Blast the cicadas

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Dear neglected Blog,
Sorry it has been so long since I posted. Hallowe'en was a long time ago. My apologies.

For me, summer always begins with the racket of the cicadas, and they have been singing up a storm in the last two or three weeks. Some evenings they're so loud I have to shut the front door so I can hear the tv (some nights I have to shut the front door because the feral neighbours are carousing on their front lawn and they're so loud I can't hear the tv. I think I prefer the cicadas; at least I know they'll shut up when the temperature gets below a certain point. Not so the ferals).

While the constant cicada buzz gets wearing, I can't detest them. Up close, they are very beautiful, a gorgeous green with glistening gold highlights, particularly on their wings. And big insects, too. Once, I saw a sparrow trying to catch a cicada, and it was nearly as big as the bird - quite a large meal for a little bird (I didn't see the denouement, I hope the cicada escaped). It's the boys that make all the noise, trying to attract a mate. For a long time, I thought they were like grasshoppers, creating that hullaballoo by rubbing their legs together, but I discovered that they actually have special membranes (tymbals) that they snap back and forth to create loud, almost continuous clicks. Fascinating! Perhaps I'll be a biologist in another life :)

In other news, I am preparing for another art exhibition in December. Decisions, decisions, what to include? I'm slowly winnowing the wheat from the chaff, and will likely try to complete a couple of things I'm working on currently, too. It's always the most recent work with which I'm infatuated. At the moment, I'm painting loose canvas (ie not stretched on a frame) in various ways, to be ripped up into strips and oblongs to sew back together randomly, found objects attached, and then put back on stretchers. I'm having fun with it.

Toil and trouble

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Cranky

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I am being forced to undertake an inappropriate job training exercise by the Powers That Be, and I am not happy. What a freakin' waste of time...

Wonky

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My photography is all wonky today. In face, it's been a very wonky day.

Isn't wonky a fabulous word?

Carping

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Spring

I have a series of deep thoughts percolating in my head that may be vented in a blog post once they have matured. In the meantime, pretty Spring pictures of the garden. Above are broad beans, only a few have progressed to edible as yet but there are plenty of baby beans coming on. I hope they manage to beat the mildew: once the weather warms up, broad beans are horribly prone to diseases of damp.

Apple blossom on my ballerina apple tree. Last year the possums beat me to the few apples to appear. Perhaps this season I'll net them and beat the little boogers to the fruit.

The bees love the apple blossom and were happily about their work as I took this. I also managed to scare at least six months growth off the gas meter man when I popped suddenly out of the side gate on my photography expedition as he was taking a reading beside the apple trees.

This rose was a sorry sight when I moved into this house twelve years ago, gnarled and in sore need of serious pruning. It got a hard prune at the start of last winter, and is absolutely covered in flowers, with lots of buds developing. The aphids are just beginning to take an interest, so I must spray soon. The blooms are scented, but don't last well as cut flowers, tending to shed petals almost immediately. I just enjoy them in the garden. Besides, the cats try to eat the petals given half a chance. Don't know if roses are poisonous to felines, but cleaning up petal barf is just icky.

What's with all the fish?

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So, it has taken me nearly two weeks to feel almost back to what passes for normal around here, after what the doc says was most likely a virus, but I suspect may have been food poisoning. Either way, not much has been happening in this neck of the woods due to extreme fatigue and inertia. I did manage to keep drawing-a-day going, though some days it was a major effort!

Confession: I vowed last year NOT to succumb to the temptation of rescuing any more treasures from the hard rubbish collection. This year I already fell off the wagon with the disembodied mannequin parts, but I fell again: two bookcases, in slight need of sanding and perhaps a new back on the smaller one, but otherwise in good condition. In the dead of night, the Bloke and I balanced the larger piece on the roof of the car on top of a blanket (for traction) - I have no rope - and drove v-e-e-r-r-y carefully the kilometer or so home. It didn't so much as threaten to topple off, even around the corners. Now I need the weather to improve so I can go to work on them outside (sanding is too messy even for the garage, plus it's dark in there and last week I found a mummified mouse corpse when I was sorting out my own stuff to discard in the hard rubbish. Ew! Mousie is now keeping the raven company in its own little jar of enzyme enhanced laundry liquid, processing. I'm hoping for a mouse skull!).