01 Sunday Sep 2013
Posted in ecology, planning, regeneration, waterways
Kangaroos: so cute, yet so merciless.
One of winter’s most exciting prospects was the chance to get some trees in the ground. Our strategy for revegetation has been to try to build islands of vegetation in the most vulnerable areas, with the view to expanding them outwards until they connect up. We were aware that the kangaroos would take an interest, but just how much of an interest we were unprepared for.
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05 Monday Aug 2013
With our dam now full, one task that’s been on our list since summer is to calculate its approximate capacity to aid with planning our watering infrastructure. We found a couple of possible methods: the Western Australian Department of Agriculture has a very thorough approach, while the Victorian Department of Primary Industries offers a rougher option. We opted for the Victorian method, not least because it offered a chance for us to take our very patriotic inflatable adventure craft out onto the pond.
11 Tuesday Jun 2013
Posted in diy, ecology, regeneration, waterways
A Juncus seed head on one of the ridgelines.
With a landscape scarred with a history of erosion, and soil associations that the CSIRO SoilMapp discusses in the most nervous of tones, we’d been apprehensive about this season’s heavy rains. After two days of constant downpours, the water sat on the surface, filled every hollow and started to run in strange new flow patterns along the most unexpected of ridgelines. Neighbours told us they hadn’t seen rain like that for some years, and that erosion headcuts had been reawakened all through the surrounding valleys.
Zephyr Creek before and after: now with less car bodies and more trees!
It was a relief to see that our improvised erosion control strategies (use local materials; slow water flow with rock, fallen timber or mulch; always work on contour; get plants in the ground) had all worked to some degree. Indeed, areas where we had made an intervention, however minor, fared much better than areas without. After the dryness of summer it was unexpectedly thrilling to see water flow, vegetation spring up around the branches we stacked across drainage lines, and most of all, creek banks where we’d removed car bodies didn’t slump and be carried off into the neighbouring paddock.
10 Monday Jun 2013
Posted in ecology, regeneration, waterways
Last weekend we got in the first of (hopefully) many rounds of tree plantings. The ground was soaked after a full two days of rain, the clay soft and pliable, perfect for slipping in the planned 250 trees in several exposed areas of the property where rubbish extraction has opened the now-cleared banks up to more erosion. A team of weather-trusting family and friends came along for the adventure, some planting trees for the first time, others professional tree planters. Continue reading
26 Friday Apr 2013
Posted in diy, regeneration, waterways
Tags
erosion, permaculture, planning, reuse, revegetation, soil, trees, water, waterways, winter
We’re celebrating the clean-up of what we call Zephyr Creek, after the 1960s Ford that was wedged at the bottom of the gully. Through the work of a local metal removalist, and a bit of time scrabbling in the mud, most of the major rubbish from the creek has been extracted. Inspired by the amazing work on rainwater harvesting and riparian restoration of Brad Lancaster and organisations like the Quivera Coalition, we’ve implemented our own rustic brand of erosion control. It’s not too pretty, but it is inexpensive (free, in fact) to build and maintain, uses available resources and is easy to alter depending on its effectiveness.
– Going, going, gone!
After clearing the rubbish from the creek, we used an A-Frame to measure and mark the contours at two points in the steep bank. We hammered stakes at regular intervals, then built up leaky terraces using scrap construction timber from the gully itself and fallen tree branches. Some of the loose soil promptly settled behind the barriers, and in a few weeks will be planted out with indigenous plants to further stabilise the area.
26 Friday Apr 2013
Posted in ecology
Tags
Whenever we mentioned winter and a yearning for rain, our neighbours would offer wry smiles and allusions to sticky slicks of mud and the appearance of mysterious bogs. The Bureau of Meteorology predicted rain for the Fleurieu. So we went camping.
17 Wednesday Apr 2013
Posted in art & craft, diy
After watching the hills turn dry and crispy over the summer, I don’t think I’ve ever pined so much for the return of a little rain, cool weather and a sun not-quite-so-withering, and all the opportunities they bring.
In that spirit, and inspired by the aesthetic of knitted woolly jumpers, I’ve been working on some new images depicting life on the block. I developed them from sketches on isometric graph paper, so each of the elements is actually composed of little equilateral triangles. Among them you may spot Grey Kangaroos, Stubble Quail scattering beneath a harrier and lorikeets zooming overhead. The colour options reference the dry browns of summer and the blue of a big sky and the nearby sea. Continue reading
02 Saturday Mar 2013
Posted in diy, planning, regeneration
Tags
ecology, events, kangaroos, photography, planning, recycling, revegetation, seeds, soil, summer, trees, waste
Another hot dawn breaks
While the sun still has some sting left in it, we’ve now completed our first official summer working with the block. When we settled the contract in late November, we began drafting a phased plan for actions to take over the 2012/13 period and beyond. We intended the first year (at least) to be primarily a process of observing and auditing the property, learning what we can about what is here, what has been and what is possible.
Golden afternoon light on the big red gum and the hills beyond
17 Sunday Feb 2013
Posted in diy, regeneration, waterways
If anyone asks, we’re “agisting ponies”. This terrifying rocking horse oversees one of the rubbish piles.
As we’ve noted in our curated collection of farm-found rubbish, the largely idyllic setting of the property masks a narrow badland of erosion gullies repopulated with human trash. It’s bizarre sifting through it, a process of contemporary archaeology that often strays towards the forensic as we imagine the human story behind the array of objects gradually becoming swallowed beneath sediment and phalaris grass.
Work in progress (17/2/12).
One of our missions is to clear the large rubbish from the gullies, increasing their habitat value and allowing us to more effectively address erosion and revegetation, while also allowing for the reuse and recycling of the accumulated items. On a blazing February morning, we helped a local scrap dealer begin to extract recyclable metal from one of the most dramatically eroded gullies. In an hour and a half we had well over a tonne of metal, in the form of a deep freeze (packed with coral, rainbow-coloured aquarium stones and empty tins of bourbon and cola), two washing machines, an electric oven and stove, a motorbike, three BMX bikes, an exercise bike, venetian blinds, chook wire, corrugated iron, steel tubing, downpipes, engine parts, metal drums, wheel rims and homemade farm machinery. Continue reading
18 Friday Jan 2013
Posted in art & craft, diy
The Drooping Sheoak (Allocasuarina verticillata) is a cracker of a tree and is quickly becoming one of our favourites. It produces the favoured cone for nibbling by the iconic black cockatoo, its prodigious needle dropping is excellent for protecting the soil and contributing to erosion control. The name Sheoak was apparently once ‘Shee-oak’, the ‘Shee’ referring to the sound of the wind blowing through a sheoak grove. The oak of the name refers to the tree’s fine-grained timber, making it excellent for turning. According to Primary Industries and Resources SA, the sheoak is also the “Rolls Royce” of firewoods, burning hot and leaving little ash. We also love it because of its generosity with seed and its ready germination.
Drooping sheoak pods releasing their winged seed.
In the delirium of seed collection, I started sketching sheoak cones, a process that has now evolved into the designs below. I’ve tried to reference the colours of both the developing cones and the distinctive grey-green foliage in these designs. Perhaps one day they’ll evolve into textile or wallpaper prints, but for now, they’re available for free download below as iPad and iPhone wallpapers. Let me know which one you like best!
Yarnauwi Farm 
