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Bush Cooking - notes on rough husbandry in the field
Essentials for old-school bush cooking: the shovel, wire grill, a couple of rocks, twigs of mulgawood … and six sausages I was...
yorkgum
2 hours ago18 min read
30 views
0 comments

A trip to Vallombrosa - a Tuscan nostalgia
Tuscan landscape – once tasted, never forgotten. I have been reading The Hills of Tuscany – a new life in an old land by Ferenc Máté ....
yorkgum
Apr 616 min read
104 views
0 comments

Granny's Tea Set - a link to our pioneering past
Granny’s tea set on display on our kitchen table in 2024 My wife Ellen Linda was tidying up the other day (as is her wont) and when I...
yorkgum
Mar 2410 min read
110 views
1 comment

Sugar Pine: yet another in the series 'My Favourite Trees'
Two beauties: Ellen standing by a shapely Sugar Pine in the botanic garden at Hamilton in Victoria, August 2024 I was ducking about in...
yorkgum
Mar 1210 min read
153 views
2 comments

Hurricanes and Rolls Royces: magnificent machines of yesteryear
A Hawker Hurricane: the very essence of power, beauty and dangerous purpose This is a story about two fighter aircraft of World War...
yorkgum
Feb 2615 min read
148 views
0 comments

Tiger Tales - ripping yarns from the days of the Raj
Tiger hunting from elephants in India, 1890 (courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum) Readers of these chronicles will know about my...
yorkgum
Feb 1516 min read
86 views
1 comment

Batting the Breeze: idle talk of the wind in the trees
The top 15 m of Gardner Tree fire lookout, the cabin open to the four winds “To bat the breeze”, according to the 1978 Dictionary of...
yorkgum
Jan 2911 min read
110 views
0 comments

"Snake Yarns" : scary tales from the bush
A Spitting Cobra shooting venom A “ snake yarn ”, according to The Australian National Dictionary, is “ a tall story. The term is...
yorkgum
Jan 1027 min read
166 views
0 comments

Four Days and Three Fires - fuersturm und drang in the karri country over New Year 1969/70
Big Brook – one of my favourite patches of karri forest ( photo by Jack Bradshaw) Any forester who has worked in the karri country long...
yorkgum
Dec 31, 202418 min read
212 views
3 comments

Mrs. Dance's Tree : a snippet from Western Australian history
Mrs. Dance about to fell a tree to mark the foundation of the city of Perth in Western Australia in 1829 – the celebrated painting by...
yorkgum
Dec 19, 202415 min read
182 views
0 comments

The Fire at Rodney's Farm: remembering the ghosts of Christmasses past
Ebenezer Scrooge with Marley’s ghost – an illustration from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, my first encounter with a Ghost of...
yorkgum
Nov 24, 202412 min read
148 views
0 comments

A picnic in the bush: life in the slow lane
A simple picnic coming up in Dryandra Forest: grilled chops, sausages and a billy of tea Picnics in the bush have been part of my life...
yorkgum
Nov 4, 202414 min read
139 views
0 comments

A sporting life: memories of momentary glory
The end of my Blackwood Marathon: I might not have come in first, but still had an astonishing victory over a world cycling champion. ...
yorkgum
Oct 23, 202410 min read
102 views
1 comment

A botanical re-enactment: in the footsteps of James Drummond
The beautiful blossom of the Silver Princess tree – watercolour by Frank Batini It all started one sunny autumn day back in 2017. I was...
yorkgum
Oct 10, 202411 min read
159 views
0 comments


Mowgli in the rukh: the precursor to Kipling’s Jungle Books
Mowgli and his wolf-mother - an illustration from the first Jungle Book (Macmillan's Children Edition 1983) The release of Disney's...
yorkgum
Oct 1, 202413 min read
94 views
0 comments

Intimations of mortality: looking over the edge from 35,000 feet
Flight path Perth to Darwin, 2,650 km, most of which is over no-man’s land. There is nothing like the death of a dear friend, or a real...
yorkgum
Sep 9, 20246 min read
150 views
1 comment

A voice from the past: 'Bub' Mottram's bushfire policy
Bushfire in Western Australia’s southern forests I had an insight, many years ago, into a fascinating perspective on The Great Bushfire...
yorkgum
Aug 21, 202411 min read
390 views
0 comments

The case of the "Spicci Log - solving a south coast mystery
Pt Conspicuous juts out into the Southern Ocean on the coast of Western Australia (photo by Jack Bradshaw) Holidaying at Nornalup, I...
yorkgum
Aug 10, 20249 min read
191 views
2 comments

Into the ice: an alpine adventure
The route to the Ice Cave at the snout of the Paradise Glacier: scene of an alpine adventure I grew up in the south-west of Western...
yorkgum
Jul 12, 20248 min read
178 views
1 comment

The Colenso Affair: a reflection on religion and science
Bishop John Colenso, as caricatured in Punch magazine. One of the saddest stories I have read in recent years concerned the resignation...
yorkgum
Jul 3, 20249 min read
353 views
4 comments
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