The Orange Obscurus

Perfect opportunity to show off the serpent's cute new baby pics

David Rowe just keeps on churning out the masterpieces

I don't get the text so much this time but the art work is just perfect

The Garden of Arcane Delights

Last March the serpent had grand plans. It was time for a big fat hairy audacious goal and no better deadline than Tuesday 3rd April being the 20th anniversary of being officially declared owner of the Lair. Of course the Izzie had to tweek that a bit. With a Friday 13th just around the corner, that seemed so much more suitable a day for celebrating

So the grand plan was to mark this important milestone with a few achievements on the home front. Mainly a reasonably respectable Lair that would not be a source of embarrassment for potential visitors. A place for everything and everything in its place but most importantly some serious sorting of books and stuff and finally some attention to that grand permaculture garden project

Herb spirals, a teapot tree, scarecrows, a Hexen Ecke and an assortment of other interesting things were plotted and planned and jotted in little green spiral notebooks

But the gods cackle when serpents hatch plans.

In the end, a giant chunk of 2017 from April till October was spent either visiting Petunia in hospital, lurking around with Dudley or Daisy Dursley who came to visit twice or staying over at Number 4 Privet Drive and cooking her meals and stuff and generally trying to dilute the toxic influence of Vile Vernon.

That time period covered pretty much all of the growing season here so not only did very little get planted but the serpen't garden of Eden was very much neglected and quite a few of the weeds on the June solstice stock taking list are well and truly no longer around for the next annual stock take.

But today being the one day of the year when all the shops and pretty much everything is closed and the radio is all war, gloom and doom, it was the perfect day to do the giant garden blitz.

Planted some very precious saffron bulbs, some acorns in a circle around Petunia's new almond tree ( of course there would be no room for them all if they ever did sprout but the Izzie will be well and truly pushing up the daisies before that ever becomes a real problem) and planting out a big fat bunch of cardamon plants to go with all the ginger and turmeric. Of course it is not quite the right time of year but the way the weather is going lately, no danger of anyone getting frostbite

So in between planting, sorting and sweeping, took time to sit and linger and watch the geckos sunning themselves on the rocks.
Now there are no distractions or evenings spent over at Privet Drive which by now is probably a wasteland. There was already trench warfare going on over there just last week.
The Grinch wants to nuke some perfectly good peach and avocado trees because they get in the way when he is mowing the lawn.

Last year he did a hatchet job on the magnificent mulberry and Petunia's vegie patch has been all trashed and trampled

So now it is almost a matter of honor for the serpent to now leave a weedy legacy and to make a haven for birds, critters and green and growing things now that Privet Drive has become a monument to misery.

Got lots done but the biggest job of all - finding new homes for the 20 baby weedlings acquired at the recent garden festival, that will have to wait for another day.
Most of them are banksias and grevilleas which are veritable bird magnets.
But this time I will have to go out of my way to make sure that every single one of them is alive and well this time next year.