We had a viscous cold snap a few days ago and it reached -4oC overnight. It’s not even winter yet, but locals tell me it doesn’t usually get that cold even in winter. Here’s hoping!!!
The highlight of May was a visit from my sis Mandy, Carly and John. We had a fantastic few days, went up to Mt Wellington lookout, had a few drinks in a quaint country pub, and did a lovely walk to a waterfall and glacial lake in the Hartz Mountain National Park, where we saw the most awesome mushies.
Carly and John spent an extra day with us planting out the dam to create frog, duck and wildlife habitat and help stabilise the wall. We planted over 60 native plants, including grasses, rushes, prostrate spreading ground covers and ferns.
We also made a really pretty path through the bog so we can walk to the dam without sinking.
The dam is filling nicely (Karim pulled a sneaky one with the hose!), and we placed a floating plant called Azolla in the water to fix nitrogen, feed the ducks and fish, help control the mozzies and harvest as compost and mulch. The water in the dam actually froze after that -4oC night though, and we fear the Azolla may not recover. The clover ground cover is sprouting well, which will support the new plants by providing nitrogen to the soil, and hopefully make the walls look nice and green soon.
We’ve taped up the sisilation in the garage, filled the air gaps and had everything delivered to start the fit-out, the wood stove, compost toilet, shower, kitchen, carpet and vinyl, pink batts, studs, plaster etc are all ready to go. The downpipes are hooked up to the tank now too so we can finally start catching the rain :o)
I attended a Sustainable Poultry Course at a nearby permaculture property last weekend to learn about the needs of poultry, integrating fruit and fodder crops, feeding options, recycled poultry housing, hay bale insulation for chick pens, compost slopes, using poultry to create and prepare litter for use as mulch and in the compost heap and worm farm and oasis planting with poultry. We also mixed up batches of herbal remedies and treated the chooks for preventative measures against scaley mites and worms, which they’re generally susceptible to. This should all mean that we end up with very happy chooks like these ones that will benefit a thriving, chemical free garden.
An organisation called Conservation Volunteers heard about us creating a permaculture site and our desire to teach, and have become involved with the project. It’s a government funded program that provides a youth allowance and training to school leavers that want to learn new skills in the conservation arena. A team of six have been nominated to work on the land every Tuesday for the next six months (there goes my fanciful idea of hibernating over winter), Toyota have sponsored them with a van and Shell with the petrol. I gave them a site tour this week, a copy of the permaculture design and a brief introduction to why permaculture is the way forward. Next week they’ll start erecting the wildlife proof fence, and then will help with other projects such as taking trees off the property and stripping the bark to use them as posts, planting windbreaks, building the wood shed and chicken coupe. Every second week they have formal training at a local centre, some classes of which I’ll be teaching them more about permaculture, and at the end of the six months they’ll have a TAFE qualification. One of our main goals was to get involved with the community down here, so this is a great start. They’re a wonderful bunch of youngsters and we had loads of fun, making silly animal noises and lots of laughter. Here’s some of the team creating mulch…
Another great start to community involvement was Karim donating the 350Z to the local PCYC (Police and Citizens Youth Club). The main goal here is to get local youth involved in doing up the car and becoming pit or support crew to race it in the Tassie Targa. About 170 youths from around the area attended an opening day in May where they displayed the car, and it ended up in the local paper.
And finally, my course work is progressing really well. The main focus at the moment is studying our bioregion, which has involved analysing changes in weather over the past few decades, doing water quality tests in the creek (including trying to look at tiny invertebrates under the microscope without hurting them!), identifying all the wildlife and plant species on the property and how to protect their habitat. This led us to register the property as “Land for Wildlife”, a scheme that now covers over 50,000 hectares. One of their biologists visited the property last week and helped us to identify the different species in the forest and the wildlife that it currently provides habitat for, including some endangered species. I also learned how to identify current resident’s habitat, and I couldn’t believe how obvious some of them were that I hadn’t noticed, such as these possum tracks going up a gum tree toward its hollow.
That’s about all (and definitely enough) for this month, so it’s time to relax in front of the wood fire. Until the next update, peace be with you friends!
The highlight of May was a visit from my sis Mandy, Carly and John. We had a fantastic few days, went up to Mt Wellington lookout, had a few drinks in a quaint country pub, and did a lovely walk to a waterfall and glacial lake in the Hartz Mountain National Park, where we saw the most awesome mushies.
Carly and John spent an extra day with us planting out the dam to create frog, duck and wildlife habitat and help stabilise the wall. We planted over 60 native plants, including grasses, rushes, prostrate spreading ground covers and ferns.
We also made a really pretty path through the bog so we can walk to the dam without sinking.
The dam is filling nicely (Karim pulled a sneaky one with the hose!), and we placed a floating plant called Azolla in the water to fix nitrogen, feed the ducks and fish, help control the mozzies and harvest as compost and mulch. The water in the dam actually froze after that -4oC night though, and we fear the Azolla may not recover. The clover ground cover is sprouting well, which will support the new plants by providing nitrogen to the soil, and hopefully make the walls look nice and green soon.
We’ve taped up the sisilation in the garage, filled the air gaps and had everything delivered to start the fit-out, the wood stove, compost toilet, shower, kitchen, carpet and vinyl, pink batts, studs, plaster etc are all ready to go. The downpipes are hooked up to the tank now too so we can finally start catching the rain :o)
I attended a Sustainable Poultry Course at a nearby permaculture property last weekend to learn about the needs of poultry, integrating fruit and fodder crops, feeding options, recycled poultry housing, hay bale insulation for chick pens, compost slopes, using poultry to create and prepare litter for use as mulch and in the compost heap and worm farm and oasis planting with poultry. We also mixed up batches of herbal remedies and treated the chooks for preventative measures against scaley mites and worms, which they’re generally susceptible to. This should all mean that we end up with very happy chooks like these ones that will benefit a thriving, chemical free garden.
An organisation called Conservation Volunteers heard about us creating a permaculture site and our desire to teach, and have become involved with the project. It’s a government funded program that provides a youth allowance and training to school leavers that want to learn new skills in the conservation arena. A team of six have been nominated to work on the land every Tuesday for the next six months (there goes my fanciful idea of hibernating over winter), Toyota have sponsored them with a van and Shell with the petrol. I gave them a site tour this week, a copy of the permaculture design and a brief introduction to why permaculture is the way forward. Next week they’ll start erecting the wildlife proof fence, and then will help with other projects such as taking trees off the property and stripping the bark to use them as posts, planting windbreaks, building the wood shed and chicken coupe. Every second week they have formal training at a local centre, some classes of which I’ll be teaching them more about permaculture, and at the end of the six months they’ll have a TAFE qualification. One of our main goals was to get involved with the community down here, so this is a great start. They’re a wonderful bunch of youngsters and we had loads of fun, making silly animal noises and lots of laughter. Here’s some of the team creating mulch…
Another great start to community involvement was Karim donating the 350Z to the local PCYC (Police and Citizens Youth Club). The main goal here is to get local youth involved in doing up the car and becoming pit or support crew to race it in the Tassie Targa. About 170 youths from around the area attended an opening day in May where they displayed the car, and it ended up in the local paper.
And finally, my course work is progressing really well. The main focus at the moment is studying our bioregion, which has involved analysing changes in weather over the past few decades, doing water quality tests in the creek (including trying to look at tiny invertebrates under the microscope without hurting them!), identifying all the wildlife and plant species on the property and how to protect their habitat. This led us to register the property as “Land for Wildlife”, a scheme that now covers over 50,000 hectares. One of their biologists visited the property last week and helped us to identify the different species in the forest and the wildlife that it currently provides habitat for, including some endangered species. I also learned how to identify current resident’s habitat, and I couldn’t believe how obvious some of them were that I hadn’t noticed, such as these possum tracks going up a gum tree toward its hollow.
That’s about all (and definitely enough) for this month, so it’s time to relax in front of the wood fire. Until the next update, peace be with you friends!
