Lots of huff and puff but barely a spit

 ANZAC Day was another beautiful sunny day up here but things did turn a little nasty, or at least they appeared that way, around 2.30. This big storm front suddenly appeared and blackened the sky for a quarter of an hour or so.

Apart from some lightening and a few claps of thunder, and 1 mm of rain, nothing much else happened. But it did provide some atmospheric drama for a while there.

Operation Moo Moo Transfer a success

Keen readers of the blog will remember that we transferred Baxter and Dexter from their usual residence in the paddock that runs from the house down to the creek, into our paddock on the other side of McGuinness Road back in October or maybe it was November. I was very anxious about this move - it was necessary because the boys had pretty well grazed all that could be grazed from that paddock, but I was worried they would find an opening in the fence of their new home and get out, or get bitten by a brown snake, or maybe abducted by aliens. However, much to my relief they settled into their new paddock and relished the greater grazing options. In the mean time, their original paddock had become lush and luxuriant again to the point that we might need to get the slasher in again, so it was time to move the boys back again.
This was surprisingly easy - they are suckers for a biscuit of lucerne. So they followed me down the road while Steve, Piglet and Justin stood by to stop them bolting down the road. They walked into their old paddock and have settled back in very nicely. Although every so often I catch one of them looking wistfully towards the other paddock.

Kimba gets a brand new home

 After several months of preparation: cleaning out this room, painting it and then converting the existing shelving into an enclosure suitable for such a regal snake that is Kimba, I am pleased to announce that it now all finished and Kimba has taken up residence. It is over three metres long and fitted out with underfloor heating and a couple of heat lamps.

 Steve of course did the construction work, including fitting the sliding glass windows.

 I did the landscaping, using red desert sand as a base and incorporating a nicely weather hollow log to provide Kimba some shelter and interest.

A stunning home for a stunning snake. Now to build the new enclosure for the rough scaled pythons.  Hopefully that will be completed in a couple of weeks.

Easter 2014

 We enjoyed absolutely stunning weather over the entire Easter period this year. I love taking photos of this view from the deck on which sits the hot tub, looking out from the colourful garden setting towards Mt Homeleigh.

 Good Friday lunch with Julia, Steve and Liam.

 Liam made his first batch of hot crossed buns on Friday night - and as you can see, they were rather delicious.

 Sunday lunch table setting. Glen and Vaughan, Mel and EB, Julia, Liam and Steve and me, with Piglet and Justin arriving later in the day.

 The first of the after-lunch easter egg hunts underway.

Nice group shot of Vaughan, Glen, EB, Steve, Liam, me and Mel.

An early morning walk to Billen Cliffs#1

This is a series of three posts that hopefully give you something of the sense of one of my morning walks to Billen Cliffs. I try to set off around 6.30/7.00am and the walk takes about an hour.

 Hanging moss drips off this tree on our neighbour's property.

 The mist rises to reveal a paddock of greens and golden yellow grasses and shrubs, that shelter brown quail, buff breasted rails and the odd reptile or three.

 Martin's Road snakes its way to Billen Cliffs community.

 A spider web catches the early morning light.

 We have two species of macropod living close by: the ever present red necked wallabies, which can always be seen. They live in loose mobs and are quite tolerant of people. And this fella: the much more elusive and solitary swamp or black wallaby. Almost all the photos I post on this blog I take with my iPhone so unfortunately this is as good as I could get before it bounded off into the bush.

After walking for about half an hour, I come to the entry to Billen Cliffs community: an intentional community based on solar energy. 'Children and wildlife have right of way'.

An early morning walk to Billen Cliffs #2

 Says it all, really. CSG is a major threat to the landscape of our valley and surrounding valleys and many people have joined in the battle to keep CSG mining out of the region. As the mayor of Lismore says, no social contract exists between the city and CSG mining.

 While we are only 20 minutes or so away from the luxuriant sub-tropical rainforests of Border Ranges National Park, the 'natural' vegetation of our valley seems to be a mixed forest of dry rainforest species intermixed with an open forest/woodland. Some of the dominant species seem to be flooded gum (the white looking tree on the left), stringbarks, ironbarks, wattles, casuarinas, and hoop pines.

 The flooded gums are gorgeous, they can be so white.  They can also grow to be very large trees in better watered areas.

 A magnificent hoop pine, one of the few native pines, which has a pesky (presumably introduced) vine scaffolding up it. We have a small grove of these pines on our property and it's a very different feeling to walk underneath them. Very little else grows beneath them.

Steel and wood. A combination that has tamed so much of the country.

An early morning walk to the entry to Billen Cliffs

 You'll find these signs on most properties in our valley. The signs may be faded and broken now but the intention to protect the landscape against the greedy depredations of the coal gas industry is growing stronger each day. There's a large protest camp at Bentley about 5kms as the crow flies to the west of us; there's been up to 2000 people camped there.

 Black ducks, swamp hens and moorhens make their home in this lovely little pond.

 There aren't a lot of big fig trees in our valley but there are a few scattered on properties along the road. I wonder though whether they were planted or the fruit was deposited by a bird and the young tree took root and grew.

 I love this quirky purple hut on this property. The hut is actually on wheels and sits next to a large dam. I guess it's a kind of boat house.

 And at the front of this property sits this lovely mosaic 'lounge' inviting weary walkers like myself to take a break and rest and admire

 the lovely views. The sun has risen high in the sky now and it feels warm against my skin. This large paddock is covered by grasses and is home to quail and no doubt a few snakes and lizards.

And here ends the walk. Well almost, anyway. Looking up into McGuinness Road from the end (actually start) of Martin's Road. You can see our house perched up on the top of the paddock.  As I walked along the road, red necked wallabies bounded ahead of me, assuredly escaping the road along their network of tracks which only ever become noticeable when a wallaby is using them.