A pot-pourri of photos, and a maybe "adieu"

Tomorrow we are off to Shanghai, and will be in China for almost a month.
It is difficult to send posts from China, so if you don't find a post until late October, please don't give up on me.
I'll probably have lots to Blog about from China.

So here are a few random photos from the farm.

Here is yesterday's sunset, behind the Western edge of the Great Dividing Range.

And a lot of our Spring flowers are coming out.
The Hippeastrums are going to be glorious this season.

Here are two photos of them.

This is the "Apple Blossom" Hippeastrum.

And this is "Cocktail".  It will be beautiful when it opens fully.

And I can't sign off from the farm without a chook photo.

Remember our new trio of Sussex bantams?

Purchased at the Stanthorpe Poultry Auction a few weeks ago? 

Well, they won't sleep in the roost area with the brown ones.

They've roosted in a tree in the chook pen!

Emulating one of our earlier flocks of "flying eagle" chooks.

So I'll close with a photo of them in their leafy roost.

 However I must warn you that it's not a very good photo.

But you'll get the general idea.



Here is the rooster and one hen, happy in their leafy perch.



And here is the second hen making her way up a branch to "her friends"

It was amazing to watch her climb the branch.

Is she a chook or what?

And on that note I'll bid farewell, for the moment.

Some, only some, of the wildlife around the farm.

Lately, in the Courier Mail,  I have read of Brisbane residents complaining that the local local wildlife should have "pest" status. 
Maybe being on a large block of land changes your perspective, because I enjoy the wildlife we have around here.
Well, most of it!

Snakes. 

Yes, it took me some years to adapt to the presence of snakes.
We have 2 varieties....Red-Bellied Black snakes, and Eastern Browns.
The locals have instructed us about their particular behaviours.
  
We were told that the Red Bellied Blacks are not aggressive, and also that they eat the eggs of the Browns.
The Eastern Browns can be aggressive, especially during mating season.

So far, whenever I've crossed paths with either reptile type, I have given it all due deference and respect.  
And they've ignored me.  An excellent arrangement.

But recently we found a small snake, which was probably only a few days old when we saw it.
We could not identify it, so had to call on the expertise at the Queensland Museum.
It is a young Eastern Brown.
The stripes are typical of their young, and they'll be lost as the snake matures.




To give you an idea of the size of this baby snake....it can fit within the palm of a man's hand.




..and it is DEAD!   This would not be happening if it was alive and kicking!!


Lizards.

There are lots of lizards on the farm.
The two most common are Blue Tongues and Bearded Dragons.
This one below was seen just after it had climbed onto the vine, to warm up in the sun.
It was a light brown colour at first, but rapidly changed to be camouflaged on the vine.
It's a large, and very fine specimen.



Here it is stretched out along the pruned grape vine.
It's looking at me, as I photograph it.




This photo was taken on the road. The bearded dragon is starting to display its beard.
You can see the spines on the beard's edge, and along the sides of the lizard.



Kangaroos.

We have lots of kangaroos in the bush around the farm.
I love to see them.
They are very timid, and hop away from you when you approach.
But they are often around the house, especially in the early mornings and late afternoons.  They come to nibble on the grass here.

Here are a couple of photos of them.

Isn't this cute? A mother with her joey in her pouch.
This was taken on our front driveway....about 2 metres from the house.

And here is a 2nd photo, which was taken 6 months later.
It is also near our house...about 4 metres away this time.
Because of the time difference between the 2 photos I'd like to think that it is the same pair, but of course the young one is 6 months older.
And because I don't know how quickly kangaroos grow, it is just an assumption that they are the same pair.

Possums.

We don't have these in large numbers, but occasionally one or two visit the house during the night, and if I see them, I leave them a piece of fruit.
This fellow is chewing a piece of apple.

 

Echidnas.

These are not in huge numbers either, but we have evidence of them on the bottom block.
And twice I have watched an echidna cross our road.
Each seemed oblivious of the human standing there watching, as it determinedly waddled its way to where ever it was going.

Each sighting excited me.

Sadly we found one echidna dead in one of our dams. What happened? We'll never know. They can swim, so it shouldn't have just drowned. Maybe it was old and sick, and it was time for it to die. Who knows?

I don't think that you'd want to see the photo of the dead one floating in our dam, so I have substituted this photo taken on Bruny Island, off the SE coast of Tasmania. (there are lots there too)

Of course, all the times I've seen them here on the farm, Murphy's Law has prevailed, and I've not had my camera with me. So no live photos of farm echidnas!

Birds

There are a lot of birds here.
My husband used to be an avid bird-watcher, or "twitcher", who'd travel thousands of kilometers to see a particular type of bird.
Note the use of the past tense.
Now that we grow grapes those once admired birds are now pests of the first water!

But let's ignore that for now.

We have the usual Australian birds such as magpies and butcher birds. Their songs are absolutely beautiful.
There are groups of kookaburras which laugh in the early morning and at dusk.
And lots of parrots and cockatoos.

Here is an Eastern Rosella, sitting and posing on one of the grape vines.

But I love the "little birds".
A  scarlet robin was around over winter, and his breast was a vivid, vivid red. He added a splash of colour whenever he flew near the house.
There are also yellow-rumped thornbills, and Superb fairy wrens, and double-barred finches.
Alas, I don't have any photos of these.
But I do have some of a bird who has become quite inquisitive about us, and here he is.

He is a Pardalote....a Striated Pardalote (Pardalotus striatus) 
Isn't he a handsome young bird?
The yellow on him is so vibrant.


Here he is, in the magnolia tree.



And another photo of this handsome bird:




It almost looks as if he's posed for this shot on the handle of a spade....asking all of us to admire him!




This little bloke loves to  feed, and sing, in one of our evergreen magnolia trees, which must be a veritable larder of thrips, lerps, and other insects.
And when ever I practise the piano he flies to a nearby window and sings along!
Is he in harmony with me, or trying to tell me that my piano playing is atrocious?
Whatever it is, I love it when he appears.

And he now has a female, who often appears with him.
Maybe we'll even see some young in the near future.

I hope that enjoyed this Blog, and that it did not feel too much like a Biology lesson!!!

A Sicilian Influence, and a good meal.

The Granite Belt is home to many families who can claim Italian or Sicilian ancestry.
Four of our five neighbouring farms have families with such backgrounds.

Recently one of those families asked us for "a simple dinner, Sicilian style".
Their adult son was home for a few days, and one of the meals he requested was one of his favourites.....steak cooked over the embers of vine-cuttings.

When we arrived we saw that the steaks were marinating in red wine, garlic and parsley.

After a few glasses of a wonderful white wine, (an old Semillon) we all went outside to light the vine cuttings.

Here are the vine cuttings, before lighting.
They are piled high.



..and alight, burning very brightly.


Once the flames had died down, and the vine cuttings were glowing embers, the steak was added.



And cooked to perfection...medium rare.

The steaks were served with a salad, and thick wedges of potatoes, which had been cooked slowly in the slow combustion stove.  Yum!

The steaks had a subtle aroma of wood from the vine cuttings, and a delicate taste to match. Delicious.

We drank nothing but good reds to complement the wonderful steaks.
Would you like to know the wines? I'll tell you anyway.
A Penfolds 707 Cabernet, followed by a Penfolds Magill Estate Shiraz.
Absolute heaven!

Our neighbours told us that in Sicily most meats were cooked like this, especially in the old times.
On the ground, the Sicilian farmers would outline a fireplace with large stones.
Vine cuttings would be placed inside this ring of stones, and lit.
Home-made sausages would be cooked this way, as would other cuts of meat.
The aromas drifting around the farms then would have had everyones salivary glands working overtime!  Mmmm!

It was a wonderful night. Thank you S and C and A.

The Stanthorpe Chook Auction

Yes, I know that I said no more chook stories, but this one just has to be included. (My "no-more chook stories" must be regarded as a non-core promise!) So please bear with me.


For some time we have wanted to add to our tally of two hens, and when the above auction was publicised, we decided that we'd attend.

I'm not sure if you can read the front of the above sheet, but it tells us that from 0830 we could view the poultry on sale. So off we set, to the Stanthorpe Show Grounds, and the Poultry Pavilion in particular.

It was a dull, very wet and cold day but the attendance was large. There are a great many "poultry-philes" around, and foul weather (sorry!) couldn't deter them.

Mud and rain everywhere, and lots of utes!

There were over 230 lots for auction. Yes, over 230.
There were chooks of many varieties....a lot were very attractive, while others certainly did not appeal to us.
There were also turkeys, ducks, pigeons, guinea fowl.
I wish that I had taken more photos, to show you some of these unusual breeds.
But I'll show you a couple.

Aren't these a handsome couple?



A pair of Large Wyndottes, Gold Laced.

 





 

These delightful little hens are Belgian D'Uccle bantams.
They are said to make excellent pets!
Look at their feathered feet.


At the pre-auction viewing there were a lot of opinions being exchanged between the possible buyers, as they walked along the cages inspecting the birds.

Now will I bid for this lot or not?

Once decisions had been made, and the catalogue marked accordingly, it was time to enter the Poultry pavilion.

The smells which greeted us were mouth-watering.

Breakfast, cooked by volunteers, was available.

We wished we known this before we'd left home, because we'd have joined the rest of them eating huge hot meals....just the thing for a wet, cold morning.

And aren't the embroidered aprons catching? Love the rooster striding across the wearer's chest!

The crowd was at last ready for the auction.

The auctioneer was also ready. Let the show begin.

Photos of each lot were displayed on the screen on the front stage.

The bidding was spasmodic. Some lots were keenly fought for, others attracted very little interest.

The auctioneer spoke at one hundred miles an hour....as do auctioneers, and horse-race callers, the world over. There must be schools where this rapid delivery is learnt, and practised.....it can't be innate.

 

Our chosen lot came up for bidding. We had two other interested parties bidding for "our" chooks.  But we were the most committed, and we bought them. Two hens and a rooster, White Sussex Bantams, for $55. That's less than $20 per bird. We were chuffed with that.

Here are "our" birds, seen at the pre-auction viewing. There is a 2nd hen behind the rooster and first hen. She must be camera-shy.

And here they are, below,wandering around the farm.

And yes, the pecking order took a while to sort out, but incredibly the rooster is not the alpha bird. Our brown hen, with the black-feathered collar, is still number one. Maybe she's read about assertive females?

She'd be a hit in the corporate chook world!

And wouldn't you know it, the egg hunt is on again. These white hens also eschew the laying box, and lay their eggs where-ever. Life is certainly not dull for us and our chooks.

It's now our burn-off

                                                            

Our Fire Permit.

                                               
At last we have our 2nd Fire Permit. Our first one expired, unused, due to strong Westerly winds making it too hazardous to burn off.

This one is able to be used from August the 26th, for two weeks, weather conditions permitting.

Friday, August 26th was almost perfect.
The winds were slight...enough to fan the fire, but not enough to cause problems.
We had 3 extra people, as required in the permit, to help us control the burn-off.

This photo below shows the state of the vegetation before burn-off.
It is plentiful. It is dry. It constitutes a large fuel-load.....a hazard during summer.

Our 80 acre (approx. 32 hectares) block is divided by a road...a regular road, for general traffic.

So we have a "top block" and a "bottom block"

We started our burn-off on the bottom block, and it began in a very controlled fashion.

It was soon burning as we had hoped....strongly, and spreading through the grass.



                                        

 And there was my husband, on a tractor,towing a large tank of water, to make sure that it didn't jump the road.

                                             

It was all running , and burning,very smoothly.  Now for the "top block"



The burn-off on the "top block"

It also went smoothly, as you can see.
                                             

And this is the result. 

No more long, dead grass.                      
Fire hazard substantially reduced.     
Sighs of relief all round.

But we were too satisfied far too early.
Our neighbour rang....the wind had changed direction. 
The embers had flared up.
The fire had jumped the road!  It was burning in his bottom block!
All hands on deck to control it!




Can you see two men bottom right...hosing the flames?


Soon that drama was over.  Only smouldering remains left.

That night it began to rain, and it rained all the next day.
Our fires were well and truly extinguished.


Relief all round!

 And here is a photo of part of the land which we burnt-off last week. One week later, plus some rain of course,  and the new growth has begun.
(The kangaroos will love this new grass!)

It all ended well, and we are relatively bush-fireproof for the coming summer.

So now we're O.K. until next year, and the cycle will begin again.