Sophisticated Kelpie

The other day Sandra was freaking out about something or other. Being a bloke has its benefits, you get to be super-chill, confident and stuff. Except I couldn’t say a darn thing, I’d had my own freak out earlier in the week. We’d had a few warm days, and at that stage the firewood was not yet done. Nightmares. About snakes. Nuff said…

When the weather warms up here, the snakes get extra energy from the summer sun and they slither into action. The Eastern Brown snake which is found around much of the east coast of the continent, is a highly successful predator. It also just happens to be the second deadliest snake on the planet. Poking such a reptile is akin to annoying a hungry bear just prior to the hibernation season – you’re going to get a reaction, and things are going to end badly.

Mind you, death by snake bite is very rare in this country. Death by hungry bear is even rarer, although Koala Bears do have sharp claws and surly attitudes. Fortunately, anti-venom is widely available. It’s usually those who don’t seek treatment, or are unaware they’ve been bitten, that come unstuck. You only have a few hours after being bitten to seek help, and without the first aid of a compress and immobilisation, the hours available are much reduced. But get help, and you’ll probably be fine, maybe. Dogs on the other hand have a mixed experience, and I’ve read that the fatality rate is about 50% for snake bites. Basically, a dog is smaller than a human, and trying to slow down and immobilise a dog (especially a Kelpie!) is an act of futility. They don’t do slow.

About a decade ago, I volunteered for three years with the local rural fire fighting brigade. Getting to drive a fire truck is a lot of fun. The trucks generally have chainsaws in the back, and those machines can be life savers. If the truck and crew are in a bushfire, and a tree is blocking the road to safety, a chainsaw can make all the difference between getting out – and not. So, the brigade sent me into the forest to hang out for a couple of days with a crusty old forestry worker. And in between establishing himself as the alpha male of the pack (he was), the bloke drilled me on how to use a chainsaw sustainably for long work hours each day. When asked about the risk from snakes, he said the bigger risk for forestry workers was being bitten and stung by ants, wasps, scorpions and all the other bitey critters out there.

Snakes still bother me though, so we’ve made the farm an unpleasant and risky place for a snake to be. My thinking is that if there are easier pickings elsewhere, snakes will take themselves to the land of elsewhere, maybe. As a strategy it’s more or less working. It is rare that we encounter snakes here. Four snake sightings in eighteen years is not nothing, but it isn’t a regular occurrence either. And the last snake we spotted, two of the dogs: Ollie and Dame Plum, left the reptile well alone.

On the other hand, we have all manner of ants living here on the farm, from tiny little ones which will bite and sting you, to ants which are an inch long, have seriously bad attitudes, are ultra aggressive, and oh yeah, they’ll bite and sting too. I’ve been stung by ants so many times over the years here my body somehow manages to sort of deal with the formic acid injected by the sting. The early days here were brutal though. Last night for sheer horror factor, I watched an adventurous bloke deliberately get himself stung by the local bulldog ants for research purposes. Check this out, it’s riveting and honestly the guy needs a medal, or a hug, or something like that:

Stung by a Bulldog Ant – Brave Wilderness

What I’ve observed over the years is that the ants in general don’t seem to like Humic acids and you get those by developing the top soil. The richer the top soil, the less ants you have here. It’s playing the long game really as it takes time to build top soil. Unfortunately for my plans, in areas where I’ve built up the top soil, the garden Wolf Spiders have moved in. They’re everywhere out there. Who can forget the nice early spring sunny day a couple of months ago when I sat out in the orchard with my dog Ollie admiring the bucolic scene, and one of this spiders bit me on the bum. That hurt. I’m not winning this game…

It’s a truth here that if one critter misses out on biting or stinging you, some other critter will get around to the job soon enough. The dogs run the same risk as well, except being smaller, they get a worse reaction. Poor Ruby the Kelpie must have kicked a bulldog ant nest yesterday, because she was stung badly enough that last night she could barely walk for the pain.

When I first encountered the aftermath of the distressed-stung-canine episode yesterday, I thought that a snake may have bitten the dog. However, Ruby wasn’t displaying the symptoms of snake bite. We were at the furthest point from the house, and down hill to boot. She ain’t heavy, she’s my dog, was my thoughts as I carried her all the way back up the hill. She was heavy though at 20 odd kilograms (44 pounds). Regular dosing of anti-histamines has helped the dog a lot, and we’ll see how it goes. This morning she was able to run around a bit and do her usual Kelpie business, but then she was brought back inside to rest and recover and lick her wounds.

Humans have a bit of an advantage with the bulldog ants because our hands are able to flick and pluck them off – or squash them (and they’ll try to sting whilst being squashed). Dogs have to run through thick vegetation to get rid of them, or use their mouths. I’m guessing that is what happened because she smelled of lemon balm, which candidly is better smelling than the wombat poop she rolled in this morning. Sophisticated Kelpies! You’d hope the dog has learned a lesson and will leave the ants alone in future.

One day was particularly warm and very humid, so we took the day off any work and visited the spectacular Werribee Manor.

Werribee Manor

The mansion was constructed in the early days of the colony, and funded from the proceeds of a vast sheep and cattle run. The owner apparently killed himself in the massive laundry building (of all places) at the age of 72. The pile was in the family which constructed it for about fifty years. The Catholic Church then purchased it in the 1920’s and ran a seminary from there for the next fifty years. That lot then sold it to the state government in 1977. Property was perhaps cheaper in the 70’s? However, it would not have been cheap for the government to restore the building. For a small fee, you can walk through the mansion and be astounded by the Victorian era opulence.

On another hot and very humid summers day, we constructed a new steel rock gabion cage. You can do that work in the shade, and it’s not physically demanding.

Dame Plum finds the new steel rock gabion cage to her liking

The cages take a couple of hours to make from scratch, and it wasn’t yet lunchtime by the time we finished. We used the extra time available to sew another cage shut.

Ruby, you’ll never get a title, but you can appreciate a good rock gabion cage

When the summer weather cooled again, we went scrounging for extra timber to complete the filling up of the firewood shed.

Note the tree leaning at a precarious angle. Future firewood!

Observant readers will note that in the above image, there is a tree which is leaning at an inappropriate angle. It’ll fall over sooner or later, and in fact it had a tilting friend which did just that over a year ago.

Was a snake hiding in that pile of smaller logs, or wasn’t it?

The last of the fallen tree to be processed was the pile of smaller logs which can be seen to the right hand side in the above image. The smaller logs make for excellent kindling and fire starters. The firewood shed was soon full.

Removing the tree stump from the fallen tree was difficult because there was a boulder resting against it. The boulder will be split into more usefully sized rocks in the future.

A large boulder prevents me from cleaning up this tree stump

What’s weird about that fallen tree, was that just on the other side of it was one of the upside-down tree stumps left over from the logging activity which occurred many decades ago. It’s hard to explain why the loggers would leave the tree logs upside down. It wouldn’t have been easy to do. Is it art?

An upside down tree stump with a load of clay stuck to the roots

The tree stumps still display the scars from the 1983 bushfires which swept through this mountain range. Fortunately, there aren’t too many of these upside down tree stumps left – we’ve been dealing with them. There was another nearby which had been pushed up against a very large and old tree. It’s can’t be good for the tree.

It’s hard to explain why the loggers would have done this

The large old tree probably dates back to the aftermath of the 1851 fires. It’s a big tree. You can still see fire scaring on the core of the tree. Anyway, I decided to attempt to remove the tree stump which was pushed up against the old tree.

Success! The upside down tree stump is now on its side

The tree stump was remarkably heavy and near to the upper limits of what I could physically move using levers and muscle. I’ll have to get the chainsaw onto and further reduce it’s size. Once it is smaller, I’ll then be able to burn the stump off, along with the other one in the same area. But for now, it’s putting less downhill pressure on the large old tree.

I like to look after the older and larger trees here. It takes a lot of time and effort by the forest to grow such huge plants, and they provide plenty of living spaces in the form of hollows for the many forest critters to live in. There’s a lot of life here at the farm, mostly because there is a lot of housing and food. Younger and smaller trees provide very little in the way of housing, and regrowth forests are notably quiet places.

Some of the larger tall trees here

The warmer weather this week spurred on the growth in the pumpkin patch.

The pumpkin patch has exploded with growth with the brief burst of warmer weather

We’re trialling a new variety of squash this year, and so far the fruit is early and plentiful.

I believe that these are a golden globe yellow squash

Climbing up the sapling fence enclosure are many varieties of beans, and they’re doing much better this growing season than did the peas.

Beans climb the sapling fence enclosure

The very first of the Babaco (a cool climate papaya) was harvested. The fruit wasn’t completely yellow, but it was close enough.

A ripe Babaco (papaya) grown in the greenhouse

It’s taken a year and half from planting to today. I’m of the opinion that the cool climate description is a long bow to draw given that it only survived here because it was in the greenhouse. Outdoors it would have had zero chance of survival. Perhaps sub-tropical is a better description?

Inside the Babaco

What does it taste like? It’s sweet, and I can well understand why people describe the taste as a lemon sorbet. All up, I quite like the taste. The plant will have to be cut back hard after the current batch of fruit has been eaten.

Turns out I’m not the only one around here who likes fruit. The parrots have taken a shine to some of the many varieties of apples we have growing. It is difficult to be upset with a bird which is a combination of bright green and vibrant orange.

Thanks so much for the apples!

Onto the flowers:

Hydrangeas have enjoyed the plentiful rainfall this summer
These Geraniums are thriving in the shade of an Elderberry
This Penstemon clearly enjoyed its recent feed
Olive Herb flowers reach for the sunshine
Agapanthus have enjoyed the brief warm spell

The temperature outside now at about 9am is 17’C (63’F). So far for last year there has been 152.8mm (6.0 inches) which is up from last weeks total of 110.6mm (4.4 inches)