Working Bee Words: A big thanks and a rare event

Thanks to all those who were able to come along on a glorious day on our hill in the latest instalment of the Weed War. The weeders were: Jemima & Craig (and Lulu) Ben, Alison (and Ellie), Paul, and Tim. Brief skirmishes were the order of the day with a very useful mix of weeds, good/bad grasses and the odd dog rose flushed out. While we've had better starts to a day (we arrived to discover our 5 newly minted water tanks trashed by a freak storm on Thursday) we ended the session with a discovery (thanks Ben and nice to meet you!) of a rare Clover Glycine patch.



(Glycine Latrobeana) Classified as 'Vulnerable' under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972

National Recovery Plan

SA Fact Sheet

Atlas of Living Australia



We really can't wait to live on the place, build on what we've learned these last few years and develop a considered approach to bush management. Very exciting.

Next month - Alison, Steve and Ellie's place...

Working Bee Words: Emus and BBQs

The August working bee was at Justin and Sam’s place on the 25th . The weeders were: Justin & Sam, Lyndall, Alison, Paul, and Tim. We did an emu parade down the main/ most westerly gully on the lookout mainly for Montpellier broom. This gully has improved significantly over the years and is now well and truly in the monitoring/ minor weeding phase. We encountered some gorse near the northern fence line where we cut and swabbed a few plants, but leaving the rest for the contractor as time was running out. We then raced up to the hill to the house where we sat down to a delicious barbecue in the warm sun and marvelled at the rapidly evolving new landscaping around the house.
~ Tim

Working Bee Words: Spot the Landowner - James' place

Last Sunday saw a crisp and clear opportunity to get hands-on with some Gorse and Dog Rose at James' place. A beautifully chilled morning remained rain-free yet damp enough to allow for some easy weeding. Matt hit the place early in the morning before us stragglers arrived and his handiwork was left to be admired uprooted and hanging from various branches. With Tim down with a bug and Craig on light duties pulling weeds on the track with a dodgy knee, the Three Js - James, Jemima and Justin to go the hard yards. Watched over by a little bush Angel and a slighter larger safety-vested cattle dog the day was rife with exchanges on stand-alone solar systems and baked goods aplenty courtesy of James' preparation and Jemima's jammy baking. See you all at Lyndall's on the 29th!


Justin, Jemima and Lulu do some pre-pulling exercises




Let's play 'Spot the Landowner'! Good gorse hunting...




Angel playing the above-mentioned game




Death to Dog Rose




Lulu helping




You did say cake for everyone!?!




An Angel at our table...

Working Bee Words: Frog Pond Rescue!

Tim’s winter creek - yet to start flowing - was the site of Sunday’s working bee (Lyndall, Craig and Tim) in perfect weather for working in the bush. We noticed that the dry frog pond in the creekline was choked with the weed Black Nightshade (Solanum nigrum) so it was decided to hand pull them out to prevent plants polluting the water when they became submerged and rotted down. It was good timing because the nightshade plants were developing green berries, so we made sure that all the plants were disposed of well away from the pond and the creekline. When the pond fills up it will be good to hear the frogs calling again in appreciation of their newly renovated pond! ~ Tim

So a foggy and soggy Sunday turned into a beautifully crisp and clean autumnal afternoon. The gorgeous little winter creek on the high side of the track gets a fair amount of water during the wet months and with the H2O comes our web-footed friends. Unfortunately, in the interim also comes the dreaded weed but the recent rains combined with the gusto of a hardy few turned this...



into this...


in around three hours doing this...





The enemy - Black Nightshade



And for those who weren't able to be there you missed this!



All pics courtesy of Lyndall & Tim - thanks guys!

Lyndall also snapped pics of some pretty little flowers and this little bug dude - anyone know what he is??






Not to mention the other dudes...




A beautiful day of death and destruction by the few on behalf of the many. Lest we foliate.

Working Bee Words: Paul and Sugina's place

Good to see the great progress that is being achieved on Paul and Sugina’s lovely bushland block than runs off the spine of the Bull Creek Range.  It’s amazing how much the weed burden has been reduced over the past few years which will have the added benefit of significantly reducing the fire risk. It was a classic autumn day, great to be in the bush, with lots of small bush birds such as wrens and thornbills close at hand.  Four of us worked on broom hand-pulling plants in the western part of the property.  The leaves on many broom plants, though not killed, had been stripped off possibly by the larva (caterpillar) of the Glatigny’s Tiger moth (see image of adult) as seen last year on other properties nearby.  The caterpillars have disappeared, and although there were lots of butterflies around, they looked like the Common Brown butterfly (top two images), not Glatigny’s Tiger moth (bottom image). See also images of caterpillars taken on a nearby property last year in previous post...

See you all at my place on the 29th of April!

Tim






Photo: Greg Miles       http://www.climatewatch.org.au/species/insects/common-brown-butterfly



black and white tiger moth Spilosoma glatignyi (Le Guillou)

The clean sweep for broom

"Fern Gully' as named by Tim (good one Tim!)