Life and Wildlife on the Banks of the Murrumbidgee
It's amazing how projects grow. I wanted water for my vegie garden. I wanted a gravity feed water tank that would allow intermittent use of drippers and taps that tend to freak out our heavy-duty sprinkler pump. The result, so far, is 550 metres of pipes and two rock walls. Somehow I thought, when I... Continue Reading →
A cattle ramp is the first thing you see when you enter most farms. They're easy to drive over, when they're not buckled and bent by huge trucks, but they're not always great at keeping sheep and cattle from crossing. The old entry ramp at Esdale was particularly bad. It was strong. No truck could... Continue Reading →
Months ago, we arranged for some work to be done on the access tracks on both sides of the river. I hoped to have them done in time for tree-planting and fencing, to save us all bumping and slithering over quite so many boulders, and allowing Andrew and Frank to round up their stock in... Continue Reading →
We are now keeping a tropical bathroom for our new chicks. It's a good thing Mum's not here as I don't think she'd appreciate having to share with little squeaking creatures however cute they are. Most of the chickens available at this time of the winter are the crossbred Isa Browns which lay constantly... Continue Reading →
We went out yesterday hoping that it was the perfect day for a small bushfire. We've had a dry couple of weeks, and rain was predicted for the evening. Lovely. I wanted to set fire to some grass in a small enclosure on a windy ridge that Mum had made about ten years ago. It... Continue Reading →
In some places people find entertainment in running up to a sleeping cow and tipping her over. Round here, instead, we like to tip our tanks over. Especially the empty ones that are leaking and need mending.We use tanks for house water, garden water and stock water, filling them from the creek, or the river,... Continue Reading →
One aspect of living outside a town is that you have to drive to get anywhere else. From being a one-car family with a lovely efficient Toyota Prius and several bicycles, we now have three cars, one of them a utility truck with a useful tray that we use on a daily basis. The... Continue Reading →
I'm unreasonably excited that we've been able to make use of an old gate that has been sitting down near the woolshed for nearly fifty years. When Mum bought the farm Adnamira in January 1967, there were strange items lying all over the place. The previous owner was a bit of a jackdaw who loved... Continue Reading →
Not so long ago I woke up to the sound of the dogs barking frantically at an echidna. They seem to take something about the way a spiny anteater moves as an affront to reality. The little heaves among the sharp spines it makes as each leg moves forward are an insult, as is the... Continue Reading →
One Bend In The River 