Autumn Tales

Snuggling into Autumn now. The days are still warm but mornings and evenings are ugg boot material. All the autumn leaves are starting to turn but are tenaciously hanging onto the trees at the moment. Soon the trees will have a collective sneeze and the drop them all on the ground.

The silver birches next to the deck are raining seeds. Silver birches thrive in this garden. A self seeded copse is now taller than Ruprecht. The seeds have attracted the sparrows who don't do anything alone. If a sparrow flies onto the deck, you can expect 50 more to follow. Fortunately they love silver birch seeds.

So nature is busy doing what it does best. Growing, resting, renewing and the garden is looking gorgeous. Even my daughter, an enthusiastic, soon-to-be-professional, photographer thinks it is worth photographing.

I have been busy finishing my latest piece of whimsy. Ruprecht would like it to be my last, but I'm not promising anything. Uluru now has its nod to Indigenous art and some enormous lizards. (There is some maths hidden in there too.) We have a home made bench to sit on and relax and a tidied, but natural, part of the garden.

This garden truly came into its own when the grandkids played an impromptu game of hide from grandma when she works in the garden. There are so many nooks and crannies - hiding in bushes, behind trees, standing amongst the branches cascading down to make natural arches. I quite enjoyed wandering around the garden looking for them.

Well this blog has turned into a journal of unconnected events. Sometimes the garden is like that, a patchwork of experiences rather than a theme. A collection of short stories rather than a weighty tome.

No such patchwork of the last few weeks would be complete without mention of the first snake we have seen in our 8 years here. On one of our regular perusals of our domain we ventured into our outback area. This area is left to its own devices except for controlling bracken and mowing paths. As we went through the gate, at the very end of the garden (almost the neighbour's land) we saw a snake sliding across the path. My first reaction was how majestic it looked -it wasn't small. I wasn't afraid because it was so far away. I will be happy if I don't see another one for at least another 8 years though.

My admiration quickly turned to dread as the dog ran merrily away, right in the direction of the snake. Saxon is not in the prime of her life and her new name is The Pinball Wizard (you know, deaf, dumb and blind). We yelled and yelled but she didn't stop. She did come back though and her outback adventure was cut short. We tried again the next day but she was on the lead until we declared the area snake free.

So I am enjoying the relaxed pace of a garden that has stopped growing quite so madly. Time to tidy the veggie patch, plant the garlic and try and catch those sunny days before we are forced into hibernation.

Oops nearly forgot.... our 2 apples tasted delicious!