Blaugust 19, 2016: SPRANG

I hate hayfever. And now, thanks to Anthropogenic Climate Change, I get to experience it sooner and for longer every year!

Thankfully I have learned how to manage it these last couple of years, and I am currently experiencing a persistent itchiness of the eyes and feel like my mind is in a fog, but the sneezing is infrequent at most and this year I’ve even avoided producing so much snot that hayfever gives me a sinus infection! Most wonderfully, I don’t have a persistent little drip running down the back of my throat making me cough perpetually for four months. Progress!

In celebration of only being mildly inconvenienced, here are a few of the things I love about spring.

Superb Fairy-wrens. I love birds, and being birds, Malurus cyaneus are no exception to my love of birds. Although present at the nursery all year and always adorable, it is in spring when the males wear their breeding colours and really liven things up. Along with the other resident birds, they are very used to people being around and will happily hop about, not far away, looking for small insects while you shop (or work in my case).

The Weather. Early spring has some of the best weather we get. Still moist in an ‘average’ year, with warm days of 16-20 degrees and cool nights in which rugging up in bed is a joy. Good, comfortable weather in which you can get things done without working up a gross sweat.

Mornings. Over the next month we get great mornings! Daylight is hitting earlier, which helps me get out of bed and get to work. Sunrise is currently at 6:49 for me in Nairne, and I am looking forward to the latter half of next month when it will be juuuust right. We then get Daylight Savings cruelly robbing us of an hour, and making it harder to get up for another couple of weeks, but I’ll enjoy it while it lasts.

Flowers. Some of my favourite plants come into bloom in spring. While Hardenbergia violacea is coming to the end of its run, Chamelaucium uncinatum, Philotheca myoporoides, and all manner of Boronia spp. are kicking off with a bang, and the second wave of the Acacia species is kicking in. Not to mention Daffodils, my guilty introduced pleasure.

I'll leave you with some pictures I took when we went for that walk the other week.

 

Acacia verniciflua

Calothamnus quadrifidus

 

The view at Scott Creek Conservation Park