Bossiaea rupicola in bloom (with bees!)
Bossiaea rupicola is in bloom at the moment and when the kids are day-napping and I'm working away on my own making fire breaks I can often hear the sound of the bees (euro and native) going about collecting pollen from the blood red flowers. How lovely that that's how quiet it is up here!
Bruce (Wagner) whom I like to think of as the unofficial mayor of Mt French baled me up at the servo a few weeks ago and asked if I was keen to be involved in a burn-off of the mountain. YES! Super keen. I was excited because I have been really wanting to do some burning off but Benji and I have no idea how to go about a controlled burn.
"Oh great! Yes! I really want to do a burn off, but we have no idea..."
"Yeah, I know youse don't."
Thanks Bruce (!) Ha.
Anyway, the idea is he (as head of the Mt French Rural Fire Brigade and owner of half the mountain and "Unofficial Mayor") and the National Parks guys are going to tell us when the weather conditions are right and we'll burn off the entire block. So I have to be prepared for when that day comes.
So I have been (with the help of Grammy on many occasions) slowly working away at putting little firebreaks in. This is to protect the big piles of timber we have about the place (from when the house pad was cleared) so that we can continue to use the timber for building stuff and for firewood. We've also been working on clearing some areas of the dead wood to try to minimise the fuel available if a bushfire did happen. It feels good to feel so connected to the land and seasons. The other good thing about the firebreaks is I am going to turn them into a continuous bush track for the kids (and us adults) to walk/run/ride/play on.
I'm also using winter as a time to prepare as many garden beds as possible so that come spring time I can go crazy with planting!
Winter sadly is NOT the time for trying to get a lawn going. We had VERY limited success with our first efforts. It seems Zoysia doesn't like cool weather and although it sprouted it stayed only a few millimetres tall and sort of died off (ooohhhhh GOD to think of the water we WASTED!!!! Not to mention the work in preparing the soil!) HOWEVER! Benj did a little googling and got some 'Rhizomatous Tall Fescue" which seems to not mind the cooler weather... and I can scarcely believe it but we've got a lawn coming on!!!!!! OH YEAH!
Firebreak - a good excuse to make lovely little walking trails in the bush!
Clearing out the dead wood.
Green fuzz!!!!!
Awh my baby lawn!
A new garden bed. Most of the shrubs were existing natives.
The same garden bed viewed from another angle. Most of the introduced plants are donated off shoots from Mama's garden.
One of the good things about Scott Bennie dragging his heels on finishing the outdoor shower is that he happened to be doing the slab for it while I was building (another) set of stone steps. He had spare cement left over and gave it to me to use. It is SOOOO much easier with cement. It has inspired me to get some more cement to finish them off. Won't it be lovely when the little rosemary plants grow up a bit more?!
Winter is also good for growing kale.
It's not really the season for basil, but these little guys popped up of their own accord from the seeds of a potted plant that 'bolted' in the summer - so I moved them to a sunny spot and they seem to be doing ok (when Molly isn't lying on them!).
My grapevine has new shoots - I hope he makes it and one day covers our pergola.
Yet another use for rocks (and rosemary).
Garden bed preparation - watch this space.
Winter crops cauliflower, brussel sprouts and kale.
