Life and Wildlife on the Banks of the Murrumbidgee
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 →
Grasses make my head spin. There are so many of them and I can still only identify about a dozen types confidently. About half of those are non-native, and the worst of them is African Lovegrass (eragrostis curvula). It was accidentally planted in the Monaro area, south of us, as a contaminant of the closely... 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 →
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 →
A few years ago, I went to a workshop on erosion control, which gave me a number of tools to use against soil erosion. One of them involves using logs and brush to make multiple leaky weirs, which slow water and sediment moving down a slope, allowing the silt to drop out instead of being... Continue Reading →
I know we’ll need all the water we can get for another summer of heatwaves, coming in just a few months. It’s also perfect for this year’s tree planting that the soil moisture is good. However, the flooding is beginning to become just a little tedious – especially the creek. When Mullion Creek goes up... 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 →
There's not much competition between a long-necked turtle shell and a heavy duty truck on a gravel road. Sadly the turtles (chelodina longicollis) don't know that, and set off as soon as the rains came looking for romance in alternate ponds and dams. This one I saw after dodging dozens of excited frogs flaunting themselves... 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 →
Suddenly, while I was still coughing and wheezing from the flu, spring arrived on the hills around us. It seemed as if every type of wattle and fruit tree began to flower simultaneously, even while the mornings remained so cold and frosty I couldn't step outside without going into a coughing fit. Best of all,... Continue Reading →
Brazil's coastal rainforest could hardly be more distant from a sheep farm in New South Wales. Yet I found visiting it both inspirational and helpful for my own plans. The rainforest plant life is nothing like our dry eucalypts and grasses. While there are a few ancient relatives of Australian plants, most of the vegetation looks as... Continue Reading →
The spy camera team arrived yesterday, armed with a big blue plastic crate full of gadgets, plus a couple of star pickets and a mallet. While the wildlife wasn't looking, Corin, Steve and Andrew set up three cameras in plausible places for passing four-legged traffic. Or wriggling snake traffic. Or winged traffic. I had hoped... Continue Reading →
There are lots of issues clamoring for attention in our world - war, hunger, climate change, disaster, death and despair. I find reading the newspaper a dangerous activity likely to explode a blood pressure cuff across the room. 'Nearly two years ago I got the opportunity move back to the family farm and work... Continue Reading →
One Bend In The River 