Polish Man in New World

I must say that bush regeneration career I started much before I came to Australia : ) This photo was taken in Summer 2008: On my right Sulo from Finland holds trimming machine and on my left I hold Toomas from Estonia. Great Guys! It was project called "Summer Academy" organized together with Matsalu National Park. Let me explain you what it was all about: Puisniit it is an Estonian word for "Wooded Meadow". Human is able not only to destroy but also to enrich local environment. Wooded meadows started to appear probably before mowing was invented in the Baltic area. Multifunctional use of the land around settlements, where selective cutting of trees, collecting of twigs for leafy fodder, and grazing were used, in combination resulted in a quite stable wooded meadow like ecosystem already since 4000 years ago. Mowing by scythe from about 2000 years ago gave them their typical form. The old-fashioned meadow management changed local meadow into one of the world's ...

Today I am really tired. Good the weekend is coming. Today I ve worked my fourth day for Sydney Bush Regeneration Company. This invasion is a very big problem in Australia. It is actually disaster. The most cruel to native coastal flora is a weed called Bitou Bush (Chrysanthemoides monilifera). From some random several seeds which came along with the ships from Africa at the begining of XX century it developed into a huge community covering tightly 80% of NSW coastline. It removes every other native plant on its way. And our task is to remove the bitou bush. It really apears as a never-ending fight. Weeds are the only things you can relay on during economical downturn : ) So at the moment I am enrolled into two jobs in Sydney. Now I understand the value of the weekends : )

Everyday young and old scientists struggle to discover some extraordinary things. There is a bunch of scientific journals where every of them tries to get something published. It is not easy but there are some talented individuals who know how to become popular. One of them is Estonian from University in Tartu Ulo Niinemets . It happened so that I share one Department of Biological Science at MQ University with two Estonians . One of them - Tiina is sitting just behind me, we share the same room. Discussion is a natural thing. Ulo is her supervisor and i could not stop myself from asking her a question about him: How is he doing it? READ! READ! READ! We are packed up, stuffed up with loads of information on every possible topic. Plant ecology is not an exception. Before Gutenberg has invented printing machine a book was a rare thing worth a lot of money. Today we are paid to read them : ) because there is so many of them. The hard-working individuals who managed to get through mo...

= missing/craving. Today I won't write a lot because I am still ill and in addition I went through stressful and very long IELTS test. Let us listen together a guy who created a band in Estonia called Sun and this song used to accompany me almost everyday thanks to "SkyPlus" radio playing loudly in my ex-workplace in "Green Fairy" Greenhouse in Tartu: Refrain goes like this: Igatsus pole süüdi Do not blame craving Igatsus teeb head Craving does good Igatsus annab teada Craving lets you know Armastus meist inimesed teeb Love is what makes humans out of us I dont have to miss my Estonia anymore. I followed my Estonia to Australia : )

This Estonian music band of very beautiful girls was employed by Switzerland in Eurovision song contest in 2005. They are still very popular. Let me present you a song called “Cool vibes”: Today I felt sick. I try to fight with cold by any means. In between I have almost finished a book of David Suzuki entitled “Tree a biography” (cited below, p.89, 2004). It is very unique story which combines very interesting parts from human history and philosophy with scientific facts on life of the Douglas fir. It is amazing that very recently we connected flowers with sex. And it is all thanks to our curiosity. Forest is full of female egg cells waiting for male sperm cells (pollen) flying with wind or with insects. The plants which decided to switch to sexual reproduction turned out to be more adaptive to the constantly changing conditions. It is all about diversity. The genes are shuffled between the organisms like playing cards. The higher number of cards the higher possibility to become heal...

We just came from the eastern visit at home of very nice people from Canberra. Thanks Carla! After great eastern hunting, visiting Parliament house and national museum plus long talks with Canberrian I am all loaded with fresh informations on this region. Australian have build up their capital by themselves relatively recently. The spot was chosen as a result of the fight between two big cities Sydney and Melbourne (in the half distance between them). They both wanted to bear a name of capitol. And maybe that is why it is still very confusing issue. Since we Europeans hear more often about Sydney we can't remember what is the capitol of Australia : ) In Estonia it is clear. Tallinn is the biggest city and at the same time it is a center of political and cultural life in this small country. It gained its present name and status after IWW on 24.02.1918 -only 5 years after Canberra was given officially its name on 12.03.1913. In Europe the meaning of the place names is usually very sp...

"Teaduspark" = Park of Science – it is a name of bus stop in Tartu – second biggest town in Estonia. At the beginning of this month Gerli inspired me to name my post in her language. And two days ago, out of sudden another Estonian woman entered my professional life. She came back from Estonia to work together with us in our ecological lab. Is this world small or maybe I am attracting everything what is connected with this small northern country? So I decided to dedicate month of April to Estonia. Today I want to get off there at the Park of Science stop and answer to myself a question what science is for. Since Aristotle big work on life we started to produce it. In a course of time we as a human kind managed to collect mountains of knowledge. And awareness of this fact can be really depressing. Imagine people who speak about SLA and WD and their relation across latitudes. I have to read hips of books and papers in order to enter the community of my scientists and introduce ...

"An angry man" - today my cheerful vision on Australia as a country with helpful, nice people has just collapsed. Weed people are here as well. One of them loaded all anger into my bike what I left for a night on our underground parking. I found it next morning with both tyres thoroughly cut open. No reason. Evil has no reason. Since then I bring it to our 7th floor balcony everyday. It took me while to locate bike shop and fix both wheels with new tubes. Front one went broken again just few days ago. I fixed it too. Today after coming back from "21" movie I found my back tyre flat. Shitt!!!!!!! This anonymous angry man had to be overloaded with anger. I wonder whether my poor bike can resurrect again.

'Meri on soe' = Sea is warm (Estonian). Together with Estonia and some other 12 countries Poland shares a sea. In German it is called East Sea, in Estonia West Sea but in English it is called Baltic Sea - It all depends on point of view on sea : ). As I like to swim very much I had a little conversation at work on water temperature at Sydney Sea during the winter. My colleague made this face of frozen frog while saying that it may drop until 16 degrees of Celsius. Try to imagine his surprise when I told him that the average temperature in Polish part of Baltic Sea goes up as high as 16 C during the summer. And this is a peak time. Everyone goes to swim then. The conclusion was super optimistic - I can swim all year long in Australia : ) Today on the beach i met very few people. It is autumn here - 25 C 'only'. The water was awesome. I spent there around 5 hours : ). Meanwhile I had a big dilemma. I started to feel a pressure in my bladder. Toilet was very away. I reme...

It is downpouring for the last two days. I haven't seen so much rain in Sydney since I am living here. It makes me think of the country I used to live before I reached Red Land. Let me cut-and -paste an oficial line about it from my CV : ) From November 2007 until September 2008 I was employed by Grüne Fee Eesti Company located in Tartu region, southern Estonia – the largest greenhouse in this part of Europe. I was responsible for all works connected with growing the plants (sowing, planting, packing). I ve been biking to-and-from GF regardless the weather conditons, so I think I have a right to make kind of generalization : ) about Estonians. It seems that the rain is locking them up in their houses. They kind of worship their own solitude and silence. That is why it is a big event if I get some news from my ex-Estonian friends. 'Gerli on Eestlane' means Gerli is Estonian - Estonian who wrote to me after long long break, exactly at the time of heavy rains in Sydney : ) Som...