Thursday 8 February 2007

Looming Monday

I've gone in to shock because Monday's return to work is only a long weekend away. Not long enough, clearly. I was getting used to alternating between pottering and loafing. Of course, pay is still going in to my bank account, so I can potter and loaf without risk.

My morning trip to the nursery for a kurrajong (Brachychiton discolor and a Hakea 'Burrendong Beauty' yielded mixed results. The kurrajong is now planted at the back of the garden, next to the cabbage palm, where it will be watered in with water saved from the shower. I didn't get the Hakea though. In fact, I couldn't find any hakeas at all, except for the tree species. But I've prepared a spot, so when I finally track one down, it's going straight to the pool room backyard.

While I was at the nursery, I did the usual rounds of the Casuarinaceae, Kennedia and Lasiopetalum. But I'm not obsessive, you understand. I've now expanded the Lasiopetalum collection into a cross-section of Sterculiaceae by buying not only the kurrajong but also three Thomasia. I'll post pictures tomorrow.

When digging the hole for the kurrajong, I was appalled at how dry the soil is. The clay has cracked so much there appears to be an extension of the San Andreas Fault running across my garden. (I hadn't noticed this before because it had been hidden by weeds and weed mat. Both have now gone.) I soon forgot about it when I uncovered what looked very much like a hank of human hair.

I leaned on the mattock for a while and wondered whether I should excavate any further. If I were about to uncover a grave, it would be a very shallow one. Unless the hair's owner had been buried vertically or hacked into small pieces and strewn around the garden, that is. Considering the concrete consistency of the clay, the former was unlikely. As for the alternative ... Well, I have picked up bones from time to time, although none of them actually looked human.

I continued digging but shifted a foot to one side. (That's a foot in distance, rather than a foot of a murder victim.) I'm sure the kurrajong will appreciate it.