Animals
Today I went to see what vegetables were available in the bottom of the fridge and saw that it was a sea of watery red chicken blood. The blood had dripped from the large plastic bag of chicken necks brought by Kirsty to feed Enya. Enya the dog is here. Three dogs takes it over the edge. Two dogs is just two dogs; a third dog makes it feel like the house is full of dogs. You walk down the hall stepping over dogs. Bertie’s wet nose just touched the bottom of my elbow. Other things to do with animals: on the long drive to Canberra yesterday to pick up the Subaru Outback (it was stuck there because it had clutch problems on Steve’s trip back from south coast camping), I listened to Natasha Mitchell’s All in the Mind program about the dreams of rats. Rats dream about what they did that day, but in shorthand, time-compressed form. What else can I say about animals? There is dog shit under the clothes line. The dogs have made the under-clothesline area their toilet. Enya barks all the time. “Enya! No speak!”

Plants
The crepe myrtle is in its last days. It’s a high-summer flowerer around here. Now it’s autumn and the little pink flowers are in decline. In Hamilton Street out the back, there are large green apples lying in the grass. There’s an apple tree churning out apples and everyone’s ignoring them and they are rotting in the grass. The leaves are just starting to do their autumn turning. Today is a gorgeous, gorgeous day in Bathurst. This time of year is Bathurst’s best. I repeat this every year. Enya just came to sit at my feet and as she did so she turned on the PC on the desk to my left. The fan is whirring away, pointlessly, having been turned on by the dog.