• Daily Life - Strine Tucker

    Saving Things For a Rainy Day

    It’s drizzling and miserable weather today, which provides a wonderful opportunity for an update as my customary lunchtime ride can be substituted. Lots has happened since my last post, but there’s little time to write about it, so this is a bit of a summary of the past couple of weeks. Perhaps most important is the passage of the first anniversary of my garden, Kangaeroo Corner, earlier this week. Amazing Alex, his mate, Mrs. Kangaeroo, my sister-in-law and brother-in-law built the garden as I was out with a broken leg at the time. It has since become one of the…

  • Daily Life

    Full Seed Ahead!

    Buoyed by the emergence of buds from everlasting daisies on Saturday and given the gift of desperation on late Sunday afternoon following a weekend of sloth, I planted the last of my seeds from Australia. With “budding” success from the humidity pods I have been using, I got enough confidence to try some different things with the seeds that I had left. Most of the seeds I brought back from Australia from my visit last year went into humidity pods last week, and the remainder went in by today: kangaroo paw, desert pea, golden everlastings, native wisteria and heath banksia.…

  • Daily Life - Unknown Nichigo

    A Seed Of An Idea

    As I touched on over the weekend, I’ve started trying to grow plants from seed and I completed the first round of the process this morning before heading off on my bike. Dwarf wattle seeds that I soaked in boiling water last night were the final group of seeds that can be planted in the winter. I managed to spread the seeds over a tray and put them in the humidity pod. Most of the work was finished yesterday after the ride. The process so far started in September and October of last year (2022) when I collected Australian native…

  • Daily Life

    Grass is Greener….Here, And Not On the Other Side!

    Kangaeroo Corner’s garden is about to enter its second spring, and is currently going through its first winter. And its grass is greener than could ever be imagined…literally! Although Kangaeroo comes from a family of avid gardeners, he had never really had a chance to do much gardening. Only an unfortunate attempt at a balcony garden during penthouse living at the turn of the century had afforded itself, with less than promising results that were later to dwindle away to nothing. Until Kangaeroo Corner came into being, and with it a garden. It was an ounce of luck, actually, as…

  • Unknown Nichigo

    Spring Has Finally Sprung

    Almost as though on cue, probably the most delightful time of the year in Japan–May, when it’s warm, dry, sunny and with the longest hours of daylight–has been generally bleak and glim by its usual standards in 2022. This year has been subjected a bit to the rule of law: Murphy’s Law, unfortunately. Still, amid a global pandemic when the vast majority of people around the world are feeling the pinch in some way or another, there have also been plenty of blessings. When the sun finally started showing its face with a bit of consistency as May drew to…