't ever think otherwise - or I wouldn't have said it! I know your sense of humour, you know mine I think...

And to anyone that thought otherwise, I was NOT having a go at Bob. Just pointing out that there are more important things in life....All's good I've never taken myself or life too seriously but losing people you love, especially before their time, really makes you realise that life is too short to be worried over spilt milk (or burnt fences, or cow damage, or broken car lights....you know what I mean).

Heather

[Irene]

Love the photo Heather!! I am quite jealous - I love trees, and we live in a coastal scrub area!! Nothing over a few meters for miles around - unless it has been planted!! My trees - the ones that survive!! - are slowly getting taller and fuller. Someone will enjoy them immensely in the future, I hope!

As everyone seems to love the wattles, did you all know that September 1st was National Wattle Day? There is a whole website dedicated to things you can do to celebrate wattle day, which was officially declared in 1992, but was celebrated in NSW, Victoria and South Australia on/from 1 September 1910

Here is a lovely poem for anyone with grandies.

The Wattle Fairies
Christian Coutts

Some little yellow fairies
were swinging on a tree.
They were the dearest little things
that ever you could see.

The fluffy hair all round them
was soft as thistle down
but these wee fairies held on tight
to little stalks of brown.

They swayed about so gently
while softest breezes blew
and everyday, more fairies came
and so the family grew

‘til all the trees were golden.
Yes, every tiny spray
and every little yellow elf
as happy as the day.

At night those little fairies
oft washed their hair with dew,
but when the morning sun got up,
he dried their hair right through.

Did winds blow round them roughly?
It was such jolly fun.
They swung up high and then down low
and laughed till it was done.

Now dears, I’ll whisper softly,
who were those sprites so airy?
The tree, it was a wattle tree,
each blossom was a fairy.


This Wattle Fairies poem is from a 1948 Australian school reader. I have not been able to find any information about Christian Coutts - if anyone has any information, I would be pleased to see it.