Spring in Australia

Spring has finally come to Australia. After a long and cold winter, here it is! Even though winter in Australia is nowhere near cold and should be called not-summer (as my friend G would say), I have a feeling people have had enough of rain and cold.

The temperatures here don't go lower than 2 degrees Celcius or so, but because there's no heating and the isolation is quite bad, it gives you the chills all right. After three weeks of pretty much crappy weather in Croatia, I came back to the Western Australian spring, to pretty much similar weather.

According to the Noongar cycle (Noongar are the native tribe in present-dayPerth and its surroundings), we're in the middle of Djilba over here, which runs through August and September, and is described as a mixture of wet days with increasing number of clear, cold nights and pleasant warmer days. The Noongar calendar has six seasons, rather than the four that were imported by European settlers.

I found a news article that says:

...intriguingly, it's not the calendar, or even necessarily the prevailing weather, that largely determines the Noongar seasons. Rather, it's the emergence of various plants and animals that dictate how and where traditional owners would have gathered their food.

Professor Len Collard, a researcher at the University of WA's School of Indigenous Studies, says that the Djilba season literally translates as the 'grassy time', when the preceding months of rainfall are reflected in the wealth of vegetation now growing. In turn, that paves the way for Kumbarang, or the "time of plenty", when young birds are fledging and wildlife is abundant.

Traditionally, Noongars would have relied on this kind of seasonal knowledge to inform their hunter-gathering strategies. For instance, rainy weather means kangaroos have higher levels of worms, which makes kangaroo-hunting a bad idea at this time of year. Similarly, emu eggs will have already passed the edible stage. In short, "nature governs", Professor Collard said. Although few people live hunter-gatherer lifestyles today, the principle could also help to teach us how to fish or hunt in a sustainable way, he added.

For instance, "it's not in our interest to be killing the mother duck while she's sitting on the eggs, because then the eggs might not survive and we won't have as many ducks the next year".

The Noongar seasons may also be better at highlighting the changes to our environment being wrought by climate change, Mr Cook said.

Check the link for the complete article: http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/lovely-djilba-weather-were-having-a-guide-to-the-noongar-seasons-20130911-2tkm7.html#ixzz2gobA1cQv.

Lovely, isn't it? And so simple. It makes me think...

I'm lying in my bed, lazying around on a Saturday morning, and the blinds are down. I know it's shitty weather outside again. It's not about the clouds and the rain, but the wind. It blows through your bones. Cold winds blowing from the south make me not wanna go out, but hide under the covers.

But here's a couple of spring photos. Walking to work, I run into these crazy little flowers and amazing blooms, some of which I've never seen before. Enjoy!

Also, I finally planted a little herb garden on my balcony, and already had some rocket, basil and chives in my food. Yum!

And a couple more photos of spring life...