It’s one of those langorous Spring days where the cloudless sky is the perfect shade of blue and the sun has just the right amount of heat in it. After a few hours working in the garden (the wind has finally calmed down after literally WEEKS of blowing) I am treating myself to a little walk down the lane with Bailey. She walks ahead of me her bottom swaying rhythmically until she stops to sniff the air, our local hares love this lane and she spends a lot of time criss crossing it as she follows their trail. The magpies are calling from the tops of the gum trees with their glorious throaty song and the fairy wrens and finches chitter chatter in the hedgerows. I am content.

https://wildambience.com/wildlife-sounds/australian-magpie

(You can hear the magpie song here, for any homesick Aussie who may be reading this…)

We are a sleep away from travelling to New York and despite my excitement at seeing this amazing city I am already aware how much I will love coming home. Travel is certainly an eye opener, seeing how other people live, eat and interact is always fascinating but the other half of the equation is it also makes you appreciate what you have at home, sometimes you literally have no idea how good you have it until you see how it’s done elsewhere. So today I am taking some time to look, really look, around me at what we have, the simplicity of living amongst nature and eating food we’ve grown ourselves and appreciating it with “outside” eyes.

Spring has arrived despite the lack of rain and our garden is limping into flower with the help of some time consuming hand watering. Somehow our old established roses are in bloom despite the ground being like rock and the lavender and jasmine is in full throttle. Our wisteria has had to withstand winds up to 60km per hour and has therefore very little of its beautiful pendulous flowers left, most of them having been blown to the surrounding paddocks, little purple patches amongst the yellowing grass. There are talks of water restrictions before Christmas if we don’t get some serious rain soon and our usually vibrant green surrounds are certainly faded and the lane has giant jagged cracks throughout it’s parched surface. To think we were panicking just a few months ago when we had floods before the wedding. Always a feast or a famine in Australia.

We have left the planting of the summer veggies partly because we will be away and partly because it’s been so dry and windy. Of course after weeks and weeks of nurturing my broad beans and sweet peas both are now deciding to flower and produce fruit just as I disappear!! The asparagus is producing about 6 stalks a day and the spinach continues to be the gift that keeps on giving. Our two new black chooks are finally being semi accepted into the gang and are starting to lay but sadly we have also recently lost a couple of our original ones so the egg situation continues to fluctuate and the size too. I found the tiniest egg ever the other day……

Our Mulberry tree is heavy with fruit at the moment and I’m gathering a big bowl every day. Bags of them are being given as gifts to friends and neighbours and Bailey is constantly mooching under the tree enjoying the fallen berries. Our usual trick of cutting off the branches quite savagely in Winter and then bending the new supple ones in Spring and tying them around the trunk has worked beautifully with the new fruit protected inside the large leaves and away from the eagle eyed birds that also enjoy them!

We had a quick overnight trip to Callala Bay to see our friends and it was lovely to wake up and be so close to the water. Literally 150 metres walk and there is the Bay twinkling in the early morning light, boats bobbing gently and the beach curving out ahead of us invitingly. Having a dog is always a good reason to get up early and enjoy it before the holiday boat people arrive, fishing rods slung over their shoulders and eskies full of treats for the day ahead.

I will miss my little Chocolate Drop but she will be well taken care of by our house sitter extraordinaire and will probably barely register that we are gone! Hopefully the heavens will open in our absence and we will return weary from our travels to discover a GREEN lawn and an abundance of fruit, veg and flowers and we will appreciate it all the more for our eyes having been opened to new things. Next stop The Big Apple….