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Yarnauwi Farm

~ Fleurieu Peninsula, South Australia

Yarnauwi Farm

Category Archives: regeneration

Small mysteries: A year in bugs

27 Saturday Sep 2014

Posted by Joel in ecology, regeneration, trees

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ecology, farm, insects, photography, seasons, southwestern Fleurieu, summer, trees, winter

As part of our record-keeping, in the almost-two-years since we bought Yarnauwi we’ve tried to document the natural phenomena we observe season by season. At the end of each year, we go back over our journals and add what we’ve discovered to the records of the previous year. Over time, we hope, we’ll get a much more complex understanding of the ecological patterns that occur in our landscape, as well as the changes that may occur as a result of our activities.

Already, in the short time we’ve been on the block, we’ve noted shifts in the populations and presence of certain plants and creatures. While we often overlook insects, when looking back through our photos and notes, we realised that we have actually been observing their more subtle role through the seasons: the sudden chorus of crickets after the opening rains, or the way the grass flickers with grasshoppers in late summer. In their honour, here’s a year in bugs. Representing less than a couple of years of observation, it’s far from authoritative, but perhaps it offers the beginnings of a pattern.

Autumn

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Crickets sing from the cracked soil after the first flush of rains.

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Bardi grubs (Rain moth pupae) emerge from the soil around the River red gums following the first rains.

Continue reading →

Yarnauwi: A Kaurna name for the farm

20 Saturday Sep 2014

Posted by Joel in events, regeneration

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farm, history, kangaroos, revegetation, southwestern Fleurieu, water

 

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In August 2014, Kaurna Warra Pintyanthi granted us the name Yarnauwi to describe the landscape of our farm. We approached Kaurna Warra Pintyanthi, a body of Kaurna people and linguists dedicated to the revival of the Kaurna language, for a property name as a way of acknowledging the enduring connection of the Kaurna nation with the landscape of the South Western Fleurieu.

Bald hills

Continue reading →

Fleurieu Foliage: Scented sundew (Drosera whittakeri)

21 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by Joel in ecology, exploring, propagation, regeneration

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drosera, ecology, plants, propagation, seeds, southwestern Fleurieu, sundew, winter

This is the first instalment in an occasional series celebrating different plants of the Fleurieu, particularly those that we spot or try to reintroduce to the farm. It’s also a way for us to map and share our research and discoveries as we observe the regeneration of our property.

sundew

During our recent winter tree-planting extravaganza, Sean, one of our dedicated tree-planters, discovered a patch of Scented sundews (Drosera whittakeri), in the damp, mossy undergrowth around the gullies. With its distinctive white flowers, once we’d spotted one cluster, we discovered more in similar damp pockets. Continue reading →

The Second Annual TBC Tree-planting Extravaganza

19 Saturday Jul 2014

Posted by Joel in ecology, events, regeneration, trees

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ecology, erosion, events, farm, kangaroos, planning, revegetation, southwestern Fleurieu, trees, waterways, winter, zones

The 'before' photo: 800 new plants in position. Stay tuned over the next 20 years for the 'after' shot.

The ‘before’ photo: 800 new plants in position. Stay tuned over the next 20 years for the ‘after’ shot.

Over the weekend of the 12-13 July, around 30 dedicated volunteers descended on TBC for our annual tree-planting fiesta. Over two days, we managed to plant some 800 locally indigenous plants in the two ‘wilderness zones’, kick-starting their transition back to pink- and red-gum woodland. The first area was planted outwards from the former Bee House (currently tree-planter snack dispensary and rain shelter) with around 600 plants selected to address the water-logging in the area and to revegetate in and around erosion gullies. The second area saw the planting of around 200 plants, radiating from the existing remnant redgums. Once again these plants were selected to address water-logging and erosion as well as provide shelter to adjacent paddocks. Over the following week, we dodged thunderstorms and icy squalls to add another 150 or so plants, with about 200ish to go! Continue reading →

Birds of the Block embroidery project

05 Saturday Jul 2014

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

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birds, craft, embroidery, southwestern Fleurieu, textiles

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

 

Erosion control: 15 months on

22 Tuesday Apr 2014

Posted by Joel in ecology, planning, regeneration, waterways

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design, ecology, erosion, planning, seasons, soil, southwestern Fleurieu, summer, water, waterways

One of the first interventions we made on the property was trying out some very rough erosion control on this scoured patch on our boundary. Earthworks from recent fencing had disturbed the soil and invited headcuts to form. With help from Pete and Freya, we tentatively set up a couple of lo-fi erosion strategies, informed by the work of Watershed Artisans (formerly Dryland Solutions) and Brad Lancaster, both of whom we’ve gushed about before. We reshaped the main headcut to soften the overflow, and positioned some kind of mutant One Rock Dam/Zuni Bowl at an intersection between two small headcuts – not something I’d do again. We also positioned a One Rock Dam on contour above the entire area in an effort to slow and disperse water flow.

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A scoured, erosive patch, December 2012.

Continue reading →

A One-Page Place Assessment for TBC Farm, Second Valley

30 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by Joel in ecology, planning, regeneration, waterways

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books, design, ecology, permaculture, planning, revegetation, seasons, soil, southwestern Fleurieu, trees, water, waterways

Brad Lancaster’s books on Rainwater Harvesting would have to be among the most consistently inspiring books we own. Two volumes into his trilogy on Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Lancaster combines accumulated community wisdom with permaculture principles to produce lavishly illustrated, practical and highly accessible manuals for managing water in urban and rural environments. Consistent with permaculture thinking, Lancaster urges land managers to spend time observing the season patterns of the landscape to more effectively design for sustainable, integrated water management. One method of doing this is to compile a One Page Place Assessment, drawing together essential climatic and ecological information about your particular location.

Our first year has been one of spreadsheets, mapping out our seasonal observations and activities, and the One Page Place Assessment concept is a elegant way of compiling climatic data from Second Valley and the surrounding area. We’ve finally completed the first version of a place assessment for our property, with much of the data drawn from Bureau of Meteorology stations nearby (Myponga Reservoir being the furthest). While we have tailored information to our particular location, we hope it will be of use to other landowners in the region. We have also referenced information sources so others can draw on the same resources in exploring their own area.

You can download our One Page Place Assessment here. Continue reading →

Travels in Inter-Tussock Space: Planning for Woodland

10 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by Joel in ecology, planning, regeneration

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

design, ecology, erosion, kangaroos, permaculture, planning, revegetation, seeds, soil, southwestern Fleurieu, trees, waterways, zones

We’ve seeded our last 150 tubes in preparation for planting in a few months time. When the rains come, we’ll have over 1000 plants ready to go. Most are destined for the regeneration areas we’ve fenced around the waterways, but a few others are non-indigenous livestock fodder plants, timber trees and food plants we’ve raised from seed and cuttings to begin developing other zones around the farm.

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It’s a Pink Gum Woodland, it just doesn’t know it yet.

Late in 2013, along with a posy of other plant nerds, we attended a workshop with botanist Ann Prescott (author of It’s Blue with Five Petals) to explore ideas behind revegetation for habitat. We walked through remnant woodland in the hills above Yankalilla, and tried to imagine how our farm might have looked 180 years ago. Continue reading →

There’s something different about you…

11 Tuesday Feb 2014

Posted by Joel in ecology, regeneration

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ecology, photography, revegetation, seasons, southwestern Fleurieu, summer, trees

IMG_3630River red gums (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) are notorious limb droppers. With the recent blistering temperatures (Adelaide’s been experiencing been experiencing strings of days above 40 degrees Celcius, and the normally milder Southern Fleurieu has had days in the early 40s) and a burst of gale-force winds, one of our two remnant red gums has lived up to its notoriety. Continue reading →

Clearing the Junk (aka. Ute-based Art)

19 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by Joel in art & craft, regeneration, waterways

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art, erosion, history, recycling, reuse, ute, waste, waterways

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“Tangents in the landscape” (detail), 2014, mixed media installation, fencing wire, ratchet straps and Holden Rodeo ute

A day spent hauling junk out of gullies can put you in a philosophical mood. When we first purchased this property, we were drawn to the erosion gullies filled with generations of farm rubbish with a kind-of masochistic fascination. After a year of hauling, stacking and shunting loads to the dump or recycling depot, today we loaded up our ute with the final bundles of unruly and ancient fencing wire.

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Bye-bye horror horse!

The most recent round of dump trips has also been momentous in that it finally marks the banishment of a terrifying, rusted and threadbare rocking horse from the property. The horror horse, wedged between rusted 44-gallon drums stuffed with irrigation pipe and topped with a decaying mattress, formed one in a series of mobile art installations mounted on the back of the ute, displayed for a brief, one-time-only journey between our block and the Yankalilla dump. A number of more conceptual, minimalist pieces followed shortly after, composed of snarls of fencing wire of assorted vintage. Continue reading →

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