Rain rain rain

Rainfall check: April 82mm, May 65mm, June 40mm, July 82mm, 2 weeks into August 70mm!
Its wet here, much wetter than 2008, water and moss is everywhere, but spring has been sighted..yep the silver wattles are out in absolute splendor, and everything else is rearing to go, all the fruit trees are budding up, with the peach trees already blossoming.

Recent plantings include:

Autumn raspberry
Gooseberries
Cranberries
Warrigal greens
Elderberry
Borage and comfrey seed in fruit tree mulch
Truffled English oak
Truffled French oak
Quince
Hazelnuts
Walnuts
- Andean
- black
- Chandler
- Wilson
Chestnut
Gooseberry
Nellie Kelly strawberry

Recently, we also got to try wild duck, shot down by the neighbors overnight. Thats the country lifestyle!

Silver wattles in the regeneration zone

View to silver wattles from waterfall

Area below waterfall

Forest across from waterfall

Waterfall fairy?

Even the small trees are full of life and color

Kangaroo fern in full splendor

Blackwood and moss

Fern gully #3

More Blackwood moss

More fungal wonder

Wendy just made it back from the waterfall

The forest floor rejuvenates after blackberry clearance. Native elderberry, musk wood and kangaroo paw trees are quick colonizers. In the open pastures I found 20 young blackwoods today, all munched to near death by friendly marsupials. Now there are 20 blackwoods with tree protectors around them, they should take off and help regenerate the first valley area.

Renovations and explorations

WE started renovating the kitchen...

The slabs are solid granite....

But 3 days of slog...

and now we have a fabulous new kitchen!

next is the living/bedroom space, owch, aching muscles!!

Luckily our vege patch survived the worst of a cow invasion...

We had time to explore the south end of the property, the native bush seen is pretty much all ours...the pines above will get the chop sooner or later...it will sure look strange...a bit like this:

This is the view from the south across the cow farm to our trees on the highest hill

In the forest at the south end are wonderful trees, mosses, ferns and fungi:

And some surprising animals...

Lets hope the shire will give us grant money to fence the cows out from the whole creek and forest area..

July update

Loads of rain folks, some 40 ml in the first week of July, coming off what was perhaps a dryish June (40ml total). Its lovely and wet up there, but the shed is now almost weather proof and we stay cozy by the fireside at night. Ginseng operations have begun in earnest. We even planted some saffron as a trial, but it seems like one needs 5 acres of flowers to make 500 grams of saffron stamens, so its not likely to be commercial venture!

Trial of Dong guai in the dappled forest creekside

More crazy fungi

Laurie loves the outdoor table, a sunny lunch spot in winter, shady in summer

Black wallaby in the pine waste

Our access road after forest thinning operations, much better!

10 year old American Ginseng, destined for our forest soil as seed stock

Land for Wildlife

We are now proud members of the Land for Wildlife scheme.

Lyre birds are in mating season and their beautiful songs echo across the forest all through the day.

The rainy season is really kicking in now, soil is nicely soaked, and there is alot of water in the creek and the dams. Tree planting in earnest has begun, in a couple of years it should look fabulous.

The farm is now on facebook too. Its just another way to network, most of the action remains at the blog.

Farm on Facebook

A large wombat spotted by Kle after the fires

More cool forest floor mushrooms

Joyous mud, this happens when logging machinery uses your access road

Laurie's Birthday weekend

Monday: Laurie turned 66, happy birthday to Laurie and the Queen!

and Yuko baked the best 66th chocolate birthday cake ever baked.

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We extended the shed, in preparation for a new kitchen development..

We took a windfallen gum tree to task..

Kle used a milling attachment on a fallen Blackwood, stunning wood!

and the Plant List continued:
Garlic
Kiwifruit
Japanese turnips
Our local Blackwood seeds are now germinating
Marigolds/Calendula


oh and there are several dozen wonderfully weird mushroom species popping
up all over the place..this one takes the prize so far