Bunuru

Bunuru, the Nyoongar second summer from February to March.  It is called the Season of Adolescence, which is the hottest part of the year with very little rain for Perth regions. The cool overnight easterlies turn to scorching hot dry winds as they come off the eastern desert sending temperatures soaring into the high 30’s, sometimes 40 degrees centigrade. If you live close to the coast like I do, the “Fremantle Doctor”, a cool south westerly blows in most afternoons bringing a welcome relief often with stunning sunsets.  Sometimes it’s not till late at night that we feel the change as we lie under our fans waiting in anticipation.

On the last Saturday of February, my friend Glenda asked if I would like to go with her to Wildflower Society of WA.  As we tend to do, we made a list of things to do along the way, including dropping off more clothes to the Gospel Chariots which go to the needy all over Africa, fill the car with petrol, and stop for a coffee.  It was Glenda who was looking for some plants in particular, but of course I ended up coming back with three more for around my pond area.  By 2:30pm we were ready for a late lunch, which we planned to have at Tom’s Restaurant near my place.  Before eating, we prayed giving thanks for our lovely day.  Just as we were finishing our meal, a lady named Kathryn came up to us and asked if we would mind if she asked what we were doing before eating.  Of course neither of us minded talking about the things of God, in fact we were delighted and went through the gospel story and how the Lord had impacted our lives. Just last week the sermon was about ‘God Encounters’.  Kathryn also told us she had asked for a sign to come and talk to us.  What a wonderful God we have.  As we parted, we introduced ourselves and I gave her a tract on ‘The Two Ways to Live’ with my contact number on the back, if she ever wanted to talk more about the things of God.  Both Glenda and I were amazed how the Lord had lead Kathryn to us.

There has been a group of people in the Stirling Shire who have been working towards establishing a community garden in this area. They had a few knockbacks from various places until they were offered some land owned by the council, but in the care of the Trigg tennis club.  Just recently the council and the committee members put out a call for any residents who might like to get involved.  I went along to see where it was going to be and what plans they had put to council.  I signed up to be one of the committee members and later contacted Josh Byrne on his personal website to see if he had some tips for us but was informed he no longer did this.  I then contacted Gardening Australia to see if they wanted to film a segment once we got going.  I received a lovely email to say they would keep us in mind.

Another challenge I’ve been trying to find a solution for is the noise in my water pipes, which often wakes me during the night.  I was sure it was the sound of my neighbour’s toilet refilling the system.  The water that rushes through the pipes is directly above my room and wakes me up several times a night – not so helpful for someone who is a light sleeper and an insomniac! I plucked up the courage to speak to my lovely neighbour who was willing to try not to flush overnight to see if that stopped the noise.  Unfortunately she has the onset of dementia so forgot.  The following night I decided I would turn off my water.  Each unit has their own safety turn off tap, which means if her water was coming through my pipes, this was a way to find out. Not a sound all night, I slept beautifully.  I reopened the water tap for my unit and before using any water at my place I could already hear the water in the pipes.  This time I asked my neighbour to flush her toilet while my water was turned off.  Her system was still filling, which meant it wasn’t her system.  This makes sense as we all have a separate water supply, but why when I had not used any water could I still hear the water in the pipes at night.  Praise God, a plumber was able to come two days later.  I had noticed there was a slight trickle of water into my toilet system, and the plumber confirmed that this was the cause of the refilling during the night.  The old toilet systems just kept filling but these new systems only filled when the water dropped below half full, thus the reason for it suddenly refilling.  I felt rather embarrassed as I went next door to explain to my neighbour.

Olives ripen in February and March. I am blessed to have two trees on the verge at the top of our driveway and several along our street, which makes for easy collecting.  Due to some quite windy days, many of the ripening green olives had fallen off early, so I decided to collect them for pickling.  I took my small bucket of olives to the beach where I washed them in the sea water, taking a two litre bottle of salt water back with me to use in the following days before bottling the olives.  It’s such an easy method.  Once these were bottled, I started a second batch from the black olives, which were now ripe.  It’s so rewarding being able to make my own.

Autumn in Perth is one of my favourite times of the year, as it’s the least windy time of the year.  Nights are cooler but days are still warm, sometimes hot.  I’ve been swimming most mornings after my jog and exercises, the water is so refreshing.

March saw me with a new smile.  My final trip to the dentist to have my new tooth inserted.  It was a long time coming, as I had planned to use the health fund to cover most of the cost, which meant only doing a certain amount of work each year over three years.  There had been a few complications along the way, as by the time the tooth was extracted, part of my jaw had rotted away, so this required a bovine implant and time for it to take so that my jaw could rebuild itself.  Praise God I was not in a hurry.  My wonderful Christian dental surgeon, who was giving me a very special offer, suggested I have a temporary replacement but I didn’t feel it was necessary quoting Ecclesiastes 1:2 “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity”.  Mind you it wasn’t me looking at the gap unless I looked in the mirror, but I did try to hide it when in a photo.  Then, because of Covid, I had to wait for my porcelain tooth to come from Europe. Then it didn’t fit properly so another wait before the completed new look.  They have done a really good job.

An update on the mermaid who continues to sit quietly without her fountain: Glenda suggested I put a little pearl in her clam shell to hide the water hole.  The very next day I found a large white marble, it’s rather large but does look the part.  I’m now on the hunt for a smaller one so it looks more like a pearl.

During the week of rain I dug some pots without drainage into the ground around the mermaid’s rock.  Into them I planted some of the other water plants making a little bog area.  Into the pond with the fountain I put the English watercress which I collected from Glenda’s pond which had flowing water, as I was told English watercress prefers moving water.  Unfortunately it hasn’t survived.

In the newer pond the duckweed grew so prolifically it covered the surface of the water, obscuring the little minnows below. I wondered how I could keep the weed but also see into the water below. I cut the bottom out of a used plastic container and found it floated on the top of the water leaving a window to the world below.  It wasn’t long before the fish also found this window to the surface.  I encouraged them to come up by offering them some fish food. I rarely feed my fish as I’m told they will eat the algae, mosquito larvae and any small insects which land on the water.  I do occasionally have wrigglers breeding in some of my water container which are such a treat for all the little fishes.

I’m not sure if I have mentioned previously that I take apple cider vinegar every morning.  When I buy a new bottle I just pour fresh into the old brew.  I’ve noticed that it now has a very large ‘mother’.  I didn’t want to waste this so I looked on line to see if I could make my own apple cider vinegar. I found two recipes, one made from apple scraps, the other from apple juice, so I’m experimenting with both, except I have used whole apples instead of just scraps.  So easy to make and it is said to be less acidic than the shop bought product.  It takes 3-4 weeks, which gives me just enough time to get it made before I go away.  Praise the Lord, once made it never goes off, only gets stronger if you don’t put it in the fridge.

One Saturday Glenda came over while I was finishing off pitting my last batch of olives. Once done, we set off in my car as she was having trouble with her automatic car keys.  We had a few thing on our list of things to do including a stop at the Fish and Lily Farm to grab a few plants and fish for Glenda.  We arrived just after 10am forgetting it didn’t open till 11am so drove on to the Auto Barn in Wanneroo where Glenda bought a gift voucher for a friend.  While we were there I suggested getting a new battery for her car keys.  The attendant said it doesn’t have a battery, which really surprised me as I thought all car keys had one.  She did say it was full of moisture so I decided to open it to see if we could do anything to dry it out and of course found it DID have a battery.  Later that day we called into battery world where they tested the battery and found it was still working, they also dried it out but said it looked like a solenoid had broken off and it might not work again.  I told Glenda we would pray and ask the Lord to intervene.

In the meantime we had collected the fish and pond plants, dropped off baby clothes at the African charity and stopped for a coffee and Glenda’s lunch, called in to her place to drop off the fish and collect some pond water to test it at the pet shop in Balcatta before returning to my place where our prayers were answered and the car was successfully unlocked.  I gave Glenda a bucket of rain water for her fish while she treated the pond water which had a very high PH reading.  Glenda was so relieved that she was able to use her car keys as she had a busy weekend ahead of her.

I have been having a challenging time with my ripening fruits and vegetables, as not only have the birds made holes in the netting around the figs, but the rats have also chewed their way in too.  They have also been eating my capsicums and strawberries.  I don’t like using rat pellets as we also have Tawny Frogmouth owls which could be affected if they eat the rats.  I tried buying rat traps, but the places I went to didn’t have them in stock.  My neighbour had ratsak, so I put it into containers which I removed during the day so that the bobtails weren’t able to eat it. It didn’t seem the rats liked it either.  Maybe it was stale.  I disguised it with the figs they had half eaten and some apple.  This seemed to work the first night but the second night the ratsak pellets were left untouched. The third night I did the same again but this time drizzled some sugar syrup over the pellets to make them irresistible.  That didn’t work either!  I then found another brand, which is a waxy pellet, which I could hang from a branch. Two days later I found a dead rat.  I felt quite bad but glad the baits finally worked.  I do hope that’s the end of them and now I will be able to enjoy the fruits of my labour.

I have had another visitor, a large skink.  I’m not sure but I think it might be what they call a King’s Skink – Egernia kingii.  I had heard and seen one on my walk to the beach and mistakenly thought it was a snake as I only saw the tail the first time.  This one is much smaller and was right outside my backdoor.  I hadn’t seen it before.  I hope the bobtail and it will be able to get along together.

Those in Perth are invited to our fund raiser dinner held at the North Beach Baptist Church on the 10 April at 6pm.  All money raised will be going to a project in South Sudan through the TEAR fund.

Photos:   1. Pretty ground cover that was brought in by wind or bird    2. Sunset North Beach   3. Pumpkin from my garden which I can no longer eat due to FODMAP diet    4. Olives used in my favourite salad    5. Mermaid’s pearl    6. Bottling and pickling   7. Pond fern which out grew my pond    8. Skink at back door    9. Invitation to our Social Action fundraiser dinner     10. (below) Introverts unite (separately) sent to me by another introvert

Prayer & Praise Points:
Praise the Lord for the roll out of the Covid vaccines throughout the world.   Please pray with me that the virus will soon be under control.

Please continue to pray that our borders remain open, that there will no longer be periods of isolation for interstate travellers and that the vaccine will be safe and available to all travellers.

We no longer take good health for granted.  Praise the Lord for His protection.

I pray your year will be one of praise for the great things the Lord is about to do in our lives.  Live in hope and thanksgiving for His Grace and love towards us all.