January 2 ~ Labour of Love

Hello World! It's a wonderful start to 2012 in my slice of the Earth.  My husband decided that his holidays should be spent working in our yard.  "Wonderful," I replied.  I dashed off into the nether regions of our household to retrieve the list of things that needed fixing, replacing, building or creating.  Unfortunately, He That is the Man (MOAHS - Master of all He Surveys) had his own list.  So, I carefully folded up the two-kilometre long list and tucked it away back in the cupboard for another day.

First item on this list was some plumbing and building jobs. Excellent!  We now proudly have a tap into our water tanks so that I may water the vegetable patch more easily and a roof over a walkway between the house and the shed.  My applause and delight happened to scare a few birds away from the garden (hopefully, they will come back).

Then, onto item number 2 - pruning.  OH NO! "Honey, I think we should have lunch before we begin?"  He agreed. Phew.  After a quick collation of cold meat and salad, I organised MOAHS to get the gardening tools together.  Now, you may be thinking that I am indeed a wifely sort of wife to provide for my MOAHS in such a way.  Let me disabuse you of that notion.  It was in fact a very stealthy way of having time to do a very important job: The formation of my Fey-Appeasement Pack  ~ tobacco, a flask of rum and some staurolite crystals.

MOAHS has a habit of decimating the garden.  Give him a chainsaw, pruning saw, secateurs and a ladder and I will give you a garden that looks like a plague of locusts, goats and caterpillars have been through the yard. This was going to be an interesting day and a half indeed.

As he hacked and decimated so many of the trees and shrubs, he cheerfully yelled out "Timber!" and "Oops.. I'm sure that will grow back, honey" as well as singing I'm a lumberjack and I'm Okay.  Meanwhile, I quietly spoke to the spirit of the land, to the Fey, to the animals and insects ~ "get out of the way... I'm REALLY sorry about this. I hope you'll forgive me. Here is my offering back to the Earth... etc etc"  I sprinkled tobacco, rum and crystals in the aftermath of the destruction known as Cyclone MOAHS.

At the end of two days, our garden looks rather naked. Having said that, the feeling of the garden is one of a huge sigh of relief.  They know it will be another 6 months before he feels the need to go all Conan on the trees again.  The offerings appear to have been well-received although I was NOT happy to find the biggest golden orb spider I have ever seen crawling along my neck.  That was the best Beastie Dance I have ever done ~ it even made the Dinosaur (water dragon) pause in his nibbling of our mulch pile.  "Silly Human", he said while he watched me scramble, fling and dance around like a Thunderbird on Acid.

I also had the opportunity to observe the beautiful flowers that have blossomed during the last few days: candy-pink hibiscus, purple and white Francescas, Star Jasmine, delicate dwarf agapanthus as well as a the vibrant and happy citrus coloured gerberas.

The garden may be naked in terms of foliage and height but the tone is one of delight.  Just like Summer, our garden is revelling in the child-likeness of being 'naked' and playfully romping in the sun.

Staurolite Crystals

Namaste