Heat, drought, dust, fire and wind.

I haven’t posted a Six on Saturday for nearly two months. There hasn’t been a great deal to celebrate recently, as drought, heat, wind and water restrictions take their toll on the garden. Just now we are allowed to water on a day that corresponds with our street number (evens for us) from 6 am…

One Kind Word

‘One kind word can warm three winter months’ Japanese Proverb Mr MG has been travailing in the studio and out of the artistic endeavour and angst has emerged this work which I think fits the proverb perfectly. What do you think the story behind this painting could be?

Troopers: 1st January, 2019.

The weather has been relentlessly hot. Since Boxing Day, the daily maximum temperature has only once been below 35 degrees (to 34), and several times up to 38 and during all that time, only 4 mm of rain has fallen. Of course, there are places in Australia experiencing far hotter temperatures, but ours have been…

Rain Tumbled Down

Rain fell today. We had 27ml of steady rain, not the sudden over-in-a-minute kind, but the sort that sinks into the garden and refreshes. It was a proper Event. The hills behind our house were enshrouded with mist, as sombre as the grey sky, and the rain tumbled down for most of the day. In…

Rain

   ‘Some people feel the rain, others just get wet.’  Bob Marley In it came from the west, muttering and grumbling as I watched anxiously, hoping it wouldn’t do what it so often does: bypass us and go off to dump somewhere else. I’ve seen this happen so frequently this summer,  as I’ve obsessively checked …

An Endurance Test

February has become an endurance test for gardens and gardeners alike in the Central Tablelands of New South Wales. What’s left of lawns is crackling underfoot and the rolling countryside is as brown and crisp as newly baked loaves of bread. The hills around the town are grey-blue with exhausted eucalypts and we all wait…

Challenging Weather

We are having a brutal summer. In Australia we have a tendency to think we have a monopoly on hot weather, and of course, we don’t, but just now I’m feeling a bit put-upon in the garden. We’ve had a string of days in the high 30s and only 9.5 mm of rain in January…