Floods and Grass

What else is possible?

The last seven months have been exceptional on the farm in that we had not had any where near our average rainfall.  Less than 70mm had fallen since June with Gympie receiving 3mm in the first part of January.  The average is 250mm for January.  Obviously, that was exceeded in the final days of the month.

What this meant was there was no green feed in front of the cows with the exception of 7 hectares of irrigated pasture.  We can now literally watch the grass grow.  It is the end of the growing season but if the heat keeps up we should get plenty of grass for the cows to eat. 

We are so grateful for the rain as November saw a 20% increase in the cost of the organic barley we buy for the cows.  The next load of grain we buy in March will be Sorghum and the price will double.  This is one example of increased costs we are facing.

The following photos will give you some idea of just how dry it has been, the flood and the transformation since.


 

The cows are looking for something juicy but it's not easy to find.



Looking north-west from the house, you can see how dry it had become.

During the worst of the storm, the cows sheltered beside the house to escape the wind and rain.

Our creek becomes a river though it didn't rise as far as it did last year on March 8th. The water in the foreground is flowing through a culvert where the cows normally walk to go to pasture on the other side of the road.

Backed up water on the east side of the driveway.

Post flood. Note the culvert in the centre of the picture.  It gives you an idea of how much land was under water.

The water flowing off the farm was tea-coloured and clear.  This is very exciting for us as farmers, as it indicates no erosion and lots of soakage.

The scorching heat, in the days after the rain, sent the cows into the dam for some relief.

In March we will be installing 'solid-set irrigation' in one section of the farm.  To reduce the cost, we will be installing it ourselves and plan to organise a working bee with as many helpers as possible to make the job as easy as possible.  If you are interested in coming along, please let us know so that we can organise the project.  More details will follow.

 

Spring has sprung

Sam digging a hole                                                   Prepped sites for trees

We have had the most amazing group of people on the farm over the weekend of October 22nd. 2011. The Men Of The Trees came, saw and planted 312 trees in one of the steepest gullies on the farm. They were some of the most awesome folks who gifted their time and energy totally to change the way the farm looks. What will it take for the trees to grow and thrive on the farm? Glenn spent many hours watering the trees as the weather following the planting was to become the driest 6 weeks of the year.

It's a Wild Life on the Farm

How lucky are we to have so many birds, animals and reptiles calling our farm home? Every year there are more and more species showing up and showing off! So enjoy the photos of our recent visitors...

A lost sugar glider

 A pair of scaly-breasted parrots (aka scalies or greenies) on the handrail.  We are seeing increasing numbers of these little birds around the farm.

                                              One of the many rainbow lorikeets

                                                 A baby galah getting some lunch

An eastern koel, aka a storm bird or cuckoo, in the mulberry tree

This little guy showed up after all the rain we had in March.  He was put back in the same spot in which he was found.

Here's some lichen in flower on one of our fence post stays.  Has anyone ever seen this before?

This beautiful long-billed corella has been a regular visitor, sharing the spilled grain with some of the native ducks that frequent the calf pens.

This rather long visitor wasn't perturbed by the attention of the cows during milking recently.  It was more interested in keeping warm after having breakfast.  The distended section around its middle which looks like white lines is probably a rat.  By the way, it is an eastern brown.

Finn found this little gecho which was molting.

As well as all the fauna we have captured on film, there are so many more visiting us daily. We recently counted 19 black cockatoos in one flock. This is really unusual as the most we've counted before would be 5. We also have increasing numbers of pale-headed rosellas nesting in fence posts. Our wwookfer Keita, saw some wallabies as well. What would it take for more of them to show up? A ring-tail possum showed at the back door, trying unsuccessfully to get into the roof through a tiny hole.

This is what I call a spider tent.  I noticed it on the way back to the dairy while getting the cows in for milking one morning.  I was very impressed with this construction which was full of baby spiders.  Perhaps I should it a spider nursery!

I wasn't the only one impressed with the spider nursery.  Money also showed an interest.

Rain, trees and Wwoofers

What's it going to take to keep this blog up-to-date? Considering I am an infinite being, this is something I can do with ease!! What else is possible?

Right now we are in the middle of winter and with one big frost behind us, the paddocks are looking brown with a tinge of green peeking through. The weekend delivered 23mm of rain, just at the right time as things have been drying out. Recently, I have been saying to people that we could do with some more rain and I have received all sorts of funny looks!! I suppose this is not surprising considering the deluges we received early in the year. However, the ground does dry out and rain is required to produce food.

What would it take for everyone to consistently ask for rain? If we all asked for the rain to come at night time three or four nights a week, we may create a differently reality with our weather. But we wouldn't want to do that!! Clear, blue skies during the day and nourishing, beautiful rain drumming on the roof at night!! We wouldn't want that, so don't ask for it!!

We are gearing up for planting 400 gum trees for koala food. This event is taking place on October 22nd, 2011 with the help of Men Of The Trees. We are looking for Volunteers for the morning planting so if you are willing and able, and perhaps have a brushcutter, we would love to hear from you. If you would like to join us, we are supplying home grown steaks for a Friday night barbeque (volunteers are asked to bring salads to share) and Saturday morning tea. All tea, coffee, sugar and milk are provided as well - all organic. Please email us gbunter5@bigpond.com or call us on 0754866121 to RSVP.

Our Wwoofers, Stephanie and Claire, both from London, have been tremendous with doing the milking and looking after the calves. They even tried their hand (literally) at pregnancy testing the cows with Glenn. The girls have been with us for 2 months now and have one more month to go. They are applying to stay for a second year in Australia, and in order to do so, have to complete 3 months work in a rural setting. Rather than work in various locations, they flew up from Sydney to spend the whole time with us. How did we get so lucky? Steph and Claire have been amazing and have willingly done any work that we have asked of them. Working on a dairy farm is a far cry from journalism and working in a bank!! Added to this, they bravely survived being in the heart of Cyclone Yasi earlier this year.

Back on Track

Well, it's only been five years since the last blog entry on the previous blog site. So now it is time to destroy and uncreate everything that is and start anew. How does it get any better than that?

There is much to mention but where to start?

We would like to pay tribute to Eddie Grasham who showed us what Biodynamics can do for the soil. Eddie passed away late last month after a short illness.

It was over 6 years ago that Eddie invited us to the dairy farm that he had only recently handed over to his son, Ray. Being a farmer, Eddie liked to stay in touch with the land and kept a few small blocks on the farm to play with using Biodynamics. We walked from the dairy, over one of Ray's blocks, and onto Eddie's BD block. This was to change the way we looked at farming. Going from Ray's conventionally farmed block and onto Eddie's BD block was like stepping from concrete onto 6 inch plush carpet. The difference was amazing!!

To compare: Ray had recently applied lime and irrigated his pasture; Eddie had applied BD preps with no irrigation (it was broken); there were gaps in Ray's pasture where we could easily see the soil; there was no soil to be seen on Eddie's block as the ground cover was too thick; the soil in Ray's block was hard; Eddie took a shovel, and with no effort at all, dug into the ground. Like I said, this walk changed our lives. So, Thank You, Eddie. We have immense gratitude for you.