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!