Parallel Lives

While looking through some old blogs and editing some labels and odd spacings, and thinking its really been a while since I posted and I really really should, as I think I'll miss being able to look back and instantly remember, I found a post I didn't get around to pressing publish on from way back in 2021. Which really feels half a lifetime away. And now I think about it - it would be half my youngest daughter's lifetime away. 

Although we're only an hour away now, and my husband still drives through our old town every day, I do miss my early morning walks along the rail-trail. Even an hours travel time makes such a difference to the landscape and the quality of the light. While there are many things I love about our new (ish!) home I do miss the vast skies, the golden light, the clarity of the stars - and my beloved spider webs! 

And everything was gold and light

Early morning, winter in the South Burnett. 

Our summer's are scorching but our nights in Winter get down to -2 or -3c and I revel in the crisp and invigorating air. 

As I leave the house and head for the hills and paddocks behind the town the chill bites at me and I exalt and wish it would last forever. 

Frost coats the golden grass and I hurry to the long grass beyond the townships before the sun steals it away. 

This moment, when the sun and the frost exist together, is so brief,  but O so lovely. 

 

Frost (And a Southerner's ruthless lament)

Summer is speeding its sweat-soaked, heat-stroke-y sticky way towards us, but not so many days ago, as I walked the dogs in the early morning (at a decent hour in the winter - none of that ridiculous 4.15am sunrise stuff*) frost hung on each blade of grass, each spiders web, each wayside flower. 

And it was heartbreakingly beautiful. 

And the air felt perfect at a brisk, invigorating 0c. The dogs were patient as I exclaimed over each frost caught frond and strand, although all to quickly the sun strengthened and the frost melted, leaving dew in its place. 

*There is talk Queensland may embrace daylight savings. Yes! A thousand times Yes! I understand that it's not so great for those really out West, or up North, but in this I'm willing to be ruthless. Yes, I am one of those weak southerners clinging as close as affordable to the coast. Up from Mackay can be ceeded to the Northern Territory and west of Chinchilla can be handed over to South Australia. 

I've noticed the Northern Territory and South Australia have the distinction of being at the half hour when it comes to time - as in, when its 12am in Sydney its 12.30am in Adelaide. I did not know this until recently.

 Anyway, being used to such time oddities I'm sure the locals of the respective states can guide the ex-Queenslanders through any hiccups and the rest of us in the densely populated South East corner can enjoy having sunrise at a decent time, and schools and work starting shortly after sunrise when the day is yet to truly broil up. 

Yes. I am panicking at the approach of Summer. 

After the Flood

 

Queen of the Bats

My youngest daughter tells me that during the day she is the Queen of the Axelotls and during the night she's the Queen of the Fruit bats. She also has ten fruit bat babies she needs to look after. 

Her older sister, (Queen of the Werewolves and the Mermaids), often threatens to eat her subjects, but she's steadfast in defending them. 

One night recently, without warning, just on dusk, bats suddenly started flying overhead. Many of them swooped quite low to us. More and then yet more. 

It has been a year since we saw them flying and the thrill of it was just as strong. 

At one stage the darkening sky seemed completely full of them, although they were too speedy and the light was too dark for my camera to capture them. 

 

 

Wayside Pools

Running from wayside pool to wayside pool my younger girls play in waterlogged evening light. They delight in the feel of the water, the abundant life of tadpoles, dragonflies and the odd unexpected noises of the frogs.

Water is their favourite plaything. This is their second walk and play in the pools of the day - and they've enjoyed the mud around the house in-between. We started the walk with a warriors coating of mud and ended it with more. 

They luxuriate in the sensations, the found things, and again I wonder all that we lost when we began to live so much within four walls.

 

Not even your toes

For most of the eighteen months we've lived in our small town the stream we pass on our walk has run dry. On either side of the road there has been merely the hard dirt stream bed.

 

The recent rains have changed that. 

A week ago our local dam was down to 4% capacity. Now it's at 66% capacity. It is not a small dam. 

There is an amazing amount of water around, and we are all loving it.  

The younger children love walking with us to the stream to see its fast rushing mass, listening out for the sound of the moving water as we make our way down the hillside. 

We experimented with throwing leaves, rocks, and eventually branches into the water to see what happened, watching as they were caught in the currents and swept into the mess of whitewater. 

My brother and I stayed close, within lunging reach, and warned - repeatedly, you never, ever, ever go into flood water, not even your little toes. See, see what happens to the branch, see how it's swept away and then gets trapped on the otherside of the road. Step back, just a bit further back. 

They listen, but our warnings are a sideshow to the delight of throwing in their pieces of debris, squabbling over who gets to throw in what. 

They don't know it, but they're running a science experiment - working out which things float most, which things remain visible, which things disappear quickly, how fast and powerfully the shallow water moves. 

I hope they remember the learning and delight of the water. 

 

 

Sun-Gold Glory

The grass stalks caught in the setting sun become magical. 

I never tire of the way they grasp at the light. 

 

Pondering the thoughts of a Spider

I'm unsure why I never noticed the stunning artistry of spiders to such an obsessive extent before. 

Perhaps because their work is best observed, dew-garlanded, sun-illumined, at dawn, and times I've walked at dawn I've generally been intent upon the sea? 

Perhaps because I've been too busy with other obsessions? 

Now, when my main reflection time is the early morning, before the heat and rush kick in, their silent work, their busy presence, the wonder of their creations, constantly uplifts and fascinates me. 

I wonder why their are not more poems, songs, art work, about the wonder of their intricate webs, how sometimes multitudes of spiders, sometimes spiders of different types, will cover a branch or bush or stand of grass in a palace of (deadly) webs. 

It seems a curious irony that if the web fulfils its main purpose - to obtain food - it will be broken. 

And I wonder at a spiders' thoughts when their constructions are maimed and destroyed by errant flying seeds or leaves, passing animals, or tempestuous weather. Do instincts merely propel them to begin again, or do they grumble to themselves and bemoan their fate?