Intro: One Amazing Wombat | Can You Help Hairy Nosed Day?
The Mine Overflows on Day 9 (and day 14 too)
Book News | Schedule for this Year
The March Garden: and a few darlings to plant now
Recipes:
. Spiced zucchini puffs
. Apple fritters
. Cherry tomato pasta
One Amazing Wombat
As I write this Phil the wombat is digging. And digging. And digging.
And it’s a miracle of love and determination, both human and wombat.
Phil’s life began with tragedy: his Mum died when a car hit her. A Good Samaritan searched her pouch and found Phil: small and fuzzy and still alive. She called the RSPCA and the RSPCA called Phillip and Lesley of Wildcare who picked him up.
‘He weighed in at 1.6 kg and was a typical bundle of fun,’ said Phillip.
But something was wrong. His front leg hung back and he didn’t seem able to move it. It seemed that his leg might have been injured when he was rescued.
A wombat needs four legs to feed and to dig. Normally, a baby wombat who had been hurt so badly, with little hope of recovery, is euthanised.
Phil was lucky. Howard Ralph, a vet who specialises in marsupial care and surgery – one of tragically few in Australia – would be in the area. He examined Phil and diagnosed nerve damage in Phil’s upper leg.
But how do you persuade a wombat to hold their leg still, and not gnaw off their bandages? Wombats are strong, determined and have a high pain threshold too. The first splint only lasted a few hours.
Phillip and Lesley tried other ways to hold his leg in place for months: eventually we found that a bandage and vet-wrap going around the shoulders and under the body was the best approach, but even this method often failed. Sticky tape wasn't an option, as it was difficult to remove.
Slowly the nerve damage seemed to get better. But now Phil’s foot landed on its side, not flat on the ground.
Month after month Howard Ralph worked on Phil, shaving some bone off the 'wrist' to allow the joint to move and develop more normally.
It wasn’t easy. Once again it looked like the kindest thing might be to ‘put him down’.
‘No,’ said Howard Ralph. ‘Let’s give him a chance.’ He put in metal pins to encourage the foot into the right position. Eventually some tendons had to be cut and this finally did the trick. Phil’s foot landed on the ground just as it should.
But the surgery and injury had taken their toll. Phil had been in a pen with a ‘teenage’ wombat his own age, Bill. But after Phil had been away for three weeks for his surgery he came back weak and wobbly. Bill chased Phil around the enclosure, terrifying him. They had to be separated.
Lesley and Phillip took Phil for walks. Month after month his leg and foot got stronger. But he was scared of other wombats and generally timid. Worse – he had grown too used to human company. An orphaned wombat who has learned that humans give treats like carrots may hunt humans out, getting run over or shot or attacked by dogs in the process.
Phil’s leg seemed almost okay. But would it be strong enough for life in the wild?
Phillip emailed to ask if we could take him. The wombat burrow under our bedroom was empty; the grass is lush and, while the creek had been polluted by a spill from the new Dargues Reef mine four kilometres upstream, it looked as though it had finally cleared. Bryan and I could keep an eye on him. If he couldn’t cope … well, decisions would be made then.
Phillip and Lesley brought Phil in a big dog crate, sleepy because it was midday. They put his cage by the hole. Phil peered at the hole, sniffing. After ten minutes he limped a few steps outside, then ran back to his crate again.
Three more times he ventured in then ran back out again. Was the scent of wild wombat too terrifying for him to cope with?
But on the fourth try Phil stayed in the hole for two minutes. He emerged, sniffing the edges, rubbed his fur against the entrance as though to leave a scent that said, ‘I live here now’ then gave a token scratch at the entrance. He vanished back inside.
This time he didn’t come out.
We waited for an hour. No sign of Phil. Phillip and Lesley left.
Phil reappeared later that night. I left some food out for him near the hole, but didn’t go near him, shining the torch through the window to see how he coped.
He managed okay. Other wombats snarled at him. But each time he raced back to his hole before they attacked and they didn’t pursue him.
Night Two was noisy. Not just wombat shrieks as Phil got too close to Big Bossy and Bounce, but the sound of … digging.
It’s not easy to dig the ground under our house. It’s shale and rock. But in one night a small, determined wombat with a crook leg dug out two wheelbarrows full.
Phil was renovating.
He took the third night off. But the fourth and fifth night he dug again. He’s still digging every night. That hole is going to be a palace.
He’s discovered the windfall apples too. And how good it feels to scratch on the floor joist under our bed. Big Bossy still screams at him, but Phil is good at galloping away, too.
I went out to see him last night. He took one sniff, thought ‘human’, and dashed for his hole. For Phil is a happy wombat now, with dirt and grass and no need of humans.
And for one small injured wombat it looks like there might be a good future after all.
And other news? Apart from the dead creek (see mine news below) this month has been paradise, lush grass (and slightly too many leeches); fat wombats and three sightings of the rock wallaby, one by me in the Reserve, another by a friend, and the third, just a few days ago, on our place. It looked to be a good fat wallaby too, though they don’t seem to get the big tummies of the much larger boned black-tailed wallabies.
There are apples, apples, apples, quinces and pears. Bryan is eating stewed peaches every night after dinner. I finally managed to rescue a Jonathon apple before the possums ate it – possums have good taste in apples. They ignore the others and just eat the Jonathons. Bryan has had his Macintosh apples – he bought one of the first Macintosh computers in Australia decades ago, and eats Macintosh apples to commemorate the event; and the Prince Alfreds were stunning, crisp and sweet and stewed to a glorious firm pulp.
Life is good, in between flushing out the water system and collecting water samples and tracing the pollution plume with the Environment Protection Authority. (And, to be honest, that bit was fun too, despite the death of frogs.)
And maybe in the months to come we’ll hear all the frog songs once again, the crr crkkk crkkkkkk of the green and golden bell frog; the high-pitched whistle of the whistling tree frog (for years I thought it was a bird till a frog expert suggested the frog I’d photographed might be the whistler) and all the others.
And books. And lunches with friends. And wombats.
Can You help with Hairy Nosed Day?
Hairy Nosed Day is on the 11th of May each year. Following a successful launch in 2012, The Wombat Foundation hopes all Australians will Wear Whiskers for Wildlife next Hairy Nosed Day, and help raise money for research to try to save endangered animals like the Northern hairy Nosed wombat, or the southern hairy noses who are dying as they eat poisonous weeds in areas that have been overgrazed by sheep and cattle. .
If you’d you like to be a part of Hairy-Nosed Day go to http://www.wombatfoundation.com.au/hairynosedday.htm for an information pack for your school. Send in a photo of you wearing a Hairy-Nose or if you have a photo of yourself with a hairy-nosed wombat - Northern or Southern - send it in to display on the website, or send a message of support to be displayed too.
Mine Catchment Overflows only after Nine Days’ After Work Begins
It’s been an interesting month. There have been two spills from the Dargues Reef Mine, four kilometres upstream from us. They had only been working for nine days when the first plume of pollution from the mine site arrived in our creek. We hadn’t expected disaster so soon. As there’d been a bit of rain – only 56 mls, enough to freshen the creek but not result in a flood – we had turned on our house water system to fill. Result: silt and mud filled our ten thousand gallon tank, pipes and frog pools.
The creek cleared; the Environment Protection Authority came to take samples. We took samples too, storing them in the fridge. Within three days the creek was almost clear again and frogs were back in the creek.
That Friday it happened again. But this time it was worse – the fish, frogs and tadpoles vanished. A week later there were a few tadpoles, but only one species. The normally loud song of frogs is still silent as I write this.
The creek is clear again, though still far emptier of life than it was at the beginning of the month. We can only hope – pray – that the EPA makes the mine lift their standards, as they stated that all had been done according to their approved plans – which means the approved plans must be inadequate. Other areas had heavy rain. What we received was pretty normal for the area, not even enough to put a small flood in the creek, far from the boulder bashers we can get here.
So we wait: for the EPA’s tests to come back, to see if there was more than just silt (there probably wasn’t, but heavy metals from the old mine workings are possible contaminants if they overflowed and weren’t caught when the sediment dam overflowed); to see if stricter conditions will be imposed; to hope that now the management has seen what can happen they may take the initiative to improve the design themselves.
We hope that next time – unlike this time – the company lets downstream users know of the pollution in time to take precautions. And I still wonder what might have happened if members of the public hadn’t acted to alert the media and the EPA.
We just … hope.
Book News
Dinosaurs Love Cheese
Nina Rycroft has done brilliant and hilarious things with this – a complete joy. Some time in September or October the Lu Rees Archives at the University of Canberra will be featuring the book’s artwork in an exhibition as part of Canberra’s centenary celebrations, and Nina and I will talk about creating the book. It will be released next month, for everyone who loves dinosaurs (and cheese).
The Girl from Snowy River is out – the sequel to A Waltz for Matilda. It’s reviews have been wonderful, too.
The reviews of Pennies for Hitler are still coming in and they’re good. It’s always terrifying till the first few reviews come in, especially for a book close to your heart. Later this year Diary of a Wombat will finally be released in paperback; A Day to Remember: the story of Anzac Day will be reprinted for March; there’ll be two novels, and two new picture books, including a new wombat one with Bruce which is possibly the funniest yet. There’ll also be the history book, a re-evaluation of many of the iconic incidents in our past, for adults this time, not kids: assuming that the draft I sent to the editor actually works (it is never easy waiting for the verdict).
Schedule for the Year to Come
This year is already pretty much fully booked. (This is only a list of the public events, not the many other commitments.) A large part of next year is booked up already too. Many apologies for all the invitations I have to refuse – our house is too far from most places to just pop in for a talk.
March 27: Video workshop on A Day to Remember and another on A Waltz for Matilda. Contact Jacqui Barton at Jacqui.Barton@harpercollins.com.au.
March onwards: Hitler’s Daughter: the Play, by the wonderful Monkey Baa Theatre for Young People tours the USA.
May 20-24: School days at the Sydney Writer’s Festival.
July 23-25: Talks in Brisbane. Contact Helen at Speaker’s Ink for bookings and details.
August 18: Talks at the Australian Jewish Museum, Sydney.
August 19, 20, 21: Talks at Sydney schools (already booked).
9-11 September: Ipswich Festival, Queensland.
13-14 September: Celebrate Reading National Conference (Picture Books), Literature Centre, Fremantle, WA.
October: Children’s Day, Canberra.
November 9, 10: Open Garden Workshops here. Contact the Open Garden, who organise it, for bookings.
The March Garden
This is planting time, the magic season of autumn when plants GROW and the sun doesn’t beat down too hot on leaf or gardener. Bung in all trees, shrubs and vines now, water in well and wait for them to galumph upwards in spring.
Winter and spring veg need to go in now too, all the cabbage family, especially red cabbage (stunning with late Lady Williams apples), fast Asian cabbages like wom bok, savoy cabbage, as well as broccoli, Brussels sprouts (don’t boil them – slice thinly and stir fry). Garlic, spring onions, early onions plus, if you live in a frost-free area, just plant everything. (I almost envy you, but only almost. The garden may stop growing here in winter, but so do the weeds and the leeches, the blowflies and mozzies. The snakes hibernate, except for the odd mentally challenged one we find cold on the road where they had been sunbaking and caught unawares when the temperature dropped.)
Some Indispensables to plant now
(Okay not quite indispensable if you’ve done without them till now. But you will be richer with them.)
Garlic
Garlic can be left to multiply or pulled up when the leaves turn yellow. Plant the individual cloves in autumn, point upwards in fertile well-drained soil and harvest the bulb the following summer or snip off the garlic-tasting leaves or mild garlic-flavoured ‘leek’ stems as you need them. In warm areas, to avoid harvesting very small bulbs, chill the cloves before planting by leaving them in the fridge for three weeks. Garlic plants are pretty, with tall balls of blue flowers. Plant lots around the edges of the garden to attract predators and help repel pests.
Hops
The hop flowers grow on a hardy deciduous vine. We grow ours over the backyard dunny. The flowers are used in beer or for hop ‘sleep pillows’. The new shoots are eaten like asparagus. Propagate from root cuttings taken in early summer or late winter. Seeds can be sown in spring, but seedlings are delicate and slow-growing.
Horseradish
This is a perennial moisture-loving plant. It trails all through the garden, but is cut back by heavy frost, though it should shoot again in spring. The roots are usually grated and added to cream or vinegar for horseradish sauce, though the leaves are also edible, if fiery. I grow horseradish in full sun, in semi-shade under trees and around our potatoes to help fungal problems. Horseradish helps reduce excessive mucus from colds, hay fever or sinus problems.
Plant a bit of root in winter.
Lemon verbena
This is a small, aromatic shrub, deciduous in cold areas and tolerating only light frosts. Use the leaves as a mild sedative or to make a refreshing, lemon-flavoured tea to help indigestion or nausea. Lemon verbena grows from spring cuttings or seed.
Passionfruit
(We could use at least six passionfruit a day – no kidding. Passionfruit cordial is our favourite drink. Plus passionfruit is an essential in fruit salad, most jellies, the frozen fruit salad I gluttonise on in summer, plus Bryan likes to eat one with a spoon each breakfast.) Passionfruit juice is also great over ice cream, stirred into orange and other juices, on pavlovas and on iced cakes or in cream sponges. Add pulp instead of liquid in plain cake or biscuit recipes to make them passionfruit-flavoured instead.
Grow them
. on reinforcing mesh against a sunny wall in cold climates;
. on reinforcing mesh along fences – the extra height also keeps out wallabies;
. up the chook yard fence (passionfruit love chook poo);
. on reinforcing mesh around a rainwater tank in a sunny spot – the retained heat of the water keeps them warm in cold winters;
. passionfruit can also be grown as groundcovers down a sunny bank – they produce lots of fruit, look green and flowery and black snakes adore sheltering there too;
. up a pole, which takes up much less space than a trellis – they sort of blob out quite attractively, the fruit matures even within the clump – collect them as the ripe ones fall each morning.
Passionfruit also grow very well in large pots on a balcony. They would be worth growing even if they didn't fruit – complex white and purple flowers, glossy leaves – and the banana passionfruit, which is even more cold tolerant and vigorous than ordinary passionfruit, has great, vivid pink flowers too.
PS Feed passionfruit WELL – a poorly growing passionfruit usually gets sick. Feed each month with a scatter of hen manure; give at least one dose of seaweed fertiliser a year and MULCH!
Passionfruit is very susceptible to viruses, root rots, insect attack – which makes it sound like the least likely plant to succeed in your garden EXCEPT – a strongly growing passionfruit vine outgrows almost all problems. Most passionfruit vines are grafted and the graft suckers. Pull them up at once or they can wander all over the place.
In warm areas the vines fruit most of the year but in colder areas only in late summer. Pick them when they change colour and shrivel just slightly. They will keep for several months in the fridge or a cool cupboard, but will gradually lose their sweetness. Passionfruit pulp can be frozen in ice-blocks for later use.
Banana passionfruit
More cold hardy than black passionfruit. Glorious pink flowers. Rambles and covers weeds wonderfully.
Granadilla
A passionfruit for hot areas. Delicious.
Cherries
Cherries bear fruit in three to four years. Old fashioned varieties can grow enormous; modern ones like Stella are small and neat.
You need two varieties for pollination or a self-pollinating variety, like Stella, cold winters to set fruit and otherwise a regime of benign neglect. Once they are large enough to fruit, don’t feed or water cherries too much or the fruit will split. Don’t mulch the trees. A well-mown lawn or, at most, a sprinkle of blood and bone in autumn is plenty once the trees are large. Cherries like sure, slow growth and no pruning.
Try growing four or more cherries about a metre apart. They’ll stunt each other’s growth, the pollination will be excellent, and birds will be confused by the tangle of branches. Cherries will usually be attacked by pear and cherry slug.
Lime – Kaffir and Tahitian
The lime bears fruit in two to four years.
These citrus trees are small. Mulch them every year or give additives in spring and mow the grass regularly. Don’t give too much nitrogen or the fruit will suffer. For the best flavour, pick the limes while they are still pale-green. Tolerate dappled shade in groves or full sun. Not drought hardy – mulch well. Kaffir limes are mostly used for their fragrant leaves but the fruit will give some juice. Tahitian are juicy winter croppers.
Round Limes
Possibly the most easily bought native citrus is the round lime (Microcitrus australis). It's a tall, slender tree (up to 9 metres) with narrow leaves and round fruit that turns yellow when they are ripe, like lemons.
As a fringe rainforest tree it will grow happily in full sun or dappled shade, in just about any climate – it tolerates light frosts as well as baking hot summers. Our round lime tree has survived three minus seven frosts, but it's protected by a plastic guard and grown by a large sunny rock – I wouldn't try a round lime in an exposed frosty position.
Give your round lime plenty of water, mulch and feeding in early spring and mid summer, but once established they are quite drought tolerant.
To use: Round limes are small, round (naturally) and juicy, but, like all native citrus, very, very sour! But they make great cordial and marinades.
Finger Limes
Finger limes (Microcitrus australasica) come from the sub-tropical or warm rainforests of Queensland and Northern New South Wales but, despite this, our finger lime grows quite well in our frosty climate in the shelter of other trees – like most rainforest shrubs finger limes prefer dappled shade.
Finger lime branches are very thorny, with longish leaves a bit like a lemon's that will fall in cold or very dry conditions then regrow and fragrant white flowers. The fruit is a narrow oval and slightly curved, about six centimetres long, green when they are young then ripening to yellowish green or purple or blackish green when ripe.
Finger limes are slow growers to about six metres and bear after about four or five years. Like most plants they grow faster with plenty of moisture and feeding, though ours has survived two years of heat and drought!
How to use
Finger limes taste like very slightly bitter, slightly oily lemons (I prefer the cleaner taste of round limes). You can squeeze out the juice, or use the fruit to make the cordial or vinaigrette dressing below. They make very good, if slightly unusual, marmalade.
Desert Limes
Like many desert plants, desert limes tolerate baking heat, endless drought and searing cold. They grow up to six metres tall, with thorny branches and narrow little leaves. Some trees are incredibly thorny and sucker to form big impenetrable thickets but, if you cut off suckers and keep the lower branches trimmed, you'll get a well-shaped tree. The leaves will fall in very dry times, but will grow back again, so don't panic.
Desert limes do best in full sun, but will also tolerate dappled shade. They fruit incredibly quickly after flowering (the trees naturally flower after rain). It only takes eight weeks from flower to ripe fruit!
How to use: You can eat desert limes whole, like knobbly cumquats, if you're brave enough – their yellow green skin is thin and they are very juicy. But they are also very, very, sour – they really need sugar to make them taste good.
Make a sweet syrup of one cup sugar to one cup water, boil for five minutes then add thinly sliced finger or desert limes, and simmer for ten minutes then cool in the syrup. Store in the fridge for up to a fortnight. These sweet treats are stunning on ice cream, as cake decorations, or on lemon tarts.
A Few Recipes
Spiced Zucchini Puffs
2 cup grated zucchini
1 tbsp plain flour
2 eggs
½ cup olive oil
1 heaped tsp curry paste.
Beat the eggs well then add in all but the oil: mix gently.
Heat the oil in a fry pan. Drop in spoons full of the mix. Fry on one side till brown; turn over and watch them puff up. Scoop out when the second side is brown. Serve at once, hot, plain or with chutney or a mix of natural yoghurt and chives.
Roast Cherry Tomato Pasta
Serves 4
8 cups cherry tomatoes
8 cloves garlic, peeled
4 tbsps chives, chopped
½ cup olive oil
4 handfuls pasta
Place olive oil in a baking tray. Place cherry tomatoes and garlic on the tray. Bake at 200 ºC till tomatoes are just beginning to turn brown and slit and spill their juices. Take out of the oven. Mash the now softened garlic in the oil.
Boil the pasta. Stir through the sauce and then the chives. Serve hot, though it’s pretty good as a slad, too.
Apple fritters
4 cups grated apple, peeled or not as you wish, mixed with:
the juice of two lemons
½ cup caster sugar
2 eggs
4 heaped tbsp SR flour
Place half olive oil and half butter in a pan, turn on to medium. When the butter is melted add tablespoons of the mix. Spread out slightly; fry till brown on one side; turn over, brown on the other side. Eat hot, plain or with ice cream, or cold – they make an excellent staple for the lunchbox, especially if you use a wholemeal or multigrain flour, and add a cup of chopped walnuts to the mix.
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