Nature's Place

It’s been quiet here where I live, my neighbors know I don’t do Christmas and they leave me alone. That’s good, I enjoy people in very small doses. The more worldly, i.e. drinking, smoking, chat-chat-chat, the smaller the tolerable dose. (They probably have other reason for leaving me alone, but that’s another story.)

Recently I borrowed a digital camera to take some pix to go with the short stories I’ve been writing, something extra for the sense of sight to bring the story more to life. The more sense employed the deeper the cognition. The deeper the cognition the greater the pleasure.

I have a few good pix but the one I really want is of this huge butterfly. I haven’t seen it close enough or stationary yet so I can’t give a proper description. It is black with white marking/s on the tail and probably about 4-5-6 inches wingspan. And it loves the beautiful flower of the Lantana – considered a weed here for good reason. (RIMG1333.JPG) I saw three or four today but none came close enough for me to snap it.

At one time I walked into some shade and three feet away one took to the air and was gone before I could even focus on it. Away went my photo opportunity, fluttering off into the shadows. One way or another this happened all along the walk, and with a few other butterflies too. You don’t want to be attached to getting a picture of one of these ladies. Yes ladies, because they are more beautiful and feminine than the boys.

Here’s one I took of a butterfly in Brisbane some time ago. (RIMG 0425 + 0429 + 0431.JPG)

I live next to a dairy farm and the paddock next to me is used for calving cows. There have been about ten expectant mothers in the field for a week or so now and many of them already have their calves. For a few days I have had to shoo them away from leaning over the fence to eat what’s left of a beautiful plant growing next to it. It has clusters of lovely dark red, pink and yellow bell shaped flowers with dark green leaves on shiny purpley brown stems that snake out all over the place. (RIMG0771.JPG)

I have been nurturing this plant for a while, since I got here in fact, after the cows got it six months ago. And now it’s been decimated, almost, again. I spent an hour or so yesterday building protection around what’s left of it, with long stakes placed through the fence and tied in place so the cows can’t get their heads through or over and eat what’s left. It’s a very old and patchy fence. It has worked so far. When I had a look this morning what was left of the plant is still there. (RIMG1017.JPG)

I sat down to check email and maybe write a bit when I heard a cow mooing repeatedly. That usually means she’s in trouble of some kind. So I went out to check and there was one cow lying in a ditch, almost upside down, and she couldn’t get up.

I didn’t know what to do so I rang the farmer to get him over. And I went back to the computer.

Then I saw my neighbor Claudia walking across my front garden heading for the cow. I shouted through the window, ‘do you know about cows Claudia?’ She said, ‘a bit’. So I went out to help her if I could and maybe learn something new. She climbed over the fence and started pulling a calf out of the other end of the cow but she didn’t have the strength for it. So she called me in to the field, a sort of pleading order.

I had been watching her from a short distance away not knowing exactly what was going on nor what to do. I went to where she climbed over the fence and there was the legs and the head of the calf and Claudia pulling saying, ’come on, pull! So I climbed the fence and I took the legs from her and she took the head and with a gentle side to side motion we slowly brought the calf out of the mother.

The farmer, Colin, arrived on his tractor about this time and went to the head of the cow to see if he could help her up but she was overpoweringly strong for him and almost threw him away with a whip of her neck. So the cow was still in the ditch and kicking out to try and get up and look after her calf. And you don’t want to get in the way of a cows kick. They might look small and cute from a passing car but they are massive creatures, and strong. After a few attempts she got herself out of the ditch and was up and running. Running at Colin, then running at Claudia and then me.

And though not all cows have the same temperament, she was doing what all mothers do. Looking out for her child. Her brow furrowed with attitude, eyes wide. She turned this way and that, kicking dirt backwards with her front foot, preparing to charge, looking for the most immediate threat. Not realizing there was none.

So we removed the perception of threat. Claudia jumped the fence, Colin jumped up on the tractor and then I jumped the fence when she turned to me. Now she’s back with the herd and all is well with her and the calf.

For all the placid moon eye of the cow she is still an instinctive beast. (RIMG1380.JPG) A beautiful creature no doubt, but don’t get between her and her calf. And don’t expect gratitude. You’ll be disappointed. If not trampled.

And the earthy smell of animal birth stayed with me all day.

Wandering in the bush today I found an old track nobody has been on for a long time. I can tell from the overgrowth and the absence of any track or other sign of people. It was discernible from the area above the undergrowth and below the tree canopy, from about four feet high to about twelve feet high was an obvious clearway, a hole in the green.

It was a bit of luck that I noticed the hole in the wall of trees from the angle I passed it. (RIMG1315.JPG) It eventually led me to a trail I do know, but looking back from the trail it led to you would never know the old track is there, it’s just a wall of brush and trees from the clearing.

The water level is still high after the recent rains so I couldn’t go the usual route. There was an old barbed wire fence broken down with the wire all atangle on the ground for a few yards around. I tidied it up into a pile behind a small tree and I trust no creature runs into it and injures itself. Like the wallaby. Men are fond of barbed wire for some reason, there is a certain cruelty to its use that has become so common it is overlooked.

From there I left the beaten track and headed into the bush moving parallel to the swamped area, disanchoring the spider webs as I went. Webs are usually anchored on four corners, roughly, and depending on the direction of the breeze I cut through one side or the other with my stick and let it fall out of my path without injuring the resident.

This route took me through some unusual terrain and flora. The ground was firm but where the wallaby’s dig small holes for food, larva and such, they were filled with water up to a couple inches from the top. It was as if I was on the edge of a lake but there is no lake there, just reedy, grassy, coastal paperbark swampland. (RIMG0786.JPG)

Eventually I came out on the other side of the swamp into a field of grass I haven’t been to before and found my way to a path that runs parallel to the beach for a few kilometers. Along the trail there were many dips where water had collected, some deep and some shallow. But of all the pools I came across there was only one with any tadpoles in it. And they were all black, all the same species, and there was at least a couple hundred in this one pool. (RIMG0785.JPG)

Usually creatures in a pool like that, without any real cover or hiding places, would run from any strange presence or form that appears in their sky. But these tadpoles were unmoved by me showing up or even stirring the water with my walking stick. They were all black and the first thought that occurred to me was TOAD. I suspect they don’t need to hide from predators because they have none. Cane toads have poison glands on their upper backs so I suppose their tadpoles have the beginnings of them at least.

It was very unusual for these creatures, any creatures, to be unmoved by a potential predator. I might go back tomorrow and collect a few to see what they grow into.

I was traveling in the opposite direction to the one I ‘normally’ do here because of the detour. But really, what is normal for me is unpredictable, sort of. Even I don’t know what I will do next when I go walking in the bush.

The green of the grass was so rich in places, so deep and full. It was lovely, green, and refreshing. (RIMG0907.JPG) The green of nature is especially refreshing to the psyche, in the sense that as it is cognised there is no mind to matter, just the green of nature. My nature, your nature.

Along the trail I came to what must have once been a wide creek bed between some sand hills and higher ground. On the sand hills and the higher ground there was the normal mix of trees and brush, each according to its location, light, soil and water. Between them in the sodden soil was this beautiful stand of healthy, mature paperbark trees with primarily dark green fern on the ground between them. There was presence here. Quiet. Stillness. (RIMG0786.JPG)

It has rained for a few days now and the place where I walk is flooded in parts. I am not familiar enough with it to find my way around the flooding so I stick to the high ground. One of the consequences of the flooding is the snakes, and no doubt other creatures, also take to the high ground. But it’s the snakes I have to watch out for. I am told this is brown snake country and their venom is extremely toxic.

I have never had any problem with snakes; they have always gotten out of the way. Back in the seventies when the family went to Shepparton to meet the prospective in – law, my sister was getting married, I went into the bush bare footed and running. Sometimes I was quick enough to catch sight of some brown snakes but invariably they were already on the run. Getting out of the way of whatever was coming. Snakes don’t hang around for people, or it could have been the vibration of my feet beating on the ground and they didn’t want to be trampled.

Kangaroos often travel at speed through the bush and snakes would be aware of the danger of being trampled, at least instinctively. I suspect it hurts when a 20 – 50 kilo kangaroo lands on you and then uses you to spring away again. I don’t doubt the area of the psyche that snake is would contain the instinctive knowledge a fast approaching vibration of weight hitting the ground is not to be ignored and better be avoided.

Anyway, in the nature reserve where I walk these days the snakes have taken to traversing the walking trails after the rain. There are signs of snakes having criss – crossed the trails everywhere. Though I still haven’t met one in the reserve.

When I was new to Australia and that time in Shepparton I met an old man at a caravan park. Mum was wary of him but I enjoyed his quiet company. There was something about him I liked, and he liked me. I was sitting with him at his table and these huge ants were travelling in a line along the ground, busy ants.

Wherever I put my feet there the ants would be, climbing all over my feet to get to the other side. I kept knocking them off thinking they would get up my leg and become a worse nuisance until the old guy told me to leave them alone, they’d be ok. So I left them alone to see what would happen and all they did was climb over my feet and go on their way.

Here’s a nest I found the other day. Real builders are insects, some more than others. (RIMG0997.JPG) You can just make out one of the residents in the entrance at the centre. These were fierce looking ants, and some ants are aggressive, but these ones didn’t take any notice of me after I went still.

This is mostly how nature is, if I leave it alone it doesn’t trouble me. If I don’t think it’s a problem it goes on its way. Humans have become afraid of nature, the spiders and snakes and other hungry biting things. But the only problem with nature is the one I have, if I have one.

I saw an unusual thing when I had to turn back from the flooding yesterday, a beetle of some sort. It was on a stalk of reedy grass at about shoulder height and it was about 3cm long with a bulbous body at one end and a head with a big snout like an elephant’s trunk hanging straight down at the other. And it was the most unusual turquoise and black. It was lovely to see. Amazing little creature.

Thank you for the things that delight me.

I enjoy looking around the garden at night. It is the little piece of earth I have dominion over, dominion as in responsibility for, not right to exploit rapaciously. I am responsible for the harmony of my little piece of Earth, as much as I can be.

And my little piece of earth includes my inner space, where I can be most responsible.

One of those responsibilities is to keep the place free of cane toads so that the native species can propagate and have some chance of populating the place according to their nature. The cane toad was introduced to QLD, Australia to help the sugar cane farmer’s deal with a beetle that was destroying the crop every year, an insect with the informative name of the sugar cane beetle. The toad was introduced because it has a voracious appetite, presumably for sugar cane beetles.

It really is astounding the short-sightedness of the people involved in this introduction. The cane beetle flies when it’s not on the ground and climbs in the cane when it’s not flying. The cane toad can neither fly nor climb; it has to sit there waiting for the beetle to land. But the beetle will only land when it has satisfied its first appetite, for food, sugar cane, if it lands at all. So, at best, the toad only gets the beetle after the damage is done to the crop. And so the toad is useless at its intended job of protecting the cane from the beetles.

The toad has a few other characteristics the consequences of which were foreseeable, but were apparently unforeseen. One is its robust nature, they are very hard to kill. I tried killing one with a spade one time and even after I broke its back it sat there staring at me. That also required such aggression from me I felt ill from it. I have heard of them being hit by a golf club and hopping away from it. You couldn’t do this to a native species.

Another characteristic is their prolific breeding capacity. Apparently one female can lay up to twenty thousand eggs at one time. A friend of a friend reported a plague of frogs not far from here where she lives next to an area of swamp, literally thousands of them in a very small area. One day she was seen dodging them by a local, doing her best not to kill the sweet little creatures, who explained they were toads and she should step on them not around them.

Combined with a robust nature and uber – fertility is their insatiable appetite for anything small and native. They eat everything that moves and fits in their mouth. This leaves little for the native predators and the native predators can’t eat the toad because of the poison glands on its back. No wonder the toad is reviled by any sensible Aussie.

The most astounding thing about the cane toad, after its introduction, is the fact there has been no coordinated attempt to eradicate or even control it. While it decimates the local wildlife. There are reports of it arriving in Kakadu National park, the most vitally alive park in Aus, and leaving it quiet and trackless in their wake as they advance. A fair military analogy would be a tank to a foxhole – at best. Toad is tank. And anything left behind in the foxhole after the tank rolls over it is damn lucky.

It really is a formidable eating and breeding machine killing everything in its path. One way or the other. (RIMG1024.JPG) I caught this one the night before soaking up the water from a dish I leave out for the creatures that may pass this way. (RIMG1008.JPG)

So when I do the rounds at night I am pleased to see the little green tree frog sitting on top of a red house brick I placed at the end of the rainwater tank. There is one frog or another on this red brick around an hour after dusk every night I go out at that time. It gives some command of the terrain, like a lookout tower, or a throne. (RIMG0819.JPG + RIMG0891.JPG + RIMG1216.JPG)

Nearly every night now, since the cane toads started showing up again, I check around the house to see if there is anything for bagging and freezing. Just two in the last few days. One small one and another mature buck, standing strong like a fighter with a big body and narrow neck, head jutting proud towards the sky.

I catch them by shining the torch on them, for some reason that keeps them from running – and they can move fast when they want to. Maybe they are blinded by the light or ‘freezing’ (no pun intended) is a defense mechanism – I know it is for the green tree frogs, and it works with the cats. If it doesn’t move the cat isn’t interested.

As soon as I am close enough I put my hand inside the plastic bag, using it like a glove, and grip the toad firmly so it can’t wriggle free. They are strong. I pull the bag off my arm and down over the toad. Then I tie a knot in the bag and put it in the freezer. They are dumped with the trash on Tues nights. The young buck was a heavy fellow.

I usually tell the toad ‘you’re going home’ with the knowledge, in my own experience, home is nothing – nowhere. All things in existence eventually return home.

Tonight while checking around I saw one of the big green frogs sitting in my trucks back wheel. I don’t want it to settle in the truck so I went over to move it. I don’t disturb the natural creatures if I can help it so when I picked it up I was surprised it was so sticky. Like a cold kind of rubber that wouldn’t slip on my skin. It held on to my hand so I gripped it gently as I brought it to the bath I have set up for the frogs. (RIMG1406.JPG is on a plant next to the water bowl)

The bath is just a glass bowl about 9 inches diameter set below a hole in the overflow rainwater tank. And since it has been raining a lot recently it is full and dripping fresh clear rainwater for the frogs to enjoy. When I left it the frog was still soaking it up. My pleasure.

They can climb anywhere around here and I enjoy it when I come across one unexpectedly while doing my rounds at night. A real pleasure. (RIMG1204.JPG) This one was by the water pump near the old tank.

Today I went into the nature reserve for a walk. The entrance is about one kilometer from where I live. I looked again at the two big pine trees. They really stand out where they are, there’s nothing else like them in the immediate area. They stand alone together towering above all the other smaller trees and bush. (RIMG0761.JPG)

Standing there for the second time I noticed a few things I didn’t see the first time. For instance, the stag fern are primarily on only one of the trees, the one with the most branches, in fact the healthier looking one. And under the other tree there was a lot of huge mushrooms, some as big as 7 or 8 inches in diameter and about the same tall. I have never seen them before. And they are nowhere else in such concentrations in the bush here. (RIMG0903.JPG)

These pine trees have the look and feel of an ancient species and I suspect the stag fern may be too because of the obvious relationship. The only other stag fern in the reserve are scattered in ones and are relatively very few. Maybe being from the same geologic era gives them an affinity. Perhaps there is some symbiosis in the relationship. Maybe this pine tree is the stag fern nursery, from where the fern populates the forest? Clearly the stag fern favours the pine wood to grow on. Here’s a real beauty. (RIMG0884)

I went from there up a trail which led to a road where a few houses are and after a while I noticed an old track behind a gate with no fence to the side of it. So I went in to have a look. As is often the case with these old tracks it quickly became overgrown the further in I went, but I kept going since they usually go somewhere. I only found such dense growth I would need a machete to cut my way through. Maybe I’ll do that sometime.

On the way back I took a little detour, exploring, and I came upon a very old structure. It was only a base of a building made of a pebble and concrete mix and with walls in places only 12 inches high and no roof or glass about. But with here and there a metal bolt sticking up from the ‘wall’. There was no sign at all to suggest what it may once have been. I didn’t know what to make of it at all.

On the way out of this place I found a square concrete water tank that hadn’t been used for some time. A curious thing, on two corners up top there were what looked like the knobs from the top of an old iron bed end embedded in the concrete.

I left this place and took the old quarry trail back down into the reserve and came to an intersection of four trails. To the right was Optus trail and I went down that for a while. A short way in I came across a bush wallaby, dark reddish brown fur about three feet tall when it stood straight. It didn’t notice me for a while so I was able just to watch it as it went about its business, probably looking for food of some kind.

As soon as I made a noise or move it stopped dead still and looked in my direction. I suspect their eyesight is not very good because it took for me to move again for it to register my presence and run off into the bush. I didn’t go down this trail very far as it was going off in the opposite direction to my place and I was already getting tired, especially my knees and hips. It’s a while since I did so much walking as I’ve been doing the last week.

I turned back to the intersection and recognized a trail I had been on recently but there was another trail that would also take me where I wanted to go, at least not in the opposite direction. I went down this trail for a while before I came to another big old pine tree. Scattered around the base of this tree there were recently fallen branches, blown down in recent winds I bet, with stag fern attached and still in good condition.

I looked up to see where it all came from and I noticed there was a fig tree growing out of a stag fern growing on a branch of the pine tree. Amazing eh? (RIMG0795.JPG) It looked like a fig tree to me, they are known as opportunists. This might look like a tenuous opportunity at best but I suspect the fig has a few tricks up its sleeve. I’ve seen one, about two feet tall, in a similar situation ten feet off the ground and already it had a root system that had made its way down a branch and had tendrils hanging just a few feet off the ground. It was intent on surviving, no question.

I picked up one little branch with a stag fern on it about four inches in diameter, and took it with me on down the trail. I recognized this trail from a few years ago when I passed through this area. But then it was so wet the trail was impassable. I don’t know how I found this place then though, it is so out of the way.

A little further on I came to a creek running across the trail and as I got close I could hear what sounded like the gunfire on the news bulletins of the fight for Bagdad. Crack, crack, crack, crack. It was some kind of frog I couldn’t see, but I have seen and heard so many since coming back to Australia they are unmistakable in the situation, wet, swampy, tall reeds and they went quiet when I got up close.

This was the creek I couldn’t cross those few years ago. I noticed some insole leather as I came up to the creek, just the ball of the foot. And when I got to the creek I saw the other shoe stuck in the mud and mostly under water now. I thought someone didn’t make it, not with their shoes anyway.

The mud is like the emotion that sticks and pulls you down when you are attached to something that doesn’t fit the situation. You either let go the attachment, the shoe, or get stuck in the mud, of emotion. Then I came across the rest of the other shoe, looks like someone tried to hold on to at least one of them. (RIMG0908 + 909)

I could hear the roar of the ocean beating on the shore not far ahead so I knew where I was now. As I was walking and looking where I put my feet, at least peripherally, I saw a bright green caterpillar squirming in the worn compacted part of the trail. I stopped to have a closer look since caterpillars don’t usually move so vigorously and out in the open like that where they are in full view of any predator.

I bring my reading glasses with me these days when I go walking in the bush so I can see clearly anything I want to see close up. When I got close to this creature I could see the cause of its vigorous wriggling. There were ants on it, little black ants. And unless you are fast, armoured and big, or some combination of these characteristics, you are doomed if the ants get a hold of you. I’ve seen it before with other more capable creatures than the caterpillar.

Occasionally I am moved to release a creature I find trapped by another creatures snare, such as a flying insect from a spiders web, but I wasn’t moved to do anything here. The ants have to eat and the caterpillar was doomed. Simple as that. I walked on.

A little further on I came out at the beach and it was good to see the waves breaking on the sand. The sea is wild along this stretch of coast with nothing to interrupt the tide as it worked its way up and down the seven mile long beach. Part of the wildness comes from the shifting sands that are always changing the currents and rips at the shore.

I turned back down the trail to go home and on the way, just as I was about to put my foot down, I noticed out of the lower edge of my sight a small fast moving light green insect disappear under my shoe. I walked the next step and stopped to turn and have a look at what it was. When I got down to it I could see it was a small green spider and it was very still. It didn’t look crushed as it would have been if I had actually stepped on it, so I blew on it and to my surprise it darted away. Lucky little fellow.

I made my way home after that without more adventure. I was very tired when I got home and just sat for a while. Sitting back in the recliner, so relaxing. Feeling the sensation of rest.

Then I did some mowing. As long as it rains there’s mowing to be done. And it always rains, it’s just a matter of time.

Since moving here to the Crabbes Creek area seven months ago I have been disposing of any cane toads that show up. It’s December now so that would have been the end of summer here in Aus. In the first few weeks I collected about 100 toads. I catch them one at a time and put them in a bag then put them in the freezer; it’s the least violent means of killing them I know of.

The numbers dwindled dramatically over the winter and there have only been a few so far this spring. The upside of this specicide is the lovely green frogs are back in breeding numbers and I am delighted to hear their throaty calls bellowing (or is it croaking) down the drainpipes at dusk and other times, especially when rain is about to fall.

I also get plagues of beetles, not the singing kind, and I have to have a light on outside to attract them away from the house at night. I have seen Christmas beetles; they have all different colours on their back, like a Christmas tree. And opal beetles, bigger than the Christmas ones, with a white opalescent wing carapace. It really is a lovely area, and a lovely place I live.

Been busy keeping the grass down where I live, on an acre+. With all the rain and sunshine, and a push mower to do it. It has to be done when the weather allows. And it looks like we are in for a normal rainy summer. Normal around here I am told. Yesterday I was on the roof clearing the gutters – I live on rainwater, and forgot my hat. Had to go to bed in the afternoon with mild sunstroke – can’t forget to respect the power of the sun.

The truck has been in the mechs. and needs prep for sale too. I might have to go on the dole soon and hang on to a little rainy day money. Not much work to be had around here and not moved to move. Or I’ll see if I can get some easy work for the truck, it pays better and I’d be able to buy some things I need to write the book.

A cat came with the house, abandoned by the last tenants. She was very upset, depressed, having a bit of a breakdown when I first met her. But she’s at home again and a big talker – there were kids here before us which is one explanation for her talking a lot- always meowing to me in varying tones and situations.

It also explains her depression; she got too close to humans. I fed her and got her a flea collar and just loved her a little and she settled down. She adopted me and I adopted her, to look after the best I can. She’s doing ok now. (RIMG0935.JPG)

There is another cat comes by in the evenings, he has the look of a much mistreated cat, probably another abandonment – there’s a lot around these parts, (especially dogs – worrying the calves). He is sometimes a sad little thing and sometimes a vicious little thing. He allows me within a few metres now. He’s a cat. She’s a cat. Cool cats.

The problem with this fellow is he is dominant and Djinn, Karen’s cat, is still here and he gets bullied by the tom. So I’ve run the tom off. I look after my charges.

Having looked in recent years at something of what passes for spiritual teaching/ers I am amazed anybody listens to them. But it seems people will settle for anything as long as it’s not too real in a mowing the grass sort of way. As long as it rains there’s always grass to be mowed.

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