Branch Down

It’s getting chillier here as we slide toward winter. We had heavy rain and wind the other night and a large branch of my beautiful Silver Princess (eucalyptus caesia) tree crashed to the ground.

I had to get a friend around to cut it up with a chainsaw. This photo shows just a bit of it, after we’d moved it out of the way a little and cut off some of the thick part of the branch. It had landed on top of my xanthorrhoea (grass tree) and my car.  But the xanthorrhoea seems to be bouncing back and the car was undamaged.

The fallen branch had masses of white/silver gumnuts — so pretty, like ready-made Xmas decorations — so after I’d chosen some for me and a friend, I put more out on the nature strip, from where they’ve been steadily disappearing. Some of the clusters look like little candelabras.

Luckily the missing branch hasn’t spoiled the shape of the tree at all.  But there were masses of new buds on the fallen branch, so I guess we won’t get as many of the gorgeous flowers this year. (You can see what they look like here — and that’s the branch that fell down.)

Now my house is full of vases with the graceful twigs and leaves — it’s SUCH a pretty tree. The pic below is showing a vase between the temporary bamboo chairs where my newly covered lounge suite will go when it comes — hopefully towards the end of this month. And that little round table was made for me by one of my adult literacy students — he was 80 at the time.