Still have some things to learn.

Recently a family member loaned me his mini-excavator to do some jobs. I decided to clean out a silted-up water hole. Clearly I have yet to get used to the weight of a bucket full of sticky wet mud. The excavator was able to right itself by using the bucket arm pushing against the ground.






Not everything on the farm is pleasant.
Here is a photo of a sheep that had been attacked by eagles. The ewe had lambed recently and was in a weakened state. In the morning she was what we call "cast", lying down on a slope with her feet uphill and unable to stand. When I found her the eagles had already begun eating her face, it being the only part that was not protected by her coat of wool. I had to put her down and am now feeding the lamb with milk from a bottle.

Here is a closeup of the damage done. When one sees things like this it becomes a lot easier to understand why farmers have no love for eagles.
sheep face showing exposed teeth




But on a lighter note
We saw these in the yard recently. A pair of Jacky Lizards, technically Dragons, the female in the act of digging a hole to receive her eggs and the male keeping her company.
pair of lizards



Seeing the sunrise


Just a trick of the camera as the rising sun, seen through the screen of trees, shows as a circle of bright colour.



Building fences


A few years ago I lost a lot of fences to a bushfire. They were old fences with timber strainer posts and split timber droppers and they burnt away to ashes. So all my new fences now are steel and concrete. This is the beginning of a new fence, some people say that the concrete strainers have a life of 200 years and I will be very annoyed if I do not get that long out of them.



Seeing the trees change colour

In autumn, or more realistically in early winter, the deciduous trees change color before shedding their leaves.

These are the oaks in the house yard, the peach trees in front of them are still green but looking a little the worse for wear from the effect of young goats standing up and feeding on the lower leaves.










This is the apricot tree. The leaves mimic the color of a crop of ripe apricots but are not nearly as desirable.

Camping out at Easter


During the summer the days are too hot for camping out at Jerangle, during the winter the days are too cold for camping out at Jerangle. But fortunately there are two periods each year when the weather is perfect at Jerangle and these periods of perfect weather always seem to coincide with holiday periods in town.

Each year in October, for the Labour Day long weekend and again in autumn for Easter the sun shines and the grass grows green. This makes for ideal conditions for family and friends to come up and establish their tent city in their favourite clearing.

Here, in absolute privacy they can engage in all those activities that cannot be enjoyed in public spaces.

This photo was taken at lunchtime on Good Friday with all present seated and the motorbikes parked.