On being boring!

As part of my commitment to being both boastful and boring I do intend to regale you dear reader with pictures of tomatoes. This is not the first, but it's looking to be the best so far. It was almost all I could do to not pick it. Not a hose has been used, in these drought stricken times, in tending to these plants. Perhaps taking the time to do it with a watering can whilst thinking about the day ahead and saying a few prayers is a good way to go about it...and (as it were) bears fruit.

Lest you think (too) that this is a total fluke, there is also plenteous basil of three types, parsley, rocket and lettuce.
There are eggplants coming along, and silver beet and bok choy.
So it will just get more boring (for you) from now on!!! But be assured it is enlivening for me!

Michael Leunig wrote this excellent prayer about the tomato phenomenon

It is time to plant tomatoes.
Dear God, we praise this fruit and give thanks for its life and evolution.
We salute the tomato,
cheery,fragrant morsel, beloved provider,
survivor and thriver and giver of life.
Giving and giving and giving.


Plump with summer's joy.
The scent of its stem is summers' joy, its promise and rapture.
Its branches breathe perfume fo promise and rapture.
Giving and giving and giving.

Dear God, give strength to the wings and knees of pollinating bees,
give protection from hailstorms, gales and frosts,
give warm days and quenching rains.
Refresh and adorn our gardens and our tables.
Refresh us with tomatoes.

Rejoice and rejoice!
Celebrate the scarlet soul of winter sauces.
Behold the delicious flavour!
Behold the oiled vermillion moons
that ride and dive in olive-bobbing seas of vinegared lettuce.
Let us rejoice!
Let this rejoicing be our thanks for tomatoes.

Amen.

Leunig - 'A Common prayer'.

L is for

LEUNIG whose cartoons are too good for us. Sharply perceptive, deeply spiritual. Their simplicity so disarms the reader that we realise we are taken in by them, and then it is too late.

Pigeons on the grass

It is always heartening to hear the copious warbling of the magpies. This morning there was a bunch of them in the rose garden watching the traffic as people wended their
way to work. To hear one or two together is a delight. To see and hear five or six is ecstasy!
I often think that you see more of them close by (like all animals) when things are harsh as they have to take greater risks for food when it is scarce. [frightened they would fly away before I photographed them I also fed them a little morning tea!!] The very dry conditions that we have been experiencing are indeed very harsh, though this theory cannot explain these Maggies because we have had some rain over the last couple of days, but the aridity is so profound that everything seems to dry up very quickly.
As I looked up to go back inside two galahs, and then a third swooped
over the house. Alas I had no coffee cake to entice them to stay for photos.
What does it mean?
Of course it is Epiphany and those of us who know the Leunig cartoon know all about the Adoration of the Magpie.
I couldn't find that one so here 's another early Epiphany cartoon to lighten your day. (It's worth going to the Library to find the early Leunig cartoon books to have a good chuckle)