This is my favourite tree today. She lives on my driveway. Eucalyptus camaldulensis, I think. Marri in Noongar. You can see the stains where she bled resin last summer, much more than normal in my five or so years here and my theory why is that the summer was so hot.
Red gum resin is a stomach calmative and this tree served me well when I ate the wrong mushrooms that time. You can see the roof of my cottage in the background. This crazy dancing lady has been around and helping people with their upset stomachs for several hundred years.
They may look ordinary but these two jars contain things that are really fucking yummy. For the first time ever I made sauerkraut (on the left). Look I'm no lifestyle blogger but making this stuff out a mere red cabbage and some salt, watching it spill out of its jars and then eating it a week later, is well, transcending. Pounding to pieces a whole cabbage in a cast iron pot to make a gut health panacea, whilst thinking of all the politicians I can't stand was an illuminating experience.
On the right is a jar of pickled yellow eye mullet. Again, a preserve virgin when it comes to mullet. I've smoked them, fired them, fried them but never ever pickled a mullet. We'll wait and see. Every year I pickle heaps of herring into rollmops, so it will be an adventure taste test with the mullet. I pickled them because a commercial fisherman turned up from the boat ramp a few days ago as I was heading into work. He had a huge bag of mullet 'and one herring with its head bitten off that I thought you'd like Sarah', to pay me back from when I helped him out with a flat tyre.
This is a photo of my dog Selkie 24 hours after she took a 1080 bait from down on the beach. She's still sick here. She'd just had her stomach pumped twice - once with water and then with charcoal. Then she was on a drip over night. Having survived, she gave me a rather smelly hug, being covered in her own shit. I think even she was embarrassed.
They bait everywhere here for foxes, cats and feral pigs. It's a pretty full on thing to live with if you have a dog, that sense of vulnerability. Being surrounded in national parks is beautiful most of the time until this kinda thing happens.
After two days and a shower with me (it was too cold to wash her in the inlet) her coat and eyes glossed up again. The night at the inlet without her, while she was on the drip 100 kms away, was really strange. I just got drunk, thinking about what it would be like to live without her.
The bottom track and me.
My new washing machine. Actually this is the first time I've had a washing machine! I'm finally in the electricity economy after five years off grid. Terribly exciting to do a load of washing in a fifty dollar twin tub. Whoo!
View of my clothesline. I told y'all this was domestic affairs.
X Sarah Toa
Mullet roe makes the best Bottarga. I am still waiting to buy my first washing machine and I will be 70 next year.
ReplyDelete...but it won't be a top-loader...
DeleteI do myself a jar of the red cabbage every month. I just call it pickled cabbage, nothing fancy. When others are patting themselves on the back for eating this that and the other, I just eat pickled cabbage.
ReplyDeleteDad does the same Rachel,
Delete(Frantically googling 'Bottarga')
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottarga
DeleteGlad that Selkie is recuperating, what an adorable dog. The tree is magnificent.
ReplyDeleteThe tree and the dog are magnificent. I have a whole new respect for both of them.
DeleteThis is great Sarah. There's something very reassuring about domesticity. And don't you love that someone's cast off, which looks pretty damn good to me, can be acquired so cheaply? We bought an old top loader washing machine for $50 19 years ago. It served us well with 2 teenage boys for years, and came with us when we moved house. We only got rid of it 18 months ago when we moved again and it went to someone with no money who needed it. Our culture is so wasteful but I'm happy to benefit because I don't care about having the latest appliance.
ReplyDeleteGlad Selkie is OK. Scary stuff. I have mixed feelings about baiting. I saw a healthy fox the other day with a small mammal in its mouth. I hope it was a rabbit and not a bandicoot. We also have heaps of cats around here and they are so destructive.
I too have mixed feelings. I see cats and pigs everywhere out here but the dingos (the only apex predator apart from ourselves)have been eradicated by 1080. I'm unsure of how to even frame this deliberate extinction of a species.
DeleteOh no I thought native species weren't affected by 1080! That's terrible. I think humane trapping and euthanasia is the best option though slow and laborious. I also wonder whether science could come to the rescue with contraceptive baits. Breaking the reproductive cycle seems the best option of all.
DeleteWild dogs have been mixing with dingos for the last century, so now since 2017 all dingos in WA are classed as wild dogs. Which means they can be legally eradicated.
DeleteI can't see any breeding programs for WA dingo. (If you see this please let me know where they are.)
Anyway, it is pretty uncertain as to whether dingos are immune to 1080. Mulvaney puts them as a recent addition to our continent, c. 3-5k years ago. People who lived at my place in the 1970-80s say they heard them calling at night.
No more now.
That is a handsome tree, for sure. And not enough of any of its aged kith & kin nowadays around these parts.
ReplyDeleteYou and Selkie were so lucky! I thought there was no coming back from a dose of 1080.
It's a long and complicated story Pipistrello. For a start, we are lucky to live on PP outside of a logging area, hence that tree's survival.
DeleteAs for the dog, the vet and I decided the dose was diluted by the inlet which is why she survived it. Or ravens carried it across ... we don't know. Hence my sense of vulnerability. The vet said 'take her on a leash next time you go to the beach' and my reaction was like, 'well it's her BEACH! She lives there!'
I hope your precious Selkie is feeling much better. You live in a beautiful place Sarah. That is a magnificent tree.
ReplyDeleteThe dog is fine Cheryl, so fine it's almost embarrassing, but very stressful at the time.
DeleteHi Sarah. If it's a marri then it's corymbia calophila. Your reference is for river red gum. Most of the 'bloodwoods' have been removed from eucalyptus to become corymbia. The calophila refers to beautiful leaves. The Walpole ficifolia is also a corymbia. Cheers.
ReplyDeleteThanks Cargo, I seem to remember that thing about bloodwoods now.
DeleteWe have a quite large specimen on our driveway. I doubt there is a more utilized tree, by wildlife, anywhere in WA. I have seen all three species of black cockatoo in our tree in the same week. One can see where possums have been scrabbling at the weeping sap. Cheers again.
ReplyDeleteThey are like a block of flats aren't they?
DeleteGood morning. Yes, they are a bit like that. They also make wonderful furniture and can be used structurally if kept dry. Contrary to popular myth, they are also resistant to termite attack.The very large specimen in my drive is also a constant supply of kindling. Next time you are in Pwakenbak you may notice an enormous marri in the main street, just north of the vet's. Considering it's locale, it is in pristine condition and I believe all of thirty metres. Cheers.
DeleteJust read this. So glad for you b oth that Selkie recovered. Its not common, I believe. Have heard sad tales of station dogs. Good girl :)
ReplyDelete