Life and Wildlife on the Banks of the Murrumbidgee
A scratch at the door. The dog knows to come around to the laundry. Another scratch at the door. Finally I get up to take a look. It's the termite inspector. I know there are many types of termites all around us, just waiting to have a little chew on the timber parts of the... Continue Reading →
When trees attack they often do so without warning. A few months ago, a massive old eucalypt (I thought possibly a Blakely's red gum, but my identification skills are poor - or maybe a very large Red Box (eucalyptus polyanthemos ) in the crop paddock near the house suddenly turned into a crushing giant squid-shaped... Continue Reading →
I love work. I can watch it all day. For several days this year I've had an extra farm assistant in the form of backpacker Emil, who's been doing things that I've managed to avoid for months, but know are necessary. He meticulously painted the trailer, which got left in the paddock last year becoming... Continue Reading →
The problem with Australian summers is you don't know which you're going to have: a nice day on the river, dinner with friends, or an invasion of flames. We've had a hot summer, with the compensation of time on the river in my new canoe. Learning to use it involved lots of shouting, and... Continue Reading →
All those months waiting for rain in the autumn, and now we have too much. While the hills are green and the ground is perfect for planting, this year's fences are delayed because vehicles that try to get up with loads of concrete and posts are in grave danger of getting bogged. Or sliding... Continue Reading →
Even in the dark I can tell when the river has started to flood. I love to hear the normal soft rushing sound at night, a little like distant traffic. This is more. It's a freeway roar that means big standing waves crashing against the rocks. Big water on the move is magnificent. Whole islands... Continue Reading →
As I wandered outside on my way to bed a few nights ago, I noticed a speck of red light on a hilltop. A star? I've been tricked before by how bright they can be in the bush. A red star? Venus? Wrong direction. Definitely not a car tail-light, on the top of a rocky... Continue Reading →
Tree planting doesn't always go as planned. In 2011, before we actually moved back to Australia, I spoke to Graham Fifield at Greening Australia about being part of their WOPR (Whole Paddock Rehabilitation) program. That program is designed to revegetate an area of 10 hectares or more, using bands of trees and shrubs directly seeded on the contours.... Continue Reading →
One way to stop topsoil from disappearing from under our feet is to use loose vegetation. Anything from grass and weeds to big logs will help catch it as it flows past. The Southern ACT Catchment Group ran a workshop recently with Cam Wilson from Earth Integral as the expert advisor on how to make... Continue Reading →
Topsoil is that thin band of living matter that lies across the landscape. Except when it is undermined or dissolved by rain and carried downhill into first the gullies, then the waterways, leaving the water silty and the landscape denuded. As a child I loved to play among the eroding soil spires where you could imagine... Continue Reading →
In the last couple of years we've netted the most accessible of the peach trees that have naturalized along Mullion Creek to keep the cockatoos from eating them. The whole operation is worse than trying to get a giant bride and her veil through a forest. Four people were needed (one of them tall) and a lot of... Continue Reading →
The Murrumbidgee River is a significant part of our landscape here. But it's only in the summer that we really get to play with it. Charles and his cousins Will and Alex had intended to go out in our old Canadian canoe. I was doubtful it would hold three large young men. However, it filled... Continue Reading →
From our verandah lookout at the bottom of the river valley, it often seems that summer storms pass us by on either side. Whenever the weather report says "showers" I assume that means "rain for other people". We look up at the ridgeline of Adnamira and see the clouds tumbling past on their way to... Continue Reading →
Fresh, juicy, aromatic apricots are one of the joys of Christmas time in Australia. So I was horrified to see that criminals were in the garden stealing our treasures. I ran out shrieking swear words at them. Of course they think shrieking is just talking endearments in their own squawking language, but the running... Continue Reading →
The problem with hills is that when there's a fire, you can't really see anything. For one thing, there's smoke. Tuesday started with a rolling thunder and scattered rain. Lightning struck somewhere, but who knew where? On Christmas Eve 2012, while we were in Melbourne, there was a lightning strike that hit a log that... Continue Reading →
For the last couple of years the old windmill by Mullion Creek has been sitting idle, creaking a little when the wind blows. A plumber told me that windmill repair is a great job to be in - because they always need fixing. They have moving parts from the blades to the pump "buckets" that... Continue Reading →
This spring growing season has been a big one. Extra troops in the form of certified Angus cattle had to be brought in to eat down some of the extra grass. Now the pastures have all dried off in the hot winds, in time for bushfire season. Ready to burn. Hay and silage are ways of... Continue Reading →
According to Michael Pollan in The Botany of Desire there are plants that, just by chance, have turned out to be something we really want. Potatoes as food, apples for fruit and alcohol, marijuana for druggy highs. Those plants that we like, we promote and encourage no matter how needy and pathetic they are. We choose them... Continue Reading →
Weevils are cute. No, really. Beetles tend to be sturdy and a little alien, flies have those weird multifaceted eyes, but weevils are like the Disney version of an insect, with big eyes and a long ant-eaterish nose. We were out chopping and spraying weeds in a revegetation area when I noticed that many of the... Continue Reading →
There's a saying about fences. And it's true. I have an extra one: "If you want to plant trees on a grazing property, you'd better have good fences." Not as catchy. Only a couple of years ago I was naive enough to think that a few star pickets could prop up a fence with sagging... Continue Reading →
One Bend In The River 