Fremantlebiz - Paul's Letter from Australia

'Tis the time of the moon cactus

We had some thunderstorms and light rain pass overhead from the northwest during the night; the most recent wave being about 15 minutes ago. As a precautionary routine we pull the plugs on our computer network during these atmospheric displays. But now the event has passed and it's back to normal - all systems are go.

Our pup had to visit to the vet yesterday for her second round of inoculations. I'm always a bit wary of vets because they have plenty of ways to bump up the bill. But this one was okay. In fact she was terrific. She gave our Milly a thorough check over, pronounced her in excellent shape, clipped her nails, cleaned her ears and gave her treats, all at no extra charge. Apparently they do the no-charge extras with most visits, and their legitimate charges for the real stuff are always lower than the competition's. Way to go. Much better service than the other veterinary clinic we'd been using for the past thirty years.

Yesterday marked the opening of a new camping and outdoors equipment called Anaconda on the other side of the river near the new Ikea store. I'd made a mental note this week to stay away from both.

However the Anaconda catalogue had somehow found its way into the house and all our teenagers had become twitchy over the past few days - very, very twitchy. They persuaded son number four to drive them there last night. That was easy because he's into that sort of stuff too. My wife had also become twitchy and went along for the ride. I was left home minding the cats and dog.

They came home at about nine o'clock. They all had large sacks of Anaconda loot. There were camping blankets, a dog blanket, jackets, bags, LED torches, tents, folding chairs and aluminium water-flasks - I didn't know we needed so much stuff. Teenage daughter number two also had a sixty dollar box of filleting knives which she had won as a door prize.

It was at about this time that someone noticed all our moon cactuses in the back garden were flowering. There's not much of a moon at the moment so they must be slightly out of whack. Blame it on global warming.

Moon cactuses only flower at night; and only for one night. By the morning the flowers have collapsed and withered. Often we miss the spectacular displays. Usually this can be blamed on TV watching.

The manky plants are located in the driest, most neglected corners of our garden. They get absolutely no horticultural attention from us, which seems to suit them just fine. Our original plant came from my mother's garden many moons ago, and when they flower they always remind me of her.

Anyway I took some pictures last night for my Picasa site. Also a few of the spent flowers this morning. Check out the folder titled 'Moon Cactus.'

© MMVIII Paul R. Weaver.

Click here to visit 'dogandcatwatcher', my YouTube website.

Original still photographs are stored online in a cache at my Panoramio website or my Picasa site. Most of them have a brief description and a link back to a relevant essay. Images on Panoramio can usually be enlarged several times by clicking them.

About the writer

Click here to see our backyard.

Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally. An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz!