Life and Wildlife on the Banks of the Murrumbidgee
I find the rocks around our hills to be beautiful. Not so much fun when we run into them in long grass with the truck, but otherwise they add interest to what would otherwise be a smooth and boring landscape. Our rocks are very, very old. Formed over four hundred million years ago, just as... Continue Reading →
We had to wait a long time for the soil to be ready to plant, this year. It continued very dry well into May. Then it went cold. Chilly. Bleak. Wet. Luckily the actual planting days were clear and sunny, which means morning frost. On the first day, the frost crystals were still visible in... Continue Reading →
When I look at our big remnant eucalypts I have often wondered how old they are. For many of them, they could be anywhere from one hundred to five hundred years old. Some types of trees I know to be much younger, particularly the ones I planted myself, or were planted by someone I know... Continue Reading →
I was quite annoyed when one of our remnant trees was blown down in a freak storm (see Death of a Giant). I'd hoped we could save it from a slow dieback by fencing and planting around it. Of the three trees we did that for, it was the healthiest. But no, the wind screwed... Continue Reading →
Is the method I’ve been using to plant native trees too slow? Is there a better way? I’ve just had an example of speedy planting, which if it works, will do ten years of my work in two weeks. Impressive. I signed a Forestry contract with the carbon capture company Greenfleet late last year. They... Continue Reading →
Back in May, our Chinese pistachio tree in the front garden was lighting up the house, with its fluorescent red and yellow leaves spreading above and below. It was gorgeous. A bright, flaming tree was also a reminder that I need to do more to prepare the house and garden for a bad fire season. ... Continue Reading →
This is my year for filling in gaps (not just in my blog, oops), but among my trees. Lots of non-tree things have also been happening, but I’ll fill those gaps in separate posts. First we had to go back and find the trees that didn’t quite make it from last year. I’ve now conclusively... Continue Reading →
It's been some time since I saw new wildflowers. The weather has been mostly lousy for visiting the best areas we have, Luckily, being on the Murrumbateman Landcare committee recently gave me the privilege of a walkabout in Nanima with the people most skilled at identifying all the fabulous things around us. Unlike our place,... Continue Reading →
I was lucky enough this year to get a small grant to put in thirty paddock trees through Yass Landcare and the Yass Local Land Services. The huge remnant paddock trees we have are both impressive and essential, for wildlife to move around, as well as for sheep to have shelter and shade. Many of... Continue Reading →
In a big rush, in the last month I like to plant (August), we got this year’s trees finished. 1200 in total for 2022. The final big planting day was both horrible and beautiful. Horrible was the weather, which was wet and windy, with everything mud-coated. Rain-catching coreflute discs that I now use instead of... Continue Reading →
Each year I worry I won't get my army of new plants into the ground. Each year it's a huge relief when the main planting begins. This year we were waiting for the new windbreak fences to be completed, so we did individual paddock trees and little triangles first and finally started the main windbreak... Continue Reading →
For my last birthday Craig gave me a new pet, a wonderful planter with insect-eating plants. It was made by his old friend Dave who has shifted from researching spiders to growing "interesting" plants. During the spring and summer we sat the planter out on the verandah table and watched as the sundews collected tiny... Continue Reading →
At the start of the planting season, I'm so excited to see my new young plants. I spend a lot of time sorting them, checking them out, figuring out where exactly I'm going to put them, and admiring them fondly. At the end of the season, I'm equally excited to see my piles of empty... Continue Reading →
While we were collecting last year's corflute covers and drainage discs down in last year's Big Gully planting, we found the young trees mostly well grown, a few bowled over by wombats, a few being chewed on by insects - those I'm hoping will provide food and attract birds in the future. The thistles were... Continue Reading →
After months of weed control, plus stripping tree covers among the Stinking Roger and Saffron Thistle, we’re finally into the planting season, despite being still surrounded by the post-drought thistles. My mini-forest sits outside our bedroom door reminding me to keep it watered and fed. Mini forest The retrieved covers are stacked high in the... Continue Reading →
Since the end of the drought there has been a spate of sheep and cattle thefts ("duffing") particularly by thieves using empty caravans to stuff suddenly valuable animals into. It's suspicious if an apparent grey nomad has a trailer that bleats or moos. That's not the sort of stock-taking I'm doing. With my mother's death,... Continue Reading →
When the whole world is sharing a pandemic, I thought it would be nice to share some of the beauty we're "locked down" with, including the dragon's breath sunset above. Our friends George and Rosie from Berkeley also gave us some wonderful long lens photos of birds and kangaroos, stars and sunsets. And of course,... Continue Reading →
Amazingly, we're done with our main project for 2018! After the bitter weather on our big planting a few weeks ago, I was worried we'd never get our whole Glossy Black Cockatoo project finished. Thankfully, Darren Menachemson and a wonderful crew from ThinkPlace plus a Greening Australia "Adopt a Plot" team came to our rescue.... Continue Reading →
After months of flu last year, I was very excited when Ben Hanrahan from Greening Australia offered help with planting our new Glossy Black Cockatoo area on the steep gully behind the house. It's been a dry year so far, with only scattered amounts of rain making the soil just moist enough for planting. Mostly... Continue Reading →
It's an embarrassment that when I see litter in our paddocks. That's because it's usually my own: one of my tree guards that has blown off and landed in the creek, or among the ti-tree, or strung up against a barbed-wire fence. But collecting them again is the easy part. The problem is what to... Continue Reading →
One Bend In The River 