Tag Archives: photography

A tour, a shed-warming and four years of change on the farm

03 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by in building, events, planning

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Guests take a tour of one of the revegetation areas, inspecting the growth of four years of planting. Photo by Jeff Catchlove.

On a balmy autumn afternoon, we celebrated the new shed with sixty of Yarnauwi Farm’s friends and supporters. Following a tour of the farm, we settled into a shared dinner and drinks by the campfire.

To mark the occasion we also produced a self-guided tour map of important developments and points of interest on the property, hard copies of which were gifted to our guests to be stuck on fridges and toilet doors.

Yarnauwi Farm Self-Guided Map. (Click for a printable A3 version).

The changes that have occurred at Yarnauwi over the last four-and-a-half-years have only been possible through the encouragement, support and labour of our community of friends, neighbours and family. We hope that this celebration went some way towards expressing how grateful we are.

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The Wet Season 2016

06 Sunday Nov 2016

Posted by in ecology, livestock, trees, waterways

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The first big storm saw the dam fill and rivers broaden to ten times their normal size for an afternoon. A neighbour’s creek crossing dissolved in the flow, the rock and rubble broadcast along the river bottom. The second big storm saw our rainwater tank, still awaiting a shed to fill it, lifted vertically from its nest of stardroppers, vaulting a tractor and four or five fences before being swept off in the swollen waters of the Anacotilla River, carried across two properties and wedged under a red gum. The third storm came with days of warnings, threats of winds over 120km/h and rainfall to rival all of the previous deluges. It left all of South Australia without electricity, the farm a sucking, gurgling swamp, and me walking home through a darkened, scrambling city.

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Mist in the valleys

It’s been a demanding few months on the farm. The persistent moisture has made the ground unworkable, most of the farm inaccessible except on foot and the weather generally hostile to both our motivation and ability to do anything useful. The vast quantities of rain we’ve received however, have meant that moisture has permeated deep into the subsoil, so we console ourselves with the hope that as the weather warms, our tree plantings (including those from earlier this winter) will rocket skywards. Continue reading →

Farming with young children

02 Tuesday Aug 2016

Posted by in planning, regeneration, tools

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IMG_8221One of our motivations for seeking land beyond the city was the hope that it would support our children to develop a deep connection with a particular patch of ground. Of course, in imagination, it’s all pretty easy: self-directed kids building cubbies in the golden light of late afternoon, climbing trees and constructing dams. In truth, it sometimes feels like masochism.

There are so many things we could have done (and are now trying to do), that would have made the first years of working with Yarnauwi easier. Our restorative ambitions meant that we chose a piece of land that, while superbly located, is highly exposed and has been much abused over the last almost-two centuries. It brings with it endless challenge, and the need for constant monitoring and intervention. The weather sometimes feels defined by the kind of driving winds that take water tanks for excursions around the farm. There’s always work to be done, and sometimes it feels like you’re working without progress, in an environment that can be hostile to weather-beaten, outdoorsy adults, let alone toddlers.

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Mother and child, with mother and child.

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Local Adventures: Kalamunda Native Forest Reserve

13 Sunday Dec 2015

Posted by in ecology, exploring, history, livestock, planning, regeneration

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Looking towards Yankalilla Hill and The Gorge, Normanville from the northeastern corner of Kalamunda Native Forestry Reserve. The radio masts of Yankalilla Hill (the cliffs above Lady Bay) are just visible on the left of the photograph.

We pulled in at gate MH18, 50 metres from the summit of Mount Hayfield at the northern end of Mount Hayfield Road (off Springs Road, from Range Road). Through the pine plantations we could see flashes of sky and the brown paddocks stretching off to the north. It’s up in the highlands here, and where it’s not grazing land or forestry plantations, there’s still patches of native forest, the most significant of which is the Kalamunda Native Forest Reserve, part of the Second Valley Forest complex.

Continuing our research into the ecology of the Fleurieu, we’ve been looking for examples of what our own landscape might have looked like before clearing to help guide our regeneration efforts. Of the three local forest reserves, Kalamunda seemed like a good fit. Perched above Yankalilla, Kalamunda is a fragment of the kind of woodlands which were present across the Fleurieu.

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Walking through the pines

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The time of plans and projects

23 Monday Nov 2015

Posted by in ecology, livestock, planning, regeneration, trees

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Grain fields at Aldinga, and drying hills

It seems like summer comes sooner and sooner. Winter was short, and so dry that the dam never progressed beyond a puddle, then the sun was back, the grass grew for a moment then was baked dry again by an early heatwave. The northern faces of the hills turned a bleached gold, then quickly the green haze on the south sides followed. And we’re back, heading into the hot season again, settling into a holding pattern of heat and dormancy until the opening rains.

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North faces baked dry in the first heat

Tolstoy apparently called spring “the time of plans and projects”. Now a year into our sheep project, we’ve begun tweaking our grazing practices in an effort to manage our pasture more effectively. We’ve increased our flock size through both breeding and the acquisition of some hardy, desert-adapted damara sheep, brought in from a dusty paddock outside Nuriootpa to replace the ageing and increasingly delicate Wiltshire Horn matriarchs. The existing flock hasn’t exactly embraced the new arrivals, there’s plenty of bleating and foot-stomping. You could cut the tension with a knife when we pour out the sheep nuts. Among the damaras is Manchego, our new ram. Looking at Pecorino’s legacy, it’s clear he has big hooves to fill.

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Local Adventures: Hiking to Deep Creek Cove

05 Monday Oct 2015

Posted by in ecology, exploring, trees

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Three-year-old Asher is guest blogger for a recent hike at Deep Creek Conservation Park, on the Fleurieu’s south coast. His illustration and recount of the attempt to hike from Tappanappa Lookout to Deep Creek Cove are below. Note the echidna nosing in the yakka leaves with the Pages islands off in the distance. Also note the steepness of the track.

IMG_6962We went to Deep Creek. We walked down the rocks to see the beach. We saw kangaroos, one echidna, lots of birds and lots of spiky bushes. And lots of hills, some big cliffs.

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Looking east from the trail

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Signs of winter

22 Monday Jun 2015

Posted by in ecology

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Wintry dawn over Second Valley cliffs, June 2015

When the rain comes, everything changes. The soil begins to dissolve from its summer hardness, the air develops an edge, and in the damp places, centipedes awaken. After the dryness of 2014 the rain is still playing catch-up, the dam is just a puddle, and there are few places where the soil feels genuinely saturated, but it’s undoubtedly the time to start winter tasks: tree planting, trench-digging, planning.

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It’s still not quite a dam, but it is a very good puddle!

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A break in the season

15 Wednesday Apr 2015

Posted by in ecology, regeneration, trees, waterways

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The rain gauge almost full!

With the big rains of the last couple of weeks, it feels like we’re approaching an break in the seasons. In most parts of the property, the cracks that open in the clay over summer are softening and closing, and there’s a green fuzz of new growth on the ground (especially in the areas with existing, dry ground cover, we’ve noticed). The sheep march briskly between discoveries of fresh grass and happily fan out over new paddocks.

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A self-sown red gum pushes through the cracks.

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A deer at dawn

30 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by in ecology, regeneration

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Asher and I recently took at pre-dawn walk from Second Valley back towards the farm, hoping to catch the light hitting the hills. We explored along the roadside for a while, then just as we were turning back, we noticed in a clearing the unmistakable shape of a Red Deer stag. For ten minutes or so, we watched, moved, hid, watched, moved and hid. The deer glanced our way, ducked behind trees, stopped, glanced again, ducked out of sight as we tried to creep closer.
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We’d found shed Fallow Deer (Dama dama) antlers and tracks on our farm, and neighbours told us of herds of 30 or more, marauding through the forests inland, but we’d not yet seen evidence of Red Deer (Cervus elaphus). Red Deer came to Australia via the aspirations of colonists eager to replicate the aesthetic and hunting culture of English estates. Partly as a consequence of these early ‘acclimatisation’ efforts, the Red Deer now sits on the World Conservation Union’s list of the top 100 most invasive species. Despite this dubious honour, local Natural Resources staff later confirmed that while there are Red Deer on the Fleurieu they are seldom seen. There was a small herd known in the hills around Yankalilla in recent years, but over time it’s been hunted out.

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The stag cleared a fence and stood in the middle of Main South Road for a while, watching us. Effortlessly, it leapt another fence and headed inland, stopping to glance back at us before vanishing over the ridge.

The Salvage Season

23 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by in art & craft, ecology, history, regeneration, waterways

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The steely gaze of a doll, complete with an electrical tape necklace.

With the chilling of the air, it’s time for us to don our gloves and get stuck into mining the junk that lines the banks and bed of our erosion gullies. It’s become an annual tradition to pick a path through chest-high phalaris, filling bags with debris. It’s scratchy, dusty work, with plastic milk bottles and the remains of plastic bags collapsing into confetti with the gentlest of touches. Yet despite the discomfort, we can’t help but have a forensic fascination with what we unearth. Each discovery is a cryptic clue into the lives of our predecessors, those who decided that the headwaters of a creek would be the best place for their unwanted bric-a-brac.

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A broken clock amid bones. We’ll leave you to come up with your own metaphors.

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