Sunday, 29 June
If this post is still out of sync, I give up! Hopefully, I’get a new post out later today and all will be back to normal…. ooh! look at the cute little piggy-with-wings!
Nope. Blogger still insists on this date. Oh well, it can stay here. It’ll keep you lot on your toes, at least!
A lot of bloggers write on this issue ( I don’t mean those blogs dedicated to environmental issues, but the regular, sometimes funny, sometimes sad blogs that we all read.)
Currently, one blogger wonders about the possible future ramifications of today’s oil prices. And just across the border we can read this. Ok, so perhaps the adjectives are a little more colourful than you’d use, but the place she writes about is far from the only disaster-waiting-to-happen. It’s precisely this sort of non-thinking that flooded my yard a few months ago. And God help the people downstream from that monstrous dam they’ve built on the Yangtze.
Back on home turf, my own City Council, while claiming to be “good greenies” still wastes who knows how many rate-payers dollars on glyphosate around the bases of sign posts. They still use ridiculously huge sweeping trucks (known chez Dinahmow as “Vancouvers.”) to brush gravel from the street gutters. They do other cock-a-mamie stuff, too, but I thought I’d put on my “nice lady” hat today and show you some of what is flowering in the City’s Botanic Garden. I went with some artist friends to view an exhibition and also to see the flower display on a magnificent tropical vine.
This (yucca?) is planted in a dry climate garden dedicated to cacti and succulents. Yes, we are in the coastal tropic zone and we have hellishly humid summers, so these have been planted on a gravelled slope with good aircirculation. The major “pest” seems to be homo souvenirii who whack off great lengths of the flower spikes.
Also in this area, it does not seem much bothered by h. souvenirii.
No label for it, but I’m guessing it’s a Euphorbia. A very sharp Euphorbia!
A man-made cataract flows from the main level to the lagoon, a lovely wetland area which is glorious after rain, but suffers during severe drought. Right now, you can see Magpie Geese, egrets, swamp hens, ducks, maybe a heron. And across the far bank, the smoke stacks of a suger mill. It’s a great place to come with camera or sketchbook and sit on the boardwalk or the deck which juts into the lagoon; you’re pretty much guaranteed to get a worthwhile “shot.”
Looking back up to the top level. See that decimated leaf, lower right…
… here’s one of the culprits.
A grouping of Bauhinia purpurea. .
Sunbirds were darting in and out as we walked by
And at the far end of the walkway, the one we had come to see. In time, I guess it will be all over this support of old pier pylons.
Strongylodon macrobotrys aka jade vine or emerald creeper, native to Polynesia and S E Asia.
It is past its best now, but must have been truly magnificent, judging by the thick layer of fallen flowers.
Even in the less-than-perfect light you can see the purple-blue stem and calyx.
***
I expect most of you have seen some of the “travelling sketchbooks” that are doing the rounds? Some are Moleskins, some are hand-made. All have the charm that you cannot find in the High Street bookstore.
Years ago, I swapped similar books with school friends. Sadly, over the years of travelling, they were lost or discarded as childish pastimes.
But this one will not be lost! I and 6 other artists are about to begin our own sketchbook exchange. As not all have blogs, I’ll be posting some pictures on Idle Thoughts.
And now, I think you’ve feasted enough on flowers and I have a glue-y mess to clean up.
Back soon!
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