Maria Donovan

My last post contained a little mystery – the only puzzle this time is how come it takes me over two weeks to join in with Brian’s Last on the card challenge!

This it the last photo I took in May – the first three strawberries picked from our allotment. Since then there have been pickings every day. The fruits are growing sweeter and sweeter and I suppose we must have eaten a few hundred by now. All this from five plants bought last year; there were six but one died; the rest had many babies.

Strawberries are unusual fruits because, as you can see, they wear their seeds on the outside. When birds eat the berries, little strawberry plants are likely to come up anywhere and everywhere, readily fertilised with a dollop of poo. At the moment I’m protecting my berries with chicken wire bent over the patch. Maybe next year we’ll add some plants in the wilder parts and see what happens.

Here we are, and it’s June 16th. The solstice next week will be a turnaround point for us all – one way or the other. Time passes and in the garden everything is growing so fast now – with the help of our watering. It hasn’t rained more than a few drops for some weeks.

As for me, my main focus is the unseen work that goes into writing. I’m into the long haul of a novel, and hopefully, by keeping going, all this effort will also bear fruit (haha).

Thanks to Brian for hosting such a beautifully simple and inclusive challenge, to post your last unedited photo(s) for the month gone by. Brian is a wonderful photographer and if you go over to his blog bushboys world for his own last on the card post here you’ll also find many posts with beautiful and intriguing images. As he is in Australia, there’s a world of difference, for me, in everything he sees: not just the wildlife and plants but things humans have left behind. I have learned so much from just looking.