Hello from Coquette Point, Another week of perfect weather, hot dry days, clear cool nights, what wonderful conditions for growing food. In the vegetable garden lettuce and cabbage are forming hearts and tomatoes are swelling. In the orchard the harvest of citrus has been particularly good with trees laden with sweet, juicy mandarins, lemonades, oranges and more, all providing a good dose of vitamin C to chase away winter colds. In the rainforest the seeds of the black bean trees are falling to the ground. Aboriginal rainforest people made flour from the seeds but only after a long process of leaching the alkaloid from the poisonous seed. The flour was made into bread, hearty and warming on cold nights. What good timing when nature delivered an abundance of these meaty seeds at the onset of the winter months. |
For the first time Jessie walked through the nursery this week. When she saw “Plastic Cas’ she did her best to stretch as tall as she could. She walked around the statue for a few minutes and then walked off, I haven’t seen her back in the nursery since.
Yesterday the chasing stopped. Around lunchtime I heard low drumming coming from the mangroves, when I investigated I found ‘Jessie’ sitting under a tree with her back turned to “Snout’ who was a little way of and stretching high and appearing to dance then stretching out his neck and drumming softly.
They wanted to know about the rainforest, the cassowaries and the Johnstone River. Right on cue ‘Snout’ did a brief walk past and it made their day. It was particularly wonderful to meet Cynthia Rufus who came to Nerada with her husband Ivan in 1974 to work with Dr Maruff in establishing Nerada Tea. Ivan is an engineer and he and Cynthia now live in Cairns. Over and out from Coquette Point this week. Cheers Yvonne C. |