© 1984 - 2024 Adrian Tritschler
sitting in the garden, too hot in the house, watched as a butcherbird[1] came and drank from a cup still full of rain. Must get around to putting in a birdbath
[1] Grey butcherbird
removed a half-eaten blackbird[1] wing from the path by the garage – someone's cat got lucky
[1] Common blackbird
bay tree suckers are almost ankle-high in the lawn, overdue for a mow
saw a large rat running along the back fence, it may be time for some traps
I think they’re attracted by the compost, and it may be rats rather than possums that ate the peaches. Last night we watched a large one trot casually along the fence from bay tree to garage and back
released a blackbird[1] that had got in under the netting on the tomatoes
[1] Common blackbird
lorikeets[1] have found the plum tree, much shrieking and destruction of fruit
[1] Rainbow lorikeet
should have mowed the lawn last weekend
left-most snake bean is now a metre up the trellis work
found a nest of eggs – I suspect marbled geckos – while weeding yesterday under the plum tree
the wisteria we grew from seed from mum & dad's garden by the front tap hasn't died, lots of leaves
Jo saw a gecko race out of the compost bin, and two skinks on the front deck in the sun yesterday
neighbours finally picked up the rubbish they dumped on their lawn – not quite our garden
The mindset is just foreign to me; they wash and tidy their car every week, but are perfectly happy to just dump bags of unwanted clothes, old toys and rubbish on their front lawn
cicada skin in an unusual place, on a rose bush near the front gate – spotted by Jo on [2017-12-04 Mon]
Cam and I walk around from the side of the house so we couldn’t see it, but Jo walked out the front door and had a different angle. Unlike most of the cicada skins that are on the fence or 2m or so up a tree, this one is on a rose leaf only 1m off the ground.
sandy little ant mounds appearing in lawn as the ants recover from the rain
snake beans are just tall enough to start touching the trellis
solid rain all last night, 43mm in the gauge this morning
11pm and the branches are scratching and banging on the wall and roof near our bedroom, must trim them
cleaned the gutters, snapped some brittle dead branches off silver birch on south side
not quite our garden, unfortunately one of the railway cypress trees is marked, probably for removal
There’s a big red cross sprayed on one of the clump of thick cypress trees that shield us from the railway – I suspect it means that this one, the end one, is marked to be removed.
hot dry weather is starting, the first dry patch of lawn has appeared
intended to buy tomato seedlings at Oakleigh Rotary market, but didn't go due to rain
everything wet and green, we really should get some tomato plants
passionfruit flowering on the fence
more rain, snail pellets out around beans and beetroot, about half the beetroot gone
three beans looking healthy, not quite reached the trellis yet, some leaf nibbles
cicadas at night in the trees, an orb spider setting up near the box hedge in the front
The roses are just about finished, lots of dead-heading to be done
wet after the rain, half a dozen cicada skins on the Bay tree, silver birch and fence
chives flowering between orange and lime trees
time to purge the lawn of the bindis or burrs I can see…
…while they’re still green, before they dry out and cause foot pain
much needed rain, ants on the move into the house, some meyer lemons finally fall off
possums have eaten off about a third of the beetroot plants at ground level
Fairly sure its possums and not snails from the way it all looks eaten
first hot summer-like night, spider webs everywhere, crickets calling
another bean seedling half eaten, we suspect possums this time. Two and a half left
hard green plums everywhere, Cam is knocking them out of the tree then throwing them around the garden
three live bean seedling, beetroot all recovered after a solid watering
a dozen small leaves on the front garden peach, three quarters of the branches look dead
So its not quite dead, but I don’t expect it to survive another year
iceberg roses are covered in blooms along the front fence, inside and outside
Three bean seedlings good, two mediocre, two dead
As far as I can tell the two seedlings against the garage wall have died or been eaten or both, one or two of the ones along the fence are wilting, and three or look strong and are definitely growing more leave
four days of misty rain, everything green, we're in between flowerings
Nothing much is still flowering except for Jo’s “Just Joey” and the mass of little daisies over the front steps, all the other flowers have finished. There are still giant lemons ripening and a last few limes.
"Just Joey" rose is flowering, three or four big buds starting to open
There’s not much more I can add to who I am.
Vanity site? Technology experiment? Learning tool? Blog? Journal? Diary? Photo album? I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you…
I experiment. I play. I write and I take pictures. Some of the site is organised around topics, other parts are organized by date, then there’s always the cross-references between them.
Its all been here a fairly long time. Like the papers on my desk, or the books on the bedside table, the pile just grew… and it all grew without much plan or structure. I try not to break URLs, so historical oddities abound.
Long ago it started as a learning experiment with a few static HTML pages, then I added a bit of server-side includes and some very ugly PHP. A hand-built journal/blog on top of that PHP, then a few experiments in moving to various static publishing systems. I’ve never wanted a database-based blogging engine, so over the years I’ve tried PHP, nanoblogger, emacs-muse, silkpage and docbook before settling on Emacs Org mode for writing and jekyll for publishing. But the itch remained… I never really liked jekyll and the ruby underneath always seemed so much black magic. So now the latest incarnation is Org mode and hugo.