sustainablehouse.com.au » Bronte sunrise

Bronte today

Michael — Sat, 30 May 2015 01:31:10 +0000

Bronte pool, a calm sea in a calm sky

To Bronte this morn, there to throw myself into the pool.

Twenty degrees in.

Who could ask for more?

And that was that.

Joy in the moment of diving in, thoughts banished, flesh enlivened.

From Bronte to a tiny, tiny thing

Michael — Sun, 01 Feb 2015 02:17:27 +0000

Bronte on my mind, in my eyes and on my flesh

An almost invisible, tiny critter a centimetre long – a baby praying mantis? – on the table in front of me.
Earth gifts me beauty, silence, peace.

Bronte beauty this morning

Michael — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 22:14:25 +0000

Bronte pool this morning

Generous planet

Aaahh, love it.

Thank you lovely, generous planet.

Such a way to wake – first, the descent down the hill with a quick lurch of excitement in my heart at the sight of the sea, then the still-tired body’s walk down to the pool, then a dive into the water – brrrrrrr – then . . . bliss, empty mind, flesh-freshened fabbo languid licks of strokes through the water to the other end of Bronte pool there to pause arms on the pool edge and mindless the sea and young sun bringing the new day . . .

Bronte sunrise today, 2 August 13

Michael — Fri, 02 Aug 2013 00:48:59 +0000

Bronte sunrise today, Chippendale pollution yesterday

Michael — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 01:57:23 +0000

Bronte sunrise, Friday 14 June 2013

Last Friday morning I swam in Bronte pool. At 19 degrees the pool was clear amidst a clear sky, the light and the moment exactly like the moment Leonard Cohen sings of . . . ” There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in . . . ” (Anthem).

Diving in, there was just silence in my monkey brain and pure sensual pleasure at being alive.

But after the gifted moments I got out of the pool and considered the sea.

Then I remembered walking a few days before down the street in Chippendale where I live past four workers and a truck.

They were spraying poison on what they called “weed’s in the recently built garden intended only to clean stormwater before sending it away, wasted, to pollute Sydney Harbour and thence to the ocean I was swimming in. We use the ‘weeds’ to cook and make salads with but no longer from there but from our road gardens which we’ve managed to have exempted from the poison spraying. Chickweed that’s shown in the photo below and which they were spraying is a food used in fine restaurants like Tetsuyas and in our own fine kitchens here in Chippo.

I smiled thinking of this silliness as I looked out over the pool and the ocean; how else to deal with arrant council naughtiness? Cohen’s right here too where there’s ignorance – even in the spraying and the needlessly dying weeds-that-aren’t there is light getting in – you just have to go for a swim or breath out to find it.

Chickweed starting to die from Council poison that flows to the sea

Oh well, we’ll stop this useless spraying one day, won’t we?

Hang on ocean, we’re coming,

Waverley Council poisons our food, kids, insects and waterways

Michael — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:08:38 +0000

Waverley Council's poison truck and poison sprayers

Well, there we are trying to get on with our life, us and the little critters and along comes a Council and poisons things.

Here’s an email by Vera, a resident of Bronte in Waverley Council’s area, NSW, to her Councillors about recent spraying of poison by the Council.

Has anyone noticed today’s rain? You’d reckon it’d be doing some good, unless you swam at Bronte beach after the poisoning by the Council in the catchment above.

Vera tells me she saw a little baby crawling in the grass verge where the poison was sprayed today.

Hard to imagine a sillier way to waste thousands of dollars than that chosen by Waverley Council:

‘Hello Councillors.

I’d like to express my objection to the spraying of poison in general, and specifically in our street today.

Today I took this photo of staff literally hosing the footpath on the corner of Lugar and Brae streets, Bronte, with what they told me is Round-up.

I urge all Councillors to research the environmental and health effects of Round-up and particularly the other chemical components of Round-up which are far more toxic than glyphosate (the listed active ingredient).

Please think carefully about what is being done and ask yourselves “Has anyone ever died from a dandelion on the footpath?”, and then think about whether poisoning our environment is really a wise decision.

You can see from the photos how the poison is being used, and the inevitability of it being washed into waterways, soaked up by leaf litter, beginning its journey into our food chain. Children and pets play on the footpath, babies crawl on the footpath and in the grass on these (now) poisoned verges.

Ironically many of the plants being poisoned have been used for thousands of years as traditional foods and medicines. Purslane, Chickweed and Dandelions are on the menu in Sydney’s fine dining restaurants, but a man with a hose full of poison has decided we cannot eat it from our doorsteps.

Last week I found many dead insects and lizards outside a house in Lugar street (which may or may not be related to Council’s current poison spraying regime).

If Council has any regard for the well being of its residents, pets, wildlife and the environment in general, please stop this expensive and dangerous practice immediately.

Sincerely,
Vera Olbrycht’

Here are some more of Vera’s photos.

Waverley Council poison in the gutter

More Waverley Council poison in the gutter and thence to Bronte beach

As Roy and HG say, "When too much is barely enough . . . "

Support Vera, locals, little critters and email Waverley Councillors:

councillors@waverley.nsw.gov.au

May commons sense and sustainability return to Waverley,

Why do I love rain?

Michael — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 08:44:19 +0000

When I smell rain coming, or hear it falling on my roof, I feel happy deep inside.

It’s been like that since I can remember.

On the farm, lying in bed as a kid listening to it on the grass outside it made me smile. “That’ll fix things”, I’d think. The new green grass would be strong in my mind’s eye, and I couldn’t wait to see it. “Dad’s crop will like this.”

Rain then renewed what was around me and what our farming family depended on.

Even now, six decades of being rained on later, rain restores me, translocated far off to the inner city.

It’s the promise of growth. The affirmation that there is life ahead. The pleasure to know that the trees I live with, which need more water than me, may have a drink, their needs may be met.

Underneath all that, I guess, is the sense that food will be grown, bellies can be filled.

There’s too much rain sometimes, of course. After a dozen floods in 20 years my Dad sold his farm to try somewhere else. I know about floods.

And now we’ve broken the weather whole billions of us across Earth are being rained out, flooded to death. I know.

Still, rain makes me happy, even when there’s too much of it, like a drunk with her wine, like a river swollen with mud amok water, rain is ‘in me’ even when it can do me harm. Rain is part of me.

Why is that?

That’s a good question, don’t you think, with yesterday’s winter solstice behind us and blessed as we are this day with the first extra minute of the new, briefly longer day of sunlight?

And the promise of yet another additional minute to the day tomorrow?

May the minutes be with us all,

Michael

Dip in the briney

Michael — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 23:35:24 +0000

To keep up with the delish of summer that’s upon us I threw myself into the Bronte pool about half an hour after sunrise today.

Yum.

What's around the corner?

Here comes the sun

Bronte pool at 620 am today

And so it goes . . . , enjoy this beautiful day,

Michael

Bronte pool this morning

Michael — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 20:57:08 +0000

Bronte pool today at 619 am

Walked through some gentle rain, lured on by flashes of breakthrough sunlight out to sea, and then into the pool, 17.1 degrees, brrrrr.

The definition of exquisite: that first dive of abandonment into the water counter-pointed by the return of warmth after a few laps, topped off by the simplicity within after a few laps.

Earlier sun, colder water at Bronte

Michael — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 01:44:01 +0000

The sunrises before 7 am now as the days grow longer again. At this time of the year the longer moments happen in the morning, not at night – several additional seconds of daylight each day. Later the days get longer at the end of the day with later sunsets in roughly equal proportion to the earlier mornings.

But the sea is a degree or two colder most mornings, around 17 degrees in Bronte pool.

The photo shows sunrise at 6.54 am, 17 July when the pool was 17.2 degrees.