It is lambing time again here (Aug 2023) and it is so nice to go out and around the ewes and lambs on the hill to find they are all alive and well – none eaten by foxes (though we had one stolen by an eagle yesterday). This is why: our entire property is ringed […]
I faced a week of enforced bachelorhood anyway (as Della is craftily away) so I decided to take the pups for a week’s walk…Four hour’s driving later including a couple on bumpy 4WD tracks we gazed up a river somewhere, wondering… Who knows what wonders lie around the river’s bend? Delightfully there are a number of
You’ve heard the saying, “A cat among the pigeons”? Della keeps a whole cage of these white homing pigeons just because she likes them. Unfortunately so do hawks. They sometimes catch and kill one but sometimes too they foolishly find their way into the loft and become trapped. Then they get a trip in a
There has been a veritable ‘plague’ of Long-Necked Turtles on the roads around here lately. Perhaps it is ‘nesting’ season. Yesterday I ‘rescued’ a couple for liberation in our dam to join a couple of local denizens who after all may be same-sex. It would be nice to have them breeding here. We plan an
The slime moulds are out – at least that’s what I think they are. Or maybe they are a kind of coal fungi – who knows? Millions of things have never been classified. There are some really enchanting life-forms out there in the woods though , aren’t there? We admired a similar efflorescence on our
Nature Finds a Way. The Horsfield Bronze Cuckoo (which is what it turned out to be – first mentioned in this post) in our garden has at last attracted a mate with the calling which we were unable to identify for some weeks (al la Edward Thomas’ poem) – and here they both are. The
I was just doing some work clearing our new walking path in the bush up the creek behind our house yesterday (and again today) when this big guy suddenly turned up on my arm. I had been lopping some small branches with the machete and he must have been on one. Gave me quite a
Was once the bushman’s standy-by. It is usually abundant, enormously varied, relatively easily to take, involves little waste or preparation and is often tasty and nutritious. Of course much of it is also illegal. You will notice though that in my post about the journey to Cromarty not so long ago everyone used to take
I will not confess I broke the lockdown rule against ‘camping’ and took my Deer Hunter’s Tent up the bush for a trial run. It is always possible at my age to have walked so far (and with this trick knee, back etc) that I could not safely make it back to my vehicle before
What a wonderful ruin – like something from Ozymandias. Construction of this weir at the junction of the Mitchell and Stoney creek commenced in 1881 but the weir was destroyed by floods in 1893 soon after completion and has never been repaired. Two other attempts to dam the river at Billy Goat Bend and Tabberabbera
