Good for the Gardens ....

Today the sky is lightening up a little here in Brisbane, and we are so far not badly affected by floods, so I can take a deep breath and be somewhat philosophical about the recent never ending downpour.
 

In The Shrew's garden, apart from the frogs mentioned in the previous post (yes, the tadpoles are coming on nicely, thanks)  there are quite a few things that love the rain.

Here are some of them:

the self-sown pumpkin vine,

the ginger curcuma roseoana, with its beautiful velvety leaves, (and the dracaena, behind it)

and the red cage fungus, clathrus ruber, otherwise known as the basket stinkhorn. I found out why it has this name when I took its photo .... . you can see more about this weird and wonderful fungus here.

"I think the true gardener, the older he grows, 

should more and more develop 

a humble, grateful and uncertain spirit."  

~Reginald Farrer, In a Yorkshire Garden, 1909

The Gift that Keeps On Giving

THE SMILING DONOR : Green Tree Frog, Litoria caerulea  Pavel German  © Australian Museum

here

Whew, that's Christmas over for another year - apart from the hungry cries of retailers who have forgotten which Dickens book they are supposed to be in. No, sorry,it's not 'Oliver Twist' (please sir I want some more) except that they forgot to say 'please',  but the message of Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol' that they should be keeping in mind.

If you look here you'll find a poem called December 26 about the things that Santa forgot, on the wonderful American Public Media Writer's Almanac page.

But this year my favourite present was a generous dollop of frog-spawn, kindly left for me on Christmas Eve by a visiting frog.

She must have known that my goldfish recently went to the Great Weedy Pond In The Sky ... already I can see the eggs changing from fullstops into tiny commas ...

...  and 'I think there's something in that for all of us, don't you?'

All I have to say about Christmas 2010

Holy Meerkat Family!

O.K. I was going to post a photo of a woman having hysterics in a shopping mall,
but I couldn't get anyone to come close enough to hold the camera.

So, anticipating next Year's New Year's resolutions, 
I have resolved to let my nice side shine through. 

So here's the sweetest thing you'll get from me until ... oh, quite some time, probably.

See more meerkats and make them your own at    http://www.etsy.com/shop/niftyknits 

Something to say: Glenn Gould

I went recently to see 'Genius Within', a moving and profoundly engaging documentary about this fascinating artist.

Despite perhaps reaching less far than his heart-breaking music, his incisive remarks about art certainly merit revisiting by those of us who like to write, among others.

Here's a sample... in this excellent video by pOlyphOny , whose work can be found at http://www.youtube.com/user/p0lyph0ny