Appreciating Kangaroos
I wonder if the visitors to the area, who travel through Cassilis and speak highly of the scenery also appreciate the wildlife who complement the more static display of beauty changing through the seasons.
Driving along the road one often sees kangaroos and watch how gracefully they cover the ground, almost like a bird flapping and easing off and flapping. How fences are left behind with what is probably one of the most wonderful displays of athleticism to be seen in the animal world. Springs in their legs and they float over a fence. Effortlessly but they must also judge the height, otherwise they can get into injurious trouble.
Most of we residents don't really appreciate the kangaroos, seeing them only as a danger to our cars shape, or a fright when they appear out of the side of our vision. Awakening us from our reverie, and causing us to slow down when we are on a mission we consider to be important. Not realising that importance is momentary, and watching kangaroos moving along the side of the road is really quite marvellous and maybe we should take some time to enjoy the experience. Not unique in Australia but unique in the world.
How old is that apple tree, a five crown apple variety that has, for many years, been out of favour with the home gardener and the commercial orchardist even longer. Yet they are still about as a heirloom or heritage apple. How did it grow here? Was it planted near the grave whose gravestone it knocked to the ground with one of its large branches that broke off in a storm. The marble gravestone breaking into several pieces as it fell upon the grave.
Or was it just one seed from an apple core that managed to germinate and survive, luckily avoiding the teeth of sheep and only sniffed by kangaroos. Growing into a beautiful tree that is now somewhat gnarled and worn by circumstance as well as age. Putting it's arm through the arm of the conifer, supporting each other, and still it flowers and produces apples each year. We each would probably remember a parent or grandparent like that.
It's fitting to muse on this. Sitting at the computer as the twilight turns to dusk and it seems in mere moments to become dark. Sipping apple cider from Mt Markey winery and thinking just how decadent this is, when there are so many in the world under the yolk of hunger and the threat of bullets. Wildlife being killed on roads and so many things, less than desirable happening around the globe.
The stories these old trees could tell. Not only the apple tree but all the others. They would know if the air is less clean, if the rain is more acid or the soil more impoverished than it was when they were seedlings, just starting out in life which is the entire time from germination to firewood.
They would have been present when another baby died, or a young person was killed in Cassilis when the mines were working. Yet they grow and in each ring of their age the contain the memories that we will never be able to read and still they record the visitors who come to search for or remember a loved one. Or just wander round and wonder.
Five Crown Apple Tree
How old is that apple tree, a five crown apple variety that has, for many years, been out of favour with the home gardener and the commercial orchardist even longer. Yet they are still about as a heirloom or heritage apple. How did it grow here? Was it planted near the grave whose gravestone it knocked to the ground with one of its large branches that broke off in a storm. The marble gravestone breaking into several pieces as it fell upon the grave.
Or was it just one seed from an apple core that managed to germinate and survive, luckily avoiding the teeth of sheep and only sniffed by kangaroos. Growing into a beautiful tree that is now somewhat gnarled and worn by circumstance as well as age. Putting it's arm through the arm of the conifer, supporting each other, and still it flowers and produces apples each year. We each would probably remember a parent or grandparent like that.
It's fitting to muse on this. Sitting at the computer as the twilight turns to dusk and it seems in mere moments to become dark. Sipping apple cider from Mt Markey winery and thinking just how decadent this is, when there are so many in the world under the yolk of hunger and the threat of bullets. Wildlife being killed on roads and so many things, less than desirable happening around the globe.
The stories these old trees could tell. Not only the apple tree but all the others. They would know if the air is less clean, if the rain is more acid or the soil more impoverished than it was when they were seedlings, just starting out in life which is the entire time from germination to firewood.
They would have been present when another baby died, or a young person was killed in Cassilis when the mines were working. Yet they grow and in each ring of their age the contain the memories that we will never be able to read and still they record the visitors who come to search for or remember a loved one. Or just wander round and wonder.
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