Already feeling christmassy

I need colour. Lots of colour. Fortunately my need is easily fulfilled. And these colours remind me of Christmas. 

It really feels a little bit like Christmas is soon here. I bought star shaped solar lights today for my front yard frangipani which will pretend to be the Christmas tree this year. We live in the subtropics after all.

Copyright Kirsi Reinikka 2016

A day like a brush stroke

Copyright Kirsi Reinikka 2016

Popping

I wish I managed to grow poppies. Last attempts were eaten by a) possum b) wallaby or c) something else. Take your pick. Plus scrub turkeys did not leave them alone anyway. 

I found out today that the bush turkeys build their mounds from 84 meters to half a kilometre apart. I have been trying to come up with solutions to the turkey problem. I thought maybe, if, I provide a start of a mound underneath some nice, shady tree at the back of the property, the dominating male gets obsessed with it, starts building further and keeps the other birds away. But it doesn't work like that. So I just keep adding chicken wire cylinders around my plants at the back yard. I have chicken wire spread out on the ground next to the bushes and trees that I see the turkeys show interest (read: scratch whenever I am not there chasing it away). In theory they do not like scratching ground that has chicken wire laid out. 

I have actually run out of chicken wire. As has my next door neighbour who now goes to garage sales regularly to try to find cheap chicken wire rolls. Maybe I should cover my backyard with one huge chicken wire cage. I could grow whatever I want, whenever I want and however I want.

These little flower faces me happy.

Copyright Kirsi Reinikka 2016

Soul of a garden

My favourite type of garden is the one that surprises me and makes me think happy thoughts. I would like to have a garden with winding paths that turn even a short walk into an exploration of the wonderfully beautiful unknown. 

I visited Mt Tamborine Garden Show a couple of weeks ago. I really liked the garden number 1. It was tiny compared to others but it was full of wonders and delights. You could sense the enjoyment and love that had been planted into that tiny plot. There were colours, shapes, textures, scents mixing in a happy union. My least favourite garden was the one (number 8, I think) that didn't have, in my mind, any artistic flair, any soul. A hired garden designer had designed the garden. Although there were million dollar views onto the mountains, there were also orderly rows of the same plants, masses of mass plantings. There were no surprises, no excitement, just the feeling of show off. Everything screamed money, money, money. Well, this might be news to some but in my mind money doesn't bring soul into a garden. Read, and be inspired by, Jackie French's book The Wilderness Garden if you don't believe me.

This photograph is from the Botanical Gardens in Mt Tamborine, Queensland.

Copyright Kirsi Reinikka 2016

Here and there and everywhere but mainly about coal and bread

I looked at the statistics for this blog. I had 166 people looking at this blog yesterday which is the pinnacle of daily clicks since for ever. And about 60 of them were from Poland. Poland hasn't really peaked in the statistics before. The US and Australia have been the main countries. And some Russian ponr [you know what I mean] sites have been feeding this site steadily for some reason. Is there place for beauty, forgiveness and healing in the pron industry?

My knowledge, about Poland out of my head in 30 seconds, is pretty limited. I have never been to Poland but I imagine that there is a lot of coal dust and pollution in the air. The concentration camps. Kieslowski's movies. I remember when Lech Walesa won in politics. He was a coal miner. Australian comedian Magda Szubanski's dad was from Poland. He was an assassin during the war. I read the book. It is strange to think that someone's father would be an assassin. 

A vegetarian friend traveled in Poland once and said that it was difficult to find fresh vegetables. Which reminds me that I like Polish pickles. I am sure I have eaten some Polish pastries. Another friend lived there for a while over 20 years ago. I think he said he liked the vodka and the company. Vodka reminds me of bread. I don't know if they offer rye bread, pieces of lard and vodka together, as they do in Russia. Polish rye bread must be nice, dark and heavy. I miss proper bread here in Australia. 

I am rambling on with this writing because I am on my way to back yard to look after the plants. I think Australia should stop coal mining. Full stop. And Russia should get out of Syria. 

Here is a picture of trees growing peacefully together.

Copyright Kirsi Reinikka 2016

Sure

Youtube is the best learning tool ever. I was watching how to propagate roses in potatoes. What?! This is a revelation to me. Live and learn, they say, and it is true. Now I have to find roses and get some potatoes. I can give it a go even though Queensland is not really the rose capital of Australia. Far from it. I wish Ron was still alive. He would have given me cuttings.

Copyright Kirsi Reinikka 2016

He was a former neighbour from down the road. A feather-weight ex-boxer and II WW marksman whose face looked like mossy rock with nodules. He had an old, greasy, loyal (as they come) German shepherd, and he slept in his garage, its door wide open.  You could see the top of his head lying on the pillow from the road. He drove a plum colour car that was falling apart. You could hardly see him behind the wheel. He said he wasn´t worried about losing his licence because he didn´t have one. 

He had two obsessions that I knew of. There might have been a few more, I suspect, but these two were down right obvious to everyone who saw his house and yard. He loved tiling driveways, floors and walls. He liked bathroom and kitchen wall type of tiles. The garage walls were a circus of tiles. He would go to the local tile shops and bargain for free end-of-pile tiles. The sales people knew him by name. I know this because I took him tile shopping once. 

His second passion was roses. He had a curvy flower bench around the corner of his block. Boy, were there roses! Spindly, long-stemmed, rambling, jagged, red, orange, pink, white, mostly leafless but full of buds and blooms when the flowering time came around.

I can still see him afternoon napping in his garage, surrounded by the hundreds of mundane tiles and heavenly scent of roses. If he was still here he would give me cuttings. I am sure of it.

Someone´s favourite picture

Sun. It is shining again after only one day of rain. 

I feel for the people who live in South Australia. Rain, floods, blackouts. 

Copyright Kirsi Reinikka 2016