Dick's garden as seen in his mind as a watercolour (Dick)

Mike's Pith & Wind - The Election
I still haven’t checked to see who won the seat in my new (to me) electorate of whatever. (I’m sure there’s a good reason for having layer upon layer of names for each suburb, but it’s pretty confusing, especially when the electoral name comes into play only every two or three years). I’ll have to Google the bloody thing because it’s slipped out of my brain. That’s right – Chisholm. I discovered that helpful fact on my possibly still sitting member’s website; Anna Burke. She, or someone in her posse, decided to have a slogan for this election, (the Libs in Chisholm didn’t bother), and there it was on her ALP poster that I saw for the first time as I waited to vote in the queue that grumbled around the Mount Waverley Primary School yard. I thought it might have been more appropriate had she been standing for the Sex Party. ‘Anna Burke’, it proclaimed, ‘Active and Approachable’.
The afore-mentioned Sex Party was represented by a couple of likely lads in bright yellow T-shirts emblazoned in unattractive red lettering. They were wandering around the school yard aimlessly and apparently uninterested in proffering their how-to-vote cards to me or my fellow voters. I casually checked out my fellow voters and understood their dilemma – I was one of the younger voters there, and there were a number for whom it was clearly the last election they had to endure before shuffling off this coil to eternally praise the Great Dictator..
What these young men failed to realise was the opportunity they had unwittingly created by.. read more

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Dick's Toolbox - Gardening
A logical person would not be doing what I am doing - namely spending a lot of money on improving a vegetable garden in the bush. The daffodils may be blooming, the almond tree flowering and the neglected tulips stubbornly pushing through to the sunlight, but the cost of my vegetables is going to be greater than Harrods or David Jones on a price per kilogram basis. No matter: two of the plots have had their soil depth doubled, a new three compartment compost bin system of architectural significance has been built and new paths constructed and freshly gravelled. For the first time, as a concession to the local impoverished soil we have brought in several cubic metres of deep, dark soil enriched with mushroom compost and cow poo.
It looks rather splendid for a garden that was based on the composition an old.. read more