Noticing

tiny strawberries, baby ladybugs and aphids

This week, I’ve been noticing little things.

Like aphids and their different colours and sizes and which leaves they like best. And the different stages of a ladybug’s life from egg to larvae through to a flying adult. And the tiny eggs of the green lacewings dangling like balloons beginning to shake as a life form pushes through. And a new leaf budding and unfurling from my begonia that I seem to have been trying to kill for as long as I’ve had it. And the three grapevines returning to life from their dormant brown sticks as they prepare to do the hard lifting to shade the house from the hot north. And how quickly the tiny strawberries grow and ripen on one of my plants, and not the others, and how lovely they are to pick and pop into my mouth as I stroll through my garden (‘stroll’ is an overstatement for my pocket sized garden). And how snails love my cream brick wall as they climb it to nowhere.

The aphids are back, or more to the point, they have not left. They hid. Under the leaves. They’re sneaky things, but I’m determined they will not win in the Great 2023 Meg v Aphid Battle.

One thing I learnt recently while standing in an aisle in Bunnings searching for the stuff to kill them, was that they don’t need a partner to breed, so they breed. A lot. As another customer reached for a toxic brand of bug stuff, I recommended the enviro-friendly one I had in my hand. "It’s good stuff,” I said in a way that would outrage my children for interacting with strangers in stores (or anywhere for that matter). I held up my virtuous bug stuff. The guy looked weary, which I get when you’re in the bug off aisle of Bunnings. We all are. We’re in some crazy battle with creatures that have got this all worked out in a much smarter way than we have, yet we’re the ones with the big brains, apparently.

Other weird things I have learned about aphids:

• they turn a brownish colour when they are in starvation mode but they also change colours as they move through their development cycles

• they are adapting to climate change by reducing their developmental time.

I’ve been sick for a couple of weeks and as I’m an impatient sick person, the first thought that ran through my mind when I had to take time off was how delicious it would be to have all that time off work so I began to mentally (and literally) write lists of the things to do in these days. Day One, I climbed back into bed with two notebooks, a novel, my laptop, post it notes, highlighters, phone, headphones and pens. I had Things To Do. Within a short moment (or hour or so), I stopped scrolling instagram and rolled over and went back to sleep.

Things I did instead of the to-do list:

• cleared my open tabs in my phone from nearly 400 to 111. Not sure why I stopped there. I know I never go back and look for anything in the open tabs.

• ordered ladybug eggs and lacewing eggs in an attempt to win in the aphid battle

• watched the eggs hatch

• ordered a replacement hanging hammock chair because time killed our last one

• cleared my email inbox

• binged The Newsreader

• caught up on podcasts

• squeezed aphids

• slept.

Ten things

1. I’m loving Mek’s newsletter The Raptorial. Whipsmart.

2. I’ve started planning for Christmas and this might be the earliest I’ve started planning and I’d forgotten how messy things get trying to organise large groups of people.

3. My youngest has been helping build an F1 car at uni and I can’t wait to see it this week (words I thought I’d never say).

4. I’ve been pulling out the things out of my garden that have filled spaces but I don’t love them (violets, irises, nasturtiums) and I’m cultivating violet hederacea and dichondra repens for thick ground cover.

5. I’ve nearly finished Part 2 of my redraft and I’m in that space where doubt about whether this is working is tapping me on my shoulder and I’m trying to tell it to shut up.

6. I was meant to be camping last weekend with mates but my aggravated asthma from being sick stopped us, but didn’t stop us going for a day trip to see our mates and it was the first time I’d been to the Upper Yarra and it was stunning.

7. We’re going camping this coming weekend with mates up in Edwards River and I can’t wait to be sitting in my camp chair listening to nature.

8. These longer days make my heart sing.

9. After a long hiatus, I’m bring back our street party and I’d forgotten how great it is to create something that brings people together. When I used to run it years ago, we used to shut the street off, but now the council are too risk averse and we have to do it in a local park instead. It’s making me think about how things like this are what create sustainable cities, but bureaucracy has gone mad.

10. Margaret Atwood’s latest newsletter has a great bit about failing at writing.

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Til next time

xx Meg