'Kaleidoscope'

This is 'Kaleidoscope' - an original song written and performed by Clay Western - one of our young locals. Clay is a gorgeous young man who we met as a grommet surfer at our local break. He was always polite out in the surf and genuinely happy to talk to the 'old farts' - which is a bit rare because we are not in his league as a surfer and a lot of youngsters don't even acknowledge our existence! 

Clay has since left our small town and is performing in various places throughout the country. This is my favourite song of his. Clay has definitely got the indie-surf vibe going on - reverb and all.

Here's some more info from Triple J 'Unearthed' and Spotify:

'Since easing his way in to city life in 2019, Clay Western is becoming a favourite among the Western Australian music scene. 

After seeing the release of his debut EP ‘Holiday Dream’, Clay has gone on to play headline shows at some acclaimed Perth music venues as well as playing alongside some of WAs finest acts, including The Money War and Dulcie.

“Stuff comes together if you just back yourself,” Western notes, and indeed it’s since been proven. At the age of 16 he supported indie-surf-gypsies Caravãna Sun in Denmark, striking up a friendship with guitarist/vocalist, Luke Carra.

With Carra producing and Ian Pritchett (The Beautiful Girls/Angus & Julia Stone) engineering, that EP, Holiday Dream, was released in January, 2019, and set Western on a path forward marked by both commitment and learning'.

It's so easy to be a grumpy old person who doesn't relate to the next couple of generations, but when I meet people like Clay I am reassured about the future.

A Small Life 2

One of the locals that move through our bush block on a regular basis.The best part about our bush block is the multitude of reptiles, birds and mammals that live here too. I'm pretty clear that it's their home and I'm just sharing it with them. We try to maintain as much natural bush as we can for our fellow species and restrict our activities mostly to the house pad.

Another treasure from the Tip Shop.

When I'm not tending veggies I'm filling up bird baths and rehabilitating several areas that have suffered over the years - I think because of the change in climate. Bracken has taken over and pioneer species that loved the acidic peaty soil are being replaced by eucalypts. My approach is to observe how Nature is coping and help things along - which often means leaving bracken to shade young native plants and removing them later so the original endemic species have room to grow.

This year the old soak held water and we had to remove all of the fruit trees we had planted there, thinking the water table had dropped so it wouldn't hold water any more. Rookie error. We also realised the soil was way too acidic and that's why the fruit trees weren't thriving. It has been lovely to have this small body of water because it supported hundreds of tiny frogs, 2 families of ducks and herons. It dried up last week and we may not see water in it for another 10-20 years.

Last summer's spoils. Can't wait for the basil to get going again. (I didn't bake the bread)

The river mouth - where the river spills into the huge Wilson Inlet. A fair way from our place. 

Our local break on a small day.

The 55 km winter drive to work - mostly through farmland and bush - colours of the south coast winter.

Winter Sunday drive.

Summer is nearly here and it's warm enough to take bush showers again. My partner picked up the old trolley from the Tip Shop so we can move it around. Outside showers are so refreshing in summer and tend to be shorter so we use water more efficiently (and it waters the bush).

A Small Life

This is a very old photo of me - maybe 30 years ago. I was at a family get together and my smartarse brother was taking photos of me to prove I was 'argumentative' and not as nice as people seemed to think. Well hell I could have told them that myself. Anyway - this was taken when I used to drink alcohol and cared enough to try and look a bit more glamorous than I care to now. 

Because I work in a prison I am very protective of my anonymity. Although I would say 'hi' to them on the 'outside', I don't want ex-criminal-students knowing where I live. You won't find out much about me on Facebook and I cancelled my LinkedIn account because it seemed an obvious way to allow people to steal my identity. This group of photos has been carefully selected - no photos of the shed we live in or anything that could identify the property - but hopefully enough to give my blog friends some insight into my small life.  

When we were building our current home we stayed on a 6 acre property in a tiny cottage with a caravan parked alongside to provide the kitchen. It was a lovely time. The landlady was horse mad and we became good friends.

This was taken on the inside of the small cottage. Our little black poodle is watching the news broadcast.

But she likes watching cartoons too. This was taken in the new place.

Eventually we put the old caravan up for sale and couldn't believe the response! Who knew 'retro caravans' (this one was a 1970s vintage) were such a thing? Apparently they are very sought after and my partner was juggling many interested parties until some guy drove all the way from Esperance (about 800km away) to pay cash, sight unseen. It was a bit sad to see it go but the sale funded the shipping container we bought to use as a shed.

Watching the bobcat smash down small trees and bush on our new block was traumatic. I was in tears. But the fire guidelines are very strict in this country - especially since we've had wildfires on the east coast.

This was taken last summer and I am dreading this year's fire season.

Our first job on the new block was to bury our little dog Hamish. He was Mynee's brother. I hoped like hell he could hang on until we took ownership of the property. It was touch and go because he was very sick but he died shortly after we got the deeds. There was no way I was going to leave him behind or bury him on someone else's land. I still remember the day we loaded up the wheelbarrow (there were no pathways or roads in) with his limp little body on his bed, his favourite toys and the shovel and marched them along the firebreak to the spot I had chosen.

We got the main structure done by the builder and fitted it out in plywood like this ourselves. We had a limited budget because we didn't want to borrow from the bank - both of us are too old for mortgages and my job is too insecure.

This is the room I fitted out myself. It's my room and I love it. I bought the retro wardrobe for $30, built it in and added the storage area above. I also did all the wall frames and lining for the room, the floor and built the floor to ceiling bookcase. We kept costs down by doing things ourselves and recycling, but we didn't skimp on things like double-glazing which has made such a difference to heating the place in winter.

The owner of the property we stayed on while we were building was doing a lot of clearing and reno so we salvaged things like these really old bricks and jarrah fence posts - which I spent hours digging out. 

Even the interior was furnished with recycled things like the table ($15) and glasses from the Op Shop and Tip Shop. I always wanted to use artificial grass instead of carpet (which I think is very unhealthy) and you can see it here. It looks rough but it works and if it gets grubby - I can take it outside and hose it down.

I hate the look of modern electrical appliances so much I found this old TV casing at the Tip Shop for $30, bought a new, small flat screen TV and combined the 2. My friend thinks I'm insane but I love it - especially as the old  TV was used in the Aussie surfing, coming of age movie 'Breath' before it was dumped at the tip. 

I loved the TV and my room so much I did a drawing of them.

Next time I will share a few remaining photos I had intended to include here but think the post would be too long. 

'Chateau'

 

Seeing as we aren't talking about Trumpetfuck I thought I'd post a video by Angus & Julia Stone. I listened to this again on my way to work this morning and it's a great driving song because of the repetitive driving rhythm. Speeding through farmland with paddocks on either side it's also a good 'escape' song. 

For the non-Ozzies Julia and Angus Stone are singer-songwriter twins who were forging independent careers until they decided to form a duo in their early twenties. You'll catch glimpses of them on this video but they aren't the main characters.

There's more info here at the ABC - our national broadcaster. 

Another Conspiracy Theory?

Seems not a day goes by without yet another conspiracy theory so I decided to finish this and dedicate it to a dumb cause. This is how I see it - basically just meaningless confusion about what is or what isn't true, and everyone has a theory.

To demonstrate how pervasive this phenomenon is I will give you an example. I have just discovered - via my partner's relationship with Twitter - that Trump and Melania have contracted COVID. This is how the conversation goes in my head:

My first response is: 'Hell-yeh! I hope that fucker gets really sick'. 

Then: 'I hope Melania is OK. I hope they don't die - I'd feel bad and Trump would be a dead hero'.

But: 'I sure hope Trump gets sick enough to learn some compassion'

Followed by: 'Hey.......wait a minute. What if this is just false news? Trump is losing in the polls. He looked really stupid during the debate and his own party aren't happy that he didn't denounce right-wing extremists. I wouldn't put it past him to fake this, pretend to catch COVID, recover and come out a conquering hero'.

You see - it's impossible to know what the truth is any more. I'll have to wait and see what develops.

LATE EDIT: Obviously I'm not the only cynical one!!

Image 1: Author. Original idea. Hand drawn, digitally coloured.  

Image 2: New York Times, Facebook feed.

I Had a Dream

When I promised to do more positive posts I didn't realise how difficullt it would be. I've had several blog ideas but ditched them because they seemed too negative - so this is a bit of a compromise.

I watched about 10 minutes of the US debate-debacle yesterday because it was broadcast just before midday here in the west of Oz and I accidentally watched it while I had lunch. It was pretty much as I expected and I think Captain Scratchy sums it up perfectly. Despite commentators unsuccessfully trying to manage their biases I think Biden did OK - maybe because I hate Trump so much. Some commentators are saying Biden was weak but compared to the performance of the most ignorant, arrogant and stupid man I've seen on TV, Biden was a star. I'm relying on Trump to sabotage himself and I think, hope, I have read this correctly.

I know what happened with the 'popular vote' in the last US election but there are some indications that Biden might just win. I'm hopeful for a couple of reasons. One is the fact that the Democrats raised $4 million dollars in 1 hour during last night's debate - which is a record. The second is that a US commentator made the observation that in the last election Trump was the outsider. This time he is the 'status quo' - he is the boss of the swamp, the head of the institution that voters were rebelling against in the last election. 

I know he still has his stupid blind followers but somehow I don't think Trump's tactics will work this time and Biden may win. I think I dreamed this was true last night but that may just be wishful thinking. I'm hoping beyond all hope that my dream comes true.

Cartoon by Captain Scratchy on Instagram.