Book Released

So this is what the cover of the book that my colleague, Nancy Cushing, and I, have recently had published, looks like. It was released on October 1 but not sure how sales are going. I saw that it will be available through Amazon.com in December.

Flowers at the entry

We've planted a variety of gingers in the front rainforest garden and some of these are in flower at the moment. These are some of my faves...their flowers will get bigger than this and stay bright red for a couple of months.
And the Chinese star jasmine is now starting to look like we hoped it would, spilling out of the rockery and climbing up the post, covered in sweet, sweet smelling creamy white flowers.

Fairy Martins about to fledge

Space seems to be at a premium now in this fairy martin nest that was built under the roof of the back verandah just down from our sunbed. We've watched over the past month or so as the parents fly in with little insectian morsels to drop in the gaping mouths of the hungry and rapidly growing brood of four (you can see three of the little buggers in this pic). I suspect they will be taking to the wing this week or next.

Bits and pieces; bibs and bobs

Piglet zooming along on the revamped Rita I on Friday afternoon. Piglet came up for a few days and left Saturday morning. We had a great brunch at Coolangatta before dropping him off at Gold Coast airport. Piglet is now way out in front on his visitation stats
A few views taken from a road to the west of our valley showing a different perspective to our little hidden valley. You can just make out the Billen Cliff line which sits above our place.
The cliffs in closer detail.
We spent Sunday making another start on the courtyard that sits between the two pavilions of the house. We spent a few hours doing bits and pieces in readiness to paint the walls and to dig out the holes for the deck footings and the fishpond. We are aiming to bring this project to completion before Xmas.

Cattle and cocks

Dexter and Baxter now have the run of the entire paddock which they seem to be enjoying. Here they are doing what they've been brought to Maryville to do: eat the grass.
I had last week on leave and Steve took Friday off as well, so we decided to go to Lismore Show, taking Piglet who had come up on the early XPT Thursday morning. We met Glen there as well and enjoyed some hot chips and a dagwood dog dripping with tomato sauce. Here are a few pics from the poultry shed.

One mean looking bird. (This one's for you, D)

Shane to the rescue: a fence is built

Shane arrived Sunday and we set to to build a line of fencing that stretched for about 400 metres from the lower third of our steep paddock along a line of pine trees then it turned at 90 degrees down a very steep slop and across to an existing fence. It also involved hanging two gates, one of which Steve installed on the Saturday afternoon. The fencing involved removal of old posts and wire, putting in new or 'renovated' posts, and getting caught in metres of wicked, wicked, barbed wire. Here Shane is putting in a straining wire while Bluey seems interested in whatever might be living in the bracken.
After each line (of which there were five) of barbed wire was rolled out it then had to be strained using these ancient strainers that hark back to just after WWII. But wow they did the job, pulling tight each line of barbed wire until it could take no more.
Here is part of the new fence where we took advantage of the row of pine trees to act as living fence posts.
And then the fence flows down the slope and continues another 50 metres or so to the right of the fate. It took Shane with me as his gopher/assistant 2.5 days. Just lucky the weather was kind to us.
Just look at how straight that fence is! I am continued to be amazed at how skillful our friend Shane is, because without him, there would have been no fence until fencing contractors had been found.

Memo to self: always secure paddock before cattle arrive

Meet Dexter and Baxter, our latest arrivals: belted galloway steers. This is Baxter heading off into the wilderness of the lower paddock - exactly NOT where he was supposed to go. They arrived on Saturday morning before we had actually constructed about 400 metres of fencing that needed to be done to keep them out of the bottom paddock. I thought they would have been happy to have just grazed the nicely slashed big paddock for a few days before venturing down there. How wrong was I.
No sooner had they been off loaded than they headed straight through the gap in the fence, and then proceeded to wade through Julia's Little Creek (which I had assumed would act as a barrier - like a water moat at a zoo keeping lions in) and off into the scrub, with Trevor, the fellow who sold them to us and I in fast pursuit. Off we scrambled through forests of stinging nettle and wild tobacco, trying to cut them off, which we did. But then they decided to plunge into Leycester Creek which we just thought would never have happened, and were in danger of being washed away in the still-strong current. So I did something very uncharacteristic. I plunged in after them, managed to swim across the creek and headed them off before they could climb up the opposite bank. A few tense moments followed when I thought they or me or all of us would be swept downstream, before we got them back up the bank and herded them right up the paddock into the house paddock.
Where I thought we could keep them for a few days while we built the fence. Here is Baxter looking very innocent before the pair of them decided that the cattle grid at our entrance gate was no barrier to their movement and away they went out on to McGuinness Road, where they had the unusually good foresight to head right and now left. With the help of Dave and Cathie (see below) we managed to round them up and eventually they were installed in the holding pen behind the chookery, where they are learning to behave like good belted galloways.
So, Dexter is on the left and Baxter on the right. Welcome to Larnook, beasts!

Dave and Cathie visit from Canada

Our friends, Dave and Cathie, managed to get across our bridge last Monday afternoon and spent the week with us. The last time we'd seen them was when we stayed with them in their wonderful cottage in the woods outside of Edmonton, Alberta in 1998, so we had lots to catch up. Steve took a couple of days off work and took them to Border Ranges and Nightcap National Parks.

And I took them up the Lions Road north of Kyogle and up to Rathdowny just over the Queensland border on Friday. Here they are being put to work in the kitchen creating a rather delicious chicken and avocado curry. They left on Monday to head to a friend in Lennox Head.

Flooded in

Constant rain last night resulted in a swollen, angry, swift flowing Leycester Creek which spilled out from its banks and covered our bridge to a depth of one metre. No one would be going anywhere today. This shot was taken around 1pm after the creek had begun to subside.
But at its peak height it was at the 1 metre mark.
Much of 'the creek reveg' area was under water, including a lot of our plantings but they reappeared by 3pm. You can see how the force of the floodwaters has flattened the grass.
Glen had stayed the night so we spent much of the day eating, watching movies and baking. I did some work this morning but gave up and enjoyed the enforced slowness.Our friends, Dave and Cathie, managed to drive across a slightly still flooded bridge around 3pm and Glen managed to drive out. I think we'll be OK getting out tomorrow.

Certificated

This came in the mail this week. Now I need to join a massage association and get insured and I can go into business.

We're getting cattle!

Yep, that's right. For better or for worse, we decided to buy two belted galloway steers that were advertised in the local paper yesterday. They are to be delivered next weekend. So we have a little bit of fencing to do between now and then so that we keep them away from Julia's Little Creek. So we are off to Bunnings to order all that we need shortly (as much as I dislike going into Lismore at the weekend). Hopefully the steers will be placid and easy going and eat our grass and not be too much bother.

We've been coming to the realisation that unless we want the paddock to become a jungle again, we needed some grass eaters, and so I'd actually been looking at a few websites that feature belted galloways on Thursday and Friday nights. So, when we saw the ad in the paper yesterday, it seemed like some kind of destiny!

I'll put the pics of our two boys up on the blog next weekend.

Steve's handiwork

Steve has spent much of the school holidays extending the garden that we established under the pine trees near the chookery, and of course it looks great! He ordered in a load of good soil and some mulch, and he's now extended the garden and created a pathway between the trees.
We'll put some pavers in along the pathway that leads to the seat. And of course, we need to plant up as well.
The already established garden is looking great - at least the rain is doing some good.
And notice the well defined edges now!

So over this weather

The far north-east corner of the state has been subjected to wet, cool weather brought about by low systems which won't shift away. Apart from a brief respite on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday, when the sun and blue sky reappeared, we've had nothing but miserable, grey, dreary days, which do nothing for one's emotional state. So far we've had 103mm since the beginning of October which is just on 4 inches. I'm kinda over it. We now have to keep an eye on the bridge and it's going to be dicey tomorrow I think, going to work and hoping we can get back home again.
The creek, which looks like chocolate is flowing down it now, the water is so brown, has come close to topping the bridge but its dropped again and hopefully it will keep dropping. We have friends from Canada, Dave and Cathie, arriving tomorrow as well, they are driving down from the Gold Coast, so of course we also want them to be able to make it across the creek. Finger's crossed all will go well.

A night at Condong

Photos not in order so read text first
We headed up to our friend Shane's place at Condong, a few kms north of Murwillumbah, late yesterday morning and stayed the night with him and his friend, Jason. It was raining all afternoon so we checked out the art gallery and drove around town a bit before settling down to a few drinks while Shane cooked a great roast chook meal. Which we ate by candlelight due to a blackout that occurred just before dinner was to be served. It was fun. Heavy rain overnight and the next day the cane fields looked like swimming pools.

Steve's mulberry pie

Our mulberry tree is coming on with a nice load of fruit so Steve got in quickly before the birds discovered them and picked a little bucketful...
and then with some pastry, butter, flour and sugar created this delicious pie

Is there anything this man can't do?

Steve went into the garden and came back with some Lomandra leaves and flowers, some grevilleas and some hippeastroms and then proceeded to wave his hands about in a flourish of creativity and voila - a wonderful flower arrangement!