Life and Wildlife on the Banks of the Murrumbidgee
Barley (Hordeum vulgare) is an ancient grain that is used to make beer and many other useful and fun things. Barley Grass (Hordeum Murinum Leporinum) is frankly a nuisance. In the spring it pops up from previous seeds and covers the ground, crowding out many more useful pasture plants. It is edible (by sheep) while... 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 →
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 →
Thistles and brooms, ryegrass and goosegrass and vetch. The more I learn about the weeds that infest our paddocks, the more I find myself spotting them when we travel. Fancy names, multiple names, "Great Mullein", "Salvation Jane", "Horehound" and "Pellitory of the Wall". Some are clearly at home, well controlled by the climate, or insects... Continue Reading →
There's a look that weeds tend to have: often spiky like a thistle,;definitely fast growing; pretty flowers perhaps; obviously not delicious to sheep (so still in existence in a paddock);and setting lots of seed for example. Back in February I was showing Hannah Morgan and Charles which weeds to take out with a mattock from... Continue Reading →
It's that time of year again, when we happily send some young trees out naked into the winter. The ones that seem large enough have their wildlife and frost resistant covers removed, so that we can recycle them for this year's plantings. That's hundreds of covers to be jerked up, flattened and carried back... Continue Reading →
Farming, like nature, is messy. It's nice to see the smooth green grass of spring covering the hills and disguising the rocks. The modern golf course look. Unfortunately, that's not necessarily what you need either for wildlife or for grazing stock. Sheep love to have a variety of things to eat, including clovers, grasses,... 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 →
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 →
What an excellent idea, lilies that smell like chocolate. Or vanilla, or caramel, depending on your sense of smell (or lack of it, in my case, thanks to allergies). Something to make you smile, anyway. When I saw the first glimpse of purple in the long grass, I thought it was Paterson's Curse ( echium... 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 →
One Bend In The River 