Hello Little Weeeeeeed

Hello there and welcome to the post where, if you don’t know me apart from blogland, I give away my age with the “Bill and Ben, Flowerpot Men” reference in the title.

You can see here with this scratchy you-tube clip that my childhood was lived in the days before colour was invented.

Actually, my age was driven home to me last week when I read a blog post talking about how ‘Mom jeans’ are back in style. Imagine my surprise when, instead of seeing well pressed jeans with centre leg creases in the photo or the comfortable sort with elastic waists, there they were, Levi 501s – but they were fashionable only last decade… wait, no… oh, 20 years ago. Dammit! 

So what’s the point of all this blithering? Oh yes, the photos. This is the well-known and oh so lovely arum lily which is a declared weed here in Western Australia. So how can a gorgeous flower, best known for church floral arrangements for goodness’ sake, be a weed?  It “thrives on sandy soil with a periodic high water table. A serious weed along creek lines and in wet areas of south western Western Australia” (from this website). Here it is thriving in the local swamp which I note I wrote about at almost exactly the same time of year last year, mainly I guess because there’s really nothing happening in my own garden, although it’s full of the promise of spring.

I was going to try and get a little closer for some better shots but I was afraid of snakes, I’m sorry to say. My dedication to this blog doesn’t stretch to risking my life from death by snake bite. This makes the perfect segue to the photo of the very dead (good cat) highly venomous young dugite snake I found on my driveway around about last April (for scale, those are my shoes in the shot).

Scary isn’t it? ‘Where’s its mother’ is my question!

May all your jeans be comfortable.

Sue

Late Autumn in the Swan Valley

During the cooler months, because I live so close to work, I need to take my car for a regular drive to get rid of any condensation that’s collected under the oil cap. One of my favourites is a circuit I do from work out through Guildford and the Swan Valley. The vines pick up the late afternoon sunshine and the leaves glow. This week I stopped the car and took some photos.

Along one of the boundary fences to this paddock the grape grower has mass planted what look like ‘Zepherine Drouhin’. They’re extremely thornless and have a strong fragrance. When I went past last time they were in full flush, unfortunately there’s a big difference between then and this week.

Enjoy the weather wherever you are

Sue

What Are You Doing in My Swamp?!!!

In today’s post I’m going to give you a look at my local swamp.

I love the way it looks in winter when the weeds and nasturtiums have grown and it’s all greened up.

The swamp is right next to where I park my car for work so I walk past it every day.

Here’s a native wisteria climbing a dead tree

with its beautiful pea flowers.

And there’s a flock of around 10 chickens that happily wander around in here everyday

with their head rooster for protection.

I sometimes think they must live the almost natural chicken life (they belong to one of the houses that backs onto the wetlands)