Just starting to sprinkle.  Was thinking this morning how we are slowly but inevitably contributing to the desertification of the Lockyer.  Yes, it rains.  Yes, there is the (dwindling) underground aquifer, but with continual land clearing and burning, the continual hoovering up of the underground water supply to irrigate the factory farms, it is turning into a desert.  If I had photos of our drive into town from 1991, when we first moved here, and compared them to now, the changes would be significant.  Little by little, slowly yet inexorably, patches of bush or entire swathes of bush have been cleared or burnt.  It makes a difference.  Having trees, lots of trees, attracts rain.

One hobby farmer down the road removed every tree from his one flat paddock so on the days when the temperatures sore, his cattle have no relief.  It beggars belief.  Doesn't need much in the way of common sense to know that cattle are happier and put on more weight if they are comfortable.  He doesn't need to know, and obviously didn't, that the trees he removed are legumes and fix nitrogen in the soil, all great for growing grass.  Tree prejudice is pervasive. 

But this is an old and battered drum I beat and no one listens because I am living in the wrong place among the wrong people at the wrong time.  Climate change doesn't exist here or if it does it's someone else's problem. 

Going home to the Tweed, and it does feel like going home, just confirms my ardent desire to move there.  Driving from the Tweed Art Gallery towards Stokers Siding or from Nobbys Creek to Cabarita I was struck by the amount of, the colour of and the lushness of trees.  Green filtered light.  How long since I've seen green filtered light?  And I didn't have time to stop and just look at it.  One day....

Edgar update:  He's eating better, seems a little less weak (head not lolling backwards so much) and I don't worry when I open the door in the morning whether he will be dead or not....yet something doesn't seem right with him.  Perhaps the weakness goes deeper than I thought.  Perhaps his screaming when we found him was the last hurrah before he died as it is taking a long time for him to recover.  He grumbles and calls when he's being fed but there is no crying out for food as I would expect.  Magpies that I have raised scream the house down for food.  He sleeps all the time and doesn't move much except to find a corner where he feels more secure and perhaps supported.  So, it's wait and see.  His eyes seem a little more open than previously and I think they will be blue which indicates he is probably a Torresian crow.