The Great Snake Mystery | Awards | New books - The Shaggy Gully Times has arrived!
November in the Garden: what rose type are you? : a few fruits you DON’T want to buy in the supermarket ie how to grow your own cherries, loquats and apricots, because if you don’t you probably won’t taste a truly divine one
A Few Good Things to Eat: Parsley Salad : Passionfruit Tiramisu (an alternative Christmas pudding).
The Great Snake Mystery
I think one of the deepest pleasures in my world is being ignored by animals. Not dogs and cats, of course- it is an honour when a friend’s cat decides it’s your lap she wants to sit on during the dinner party, or their dog dribbles on your knee as they watch the last bit of dinner travelling from plate to mouth.
But wallabies who keep grazing as I walk by the in the morning; wombats who sniff suspiciously then go back to scratching; a wedgetail who gazes down contemptuously from the tree above the house as though to say: it’s going to take more than you to interrupt my hunting - it is the greatest compliment of all to be regarded as just another animal in the bush, not a predator to run away from.
There are times, I must admit, when I’m not quite so delighted. When the lyrebirds refuse to stop scratching up the carrot seedlings even if I run at them yelling; when the King parrots in the blood orange trees just yell back when I shout at them. Just occasionally it would be nice to be thought of as at the head the of animal kingdom.
There was one other time too. It was two seasons back, when the largest brown snake I have ever seen slithered across the grass by the house and wound its way up the pergola, winding across the hanging baskets till it came to my study window.
I think the sound of the computer must have alerted it. It spent the next hour striking at the window, then trying to find a way inside, slithering and prodding then returning to the window to strike again.
It scared me. I’d never seen a brown snake as massive. I’d never seen any snake act with so little caution, either. We do have the odd aggressive brown snake here. But they’re only ‘two metres’ of aggression- in other words, if you run a couple of metres they won’t follow you, and only strike if they think they’re threatened.
I was scared, too, because Bryan was on his way back from town, and would pass the snake as he came up the steps. Mobiles don’t work in the valley. There was no way I could warn him.
His truck pulled up. I yelled as he came up the stairs- just in time, as the snake leapt, it’s jaws open. Bryan sidestepped, and dashed for the door I held open.
For the next two months the snake tracked us. It sat on the gatepost. It waited on the window ledges for us to pass. It lay coiled on the steps- and every time one of us passed it leapt good two metres in the air towards us, it’s jaws open.
A leaping snake is frightening. One that size is terrifying.
Winter came. Snakes hibernate in winter. We waited for the snake to emerge in spring- most snakes around here keep to the same territory year after year. But we never saw it again.
Something about that snake puzzled me, though. I had never known snake act like that, so unafraid, hunting out rather than avoiding us.
What was going on?
Perhaps it wasn’t a brown snake, but another more aggressive species. But I’d watched it from 30 cm away through the window for hours, counting its scales, gazing at its shape. I was pretty sure it was a common brown snake. Besides, what other snake acts like that?
I asked herpetologists, with no result. Most of them just refused to accept that the snake had hunted us, leapt at us so often. They assumed I was just being paranoid, and had exaggerated the snake’s behaviour. None could suggest any other snake that it might be.
Then staying at the wonderful Fremantle children’s Literature centre last month, I met renown/ award winning/ deeply loved (Insert all the superb Australian children’s illustrator usuals here) Matt Ottley. Matt knows his snakes. He solved the puzzle, too.
Our snake, Matt suggested, had been a captive, kept by a snake collector. That would explain its size- brown snakes grow most in their first twelve months, and a captive snake may well have been well fed.
But many amateur snake collectors, according to Matt, get scared when their brown snakes get too big. This one was massive. So they release them.
But a snake that has been fed all its life is unable to hunt its own food. Even worse- it expects humans to feed it. So that was what our snake had been doing.
I had assumed- human like- that the snake was hunting us, trying to kill us. No such thing. It had finally found humans again, and was starving. So it waited for us to feed it, growing more and more desperate, leaping towards us with its mouth open as it would have for it’s keeper to throw it a rat or mouse.
We just hadn’t understood.
Snakes can live for months without food, Matt said. But this one almost certainly died of starvation during hibernation, just one other animal humans have betrayed.
Every time I think of the snake’s actions now Matt’s theory makes more sense. And the thought of ignoring a starving desperate snake's pleas for food make me feel, I’m not sure what. Guilt is part of it. Female guilt, instilled by my grandmother, that I have a duty to feed (and sometimes overfeed) anyone , human or not, who is hungry. But most of all guilt as a human, because we take so little responsibility for the results of our actions.
Truthfully, I don’t think I’d have continued to feed a large brown snake about the house. But I could have called a wildlife organization, who could have caught it, and kept it, and used it to demonstrate snake handling, and kept it safe in the only world it knew- captivity.
Most of all, I feel guilt that I spend so much time trying to understand the world of wombats. But I never really thought about the world of snakes.
Awards
None since the wonderful WAYBRA for They Came on Viking Ships last month, and the Drover’s Award for Best Touring production for Monkey Baa’s brilliant version of Hitler’s Daughter. I’m not quite sure how many awards and shortlists there have been this year. It’s been one of those years where you just say ‘lots.’
New Books
Be the first to read the breaking news as it happens in The Shaggy Gully Times. This is the punniest/funniest book you’ll ever read, all about the small bush town of Shaggy Gully, home to many animals such as celebrity ballerina Josephine, Pete the Sheep, who runs Shaun’s Sheep Salon, as well as Mothball Wombat, the editor of the weekly newspaper…. who has a bit of trouble with her spilling, sorry, spelling.
This week’s edition is jam packed with news!
News flash! The Shaggy Gully Bosh/Bushfire Brigade and the rest of the community have come together to rescue the miserable animals from Mr Nasty’s Goo! (Correction, zoo).
Police Report! Gunna the Graffiti Goanna has struck again! And who is the mysterious blonde up the three bear’s gum tree?
And in other news... how does Emily Emu save the day? Can poor Bluey Spider ever find true love? Will the visiting Kiwis thrash the Wallabies in the Match of the year?
The Shaggy Gully Times is for kids six and up. But I think any adult who has known and loved a country newspaper (especially one with typos) will love it too!
The November Garden
Which Rose is Right for You? The Rose Garden Personality Test
'I've bought a rose,' said Margaret. 'Where do you think I should plant it?'
I didn't even have to look at the label to answer that one. When my mate Margaret buys a rose it's always an almost dead stick from the supermarket in one of those plastic wrappers like old fashioned corsets. Margaret is a sucker for any plant that needs to be rescued. And dead looking sticks from the supermarket are almost always hybrid tea roses.
'Full sun, good soil,' I said, though I needn't have said the latter, as Margaret was already planning how to bring her rose back to life with Thrive and Seasol and a load of old horse manure.
Most of us, though, buy the roses we like the look of, not the one that yells save me, save me- and believe me, if you think the type of shoe you wear tells a lot about your personality, your favourite rose style tells even more.
So what rose style are you? Have a browse below and see which one you fall in love with.
p.s. It is GOOD to be extravagant with roses. If you buy a box of chocolates you can hog them all yourself- but if you buy yourself a rose the whole world- or the bit that passes you garden- gets to love it too.
pps there are some of us who love EVERY kind of rose- it just means we have a rich and varied personality
ppps I mostly grow rambling roses, but that’s because they don’t need pruning or spraying and grow FAST up trees so the wallabies can’t eat them. (They also disguise the fruit from birds and fruit bats. Possums don’t like climbing through rambling roses and tree branches either). But if I had my druthers i.e. unlimited water and a staff of gardeners, I’d have my ramblers plus great beds of the most scented hybrid teas, especially dark red ones, and at least a hillside of David Austin roses too.
I’d also have a bed of roses chosen just for their names. Who can resist a rose called Imperial Concubine? (I could place her next to Cardinal Richeleau) Or Hero and Leander? Or Wife of Bath? (Flesh coloured, of course, and scented too).
Hybrid teas
Good points: long stemmed cut flowers, flushes of flowers all season
Bad points: can be rather gawky, so they lack grace when seen as a shrub. Need pruning and spraying.
Best look: as a formal rose garden surrounded by low growing annuals, lavender or salvias to hide the bare thorny trunks.
How to cosset: prune in winter - i.e. cut back each branch by about a third, and cut out a third of branches. Feed every month except in winter for lots of flushes of roses.
Loved by: those who fall in love with the great gorgeous flowers, or want to rescue a dead stick....
Floribundas
Good points: flower and flower and flower. They don't need much pruning except to cut out dead or straggly stuff, and one feeding a year is usually enough too.
Bad points: floppy stems, though with care they can look great in bud vases or poked into bouquets
Best look: as part of a formal rose garden, or in cottage gardens
How to cosset: trim out straggly or thin stems twice a year to keep the bushes neat; mulch and feed in spring
Loved by: secret romantics
Rambling Roses
Good points: grow FAST, laugh at droughts, low maintenance. masses of flowers
Bad points: neatness fanatics may think they look messy
Best look: rambling over fences, pergolas, over sheds, verandas
How to cosset: no need to prune, (except to stop your place looking like Sleeping Beauty's castle); feed when you get around to it.
Loved by: creative dreamers
Pillar Roses
Good points: Pillar roses a climbers with one or more straightish stems- a neater look than ramblers
Bad points: ramblers mostly find their own support- pillar roses need to be attached to posts or pergolas, or twisted around them
Best look: veranda posts, pergolas
How to cosset: prune straight after flowering, NOT in winter
Loved by: generous organisers
David Austin and old fashioned roses
Old fashioned roses vary from single China or rugosa roses to droopy cabbage type blooms - most visitors to our garden don't realise that our China and Rugose roses ARE roses, they look so different from to hybrid teas. David Austin roses look and smell like old fashioned roses, but have the shape, hardiness and free blooming generosity of modern roses.
Good points: usually more graceful bushes than hybrid teas
Bad points: may need regular pruning and spraying for black spot
Best look: anywhere: suit formal rose gardens, cottage gardens or just to turn a corner of your garden into flowers and beauty
How to cosset: as for hybrid teas
Loved by: those who love adventure and new experiences
Weeping roses
Good points: stunning display when flowering
Bad points: may only bloom once a year; may look boring when not in bloom; difficult to mow or weed under
Best look: by themselves surrounded by lawn or low growing flowers
How to cosset: trim thin or straggly growth; do NOT cut back branches- either cut them out entirely or leave them alone.
Loved by: planners and perfecters
Standard roses
Good points: can make a stunning architectural effect in a garden
Bad points: stems may snap; avoid in backyard cricket or skateboarding situations
Best look: along paths and avenues. Also look great in a line of pots of a patio, with flowers spilling out of the pot below
How to cosset: as for hybrid teas
Loved by: those who like to do things PROPERLY.
Ground cover roses
Good points: flower and flower; hardy
Bad points: weeding is difficult
Best look: en masse down banks, spilling out of pots and hanging baskets or under taller roses.
How to cosset: feed twice a year; most don't need pruning or spraying; weed or mulch thoroughly
Loved by: rose addicts who like every square millimetres covered in roses
Patio Roses
Good points: hardy, long flowering, smaller bushes
Bad points: roses did NOT evolve to grow on patios, so you'll have to repot with fresh soil every two years and feed and water well.
Best look: on patios! Most patio roses tolerate sone shade, but avoid baking deserts or full shade
How to cosset: use water retaining crystals, slow release fertiliser., mulch with coconut fibre, repot before potting mix turns to concrete; may need spraying for black spot
Loved by: rose lovers with a patio
What to do in November
On the patio:
. fill hanging baskets with pansies or petunias, water retaining crystals and slow release plant food. Give each basket a soak in a dish of water once a fortnight, as well as regular watering- potting mix that is allowed to dry out can literally become water repellent.
. train a potted cherry tomato bush up a tall stake or mesh, for months of fresh tomatoes
. how about a potted tamarillo, pineapple, or coffee bush? Or a wide topped pot of parsley, edged with white alyssum? Pot up an interesting selection now for Christmas presents.
In the vegie garden:
. plant a punnet of 'lettuce combo' or other mixed greens to add zip to your salads
. consider a few unusual veg that you probably won't find in the supermarket: salsify (if you like parsnips you'll love salsify) , ornamental corn in a range of reds, black, purples, yellows and orange (It makes great Christmas presents) or encourage kids to grow the biggest pumpkin in the neighbourhood.
In the flower garden:
. roses are at their most glorious now. Wander through the nurseries till you fall in love with one...or six.
. have a browse through some of the Open Gardens in your neighbourhood, for new garden styles or plant ideas.
What to Plant
Fruit and Veg
Cold, Temperate and sub-tropical: asparagus seed, beans, basil, beetroot, carrots, Cape gooseberry, celery, chicory, Chinese cabbage, celeriac, cucumber, eggplant, globe artichokes, gourds, corn, lettuce, leek, silver beet, spring onions, rhubarb, parsnips, tomatoes, zucchini, capsicum, chilli, radish, pumpkin, rosellas, salsify, sweet potato, strawberry seed, tamarillo seed, passionfruit seed, parsnip, mustard, melons.
Avoid pumpkin, melon and cucumber vines in hot humid areas; in cool areas potatoes, caulies and snow peas can still be planted now. .
Flowers: ornamental cabbages and kales, ageratum, asters, balsam, begonias, Californian poppy, coleus, cosmos, marigolds, nasturtium, rudbeckia, petunias, salvia, sunflowers, zinnias
Collect seed from agapanthus, jonquils, daffodils, dahlias, liliums, Echinacea, geraniums, pelargoniums, cannas- many garden favourites grow easily from seed, though they may take a year or two to flower. You'll also have a chance of producing your own stunning new hybrids!
Some Spring Fruits You Don’t Want to Buy in a Supermarket!
Apricot
Why bother with apricots?
• unless you eat a home grown one, you'll never know what apricots taste like which is basically the world's most subtly perfumed fruit. I have never eaten a good one from a supermarket! They are picked far too green- and an apricot doesn’t get any sweeter once it’s picked, even if it grows more soft and orange. A green picked one will have a floury texture, too.
• apricots are easy to dry on a bit of alfoil in the sun- and can be one of the great fruit staples of winter.
• a diet rich in apricots has been associated with a lower risk of various cancers, including lung cancer and melanoma.
Needs: Not for subtropics or areas with heavy late-spring frosts; DON'T grow apricots in humid areas - the fruit will rot. Don't bother pruning - pruned apricot trees get bacterial gummosis.
Problems: Fruit rot - spray with Bordeaux in winter when the tree is leafless; in fruit fly prone areas grow early varieties or not at all, or grow plumcotts- a plum-apricot cross that fruit fly don't like so much; use splash-on bait.
Harvest:
Pick when they taste sweet; leave on the tree as long as possible. Once fruit is soft and sweet is ideal but they'll ripen indoors as soon as they start to turn orange.
Note: Some Asian varieties of apricot have edible sweet kernels - 'nuts'. One is available commercially in the USA and, hopefully, will be in Australia soon.
Varieties: Choose a late blooming variety like Morocco if you get spring frosts; Moorepark is the best for my taste - and it ripens unevenly too, the ones at the top up to three weeks before the shaded ones - excellent for home eating, if not commercial picking.
What to do with apricots
How to dry apricots
Cut perfect fruit in half. Sample them often just to make sure they are perfect. Brush the cut side with lemon juice to stop them turning brownish - or don't bother.
Stick them cut side up on alfoil in the sun on a stinking hot day. Take them in at night. Turn them over the next day to bake the other side. Repeat till they are rubbery. Store in a glass jar or other sealed place. NB commercial apricots are dusted with sulphur to keep them soft and orange. Yours will toughen and darken - or you can buy sulphur from the chemist in small white jars. But they taste better without sulphur and many asthmatics are allergic to sulphur - even if they're not aware of it. And you can always soak them or simmer them in a little water to soften them.
Apricot and Walnut Paste
500 grams apricots - stones and all
200 grams walnuts, chopped
500 grams sugar or honey
Boil all ingredients together - there is no need to add water as long as you stir madly - till a little sets firm in cold water. Take off the heat, spread onto a greased tray. Cook in the oven on as cool a setting as you can till the top is dry to touch and springs back when you press it. Cut into slices, wrap each one in greaseproof paper, and store in a sealed jar.
Plumcotts
Cultivation:
These are a cross between a plum and an apricot, apricot sized with a flavour somewhere between the two. Plumcotts are slightly more frost resistant, fruit fly resistant and drought hardy than apricots.
Cherries
Don't bother in a small garden unless you love the look of nets. Cherries get pear and cherry slug the results of which are really ugly and can kill the tree. And the birds will get most of the cherries anyway which only keep for days (they lack the starch reserves that enable apples and pears to be stored) from a harvest that only lasts a fortnight.
Problem: Birds. You can net trees but they'll be taller than your house - which also makes spraying difficult.
You also need cross pollinating varieties and most varieties stubbornly flower when the other one isn't so they don't do their jobs... and in hot areas they don't flower anyway.
If you MUST grow a cherry, try Stella - she pollinates herself, so she doesn't need a perfect match, and she fruits in warmish climates, though Sydney is still a bit dicey.
Harvest: Don't worry about it. The birds will get them before you do. (Bird netting can help a bit.)
Ps I may just be a bit despondent about cherries- manage to harvest only six last year and none the year before that! So far we have a glorious crop...but last year’s late November frost zapped them the day before I was going to pick them, and the drought got em the year before that. I.e. do not count your cherries before they are eaten.
Loquat
Why bother?
• possibly the easiest fruit in the world to grow
• one of the first fruits to ripen after winter
• no pruning, feeding or tending needed - just make sure you pick them all - or encourage the birds to finish the job - so you don't have a heap of festering fruit to attract fruit fly.
This is an old fashioned tree, no longer common in Australian gardens, mostly because loquats don't travel well or store, so you never see them in shops, and also because older varieties were all seed and little fruit - modern grafted varieties are fatter and juicier, and a good ripe loquat is a treat.
Loquats are evergreen, frost, heat and drought tolerant (they'll grow from Hobart to well north of Brisbane), preferring a rich soil but still growing in almost any conditions. They flower fragrantly in early winter and grow easily from seed but may take 15 years to bear fruit - a grafted variety should fruit in four years.
Using Loquats
How to eat them Fresh
Cut or bite off the top; peel down the skin; gobble the fruit and spit out the seeds - or cut them in half; peel and seed, then gobble. Small kids happily sit up the tree eating them skins and all for hours, while spitting the stones down on passers by.
Loquat jam
This is most excellent
1 kg loquats, seeds removed but not peeled
200 ml water
finely grated rind and juice of 2 lemons
Simmer fruit in water till soft. mash well or put it through the blender. add juice and rind and sugar; boil rapidly till a little sets on a cold saucer. Bottle and seal.
Loquat chutney
Use the kiwi fruit chutney recipe, but substitute peeled, seeded loquats for kiwi fruit
A Few Good Things to Eat
Parsley Salad
Over the past 6 years or so of drought our veg garden has been reduced to the great survivors- plants that may wilt and look a bit dusty in the heat of the day (don't we all), but perk up at night without even a swim in the creek and a nice cold cup of crushed lemon in their hands . Tomatoes, beans, spuds, chilli, as they all put out more roots up their stems if you mulch them right up to their leaves, and the more roots they have the more moisture they can forage. Add some nice plants that have evolved in deserts of barren baking islands- zucchini, watermelon, pumpkin, apple cucumber...and you've got a pretty good menu for dinner.
As for greens- red stemmed Italian chicory, unkillable Warrigal spinach, and Australian native that needs cooking in two changes of water as it's high in oxalic acid, red stemmed silver beet...but most of all, lots and LOTS of Italian parsley.
Curled parsley might look nice as garnish for a pair of lamb chops, but it's all prickly in the mouth unless you chop it French chef finely. But you only need to grab a bunch of Italian parsley in one hand, scissors in the other, and gently snip it into a bowl, and you've got the basis for a totally superb salad. And then...well, there are dozens of variations. I'd add something for texture, something for colour, and a damn good dressing. Ring the changes according to what's on hand, and what you feel like.
Dressing
3 tb olive oil (or macadamia)
1 tb lemon juice, or white wine or raspberry vinegar
half tsp salt (optional) or half tsp grainy mustard
half tb chopped oregano OR 1 tb chopped blue cheese
1 cloves chopped peeled garlic
For texture
. slices or chunks of creamy avocado
whole macadamias, or walnuts, or sliced almonds
chunks of cucumber
very finely chopped fresh dates (Surprisingly delicious in a salad, especially with cucumber)
lightly cooked asparagus, beans (especially long thin snake beans) or broccoli or brocollini
Colour
sliced capsicum
finely chopped chilli if you like it hot
big chunks of baked salmon or tuna (Stunning)
hard boiled eggs- especially tiny bantam eggs
sliced or better still, chunks of tomato or whole red tom thumb tomatoes or tiny yellow pear shaped ones, halved.
a little very very finely grated raw beetroot
a few- very few- craisins
chunks of white fetta cheese, or whole tiny boccocini, or blue vein cheese, or crumbled ricotta
hunks of cooked chicken breast or cold lamb
chunks of baked or boiled new potatoes, or kipfler potatoes or one of the new red or blue fleshed spuds, or yellow fleshed Tasmanian pink eyes.
. cooked chick peas or red kidney beans or mixed cooked beans
Serve on one very large bowl and let everyone help themselves. It takes about ten minutes to mix. You shouldn't need anything else, and it's so healthy you can pig out with giant helpings. And if you think growing your dinner takes too much time- time yourself next time you're at the supermarket. Where would you rather be- picking parsley in the dusk with the scent of ripe tomatoes, or standing in the checkout with nothing but a stand of New Idea and chocolate bars to look at?
Passionfruit Tiramisu
The problem with tiramisu is that
a. its so full of coffee that you can't sleep after eating it
b. its so delicious that you Do eat it anyway, and
c. it looks totally gloriously tempting but kids can't eat it either because of the alcohol and coffee.
So here is a family friendly tiramisu, extremely good, incredibly simple to make- in fact great for kids to make too. It would also make a great cold ‘Christmas pudding’ for anyone who doesn’t want a hot fruity one.
Ingredients
1 pk sponge finger biscuits
1 carton mascarpone cheese
1 cup canned passionfruit juice, minus the seeds
a punnet raspberries or frozen raspberries or sliced strawberries
half cup grated chocolate, preferably dark bitter stuff
optional: 3 tb Cointreau to mix with the mascarpone if you really want an adults only version. You can also use half a cup of sweet dessert wine instead of half the passionfruit juice, or soak the strawberries in Cointreau for an hour or so before adding them to the mix.
Christmas option: add a green layer of sliced kiwi fruit, so you have Christmas red and green.
Take a glass dish. Layer in half the biscuits. Pour over the juice, spread half the mascarpone, scatter on the fruit. Now layer the rest of the biscuits, spread the rest of the cheese, and scatter on the chocolate. Leave for about 2 hours for the juices to soak into the biscuits. Serve in slices.
This is okay the next day if you keep it covered in the fridge, but best made a few hours before serving.
p.s and yes, of course you can make your own sponge fingers, and use fresh picked fruit But if you use fresh passionfruit you may need to add a little sugar, and in which case don't bother removing the seeds- just use half as much juice again. King Island cream can be used instead of mascarpone.
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