Being rather tired on account of all the work clearing up after our disastrous Gippsland storms/floods I first typed ‘sheep hat feeder’ which sounds pretty good too – maybe I should have left it like that? During the ‘lean’ times of late winter/high summer stock will always ‘do’ better if they have access to some […]
I guess if you are anywhere near my age (worse luck for you!) you will know Dorothea McKellar’s famous poem, ‘My Country‘ by heart, at least this part: “I love a sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains, Of ragged mountain ranges, Of droughts and flooding rains. I love her far horizons, I love her
We were lucky enough to hike the EBC in November 2019 before Covid locked us all away from the world. We expected to have returned for other adventures before now and still hope to do so later this year or maybe next year. When Della was in Namche she bought this yak bell as a
Interesting thoughts: 15 Things That Were Made For Poor People That Rich People Ruined – so what is still good and cheap? PS: I am loath to make suggestions unless I get priced out of life! When I was a kid we ate a lot of prawns which were cheap because ‘toffee noses’ hadn’t discovered
The Gerber Folding Machete. What a brilliant idea! Length 15.1 in -38 cm (unfolded – about half that folded) Weight 18 oz around 500 grams. You can chop, split or shave with it, and it fits comfortably and safely in your pack (or on your hip via the included pouch) US$139 (Feb 2021). It is
(Della) Our lovely prune tree which we planted over 30 years ago has had its last crop. It has been sickly for the past decade or more and its crops of purple skinned, yellow-fleshed prunes had been steadily diminishing until a couple of weeks ago a wind bought down half of the tree, leaving only
Sometimes a post is too short really to suit theultralighthiker.com so it just ends up here on my old site instead. Here are some examples from the last little while: 5/02/2021: A Really Long Walk With You. Fifty years ago (this week) I first met Della, who has been life itself to me ever since.
Della: ‘This evening’s harvest of Golden Queen peaches and apricots: How beautifully they glow in the early evening light! The wet spring and summer has given us bountiful fruit this year.The blood plums were ready over Christmas and New Year, and the bulk of that crop had either fallen or been eaten by the cockies
Or brush cutter – also excellent for track clearing. As you may know we have been pretty much self-sufficient farmers most of our lives. If I can avoid it I would rather not use herbicides though this is not always possible. I doubt though there is a more effective way of eliminating blackberries from one’s
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
