On Being on The Cusp of Change, and What Tricks Can Help Us Survive

It's a bright, cold morning this morning as I sit uploading a few photos from my morning walk around the garden and brisk walk around the block. Whilst according to the calendar, Spring is a few weeks away, the trees whisper a different story. Many Australian flowers blossom throughout late winter, their alien tendrils and spikes architectural wonders. The banskia are both dying off and blooming again, as if they cannot decide what to be. Everything is on the cusp - either dying, or sending off new shoots, frostbitten or, above the frosted ground, growing new tips of red leaves or nascent buds. The radio blares about change to the climate, striking the fear of gods and devils in us. Will there be a world left to inherit? Or can we learn new tricks to survive it, on both local and national/global levels? I only know here, and now, in my little world.

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They are prehistoric, these plants. It's hard to imagine them dying because of climate extremes - they've survived many a climate extreme before. Fires are the worst enemy. Australian firefighters worry about having water to fight fires - they're becoming more fierce and more common. Now they are told that if a house is burning, and there's no threat that it will spread, to let it burn rather than waste water. Down here in Victoria it's not as dry yet as it is in other parts of the country, but Australian plants make good tinder. The bark positively drips from the trees and makes fabulous tinder. DH Lawrence saw through the eyes of a migrant character once, I forget the line, but she spoke of the strangeness of Australian trees that shed their bark like this. We leave the bark, because it smokes like hell in a fire, and this time of year it's damp. Instead we take to going out for an evening walk and collecting baskets of sticks to put in the shed for winter kindling. We used to shave old fenceposts into sticks with an axe.

In our garden, both Australian plants and migrant species co-habitate. The blossoms of the nectarines and pears kiss the spikey leaved Flinders Wattle. There are hundreds of wattles around here. Since we've been burning the wood, which everyone else seems to leave, I've found a new respect for the green and gold colours of our Olympic team. On a river walk last week I spotted at least 15 different varieties, all in bloom. Jamie spoke to a permaculturist at school the other day, who said you can plant vegetables under a wattle, because they feed nitrogen into the soil - whereas you can't under the moisture sucking gum leaves. Well. They say you learn something new every day. I wonder if their leaves would make good mulch, in that case. Something to investigate.

And learn we must - what works around here, what doesn't. Let go the thirsty plants, allow the drought and frost tolerant ones. Bring the plants we placed too far from a water source closer to the house so they get the benefit of mulch and the spray of a house, a bucket carried out from the laundry, the chook water when we clean it out. We aren't looking forward to moving a giant pile of mulch, but we must if the garden's to survive. I have been collecting terracotta pots to plant beside vegetable seedlings for their roots to cling to on drier days, scouring seed catalogues for new varieties of vegetables that will tolerate dry conditions more. You can't maintain the same habits as the climate changes - just as we get more fanatic about not buying plastic in the first place so our waste doesn't go to landfill, so do we do our best to adapt to what's coming as we cultivate the soil and plant food both for us and birds.

I recall the great environmentalist poet John Kinsella, who writes of Australian magpies learning new 'tricks' as the landscape changes around them. Nature adapts - we struggle a little more with change:

Whilst we all fear the climate is changing too fast for the fauna of this country to adapt, still, nature finds a way. The future might look very different, but I do believe in a future. This is what scientist Tim Flannery postulates at the end of this podcast Pygmy dinosaurs and blue-eyed Neanderthals: Europe's startling deep past, aired on ABC's Radio National podcast 'Conversations'. He speaks of a Europe where hippo and lions once roamed, of it being the birthplace of coral reefs, and giant hedgehogs in Southern Italy. A very different Europe to now, certainly, and listening, you can't help but marvel at what was. Yet at the end, he is hopeful for the younger generations who he believes will reclaim the natural landscape and encourage a re-wilding of great tracts of land populated by flora and fauna that has been pushed out due to man's agricultural activity and industry. I can't help but there is alot of possibility for positive change on our landscape, despite the threats to it - there will reach a tipping point where we have no choice.

The nectarine is blossoming beautifully pink - as are the crapapples. The lemons and limes are providing daily doses of vitamin C to the household - no scurvy here. I learned about limes this week when I had to research why limes drop fruit so. Whilst it could be a Ph issue, turns out they aren't keen on variations in the water supply. Digging in the garden this weekend I crow to Jamie how dry it all is underneath. I say 'crow' because it's fun to be proven right. He's convinced that we have had lots of rain, whereas my father and I are not. Wet years, we look the lower field and see a lake heading towards the house and wonder if a whale might swim by. That hasn't happened this year. I worry about the future - Jamie doesn't, so much. However, he does what he's told as I direct him to put drip lines and wicking beds in. The way we garden has changed as I contemplate a dry few years ahead. Just in case, I add, hoping I'll be wrong.

Speaking of dinosaurs and new tricks, the copper marans have learnt to fly and jump on top of fences, something the Plymouths just can't be bothered doing. When the coppers take fright, they take flight - who said chickens can't fly? They've also learnt I'm the source of treats and come flying at me when I get home, feathered skirts a-wobblin'.

If animals can learn new tricks, then so must we.

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