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Jackie's September message continued . . . The daffodils are daffodillying, the lyrebirds are digging up the carrots and sneaking from tree to tree (anyone who thinks a lyrebird is stately and elegant has never lived with lyrebirds) and there are now three wombats in the garden- Mothball, Dimples and a new small round brown one, a bit like a mutated football, who is munching the grass on the top terrace as i writre this. (Hope Mothball doesn't scare her away). And just as I wrote the last words the rain stared bouncing on the roof, and hopefully saturating the garden and the bush, so the lyrebirds have lots of soft moist debris to dig in, and leave our vegies alone... I AM NOT GOING ANYWHERE THIS MONTH!!!! Book Week was great in Sydney and Melbourne, and thank you for all the ideas for titles and the bunches of flowers and the singing as I came into the hall and the necklace and the worry ball and the chocolate and meringues, the fantastic wonderful questions...but I really am very very glad to be home. I love this time of year. The trees are dripping avocadoes and there are too many navel oranges (all deep orange and delicious- you can never buy a decent fragrant orange in the supermarket) even for the bower birds and king parrots and rosellas, so we get some too, plus mandarins and cumquats, calamondins, grapefruit, tangeloes, tamarilloes, about a million limes - give or take a dozen, seville oranges, blood oranges, the first of the loquats, the last of the kiwi fruit..and the caulies are swelling all at once (anyone want a few caulies?) and the asparagus, which I can eat three times a day and usually do..... I also want to do some solid work this month- finish off the book of short stories about the partnership between humans and horses, starting in 4,500 BC and ending in 1950; write the sequel to Cafe on Callisto ( Space Pirates on Callisto) and then start a book I have wanted to write for 20 years, Searching for Charlie. It'll be published in an adult and a young adult edition, and part of me is terrified at starting it, because damn it, it has to be good..... Also more trees to plant, as always..more native fruits and citrus varieties, and two more avocado varieties, and totalling up which tropical subtropical varieties have survived winter and frosts (the bopple nuts have, and the litchi, and several others that should do well in the years to come- the first winter is the worst), plus putting in a bigger 'water garden' for saggitaria (a bit like water chestnuts, but they must be cooked), though Mothball will probably think it's a new drinking pool just for her. It should be a good month, if that rain just comes back again (it stopped after 30 seconds). A fruitful sort of month, in many senses. I hope you have the same. Lots of love, Jackie
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