Life and Wildlife on the Banks of the Murrumbidgee
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 →
There's nothing better than a beautiful day out on the hillside, unless it's a beautiful day out with lots of lovely people planting trees. This year we had the wonderful team from Justin Borevitz's lab at ANU, along with another hundred yellow box (eucalyptus melliodora) that they raised from seed, genotyped and either pampered or subjected... Continue Reading →
A few old trees make all the difference when you're doing a bird survey. The bare, newly planted paddocks on Carkella and Adnamira were limited to a few species, mainly parrots (galahs,red-rumps, rosellas) and a small family of magpies. On a grey morning in April three ornithologists from Canberra Ornithologists Group (Sue Lashko, Chris Davey... Continue Reading →
We regularly see mistletoebirds (Dicaeum Hirundinaceum) around the house and around the hills. They're a flowerpecker with a taste for mistletoes. Mistletoes grow all over the world, not just at Christmas for romantic kissing purposes. Unlike the area north of us, near Lake Burrinjuck, however, our eucalypts have few mistletoes. I'm not sure why. Maybe they're... 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 →
When the wind gets above 45km/h every gap and crack in this old house begins to whistle. The walls are two feet thick, made of rammed earth, but many of the windows are single-glazed and rattle...a lot. Even the ones that are double-glazed seem to have gaps for cold drafts. The oil-burning central heating we... 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 