Australia · clouds · fiction · Mount Warning · native Australian birds · quotes · reading · spring · sunrise · sunset · Tweed Valley

The Misty Mountains

Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away ere break of day
To seek the pale enchanted gold.
~~ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit.

The mist is below the mountain actually, but what a glorious sight it is! I’ve been looking forward to daylight savings so I could rise an hour earlier, which at 5:30am – in real “Earth” time, even though the clock says it’s 6:30 – is right on sunrise. It’s a magical time of day, when the valley has an atmosphere of belonging to another world at the break of day.

I haven’t heard of any dungeons in the valley or the mountain ranges, but I’m sure many “caverns old” could be discovered there.

If only the kookaburras could talk, they could tell the tales of caverns they have discovered in the valley.

Looking east towards the coast as the sun was rising, I could see the clouds catching glimmers of sunlight – more magic!

There are no dragons from Middle Earth guarding this “pale enchanted gold” at the end of the day, just the sparkling lights in the sleepy town below. 🙂

Australia · butterflies · clouds · garden flowers · in my garden · Mount Warning · native Australian birds · photography · spring · subtropical weather · Tweed Valley

Another Garden Wander

Just this one strip of mist lay in the valley this morning. The mountain sits to the south-west of the back of my house, and directly to the south the valley looked completely clear and sparkling green. We had rain overnight, hence the vivid greenery. I didn’t take any more photos today, because the clouds rolled in and we have rain again. It’s just as well I took some photos around my front garden yesterday.

I think I first saw Queen Anne’s Lace on my blogging friend Robin’s old blog, Bogs of Ohio. Robin started a new blog when she moved from Ohio in 2013. Gosh was it that long ago? Well, after all these years I’ve finally planted some Queen Anne’s Lace, which I’m sure Robin told me can get out of hand if I don’t keep an eye on it. It’s looking very pretty and well contained right now.

This white Buddleia is less than a year old and already it is about a meter tall and covered in flowers. The flowers are supposed to attract bees and butterflies, and as you can see, it is doing well in the butterfly department. At first I thought this could be a cabbage moth, but it’s actually a Female Brimstone.

A little Noisy Miner dropped by to say hello during my wandering around the garden. I’m sure it had something in its beak, but it didn’t sit long enough for me to see what it was. We’ve hung the little bird dishes on the chain wire fence for some Eastern Rosellas that we often see on the fence where the Miner is sitting, with some seed and water in. I think they may have a nest nearby.

I still don’t know what this plant is called, but it’s covered in pretty white flowers. It’s been in flower for a few weeks now and the flowers are growing bigger and more prolific every week.

The daisies are growing well too! I love this lilac colour in the garden.

The flowers on the Callistemon tree, or Bottle Brush as we like to call it, are maturing well, much to the delight of the birds. We planted this tree as a tiny plant about twenty-five years ago and now we have to trim the top back every year to keep it from growing too tall and hitting the gutters of the house.

My Spanish Moss is very special to me. My mum gave me this, and she’s been gone for twenty-seven years now. Over the years I have started up new collections of the plant by draping it over tree branches, but this one is the original. It’s crowed by some of my mother-in-law’s orchid plants at the moment! To the right, one of my Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, or Brunfelsia, shrubs is covered in flowers too. That’s another plant I have to prune to keep control of, as it grows so vigorously in our subtropical climate.

I’m so proud of my potted Fuchsia! It is thriving just now on my front veranda and the flowers look incredibly healthy. I think it enjoys the drink of seaweed solution I feed it every fortnight.

And finally, this is the lavender that I didn’t think would survive. It’s planted under a tree near the front boundary of my garden and was over-run with weeds up until two weekends ago when I tidied the area. Since then, it has burst into flower again! I think it could be Italian Lavender, but I’m not one-hundred percent sure.

Tomorrow, weather permitting, I plan on spending the day in the garden. There’s a bit more weeding to do, some pruning to finish before summer arrives, a vegetable garden to organise, and a few new plants that arrived by mail order that I need to get planted. 🙂

Australia · in my garden · Mount Warning · native Australian birds · palm trees · photography · spring · Tweed Valley

Mist in the valley and birds in the palms

This morning I awoke to find the valley floor had disappeared beneath a beautiful layer of misty-ocean. This alternate view looked spectacular and even more so now the weather is warming. I know our misty valley mornings are limited this year.

There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the sun shone across the mountain, revealing nooks and crannies which could be seen from afar.

The greenery in my garden stood stark against the blueness of the sky and whiteness of the mist, like two different worlds melded into one.

Way across the other side of the valley, the only evidence of the sugar cane mill was the steam escaping from the mill chimney.

A few birds dropped by to admire the misty ocean too. This little guy in the palm tree is an adult honeyeater. Juvenile honeyeaters have yellow around their eyes which progressively turns bright blue by the time they are around eighteen-months old.

Just as the honeyeater flitted away, a kookaburra landed in the same place on the palm. Both rummaged around inside the cup-base of a partly fallen palm leaf, so I suspect they found water from our recent rain caught inside the leaf.

Shortly after the sun had burned away the mist, I looked out just in time to see two female figbirds munching on juicy red berries on a different palm tree. I couldn’t go too close to take the photo because figbirds are pretty shy little birds.

When I took a break from my assignment writing at around midday, I took a walk in my front garden, taking photos of new flowers as I walked around. When I downloaded the photos I was pretty surprised to find I’d taken over one-hundred photos! Hopefully I will have finished my assignment by late tomorrow, so I’ll choose my favourites from today and add them tomorrow.

My garden is looking really lovely just now. I need to finish my assignment so I can spend the weekend out doors! 🙂

Australia · Changes · clouds · Mount Warning · palm trees · photography · spring · Tweed Valley

All in a day

At 6:30 am today, the mist was so thick it had blocked the view of everything beyond the palm trees in my garden. And the mist appearing after another warmish night convinces me that what I am seeing must be some form of condensation vapours rising from the damp earth. I had to wait for almost an hour before the mist had cleared enough to take photos of the valley. By that time, the sun had risen, casting shadows across the large stems of the palms, yet the flimsy, misty clouds continued their dance below the mountain.

The sleeping giant, Mount Warning, caught a few dainty clouds too.

I sat at my computer the whole morning, continuing work on assignments, and when I paused for a break just after midday I saw that thick clouds had rolled in across the valley. The afternoon view looked so different to the morning, so it was time for another photo.

Tonight, as I closed the curtains, I noticed the sky had tuned a pretty orange colour. It’s quite a dark photo, but clearly shows the outline of the mountain and ranges against the tinted nighttime sky. And once again there were clouds lingering over the mountain, more than this morning, but less than at midday.

No wonder they call the Tweed Valley the Valley of Contrasts.