Category Archives: diy

Farm hack: Making a sheep working race

11 Saturday Jul 2015

Posted by in diy, livestock

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One of our hoggets, sizing up the new facilities.

We’re great fans of temporary. Not aiming for permanence tends to mean that ideas can be trialled inexpensively, can be easily changed and that learning from failure can be quick and low-impact. In that spirit, as we develop the sheep enterprise of the farm, we’ve tried to keep things low-key. For yards, we use locally-made portable panels, but when working closely with sheep, we found the mesh sides problematic due to the ease with which horns or feet can become entangled. In more established circumstances, yards would have a working race for such a purpose, but the cost of a manufactured race can be steep. It was time to get out the tools and make our own.

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The ‘new’ working race in position, with sheep, also in position. As a further refinement, we need to attach bracing to the far end to help it stand up to the inevitable knocks and bumps.

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Planting and preparing trees for El Niño

09 Tuesday Jun 2015

Posted by in diy, ecology, propagation, regeneration, trees

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A baby, or a nest, are not essential for tree-planting, but they help.

We’re in our third season of tree planting at Yarnauwi now, working to revegetate sections of the property for habitat, shelter and timber. We’ve planted about 1,000 plants a year, from groundcovers to future woodland giants. Once they were guarded from marauding roos, we’ve necessarily had a philosophy of leaving the plants to survive without too much intervention. Even in a dry year such as 2014, we had a modest 60ish percent survival rate, but with El Niño tipped to recur in 2015, we’ve tried to further refine our approach to give our trees an improved chance of survival. Of course, there are absolutely no guarantees it will work, or will work for everything, but it’s worth a shot.

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The bunyip water level: bringer of contoured joy to young and old alike.

This year, we’ve also planted our first, experimental, woodlot of river oaks (Casuarina cunninghamiana) in an awkward corner of the farm. The paddock was too small and inaccessible to deep rip, so we began by marking contours with a bunyip water level, an essential DIY tool for measuring and marking slope (see Brad Lancaster’s guide to bunyip construction and usage here).  Continue reading →

Farm hack: reusing livestock water

08 Sunday Feb 2015

Posted by in diy, livestock, regeneration

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The new Trough Hose Outlet Mark 2 (aka. THOM2), in position.

When our livestock are moved into the next paddock, or the trough needs a clean, the contents, up to 450 litres of water, are dumped into the pasture. While we’ve tended to hold a ‘survival-of-the-fittest’ mentality for our tree planting, we couldn’t help but feel that this water could be better directed on nearby seedlings. So, a little while ago, we whipped up our first attempt at a stock trough water diverter that would do just this.  Continue reading →

A moveable sheep shelter: the sequel

05 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by in diy, livestock, trees

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With recent temperatures climbing into the 40s (about 107 degrees Fahrenheit), and tree-induced shade still a few years away, we’ve constructed another moveable sheep shelter to ensure our sheep and alpacas have a cooler place to recline on the most hostile of days.

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Employing the off-grid carpentry prowess of Jeremy and Pete, we knocked up the second shelter to the same rough plan as the original: salvaged hardwood for a sled base, allowing it to be dragged from pasture to pasture, fallen redgum for uprights, and tin reclaimed from the gullies for the roof. The previous life of the tin means that a hole is already cut for the installation of a pot-belly stove, should the sheep find one that fits their budget. This sheep shelter also includes a perch, should passing birds need a break while searching for a tree. Continue reading →

Farm hack: stock trough hose outlet

23 Sunday Nov 2014

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IMG_5325Every week or so we empty our stock troughs, sometimes for cleaning, sometimes to shift it into a new paddock or location to prevent the soil getting bared out. As dry springs like this one remind us, water is precious. The dam fills in winter, we pump up to the tanks, then try to gravity feed the stock troughs from spring until the rains come again. When it came to empty the troughs, we tried some judicious bucketing onto nearby seedlings, but that’s long and arduous when you have 450 litres to decant.  Continue reading →

A moveable sheep shelter

22 Monday Sep 2014

Posted by in diy, livestock, planning, trees

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The moveable sheep shelter in fresh pasture.

The moveable sheep shelter in fresh pasture.

While the name Trees, Bees and Cheese might suggest otherwise, one thing we’re short on is trees. So with the arrival of sheep, and now lambs, we’ve tried to get in before summer with a sheep shade-shelter. With our soon-to-be-complete subdivision of the property into smaller paddocks, we thought we’d build a moveable shelter that would allow us to rotate it from paddock to paddock with the flock, rather than building seven or eight smaller structures. Continue reading →

Fleurieu Stile

09 Wednesday Jul 2014

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Stile Design #1, the crossed tread option.

Stile Design #1, the crossed tread option.

Fences are amazing things. They totally reshape the way you think about a landscape by cutting it into smaller, yet still expansive, rooms. They alter the movement patterns of humans and other animals and we’ve very quickly discovered the bits where, far from any gate, we’re regularly having to launch ourselves between strands of high-tensile barbed wire. With a bit of research, we came up with a couple of simple designs for stiles allowing easy pedestrian access at high-traffic points. Continue reading →

Birds of the Block embroidery project

05 Saturday Jul 2014

Posted by in art & craft, diy, ecology, regeneration

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White-faced Heron, May 2014

White-faced Heron, May 2014

A tradition has officially started now that I’ve done it twice. Each year, in honour of Joel’s birth, I shall embroider a different bird species found on our property to add to a home wall gallery. Joel asked what the criteria is for birds to be selected: they have to be interesting, native, and not commonly found in the city (even though they can be common on the Fleurieu). I can’t bring myself to embroider pigeons or magpies, though we have plenty of both. The idea is that I shall never run out of birds to embroider, as more and more birds will flock to our property as it becomes ever more diverse and abundant! The key bird species we are hoping to attract at the moment are yellow-tailed black cockatoos (which currently fly straight over and go and eat pine nuts in the pine trees in the Second Valley beach carpark) and the little finches we see hanging out in the Wirrina reveg area just across our back fence line. So stay tuned for next year’s installation!

Stubble Quail, May 2013

Stubble Quail, May 2013