Spring is sprung …
Today I saw two daffodils flowering on a bank on our eastern boundary, just outside our bedroom window. At this time last year, before we had a bit of work done by the trusty blue digger (see “The Blue Digger …”), that area was a complete eyesore. It is hard to describe the pleasure that seeing something so simple afforded me. However, I have to confess that instead of my head being filled with awesome classical music, like the incredible virtuosity of Kennedy playing “Spring” from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, or the mellifluous mastery of Anne-Sophie Mutter playing Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 5, Op. 24, “Spring”, all I could hear was my mother reciting in her dulcet tones one of her favourite rhymes
Spring is sprung
The grass is riz
I wonder where the boidies is
They say the boid is on the wing
But that's absoid, the wing is on the boid!
I never actually thought of asking her about the origins of this poem while she was alive; it was just something she always recited when spring first appeared or indeed when anyone within earshot mentioned the word “spring”. A little research revealed that that the verse it is often erroneously attributed to the American comic poet Ogden Nash (1902-1971), who wrote a great many humorous short poems. Unfortunately, it must probably be attributed to that most prolific of all writers, Anonymous, but that doesn’t lessen the deep well of emotion that this silly little rhyme still invokes in me.
Truth be told, it’s a little early for spring yet. There are promising signs everywhere with hyacinths, snowdrops, irises and daffodils opening up everywhere, but the vast majority of the Huon Valley is still dormant. Frankly it is quite astounding how the bare vines and fruit trees of winter can turn into the crop-bearing bounty of summer. There is nothing like the beauty of metamorphosis in nature.
True to form the late winter rains have just arrived and the area around our shed is absolutely soaked in places. The wet ground makes it very difficult to use the tractor without doing more harm than good, so hand-held equipment is the order of the day. I have to admit that even I (very occasionally) get weary of slashing. This morning my neighbour came around to discuss the possibility of burning vast tracks of blackberries. In the end we decided that I should try to slash fire breaks into the wilderness to help stop any fire from getting out of control. Great. More slashing.
On a more positive note, today I stopped at our local nursery and snapped up 3 bare-rooted Manchurian pear trees (“Pyrus ussurienesis”). These ornamental trees are also great shade trees, but their major asset is the stunning autumn display they put on (they are known for holding their autumn leaves well into winter). The Manchurian pear is also supposed to be covered in white blooms early in spring, providing great habitat for bees. The fruit, which is okay to cook with but unpalatable when eaten raw, apparently provides a feast for cockatoos. We have large numbers of both sulphur-crested white cockatoos and yellow-tailed black cockatoos hanging around the farm. These birds tend to stick together and can be quite destructive, as well as incredibly noisy! By planting the pear trees, I hope that we will know exactly “where the boidies is”, or more importantly where they are not (like in the domestic orchard).
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