It's definitely springish. For the last three nights Mothball wombat has been extending her hole- the one under our bedroom. Every night at 2 am there's been great bangings as rock fly up and hit the floor, and every morning another heap of dirt for Bryan to wheelbarrow away. She is really being a most industrious wombat.

And it IS a very fancy wombat hole, even without the new extensions: nice stone walls on either side of it, concrete path up to it, flower garden and small fountain out the front, not to mention the giant back veranda from our bedroom floor and the front patio too.

I've been feeling a bit springish too- have been gathering the vegie garden seeds to plant tomorrow- the tomatoes, capsicum et al have already been planted in old styrofoam boxes out the back, to germinate in the extra heat above the paving.

As I write this a shrike thrush is gathering spider's webs from my study window for it's nest, the king parrots are eating the last of the navel oranges, the crab apples are in bloom and the loquats are ripening. Have just planted some gorgeous looking purple poatoes- they are a new varety and I love the thought of purple mashed potato. Actually I love the thought of ANY mashed potato- am losing weight and my mouth has a curiously unused feeling- keep being tempted to chomp into large things like trees or wombats. Not sure about roast wombat...they'd probably bite back!

Okay, what else is news..apart from the fact that we have had our septic tank pumped out, which is a major thing for us as we no longer have to worry every time we flush the loo that maybe THIS is the time it won't work...but you probably don't want to hear about that.

More Mothball News

Yes, there is definitely another baby in her pouch. No, I haven't seen it yet. And no, Mothball hasn't bashed down our back door lately, or attacked the ruubbish bin or eaten the doormats for months- too busy stuffing herself with grass after the drought. And no, wombats usually don't have babies so close together- looks like our wombat is a little floozy.

Hark has his own territory now at the other end of the garden near the 10,000 gallon tank, though he comes back pretty often and grazes around the house. I gave him a terrible fright last night- stepped outside to look at Mars through the binoculars (have you seen it lately! it's stunning- could even see markings with the binoculars, though I suppose it may not be so clear in the city- we get great viewing down here in the valley as there is no light interference.)

Anyway, I stepped outside and Hark gave a great snort of surprise and galloped for the wombat hole. I apologised but he didn't come back out again. He obviously thinks that humans should stay in their place at night ie indoors.

New Books

Nil, zero zilch...well, can't have a new book out every month. The latest are still the Wacky Families, My Mum the Pirate and My Dog the Dinosaur, with Valley of Gold before that.

The next ones will be Phredde and the Purple Pyramid, a Story to eat with a Passionfruit in November, and A War for Gentlemen (for adults) in December. There'll be new covers for some of the other Phredde books too, and a boxed set for Christmas- looks fantastic.

So far the blurb for War for Gentleman is

'Charles Fitzhenry wanted to be a hero, and left his home in New South Wales to fight for freedom in the American Civil war - on the side of the south. Gentlemen like Charles fought for the ideals of their class, for honour and glory.

But it was not a war of honour. It was simply endless battles, starvation and hardship in an increasingly bitter war.

Was Charles a hero, even if the war he went to fight was not the one he found?

Based on a true story, A War for Gentlemen follows Charles Fitzhenry to battle; to his escape with Caroline, his uncle's slave, and their new life together; and the echoes of the war in the lives of their children and grandchildren. It is an unforgettable story of love and honour, unexpected happiness, and the terrible consequences of ideals - a story that still echoes in the wars Australians fight today.'

Awards

Diary of a Wombat has just won the ABA Book of the Year- which is fairly stunning as it's a kid's book (well, sort of; most grown ups think it is for them too) and the others in the shortlist were for adults- Recollections of a Bleeding Heart , Across the Nightingale Floor and Almost French. (When I have mentioned that list to anyone they have all said in a doubtful tone of voice 'I though 'Bleeding Heart' was absolutely brilliant...'..but anyway, and very, very glad we have won it! (and Bruce and I are in the thick of our next collaboration...heh heh heh...giggle every time I think of it. But it won't be out till next year. )

Wombat also won Honour Book for the CBC Picture Book of the Year, and is shortlisted for the kid's choice Koala, Cool and Yabba Awards. Hitler's Daughter is too.

Wombat Jokes

(With many thanks from Denistone East Primary School- sorry, I can't remember them all!)

Why did the wombat cross the road?

It's the chicken's day off.

Why did the wombat cross the road?

To eat the carrots.

Why did the wombat cross the road?

To attack the doormat.

Why did the wombat cross the road?

It thought it was a chicken.

What's there and not there and there and not there...

A black wombat crossing a zebra crossing.

What's brown and brown and brown and brown and brown ?

A wombat in a brown bikini eating a chocolate iceream in a paddock of potatoes. (That one is mine.)

Schedule So Far For the Year

So far this is where I'm booked for the rest of the year. There may be some additions, but hopefully not too many!

10-13 September
Ipswich Writers' Festival, QLD, including a talk at at the Ipswich Library on Saturday morning 13th. Contact the library for more details.

14 September
Bolinda Primary School Spring Fair, Bolinda Vic. This should be great fun! Bryan and I are the guests for the day. Bolinda probably deserves the title of Best School in the Universe (okay, maybe it ties for first place with a few others) with fabulous kids and teachers- we've been writing to each other for years now, and they come up to our place every few years too.

26-28 September
Brisbane Writers centre- workshops on writing historical fiction and a masterclass. Limited numbers so contact QLD Writers Centre for details.

2-5 October
CBC Conference Hobart

8 October
free writing workshop for Club Cool in Canberra. Contact the ACT Library Service for details and bookings.

18 October
I'll be at the national Museum in Canberra for the MSS Readthon Awards, and at Marymead's Fun Day to launch their Fun with Books programme. More details from Marymead and the National Museum- in other words, I don't know exactly what or when yet!

22October
launch of Children's week at the National Museum in Canberra- I'm the Children's Week Ambassador this year, but I'm not sure yet what activities there'll be!

26 October
Vaucluse House Sydney: In the Chookhouse with Jackie French, plus a Kid's Club session . Public warmly welcomed; contact Vaucluse house for information on how to book- limited numbers

9 November
Open Garden at our place to raise funds for the new Braidwood Hospital garden- two 3 hour workshops on how to grow just about everything in your back yard, even if your backyard freezes regularly, and how to grow herbs and make your own perfume, deodorant etc. plus morning or afternoon tea. Contact the Open Garden Scheme to book- numbers are strictly limited, especially as most people from last year have booked again!

12, 13 November
at the Dubbo Zoo talking about wombats! Contact the Dubbo Zoo for more information

24 November
Inverell library, 2 day sessions and one evening session

25 November
Glen Innes library 2 day sessions and one evening session.

26 November
Armidale library 1 day session

How to Live with Possums

This was for Liana the Wonderful Editor...a possum has decided to share their backyard with them and she wanted infoä then thought I should add it here!

Sharing Your Garden With Possums

The possums gallop over our bedroom roof at about midnight. At the moment they are furious because they have finished all the kiwi fruit and the loquats and feijoas aren't ripe yet and they are too lazy to hike down to the orange or manadrin trees and want us to produce some fruit close to the house for them- NOW!!!!

We have at least four resident possums in our garden - two ringtails and two brushtails and assorted young ones at various times. Some years they cause a lot of damage to a few plants - especially the apple trees, cherry trees and the climbing rose on our balcony.

In other years - unless you went round looking for possum dung with your nose to the ground or shone a torch at night onto their bright red eyes- you'd hardly know they were there.

I have a feeling that both lots of possums prefer the young native growth and native fruit - and only really move in on ours when the season's bad... except for the loquats. Possums seem to be very fond of loquats and they are very early fruit when there may not be much else around. But then we don't like loquats very much as long a we get a couple of handfuls we're happy and the trees produce a ridiculous amount of fruit.

Possums can be easily convinced however to buzz off and eat something else. So if they've got their fangs into your rose bushes you do have other options apart from trapping them. See below.

. Possums are the largest wild species to survive in Australian suburbs - and they don't just survive, they thrive. Humans provide possums with interesting food and excellent shelter and in return treat them cruelly, trapping them and taking them to foreign parts - where they will almost certainly die.

(Note: Possums are often killed in traps - they climb into them at night then are left there during the day and die of heat and thirst. A horrible way for anything to die.)

Living With Possums

There are two choices with possums: learn to live with them or remove them. The latter will usually mean their deaths. Possums are very territorial and will trek for up to 20 kms to return home. Other possums will kill them or let them starve before they'll let them feed in their area. Remember: a pair of resident possums will keep strange possums out and at least you'll know your residents' habits - and may be able to modify them.

If you're prepared to put up with possum damage for a couple of years, you can plant native food for them and teach them to take supplementary food - and after a while you'll find you get very little possum damage. This does however take dedication - more than most garden owners have. (Most gardeners prefer solutions that can be bought from the garden centre and pressed with their forefinger - instant extermination..)

To keep possums from your roses or fruit trees:

Feed them regularly with sweet things like apples or left over bread or carrot tops. They'll be less inclined to go for the rosebuds. Hang possum trays from your eaves or large branches so they're safe from cats and relatively safe from rats.

Use deterrents to keep possums off new growth - white pepper, chilli sauce, bitter aloes or spray the plant with one part Indonesian fish sauce and 1 part water. Possums do not like the taste of Indonesian fish sauce - it's the best possum repellent I know. You can also spray the plants with fresh urine (no older than 2 or 3 hours, as stale urine will burn the foliage). Do not however tell anyone I told you to do this, and any side effects are your responsibility, not mine!

Net shrubs when they have a lot of new growth.

Grow China roses. Modern hybrid teas have thick, ugly, long legs that possums can clamber up (I don't know how they avoid the thornsämaybe they don't mind them). But China roses, like R. mutablilis, or most floribundas have flimsy branches, and possums can't munch what they can't reach. If you grow climbing roses train them up wire instead of solid posts so the possums don't have anything secure to climb on.

If possums dancing in gumboots at 2 am disturbs you - or you get interesting stains on the ceiling - enclose your eaves with chicken net so possums can't live in your roof. Don't worry - the possums will find another convenient place to nest or you can put one out for them if you feel guilty. (See diagram.)

If the possums have to be removed before it is possible to net them out try a loud radio or leave a light on in the roof space during the day. Of course the best time to net out possums is when they are feeding - but as humans sleep at night you may prefer to try and disturb the slumber of the possums instead.

As a last resort hire a mobile disco for half an hour with flashing lights and rock music. This gets rid of possums at once. Then net the roof space straight away.

How to encourage possums.

You probably won't have to - possums are opportunists and if there are no resident possums and there are suitable places to shelter and food to eat you'll probably have possums move in.

You can of course put up a notice in garden suburbs saying Possums Welcome, deliver trapped specimens to such and such an address. You'll probably be inundated with possums. But don't try this, no matter how much you love cuddly, furry things - you may well discover you already have a population of possums who will be very put out.

Native Fruit

Possums of course love native fruit - see 'Birds' for some good suburban varieties. As humans don't like native fruit as much as peaches and apples if they gorge themselves on the lot you probably won't feel put out. Some native species can be very good - especially stewed with apples or for jam or chutney or jellies - most native fruit makes exquisite jellies.

Coppicing

If you don't have room for a gum tree in your garden - or there is a gum tree that is too big to be removed - try coppicing it. Coppicing gives continuous soft shoots - masses of them - and possums love soft gum leaf tips. You'll be feeding your possums - and and giving them an alternative to plants you may want to protect as well.

Once the tree has been cut out or if you grow a tree and cut it off near ground level a lot of long, new shoots will appear. Possums love these - and most coppiced eucalypts will keep growing even when being continually munched by possums.

If you want a slightly taller tree, cut it off higher up - as long as you don't mind having a bare or semi-bare skeleton in your garden as the possums feast.

Which possum?

There are many species of possum in Australia and a good book on Australian mammals is a great investment. The most common in suburban gardens however are ringtails and brushtails.

Ringtails

If something is eating your rosebuds it's probably a common ringtail possum, Pseudocheirus peregrinus. Though most people just refer to ringtails there are probably several species of ringtails in eastern Australia and southern western Australia often of varying sizes and very different marking. (We seem to have a small species of ringtail here much smaller than normal, with very distinctive markings).

Ringtails are rather rat like possums with bare noses, dark whiskers, small round ears with a white patch behind and a tapering tail with a white tip. This tip can be quite small or it can extend more than half way up the tail. It's one of Australia's most common possums.

Ringtail possums love to eat leaves - around here they start with the young rose shoots move on to the apple and cherry leaves and only then decide to eat our roses. They also love to eat flowers especially eucalyptus flowers and young eucalyptus fruit before they toughen into seeds. They're very inquisitive, very adaptable and are probably the wild species most adapted to living with humans without becoming domesticated like dogs and cats (in fact most people who decide to live with possums probably become semi-domesticated by the possums - possums are very good at training their neighbours to leave food out for them to try and placate them so they don't scream through the kitchen window, jump on their heads when they're coming home at night or eat their roses).

Ringtail possums like to nest in hollow trees, with round nests lined with shredded bark or dry grass in tree hollows, on top of clumps of mistletoe, in bushes etc. Often they have several nests but sometimes they just sleep in tree hollows without visible nests at all.

Ringtail possums are most active at night and are very rarely seen during the day - it takes a lot to wake up a ring tail possum - though sometimes they come out in the late afternoon, especially if you have teenagers playing music.

The ringtail is quite sociable for a possum and ringtails will often have overlapping home ranges and adjacent nests. It is not a screecher like the brushtail possum and has got a much softer, sweeter yell. The ringtails breed between April and November - earlier in the warmer northern areas and later in the south. Young possums leave the pouch when they are about 4 months old and are weaned at about 6 months old.

The young ones are usually carried on the mother's back while she eats though occasionally they cling to other parts of her. Some young possums are harder to wean than others - I've seen juvenile possums even larger than their mothers still trying to cling to her back - and once saw a young possum leap on to its mothers back and flatten her. The mother then stood up and socked her baby in a manner that any boxer would admire and then raced up a tree to start feeding, leaving the young one thinking on the ground.

How to encourage ringtails

Ringtail possum numbers seem to depend mostly on available nesting sights - hollow trees or other hollows, rather than food supply (ringtail possums are so adaptable that they'll find food almost anywhere - even wandering through the windows of factory canteens to forage). Predation by cats can also be a factor.

Brushtail Possums

These are Australia's classic possums, with long pointed ears, silver grey fur, paler fur below and cute long noses. The common Brushtail Possum, Trichosurus vulpecula, is about 500 mm long with a tail nearly as long as its body.

You'll find brushtail possums over all of Eastern Australia, South Australia, southern western Australia and even in Central Australia - wherever there are trees.

Brushtail possums are nocturnal, most active at night unless they're disturbed. They like hollow branches, tree trunks, logs, ceilings, roofs, sheds - anywhere that is dark and quiet.

Brushtails can become extremely annoyed if you are a noisy daytime inhabitant - they take their revenge by dancing with gumboots on your roof at 2.00 am. Sometime they'll even play on slippery roofs sliding down and screaming with delight. Brushtails have very sharp claws - good for clinging to slippery roofs and good for making a noise as well.

Brushtail possums are mostly leaf eaters - like the koala the brushtail has a liver that can detoxify eucalyptus leaves but unlike the koala they can't survive just on gum leaves.

They are incredibly opportunistic feeders - they'll eat fruit buds, fruit, bugs, clover, grass even meat or dog food. A brushtail at a neighbour's place is extremely fond of tabbouli with lots of garlic and lemon flavoured dressing. It complains bitterly if the tabboulli doesn't have enough garlic and salad dressing.

Brushtail possums have got a wide vocabulary, mostly of coughs, snorts and hisses, but they also communicate by scent by their scent glands under the chin, on their chests and under the anus. They use scent to mark their territory and also as sexual allure.

Brushtail possums live about ten years though some live longer. Brushtails can breed at any time of year, though they usually breed in Autumn and sometimes in Spring. Most female possums will breed every year and sometimes twice a year. A single baby is born and spends about 5 months in the pouch and then spends another month or two riding on the mother's back.

The more food in an area usually the more possums - but they are very, very territorial. Brushtails usually share garden. You'll usually share your brushtail possum with 3 or 4 other neighbours - but if you've got plenty of fruit trees and plenty of places to nest, you'll usually find that your garden has up to two pairs of possums.... and very few fruit buds....