Nature's Place

…  bees again?

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There are Banana trees in the back yard that the Possum and Bats, Flying Foxes they are called, love to eat from when the fruit is ripe enough. I’m watchful to get a few myself this year, as last. The trouble with the trees though is they are big and one recent day I went out and noticed one of them had been cut down, the one that was about to fall on the neighbours shed, that I was going to cut down anyway. Well, a little something I didn’t have to do, no harm.

And I have had to cut down a few of them to keep them from becoming a nuisance, to the civilisation of back yards bordering onto each other, or falling on the clothes line, or the person below. One I cut down was about, what, 20ft tall? And it fell towards the Frangipani, one with lovely red flowers, and broke an extensive piece off it. So, not to waste or leave it for the passers by that took last years cuttings I planted it in the front garden. I’ve been doing a lot of work in the front garden, for the flowers and bugs and photos.

It’s not as if I haven’t done this before but such a large piece, about five feet tall and branched, I wasn’t sure it would work. I plant it in the ground, in a spot it fits, some might say ‘it likes’, and water it enough to keep it from drying out and losing its leaves. It seems to be working; at least it has new shoots and is showing no ill signs so far, maybe a little soft at the extremities.

What I do every day is fill a bucket with water and every now and then go and pour enough to drench the ground, a brown clay soil, and as I said it seems to be working and in about 10 or so years will provide shade in that corner from the setting sun.

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The thing is whenever I go to the bucket and look in I often find some creature that has fallen in the water and hasn’t found a way out yet. So I take care of that first, put a finger under the creature and bring it to the top of a branch and let it off to dry out on the Frangipani tip. Where it sits and grooms itself, wanders about, tastes the water, and sometimes falls back in the bucket below – that’s livin.

The other thing is most of what I find are bees, tiny bees that I have seen nowhere else but in the water bucket. Isn’t that an odd thing? They are less than 1cm long, 10mm, barely visible except for something to see them against.  If it wasn’t for all that preceded it I would not know of these particular bees, the ones from the yellow water bucket.

How one thing always leads to another, everything has consequences. Some can be predicted, and some only generally so. But the wonder is in the not knowing. You can try and work it all out but what a mental waste, just wait and see.

You never know what nature is going to show up or where. But one thing’s for sure; you’ll see more of it if you are out in it.

Whatever ‘it’ is. Sense, nature, getting the hands dirty, seeing, smelling, doing whatever.

It’s a pleasure.

Mark Berkery ……. Click any picture and click again to enlarge

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