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Jackie's June message continued . . .
Okay, Mothball has
won! For
those who didn't read last month's newsletter, we have been having a minor
battle with Mothball wombat. Well, she's been battling us actually- we've just
been sitting inside listening to all the bangs and gnawing during the night and
assessing the damage in the morning. Anyway, the battle began when we started building a new room over Mothball's old hole. It was the second hole she ever built that didn't collapse, so maybe she was fond of it. (Her first hole was in the dust under our old green truck in the shed, but she never got more than about 30cm deep before it filled up with dirt again.) Anyway,
even her second hole wasn't a very good hole. Most wombats are lousy
engineers, and this hole filled up
with water every time it rained- or I watered the garden on top of it. So
a rather damp Mothball wombat moved down into the big old hole under the
avocado trees. That hole is at least 30 years old- it looked pretty ancient
even 30 years ago- has at least
three entrances and criss crosses under the orchard, so that sometimes a bit of
roof collapses and visitors find their leg is half way down a wombat hole- and
sometimes Mothball lives in a hole up on the hill, especially in winter,
because it's sunnier up there, and even though she mostly comes out at night
except in winter (wombats can't take much sunlight- they can die of heat
prostration) the grass grows better up there in winter. Anyway,
as soon as we had built the new floor over her old hole, Mothball moved back
into it. Our new floor was her new roof, and she now had a rainproof hole just
behind my study where she could yell at me for carrots whenever she wanted to,
and she also had a front verandah too. Except...
we planned to put a staircase to the new room in front of her hole. This either
meant making sure she was out of her hole when we built it- and coping with an
enraged wombat- she'd already chewed up our clothes line for disturbing her
sleep- OR changing the house design. So
we've changed the house design. Mothball has won. (Naturally- she's a wombat). Mothball
now has a porch, verandah and a private viewing area of the garden. We now have
a staircase that's a bit steeper than we expected- okay, a LOT steeper. But at
least Mothball is happy. Or
I suppose she's happy. She isn't chewing up the back door at the moent, or
knocking down all my pot plants, or rubbing the muffler off my car, or gnawing
the garden table, all of which are ways Mothball shows she isn't pleased with
us. All I see of her nowadays are wombat
droppings all around the house just in case any other wombat gets the idea that
this is THEIR territory. But
now the days are getting shorter hopefully we'll soon see her out munching in
the afternoons- and can treat her for mange if she's picked it up over summer,
and even though Bryan says she's a big wombat now (not to mention a stroppy
one) and doesn't NEED carrots or wombat nuts anymore, I'll be able to leave a
carrot or two outside my study door now, right by her hole, without Bryan
noticing. No,
of course Mothball couldn't have planned it that way. She's only a wombat.. Did
I say 'only?' Books The
White Ship comes out this month. It's an adventure story and a strange sort of
almost love story, about a ship's captain who steals a ship in 1572 so an
island's children can escape from the Saint Bartholmew's Day massacre in
France..and it's also about a girl in 2002 who lives on an island and sees an
ancient ship in the sunset, at that moment when the sea is dark and you can see
the white sails against the sky. And
people's comments are coming in about Blood Moon, that it's fascinating and
terrifying...it's also not for anyone under 15, as there is s.e.x. in it, not to mention the odd
bit that might send you terrified under the table. And
Ride the Wild Wind has just been reprinted AGAIN, which makes three printings
in four months- it's the series of horse stories, from 3500BC to 1950, about
the partnership between humans and horses. And
Diary of a Wombat is almost ready to go to the printers(can't wait to see it-
even the photocopied pages make me giggle for hours) and we're planning a
competion for Phredde and the Leopardskin Librarian - if by any chance you have
a photo of your favourite librarian wearing leopardskin...not from a real
leopard of course, as the leopard might object.. Fake leopardskin will do, buit
it has to be a genuine librarian. I spent most of last month writing
Golden Valley, about..well, gold and a valley, from 4 billion years ago till now. There's an awful lot of
sweat in it, but I won't know if it's worked (ie if people actually enjoy
reading it and don't want to throw it to the wombats) till someone else has
read it besides me. Other news I
also spent most of last month having the damage a dentist did to my front teeth
repaired by another dental surgeon, which has meant my lips look like Mick
Jagger's and I haven't been able to talk much and haven't got all that much
work done either. I can't even say 'always brush your teeth kids and this won't
happen to you' because I DID brush my teeth and the silly twit broke my tooth
anyway. (mutter mutter mutter. Anyway,
please cross all toes fingers and elbows for me that this lot has worked. Wombat Jokes Have
you ever heard a wombat joke? No, neither have I. The world NEEDS some wombat
jokes, which is why later in the year there'll be a wombat joke competition. So
if anyone can come up with one, make a note....... Travel By
the time you read this I'll be in Charter's Towers, unless the pilots are on
strike or the wings drop off the plane. I'm a terrified flier. Yes, I know it's
perfectly safe, thank you very much. Just would feel safer sitting on a giant
wegetail eagle. Now THEY know how to fly... But
planes or not, I'm looking forward to it- everyone I know who's been there says
it is a really beautiful town, and don't forget to go to..insert at least 20
places here, and I'm only there three days. Now if I could fly like a wedegtail
eagle I'd be able to see everything... Nowra
and Ulladulla last month were great- the stories everyone came up with in the
worskhops were FANTASTIC. everyone said how much i'd like Nowra and Ulladulla,
but people always say that. But this time they were right, with knobs on. Then
later this month I'll be in Rockhampton and Gladstone, with a school holiday
talk for kids in Gladstone on the 26th on how the aliens from Alpha Centauri
Invaded my maths class and turned me into a writer, and a talk on why fruit fly
love ginger beer and why mosquitoes love blondes; for adults at the Botanic
gardens in the evening- contact the Library or the Botanic Gardens for details,
because that's all I have! Pen Friends Haylee Tunks of 22 Cheswick Crescent,
Hobart, Tasmania 7030 would like
any pen friends who like Jackie French books. She also loves wombats, (yay!) the bush and horseriding. In the garden This
is the time of year I regret putting in so many cauliflowers. I LIKE cauliflower. I just don't want
to eat eleven in a week.... But
the avocadoes are swelling nicely and the limes are ripening one by one and
we've had twice as many pecans as
last year ie half a bucket full instead of a quarter of a bucket full and the French Crab and
Sturmer Pippins and Lady Williams apples are slowly ripening- the birds are
mostly eating the oranges and cumquats now, so with luck we may actually get
some late apples..and about two kiwi fruit are ripe each day, which is perfect,
if only they'd do that all year round, and the parrots are squabbling over the cumquats outside my study
and my tongue is hanging out (no it isn't, it'd freeze- it's been COLD here)
for the first ripe navel orange, and we have newly made medlar jelly in the
larder and I'm wondering what tamarillo jelly would be like- may make a batch
this week and the silver eyes haven't quite eaten all the pomegranates. Silver
eyes are busy birds- I brought in
a potted avocado tree that had been having a 'rest' outdoors in the rain, and two weeks after I brought it in it
was covered in red spider mites. They must have come in with the tree, and
bred..if it had been outside the silver eyes would have eaten them all, or just
about all anyway. I had to pretend
to be a silver eye and wipe their leaves with a wettex, but it seemed a pity to
waste that silver eye tucker. How to get rid of autumn leaves1. put the catcher on
the mower 2. Mow over them.
this will break them up so they don't blow away. they'll also all go in the
catcher, so you don't have to rake them up 3. use them as mulch
on the garden, or around new trees or shrubs, or dump them where you want a new
garden in spring, and by then the pile of leaves will have killed all the grass
underneath and you can rake them off and plant. (but watch out for snails. More
on 1600 way to cope with snails in spring)
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