Listening to the Voices in My Head

Ripped out the dead catnip plants from the pot they were in. Fed the two lime trees and the orange tree with specialized plant food for citrus. Mixed up batch of regular plant food for all the other potted plants.

Pruned back the chili plants in the front yard, as it seems to be flagging a bit. Will see if it perks up after the feed and prune. If not, I'll take one of the chilies out of the freezer, thaw and germinate some of the seeds.

I did this without using knee support, but my left calf started cramping. It's those damned shoes! The nano I took them off and walked bare footed in the house, the cramping stopped.

Yesterday and the day before, we were hit by a severe storm front. Our gorgeous Gum Tree was badly damaged. This tree is (or should I say was) the stage for many of my large bird photographs (Cockatoos, Kookaburras, Galahs)

This makes me want to cry:



I am hoping that we will be able to have the outer sections removed, leaving the center spire to 're-bush' (gum trees are notorious for how difficult they are to 'kill off').

Squabbles: the tree above was a major, and I mean major, food source and nesting area for local honey eaters and other birds. Our bottlebrush trees, which were trimmed way back last year because of solar panel installation, were another. I 'fixed' the bottlebrush tree problem by getting 5 hummingbird feeders and finding a proper nectar recipe, supplementing it with 'molting vitamins' every once in a while, and spreading them out in the bottlebrushes. Now that the gum tree was badly damaged by the storm, the competition for that food source has resulted in squabbles, with the oldest, biggest Red Wattlebird being the bully of the block.

There is a good chance that I will have to spread them out a bit further, in different trees, and will be refilling them more often.

Dana, council member, came out to examine the gumtree that shed a huge branch a few months back. It was scheduled for pruning, with the promise that I would get the mulch, and my neighbor would get log sized branches.

Tree lopper came out, and was privvy about the arrangement, pruned the tree.

This morning, the chipping crew came out with nary a clue about the mulch/logs arrangement. They couldn't cut the branches because last week, someone stole the chainsaw out from the truck during a job.

But never fear, they came up with a way. They fed the branches that were thicker than my forearm in backward, chipped away until it was log sized, and put it aside. They did this with many of them.

So, neighbor has firewood, and I have a HUGE pile of mulch. I have already spread out 5 wheelbarrows full. I am done as my left calf muscle is having nerve pain fits, and this activity is a bit much while I am still wheezing and coughing from this flu.

But it smells soooo nice!

Chili Tree #2 is now residing in what used to be the pot for the lime tree. I had tried to put it in a different pot but hadn't realized it was so pot bound and in need of more depth. Had I known, I would have transplanted it into the old lime tree pot, and put the sage seedlings in the hanging pot. Will wait until the sage is a bit recovered from one transplanting before moving them.