Here’s what you do when your town goes into a soft-lockdown and you have a list of home maintenance jobs that you really don’t want to do. Find an excuse to do something else …
I challenged myself to make a Bower Box using only treasures found in my garden, and not to buy anything specifically for the project, although I admit to one cheat, the wooden jewellery box which I had already purchased for another project. The idea came from a wooden gift box of gourmet goodies sent to me by my neighbours as a thank-you. I just couldn’t bear to throw it away. The blue paint came from a left over can in the garage and the lichen came from trees in the garden.
Inspiration came from one of my favourite books, Sibella Court’s “Bowerbird”.
(bowerbird –noun informal, mainly Australian a person who collects miscellaneous objects – that’s me!)
I’ve never understood why it’s so hard to find a dead cicada on the ground when thousands of them hatch each year. Surely they can’t all be eaten by birds? Anyway, after much scratching around over several cicada seasons, I’ve managed to find and identify five species. Maybe this year will bring me a Greengrocer to complete the collection. I’m almost looking forward to Cicada Season. Maybe not?
The pigeon skull came from a brown cuckoo-dove which flew into a window and was thankfully killed instantly. The rat perished after becoming stuck in a wall cavity. Both were buried in my compost bin, where the worms and bugs went to work. They didn’t quite finish the job, so I had to complete the gruesome task.
I wanted to include two nests in my display. One of the nests fell out of a tree on a windy day, the other is a fake. Can you tell which one?
We will be under lockdown for another week, so I’m looking for another excuse NOT to clean my windows.
A Bellingen Diary 