3 realities. The everyday consensual. The Eleven Islands. The future.
Author: Rita de Heer
Writing is what I do. What I think about. What I meditate on. What I dream up. Listen to. Imagine. Sometimes I sleep. Sometimes I eat. And I walk. Pull out environmental weeds. There are a thousand more things I do, though writing comes into a fair few of those things too.
My first walk around the block … south along Carindale Street, east up hill and down on Winstanley Road, then north along Surbiton until Banchory Court.
It seemed a long way but at only about 2000 steps which equals about one kilometer, not very far at all.
Not yet off the premises, discovered that this plant, that I had thought non-flowering, is blooming.
Saw a few fungi … maybe three different species. Here’s one …
Last, a real surprise. A tiny native violet in amongst all the sturdy fast-growing exotics…
That one could’ve been sharper. My apologies. It was a long way down and shadowed by that plant adjacent.
With water, vinegar and more water, the mystery stone is starting to give up its secrets.
When I washed it with vinegar the outer sandy-looking layer immediately began to melt. So that’s a limestone layer, I assume.
There appears to be a hole or cracked area in the center and a weird straight sliver in the upper left. That doesnt feel stony. Wonder if it could possibly be petrified wood?
Side view
This is a side shot. Another or same insertion … a sliver of something. Although, that area is also reminiscent of the bunch of leaf-thin layers.
And then that black circle … is it animal, vegetable or mineral? It looks like lichen. Too bad I don’t have a microscope. I wonder what mineral could make that yellow. Doesn’t look like sulfur. [I learnt ‘sulphur’ for that word.]
Getting more and more interesting.
The inside has to dry before I can get a good image.
This rock, which is about the size of a large orange and weighs about a kilo, (2.2 pounds) was collected for me while the family were out looking for ‘thunder eggs’. A common activity in Northern NSW and southern Queensland.
While this one hasn’t got the simple perfection of the much covetted ‘real’ thunder eggs, I like it because it is so complex inside the nodule.
In places there look to be more than a dozen layers. Thicker and also leaf-thin. There are a couple of crystals according to the errant glitter, and areas that look like spongy bone marrow.
The outside appears to be covered with a layer of fossilised clay. There does look to be some soil encrusted in the inside but I could be wrong. I will wash it and see.
First person in Bosley’s face today was Dan, telling him he had a date. Huh? What was that about? Boz shifted materials around, clattering and clacking bricks together for over half an hour and no one else showed up?
Counting Wizard Nin, but not the two hardware store reps, there are six of us on site, he thought. Where are they all? He started to feel abandoned, and cranky. It’d be good if Dan was around to take his truck out of my face?
Speak of the devil, is that him I’m hearing joking and laughing? Boz looked up. Huh? It is. Who is he with? He put a couple of fingers in his mouth and blew a blast of air past them. Phee-eee-eew!
Dan had the grace to look up from his conversation with the man in a boat. But then he just waved? He didn’t look like he was coming.
First person arriving was Trish. “Hey Boss? What’s up?”
“I wondered where everybody is?” Bosley said.
Trish looked around. “Guess we’re all doing our own thing. Since it’s Sunday?”
“Hmph,” Bosley said. “Guess I forgot.”
Trish laughed. “When we all worked for the other fella, you insisted Sundays were for ourselves. What’s changed?”
Bosley laid another row of bricks. He so didn’t want to get into an argument. The more they all worked, the sooner they’d all have their own places. And he was totally sick of standing room only in his hut apart for the bunk.
Trish watched him. “Why don’t you take a break and come and check out the vegetable garden I’ve got going?”
“Might as well, I guess. Need Dan to move his truck and he’s busy.” Bosley indicated Dan and the man in the boat.
“His cousin,” Trish said. “They’re just catching up. What do you think? Can your shadoof-thingie haul this up to our cabin roof when we get that up?”
“Might need to go up in parts,” Bosley said. “I’ll let you know after we’ve built the bunkhouse.” He left Trish hoeing weeds, went back to his garage build.
Next, Nin Wizard came leaping and gesticulating over the walls. What is he trying to tell me? Bosley thought. Probably need Tim to interpret.
But, no. Nin beckoned him. Bosley followed Nin out to the back where a pile of driftwood and wrack lay foundered at the edge of the shore. Tim was out there too … very conveniently … with a hammer and jemmy bar tidying the various bits and pieces.
“This’ll be Nin’s cabin,” Tim said. “Got any ideas where to put it?”
“On the bunkhouse?” Boz said.
Tim looked where Bosley looked. “On the as yet unbuilt bunkhouse?”
“On the as yet unbuilt bunkhouse on the garage in progress,” Bosley expanded.
“Why not on my place, when I get that built?” Tim said.
“And where will you have Trish’s vege garden that she just showed me?”
Nin leapt over them both, one at the time. Boing. Boing. Then he leapt to the highest point of the garage-build. Waved his wand.
Tim laughed. “Ha. Well. He’s decided. Guess he’ll help you. I warn you though, his magic is tied to his energy, which is patchy.”
Rita de Heer 