The Colours of Spring.

One of the joys of living in the Granite Belt is that here we can tick off the seasons, in sequence.

I know that a lot of lucky people have this experience, but until we moved here, all that I'd known, in Brisbane, were coolish winters and hot, humid summers.
Spring and Autumn never loomed large on my seasonal radar--they were there somewhere, ill-defined. Not clearly recognisable.
Here we can actually see the signs of the seasons, and I love this natural sequence.

Officially Spring is still a day or two away, but around me I can see signs that it has arrived.

The colours of the Spring blossoms are beautiful. There is a LOT of PINK!

Our deciduous Magnolias are in bloom, with their goblet-shaped flowers. Glorious.

And our neighbouring farmer has paddocks of pink as his Nectarine trees are bursting into blossom.

The blossoms are delicate in both colour and appearance.

The Prunus ( above) is more of a reddish hue, and adds more vibrancy to the scene.

And the Wattle (Acacia amoena) is out. All over the Stanthorpe area there are patches of yellow and gold from the wattle trees.  It is very beautiful.

Trees like this are scattered everywhere, and provide that vivid spalsh of bright yellow. Fantastic!

And add a splash of colour with bright orange Calendulas.

Now to the other end of the spectrum, just for contrast.

The Irises are a brilliant blue, almost purple, as are the Violets.

And last, but not least, there's a lot of white foliage about.

In the garden we have jonquils.

                                  

Also, we have an Almond tree which, in the Spring, is a picture, covered with white flowers.
When you stand near it, all you can hear is the drone of buzzing bees. The blossoms must be rich in nectar.

And there are other white patches about the area because the plum trees are in bloom, as are the Manchurian Pear trees.

And apple blossoms are white too.

 

So there are some of the colours of Spring, here at our farm.

Not the complete spectrum, but a colourful palette none the less.

Did you enjoy the photos?

The End of Winter Burn-Offs

Here, as in many farming districts in Australia, a controlled burn-off is a necessary part of farming.

After the wet summer we had, the growth of grasses was rapid and prolific.
Then came winter with its cold weather and early morning frosts, killing off all the grass. Where it was once lush green land was now brown and dry. A veritable tinder box.

The photo above shows a section of our property, all brown and dry.
The dead vegetation becomes a fuel-load for the farm, and if a bushfire went through it would burn ferociously. So burn-offs are absolutely necessary.

Burn-offs are not done lightly.
Permission must be obtained from the Rural Fire Brigade.
Fire breaks must be made.
Extra helping hands must be asked to attend.

Then, taking the weather conditions into account,(e.g.it can't be windy) the fire is started.
It is usually done in the late afternoon, and I find it exciting to watch, and hear, and smell.

The flames are so bright, and the fire roars as it progresses. And the smell always reminds me of sitting around campfires....wonderful memories evoked by the burn-offs.
However, from a controlled burn-off, I can also appreciate how a huge bushfire could be absolutely terrifying. The sight and sounds would be frightening.

The photos below are of a controlled burn-off in a neighbour's property two weeks ago.

At night, the embers still glow.

The next day the land is black,and the dead vegetation, the fire hazard, has gone.
With the next shower of rain the burnt remains are recycled into the ground.
Not quite a slash-and-burn economy, but a very good imitation of methods used for millenia.

The Chook Story: Part 2

I think that this will be the last Blog on our chooks, but I did say, in my last account, that there were downsides to free-range chooks.

It covered the free-range chooks' downside i.e. consumed by wily predators.

The other downside is from our point of view.....the constant and ever-changing search for the eggs. We have to be "egg detectives"

So can you guess the rest of the story?

Our current chooks, numbering 2 (one died of unknown causes) have been trying to outwit us re their eggs.

Do they use the upmarket, stylish laying box provided in their pen? Have they got something against laying eggs in a cut-down plastic 20 litre container?

It seems as if they have.  If we can't collect eggs, we can't keep chooks....or so we say.  And if they don't lay eggs where they should, we have to find them.

After serious detective work, involving following the chooks around the yard at a discreet distance, we found their first outdoor nest.  It was under the stairs (of an old Queenslander house i.e. on stilts) in a lily. Yes, that's correct. In a plant. They'd obviously squirmed around until they'd created a bowl-shaped indentation in the lily plant, and there they laid their eggs.

We were very pleased to have discovered their hide-out.
We were too smug, too soon.

After collecting eggs from there over the next week, suddenly there were none. Yes, they'd obviously outwitted us, and had found another spot.

There followed a repeat of us letting the chooks out of their pen,then following them around the yard, all the time trying to appear nonchalant!  (Can't let a pair of birds work out that we were tracking them!)

Their 2nd "nest" we found in a shed, at ground level, in a pile of straw.
We again collected eggs from there for about another week, when, as you've guessed, they upped camp and moved on. Beaten again by chooks!

Repeat the detective work.
Their new nest is on the tank stand, which is covered with creepers. To a chook, it must be like laying an egg in a tropical rainforest.
They have to flap their wings to get up to tank stand level...about a metre above ground. This is not quite up to our "flying chooks" standards, but a sort of minor levitation.

This time we have left 2 eggs in their nest, hoping to convince these birds that we have not found their secret cache. The eggs are marked, so that we know to only collect the recently laid offerings.
In the first photo you can see, amid the greenery of creepers and vines, the old eggs with the identifying black marks.

The photo below shows our current poultry population of 2 beautiful hens, freely roaming the yard, and probably plotting, in chook-talk, how they'll bamboozle us next!

      That will be the end of my chook tales for now.                        

The Chook Story: Part 1

As I stated in my first Blog, one of the joys of living on a large block of rural land is that we can have chooks, and those chooks can wander all over the place, during daylight hours.

But of course, as Malcolm Fraser said "there's no such thing as a free lunch", and of course there are downsides of chook-freedom. Downsides for them. Downsides for us. Let's just discuss one in this blog.

For them:  Easy dinner for chicken-loving predators.

As you learnt from the essential reading list of your pre-school days, specifically "Henny Penny", foxes love chickens.  These introduced pests usually hunt at night, invading the hen-house to then have their fill of chicken a la rural.

The eastern quoll, an Australian native marsupial, (Dasyurus viverrinus) about as big as a small cat, also loves to dine on chickens. They can scale the chook-house fence. They can dig under it.

So after losing innumerable sets of chooks to these carnivores, we have a predator-proof night spot for our chooks. Sure, there's not much room in it.....just a roost, and a feed bowl, but so far they're still surviving nights. Rather like a chicken prison cell!

Before our construction of a chook-safe night-spot, one of our sets of chooks had an excellent strategy for surviving nights. They flew up into the mulberry tree, which grows in their large chook pen.
In the photo you can see them, roosting happily in the tree. They disdained to use the roost provided.
None of our other chooks flew anywhere.
Yes, chooks are birds with the usual bird accroutrements of beaks, feathers, wings etc. But fly like "proper" birds??  We'd never seen such behaviour before. We were intrigued and amused by their nocturnal flying.

And this lot survived predators for months, until it was decided to clip their wings. Why clip? Don't ask me. I was not the wing-clipper.!
Then, of course, you can predict the outcome.
Yes, once grounded, our  flight-deprived, beautiful brown chickens were eaten one night. All three met the same fate on the same night.  Very sad. But that's a part of nature. You have to be pragmatic in such cases.
Next set of chooks please? 

The vineyard a.k.a. "the farm"

A view from our house overlooking "the farm"

It is 12 years since we moved from Brisbane to our retirement dream....a vineyard in the Queensland Granite Belt.
Such a change from city life!
Some of the obvious changes are:-

No reticulated water....we rely on tanks, and I am now a "water Nazi".  Short showers. Taps NOT left running etc etc  Once we had to buy drinking water ("town water" from Stanthorpe) when our tanks  ran dry, but we prefer the taste of tank water. So soft. Unchlorinated. Nectar!

No garbage collection.  But we have a nearby dump, and it is no trouble to cart our rubbish there. And don't we, as a modern society, create so much garbage?

No mail delivery. But we have a small local post office, and collecting the mail becomes a social event.  The postmistress is happy to engage in a chat. You often meet other locals there, & catch up on one another's news.  Yes, the Post Office can be a social hub.   As can,suprisingly, the dump!

No large shopping centres.  A 20 minute drive to the nearest town provides shops for basic needs.

No traffic and no traffic lights. City dwellers would appreciate that, especially as our cities are becoming more and more congested.  Parking in our nearest town is never a problem.

We know our neighbours.  Although our neighbours are on farms, and are 1 km+ away, we all know one another, and are there for one another when needed. So different from city life where most of us reside cheek by jowl, and often don't know our near neighbours.




We love the life here in rural Queensland.